Money Reform.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XIII, Issue 2377, 10 June 1895, Page 4

Money Reform.

Mr Lester, Secretary to the Knights of Labour, gave a lecture at Dunedin last week, and in the course of his remarks he said :—We could have a domestic currency as a means of exchange between ourselves. Why could we not by the issue of State notes set all the people to work at the present time ? If it was a good thing by advancing to the farmers at 5 per cent., with 1 per cent, sinking fund, to reduce their interest, and thus enable them to produce at less cost, why not have gone a step further? He would have liked _ to see the Government, instead of going on the London market to bolster up the wealthy class, who had control of the production and distribution of a great mass of the world's wealth by the payment of 31 per cent, interest--some said 8 per cent., but that was all a blind, —make their own money. Estimated on a 4 per cent basis, and, reckoning compound interest, that meant that the man who loaned the money received for £IOO in 86£ years £4lB. If we wan'ed to "bring money into the country, the legitimate way to do it was to set people to work and they would produce wealth which could be exchanged for gold and silver. It was a monstrous thing that there should be men in New Zealand unable to get work, not only producing no wealth, but living on the wealth produced by,others, and thus reducing the quantity of wealth available for distribution. In this connection he alluded to the State guarantee of the Bank of New Zealand, and said Captain Russell had shown that the State had the power to make bank notes legal tender and give them the value of gold. The speaker opposed the guaranteeing of aiy financial institution. The State would not guarantee his bills, though he might be as solvent as the Bank of New Zealand. He was surprised to hear intelligent men support an act like that—it was daylight robbery. The very fact that the credit of New Zealand was sufficient to bolster up a financial institution showed that it was good enough to run an institution of its own, and there was no necessity for the State notes to be convertible. The question of the unemployed could be solved without borrowing one penny of money. The way was simply to set the men

to -work. Men were wealth producers when they wore working. Let the Government issue their own notes, backed by the credit of the country, and let those notes remain in circulation until tbey were redeemed as revenue came in, instead of paying that revenue away in the shape of interest which did not get any smaller. The Government would be studying the interests of the community if they were to set all the unemployed to work.