WORLD ECONOMICS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 132, 5 June 1937, Page 8

WORLD ECONOMICS

SECURITY WANTED NATIONAL CAMPAIGN ’ NEW ZEALAND MOVEMENT A largely-attended meeting was held in the W.D.F.U. Hall last Wednesday evening, when the campaign for economic security was extended to Wanganui, and speakers representing the movement in New Zealand gave comprehensive surveys of the present world situation. Mr W. J. Roninson presided, and letters were read from the Rev. Jasper Calder, regretting his inability to attend, owing to illness, [and the Rev. C. G. Scrimgeour, who stated he could not be present on this occasion, but would be glad to help the campaign on a later visit. The speakers, Mr R. P. Graham, national secretary for the campaign, and Mrs R. P. Graham (both of Wellington), were introduced by the chairman, who remarked that the cause they represented claimed men and women who were able to think. Anyone who could lift people out of the rut they were in would be doing the world an inestimable service. Mrs Graham presented two pictures from history. The first showed the years 1150-1350 to be such a wonderful period of prosperity and culture as has never been known before or since—quoting Professor Rene Hevenin and Dr. Hugo Flack. The former said, “Wages were unbelievably high measured by purchasing power.” while Sir John Fortescue (1460) finished a deserption of “the wealth of conveniences and the high standard of living amongst the English people” with the words, “Everyone hath according to his rank, all things that make life and mind easy and happy.” The Archdeacon of Huntingdon also wrote, “The English were a free people with a free spirit and a free tongue, and a still more liberal hand, having an abundance of good things for themselves, and something to spare for their neighbours across the sea.” Everyone had his own section of land. Wealth then was tangible wealth—not money—and people held it in trust for the rest of the community. Everybody had the right of access to tne soil and what came from it. They were economically secure. The reason was .to be found in the monetary system. Money was a genui-*? medium of exchange, and the amount of money in circulation was only limited by the power of the people to produce, the Crown being responsible for its issue; and so well was it done that the price level was kept stable for 150 years. England in that day did deserve the title of “Merrie England.” Upstanding, stout, virile, she reached heights of culture never known before or since; no poverty, no public debt, no interest on any loan, a stable price level, a 4-day working week, and the wise management of the nation’s money. That is one picture. The next begins in 1775, when James Watt invented the steam engine, the forerunner of the power age which was to change the face of the earth. The comfort and prosperity of the middle ages had gone and so had the control of money by the Crown, lhe Bank of England having usurped that prerogative. Yet the world was on the threshold of the most marvellous period in history. Professor Soddy said that the world advanced further in the first 150 years of the machine age than in all previous history, and more in the four years of the Great War than in the previous century. By 1914 the whole face of the earth had been changed by the scientist and the inventor; the necessities of war having brought about more labour-saving machinery, new processes, and even new substances. Man, showing his unconquerable spirit, had made himself economically secure in spite of the drain of the war years, and opened the gates of a new era.

“To-day there is not one single thing that we can desire that cannot be obtained—if we have the money—and money is merely a man-made convenience,” the speaker added. “We have enough knowledge ann machine-power to turn the world into an earthly paradise, but standing between the people and their inheritance—a debt system of money; money, invented as a means of exchange, having become an end in itself—a profit-making commodity, against which the rights of man carry little weight. We do not need to go back to the middle ages We do want the principles of social justice on which their economic system was founded.” Mr R. P. Graham called attention to the grave dangers of the world situation. “We have no feeling of economic security anywhere and generally no peace and happiness amongst people,” he said. “For some years now some of us, in groups, and organisations, have been trying to bring about a better state of affairs by implementing various reforms; and these groups have been arguing while those who set us on got away with the spoil. ‘Divide and rule,’ the old policy of the Romans, is the policy of the money power to-day shown In party politics, which divides us into groups; and it doesn’t matter what Governments we get, we are deeper in debt. It is growing on us that the whole system is engineered, while we go on suffering in poverty, in misery, and in debt, with recurring booms and slumps. If we go on in the same old way, putting in this party or that, we shall suffer booms and slumps, and no one will be to blame except ourselves for real sovereignty is with the people. We have our individual problems, but the sum total of our problems is the Dominions’ problem. Civilisation has been built up by the cooperative effort of the individuals. “That is how we have built up our astounding system of production. Every individual is not an expert, but in society there are experts. The banking system has been built up by experts and is most marvellous in its efficiency. We, as individuals, cannot tell a banker how to run his business, but we can demand what that business shall do. We, as shareholders in the community, do know what we want to get out of lhe community. We do know frhat we want our Government to do for the community, and there are two points on which all individuals are agreed—we do want economic security and social justice. We do not worry overmuch how that is to be brought about, but we do demand that it shall be brought about. We demand that our Government shall bring about a state where we all get social justice. We will not get it unless we demand it. We elect Members of Parliament to represent

us; they will not bring about what we want unless we demand it. I have heard a politician tell meetings what he intends to do. That is a complete reversal of the case. Electors should send for their representative and tell him what they want him to do. We J have to get together and get a realisation of what we want. We must get the idea into the minds of people that we want a distribution of this prosperity which we have produced— we do not want the moon, we want social justice. We must get people to realise their power in the land. You can stt at hime and listen to the radio and do nothing. If you do this, and do not get what you want, you cannot blame God, or Parliament, or anybody but yourself. It is only by people putting up with it that such a state of affair* exists. “The party system is definitely devised to divide us up into groups so that we shall waste our time arguing, and nothing definite will be done. It does not matter what label we put on a Government, if the policy remains unchanged nothing gets further forward. We have a persona! responsibility to New Zealand. It is our duty to demand of our politicians that they bring about the results we desire. New Zealand is a small country, but several times in social legislation it has led the world. By drooping apathy and recognising individual responsibility, New Zealand, the little child among the natior.s may bring about In the world th« verification of the old Bible prophe y 7 'And a little child shall lead them 'A. the speaker concluded.