GOVERNMENT POLICY.

Evening Star, Issue 22447, 18 September 1936, Page 13

GOVERNMENT POLICY.

TO TUB EDITOR. Sir, —“ A,” like all would-be monetary reformers, devotes part of his letter to certain innuendoes against this league. These assertions are baseless, but, even if true, how on earth would they affect the soundness or otherwise of his case? The question is: Can certain objectives be realised by simply demanding that they be realised? We say that no objectives can be attained unless there is a practical method for attaining them. “ A ” answers by asserting that .the league has ulterior motives. That is no argument at all; it is not even relevant. The members of this league may be saints or sinners, but whichever they are would not make his case sound. As to his proposals, they seem to be based on the allegation that there is a shortage of money in the world to-day. This is not supported by facts; thus Ins basis is wrong. There is a problem of distribution, but he does not, apparently, admit this. There is no shortage of money. However, his proposal is, shortly: (1) We want more money and must have it (2) We must elect members who will refer this problem to experts, who will be asked to find a solution. (3) If they say there is no practical method to realise this objective, then their report must be scrapped and we will put up men who will do the trick. This gives his whole case away, because it amounts to exactly what we condemned—namely, the election of politicians who will be told to give ns certian objectives regardless of whether there is a practicable method to realise them. Your correspondent’s last sentence merely repeats the original proposal to

which we objected. He says: ‘ Wc don’t care what means are taken so long as the objective is obtained.” Quite so. We also agree that means do not matter if the objective is attained. But we again assert that electors would be fools to agree to any “ means being taken ” unless they were first sure that these means would realise the objective. The means, or method, are the acid test; will they succeed or won’t they ? Therefore, we repeat with confidence that until we know the proposed means or method we cannot judge as to whether they will work in practice.—W r e are, etc., New Zealand Welfare League. September 15.