Gold For the People

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 83, 2 January 1935, Page 11

Gold For the People

Sir, —If your correspondent Mr. G. H. Wilkin is right in saying “the Reserve Bank is well and truly under Government control,” then New Zealand has the power to make good almost overnight. Under the Dominion Farmers’ Institute in the vaults of the Reserve Bank, is, one is led to believe, about £3,000,000 in gold, possibly minted gold—minted by the Crown at the Royal Mint for the use. of his Majesty’s sovereign people. If the Reserve Bank is the national bank, merely Mr. Coates’s signature and a couple of book entries will be enough to more, say, 1,600,000 sovereigns into the hands of 1.600.000 New Zealanders. His Britannic Majesty’s Christian ministers will do the ministering gladly, without money and. without price, from Christian altars, say, next Sunday morning. The office of the Christian Church is to give; to give, not merely Christian words of comfort and good 'cheer, but the means of obtaining Christian wellbeing—to give the loaves and fishes to a needy and hungering people ns did the Master Christian The compassionate act of giving away the King’s tokens will at once break the spell east by the golden idol over this favoured land, flowing with milk and honey. The false value blindly given to a comparatively useley metal-will be then clearly seen by all. They will see its only purpose in being minted into Royal sovereigns is to serve as a means of exchange among the Kings’ peopie of real wealth — that is, goods and services. Everyone, man. woman and child, even the stranger within our gates, will receive the King’s token at this thanksgiving. Those who ere already well blessed with this world’s goods will pass on their metal tokens to those of their friends "less fortunate. Our sovereign people will clearly see that the sooner they spend their sovereigns to enable the tokens to reach the trading banks and thence back to our Reserve Bank, the sooner may this blessed thanksgiving service be once more ministered. This idea, all those familiar with banking methods know, merely involves a ha’porth of ink and a ledger folio. The giving away of . a million or two of symbolic fokens will involve no loss Whatsoever t? the .nation, or to any private person or institution. Entirely the reverse. And the oftener this Christian process be repeated, the greater will bo the national Prosperity. A happy nnd prosperous New Tear is surelv in store for the Dominion, in reserve.—T nm. etc., BERNARD THOMPSON. Wellington. December 30,