PUBLIC OPINION

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21336, 5 February 1941, Page 9

PUBLIC OPINION

As expressed by correspondents, whose letters are welcome, but. fo vhose views we have no responsibility. Correspondents are re quested to write in ink. It is essential that anonymous writer enclose their proper names as a guarantee of good faith. Unles this rule is complied with, their letters will not appear.

FASCINATING THING, MONEY (To the Editor) Sir,—ln his reply, “Magog” has built up a wonderful house of cards and then demolishes it with the letters “Q.E.D.” to conclude. In the first place, “Magog” confuses terms. He does not distinguish between money and the “promise to pay” credit system. No person, except extreme social creditors, accepts the fact of unlimited supplies of either money or bank credit. What does a bank advance when arrangements are made lor a loan? The bank advances nothing. It authorises a person to use a chequebook and to obtain goods, etc., but the actual advance is non-existant — merely figures in a ledger. If this bank credit is tangible, why do we have a fiduciary issue of credit? What is tangible is the value of the farm, goods or chattels handed to the bank when a loan is arranged. Bankers are not fools; they are extremely shrewd men. If we take a Treasury note issued in London in 1914 known as the “Bradbury” and

compare it with a reserve note of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, we notice that they both function as money, yet the “Bradbury” is monev and the Reserve Bank note is not money. The difference is found in the wording of each note. The “Bradbury” was issued by the King’s Treasury with the authority of Parliament and was King’s money. No debt was attached thereunto. The Reserve Bank note is a promissory note to pay £1 in Wellington. “Magog” has failed to answer my question relative to England and the creditor nations. When he answers that question we may advance to other problems.—l am, etc., ONE A MINUTE. Hamilton, February 4.

POVERTY AND PLENTY

(To the Editor) Sir, —In his letter of January 29 your correspondent "Libertas” airs his most positive conclusions. Fie is Sir Oracle. Yes, “When I bark let no other puppy yelp.” With a wild halloo he ignores such petty obstacles as facts, and skips along his unenlightening course. To begin with he informs us that Bernard Shaw has no remedy to offer for poverty. Very well, wrong •for a start. Shaw after a visit to Russia declared positively that the Soviet administration had solved the riddle of poverty, and advised his countrymen to follow their lead as quickly as possible. Your correspondent tells us that under socialism, or communism, individual liberty cannot exist. Can he state where, and in what so-called civilised society, does such liberty exist? He has quoted the United States; would he contend that it exists there, where its ten million unemployed certainly have the liberty to starve? Let there be no mistake, there cannot be any real liberty in any land, but only a fantastic makebelieve, where economic equality and security are denied to the great mass of the useful people.

It is nonsense for “Libertas” to assert that poverty cannot be caused by a lack of money, and his quotation of the oft-told bedtime yarn of the two shipwrecked mariners on the desert island, the one with the bag of biscuits and the other with a sack of sovereigns, is of too ancient lineage to cut any ice. Let him rather ponder the facts of today. For instance, a few years ago our New Zealand people, with the exception of a few rich and fortunate ones, suffered almost unspeakable poverty and misery over a number of years. We had the heart-rending spectacle of mothers denying themselves necessary food so that their little ones might not starve; of hungry men clamouring for a plate of potato soup; and half of a so-called free people reduced to wearing rags and the cast-off clothing of the more fortunate. All this happened and much more, not because food and clothing were not being produced, but simply because the people had no money to buy them. It makes me tired when I hear these economic pundits rant of the great depression and its unavoidable miseries. I recall that during those unforgettable years New Zealand’s actual production of real wealth increased by' leaps and bounds. Butter and cheese, wool and meat exports doubled in volume, and yet there was appalling poverty and misery, the reason being that our governing powers decreed that there should be no money to buy the goods that should have been imported in return for our exports, and a huge frozen credit was built up in London. With the advent of the Labour Party to power in 1935, Reserve Bank credit put money in circulation, and the depression vanished like the misl of a summer morning. “Libertas” would have us believe that the taking over of the banks by the State

would be a ruinous experiment. To whom? Probably he had in mind the shareholders. However, he is right when he says our real wealth lies not in the banking vaults but in our fields and factories, but nevertheless the lubricating oil that sets our factory wheels in motion, that enables expansion of production on our farms and in our mines, is that delectable thing called money. The whole of our economic life runs on the rails of credit, and that credit is manipulated by private institutions, the banks, as best suits their pecuniary advantage. The banks have secured the monopoly of making money by way of overdrafts and destroying money by recall. According to the reasoning of “Libertas,” to end this unwarranted privilege would be ruinous to New Zealand. The Hon. Walter Nash once said that no legislation passed intending good to the useful people of New Zealand would have any permanent value until the control and use of the national credit passed from the hands of private exploiters to the representatives of the people, and I subscribe to his verdict. —I am, etc., J. G. BROWNE. Morrinsville, February 4. ,1 n a 111 an alkaline anrl iuxin-t>PA

NATURAL JUSTICE POLICY

YOUTH AND CRIME (To the Editor) Sir,—Mr W. P. Kcnah is one of those who cannot keep to the point. My letter was about drink and the “pinching” of motor-cars by the youth of today, and I said also that the parents ought to be the judges of their own children. But Mr Kenah side-steps and talks about mermaids and naughty girls. I wonder if Mr Kenah knows who was the first naughty girl. She was Eve. I feel sorry for poor old Adam. But, Mr Kenah, why this talk about naughty girls because Eve did wrong? This is not to say that the j girls of today must do the same. Mr Kenah apparently has no time for anybody who tries to help those who cannot help themselves. He says the Labour Government policy of excessive leisure and pleasure is responsible for the enormous increase in crime. Ido not think he understands things. What about before the Labour Government came into office? What was the cause of the riot at Auckland? It was because the worker could not get enough to eat. The people know today what their Government is trying to do for the young people. All I have to say is, Try with me and others to help those who cannot help themselves.—l am, etc., J. MOODY. Waihi Beach, February 3.

(To the Editor) Sir, —For incorrect presentation of the facts I have never met Mr P. Allsop’s equal. He now says that I and my party have not adopted the scientific basis for the consideration of all economic questions. This is flatly incorrect. The first article I ever contributed to the Commonweal of New Zealand was for the issue of January, 1935, but I was not then editor. There is just one headline to that article, and it reads, “New Zealand Wants Men Who Know the Science of Economics.” This contradicts Mr Allsop’s assertion, and shows that I have always taken the scientific attitude.

Incidentally, the article was warning the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates that if his party did not deal scientifically with economic questions, those relating to the land in particular, it would crash, and that quickly. It crashed at the end of 1935! Another article a little later was headed, “Landlords’ ‘Labour’ Government.” I now predict that there is a landslide coming for Labour, on exactly the same grounds as the prediction against their predecessors. The first article stated: “The people should get the full rentals of the land; economics is an exact science, the same yesterday, today and forever.” I may add that there is no “party” connected with the Commonweal in any way, and that the editorial views therein are mine.

Where Mr Allsop has again gone astray is in this: While always treating economics as a science as exact as any other science, I have for years tried to convince the people who are eloquent about morals and spiritual values that the scientific laws of economics are fully in harmony with moral and spiritual values, since no one of Nature’s laws contradicts another. I have found, however, that the folks who wax eloquent upon spiritual values take the view that economic questions will be settled automatically when the two thousand millions of people who inhabit this earth have become spiritually perfect. They thus side-step getting into the dust and heat of the day, and battling for economic justice. Their astronomically dim and distant future does not appeal to me, for I want a gradual and continuing improvement here and now. Further, the social (site) values can be collected, and used in lieu of rates and taxes, quite irrespective of the morals or spiritual views of individuals, just as : a locomotive can be built, by obedience to the natural laws of mechanics and metallurgy, of physics generally, irrespective of the spiritual outlook of the builders.

Moreover, the article was signed, and specifically made it clear that I would, as editor, continue to be quite tolerant of exponents who considered they could expound better by treating of the moral issues as well. As to patent monopolies, while I am not going to be side-tracked by any such secondary questions, I have previously stated that all our economic troubles are due to monopoly in some form, and that I am opposed to all monopolies, and that in each case the monopoly is in some way State-sanctioned. For all that, don’t underrate the value of the “wee step forward.”

Mr Allsop singles out the steel industry. Well, Sir Henry Bessemer’s wee step enabled him to undersell competing manufacturers by £2O a ton, and made an enormous difference to the world of steel. And this is not overlooking the improvements made by Goransson, Mushet and others. The world’s first city and empire, that of ancient Sumeria, perished when another people, by a wee step, managed to do what others had failed to do tor centuries—smash the walls of the first city. Last September the Western democracies were saved from Nazi domination because, by a wee step of 25 miles an nour more speed (very little in a second) British aeroplanes beat the German makes. Sikorsky, the famous designer, is the authority for this statement. Nations and various species of animals have perished from the face of tne earth because they were unable to make a wee step forward, but which steps had been achieved by others. While I am not going to essay the task of teaching anything scientific to Mr Allsop, I will return good for evil by stating a strong point against patent monopolies. The man who makes the wee step forward is entitled to remuneration, since all his fellows of that generation have the advantage of all previous progress just as he has. But, being first in the field, he is, or ought to be, in a

position to benefit by his discovery before others can catch up. As to banking monopolies, under free conditions there would arise more cooperative banks, as in other coun-

tries, and thus upset any proprietary monopolies. No need to run amuck and create a greater monopoly still by nationalising llie banks.

(Companies could combine and establish banks.) These are secondary matters, however, and until the first and worst monopoly, that of the private collection of the site values, is abolished, I shall not discuss other forms of monopoly. Abolishing secondary monopolies first would only make things better, not for all the people, but for “the robber that takes all there is left,” the receiver of the site or social values.—l am, etc., T. E. McMILLAN. Matamata, February 4.