THE BANKING SYSTEM.

Evening Star, Issue 22142, 24 September 1935, Page 12

THE BANKING SYSTEM.

TO THE EDITOR. , Sir, —I have enjoyed the letters of Mr D. Copeland, jun., which contradict the Welfare League, because they are backed up with autlvoritative quotations. The Welfare League appears to me to be in a bad way when it has got to quote from Mr Philip Snowden, a one-time Labour man who now sees through the political, spectacles surrounded with the golden light of his coronet. Perhaps you may let me quote from the London ‘ Sunday Chronicle,’ an English Liberal paper, which in its issue of January 23, 1921, said:— “ Some six months ago New York bankers, Otto Kahn, Pierpont Morgan, Scbiff, and others, had. a talk, and they decided that wages must_ come down. They discussed the situation with the banking mandarins on this side. Then began the campaign of calling in all credits, or refusing loans to commercial enterprises. The ipetrol was cut off and the industrial machine began to slow down. Securities began to diminish in value. There was a slump in this country as well as in the States —in fact, all over the 1 world.” If your readers, after perusing the above, will ponder over tbo following extract from a speech delivered in Birmingham by Mr Philip Snowden when a Labour man in 1928 they, will get the Labour viewpoint of how depressions are caused and the effect of them: —“One Saturday night eight years ago trade was booming, ' and there were no unemployed. Then a new policy was adopted. Trade was restricted. The bank rate was put up to 7 per cent., and on Monday trade was at a standstill, and 2,000,000 men were unemployed.” Some few years ago, Mr E. Cairney, a Manchester statistician and economist, when speaking at a meeting of the Oldham Mill Managers’ Association, was reported widely through the Press as saying: “Since 1920, without any effort or merit on the part of the bank, or fault or disaster on the part of industry, the banks of Great Britain in stopping financial facilities _to industry had increased their holdings on the wealth of industry by £579,000,000.” If the above was the benebt the banks obtained in the 1920 depression, one can understand by the number/ of unemployed workers who lost their homes, farmers who lost their farms, and business men who lost their all how during this depression (the greatest ever known) the banks had increased their holdings on the wealth of industry.” , . , , , In the words of a friend of mine, “ The workers at the poll on many occasions defeated their enemies by the front dooi* methods, but our enemies get in at the back door.” The .esult is the glamour of office is a great lure, and the Hughes and Lyons of Australia, tho Snowdens and MacDonalds of Great Britain, warn us of the political methods of our political Mr John Strachey, in his book, The Coming Struggle for Power ’ (page 337), says: “Tho trades unions, from being outlaw organisations, become valued collaborators iip industry; the Social Democratic parties become the trusted electoral allies of the Capitalist parties, privileged oven to support field marshals. And the Social Democratic Press is suddenly equipped with all the resources of capital. Ihe Daily Herald,’ the newspaper of the British Labour Party, for example, from becoming a struggling party sheet became overnight the lavishly equipped organ of Messrs Oldhams, a large, and rising newspaper trust.” Thus it can be seen how easy it is for the New Zealand Welfare League to quote the golden light opinions of erstwhile Labour men to bolster up parties favouring I ascist financial methods. —I am, etc., . J. E. MacManus, Mosgiel. September 24. ■