LABOUR AND DOUQLAS SYSTEM.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18929, 26 April 1933, Page 9

LABOUR AND DOUQLAS SYSTEM.

(To the Editor). . 1 Sir, —so Mr Holland came to Hamilton and talked Douglaslsm without mentioning Douglas.. One can sympathise with Mr Magner In his disappointment. I wonder If Mr Magner realises that there were men advocating a reform of our monetary system before Major Douglas was born and that the Labour Party for 25 years had as a leading plank In Its platform the public control and uso of credit. To suggest that Labour, in adjusting Its policy to meet the needs of a rapidly-changing world, has borrowed Douglas’ thunder, is absurd. , . If there has been any borrowing It lias been done by Douglas. What Is the Douglas Social Credit Scheme but the Socialisation of Credit? Yet to my knowledge never once has he acknowledged the contributions of the great Socialist writers of a previous generation. lam not opposed to Douglas. Quite the reverse, as I believe he has striven to bring forward a practical scheme to control and issue credit to ensure that the community can at all times consume the goods it produces and avoid the disastrous cycles of booms and depressions which are inevitable under the present system. Whether Major Douglas has succeeded, i do not know; but 1 have become, along wij.li many other Labour supporters, a student of the movement in an earnest desire to find out. If Mr Holland did not quote Major Douglas it was probably because a quotation from that source would carry littlo weight in converting any who" thought along orthodox lines. The utterances of the men quoted are significant because of the authoritative positions they hold under the present system. Mr .1. M. Keynes Is a professor of economics at the Cambridge University; the Right lion. Reginald McKenna Is chairman of the Midland Bank of England, and so on. Mr Magner's contention that these men gained their knowledge and enlightment from Major Douglas would probably make the Major himself blush end "such statements are likely to do tiic Douglas movement more harm than good.—l am, etc.. K. LEE MARTIN. Matangi, April 21, 1933.