WANGANUI’S FINANCE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 59, 12 March 1935, Page 4

WANGANUI’S FINANCE

Sir, —As students of the Douglas Social Credit Movement in New Zealand we were impressed by Mr. P. E. Tingey’s open letter to the Mayor and councillors of Wanganui, which appeared in your issue of the 7th instant. It must be encouraging to the residents of our city to know there is in their midst a person of Mr. Tingey s calibre who is prepared to look beneath the surface of things in search of that very eyasive quality sometimes called “truth.” and whose mind is not ootuscated in any way Oy 1110 status quo. If we remember \ghtly, Mr. Tingey was the first person in Wanganui, and probably the first in New Zealand, to expose the lie that banks lend theur customers’ deposits, and the fact that they and the Press are now almost silent on the subject is indeed signifiHis letter shows very- clearly the heavy debt under which tfce people of Wanganui are suffering, and will continue to suffer, as long as they remain chained to the wheels of high finance, or, as some prefer to designate it, money power. We refer particularly to the burden of interest, that insidious canker in our social structure which, ufider our present system, is quickly devouring its vital organs. It seems most extraordinary that it a person’s lifelong savings should consist of a quantity of goods, food, cloth' ing shelter, amusements, etc,— all the things which are necessary for ' the normal livelihood of every human be» ing, and which, by the way, is the only form real wealth can take—that pile of goods would gradually diminish as periodical deductions were made from it in the course of sustaining the life of the owner during retirement. But not so with this wonderful human invention called money. If a corresponding person had his goods (similar in quantity) converted into mon«y he would be able to live on the natural increase thereof without touching the capital which at any time could be reconverted into the original quantity ot goods. Why should there be this appalling difference between real wealth and the means of exchange—the substance and the shadow, with the latter ruling the former? if someone at the commencement or the Christian era had put aside £lO a week in his lifetime and his descendants had done likewise right up to the present day, the sum set aside during the intervening 1900 years would be slightly under £1,000,000. Yet, if this person had invested only one penny at 5 per cent, compound interest during the same period it would have increased to £B, (36 noughts), and, it it were possible for his descendant now living (poor devil) to collect the sum in gold there would be sufficient ot this “precious” metal available to pave the whole of Wicksteed Place and Campbell Place to a depth of six feet, erect a large golden image at the intersection thereof, and after all that construct 3,000,0U0,U00 globes of solid gold the size of this earth. Such are the wonders of high finance and the mechanism by which it obbams its enormous power. When the national debt is considered the situation is equally bewildering, for every child brought into the world is immediately presented with a debt burden of nearly £3OO-a mortgage to be carried somehow or other during the whole of its lifetime. Should the child live until it is 20 years old it will have paid £3OO in interest and still owe the original £3OO. Should it live until it is 40 it will have paid £6OO and still owe the mortgage. W>\en the age of 60 is reached is reached £9OO will have been paid without the capital being reduced by as much as one cent, and if by dint of strength and misfortune 80 years is reached £l2OO will have been paid in interest while the original debt of £3OO would still exist, like a millstone about toe neck. Can anyone by any stretch of imagination say there is one single germ of justice in that, let alone as much common As Mr. Tingey has rightly pointed out, the pathos of the whole matter is that over 90 per cent, of these interest charges could have been entirely

avoided if we had monetised our wealth of financial octopuses overseas.—We are etc., WESTMEiR-E BR. D.C.M.N.Z. March 9, 1935.