GOLD OR DOUGLAS CREDIT.

Waikato Times, Volume 117, Issue 19598, 10 June 1935, Page 9

GOLD OR DOUGLAS CREDIT.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Owing to the intervention of the King’s Birthday your issue of the Ist. instan thas only just reached me. In it appears - another letter from “Plato” displaying his usual avoidance of the ordinary decencies and courtesies of debate. Really it is a sort of degradation to reply to such ■stuff, but I suppose I must follow the I advice given in Proverbs xxvi, 5. He 1 began his attack with a gross mis- : representation and throughout has nof ceased impudently to accuse his opponent of the faults of which he himself is guilty. All this arises out of my asking the simple and necessary, but very awkward, question, “What words are Douglasltes going to print on their notes?" Being unable to give a sensible answer, these folk hope to smother me with abuse, but they will not 'succeed. While complimenting your compositors on the correctness of their tran- | scription of my scrawl, they have im- ' fortunately, as 1 have already pointed j out, printed “implied contract" Instead of "Implied covenant.” “Plato" seizes upon this error. If he doubts tho existence of Implied covenantsjust as valid as expressed covenants—in all contracts, lie had better consult some solicitor or his “official In the Crown Law Office," who Is alleged to have asserted that his superiors Have neglected to define in the Act tho meaning of the word “pound" upon the notes of the Reserve Bank! We have been so long used to money—especially British money being sound and honest and a true equation of labour cost with all goods upon tlie market that it is rather dllll- | cult to conceive of the confusion i when people—as they did in Germany —realise that their money is bad., and lose confidence in it. All definitions of money which say it is good “while people will accept It” are rather on a par with the saying of those simple folk who say “a pound means exactly what' it represents." Such definitions simply beg the question. The point is: I Will people continuously accept money valueless in itself? A bad half-crown is useful while it is believed to be good; but when its badness is discovered it becomes absolutely valucless. This protracted correspondence arose out of my pointing out the im-

possibility of discharging time debts on a money -basis- They must be ! made payable on a goods -basis. But to avoid Hie physical inconvenience of an actual delivery of the goods money must be used, and that money must have an honest value based on labour, the same as the goods it represents. Paper money to the “value" of millions -can be produced for next to no- ' thing-—-just like Hie “costless credit” iof the Douglas sect. All countries : except England have tried it and eolI lapsed. France, having had one exj pcriencc of ils disastrous results, iias ] gone to the oilier cxlreme and sits on i a lingo mass of useless gold. Nursing ! an accumulation of gold of the I‘ahui lons oxtenl of £1,000,000,000 costs France £50,000,QU0 per annum.—l j am, etc., : E. EARLE YAILE. j Rotorua, June 0, 1035.