GOVERNMENT POLICY.

Evening Star, Issue 22465, 9 October 1936, Page 4

GOVERNMENT POLICY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —The Welfare League says that it inclines to drop the debate between us “ because the continuation of the correspondence merely becomes tedious.” Was it distaste for repetition that made the league express opinions in the rest of its letter which are worn threadbare with use by the forces which oppose banking reform? Then it is rather strange that the Welfare League, with its readiness to educate the reading public of New Zealand, should neglect ■this opportunity to demolish the proposed electoral campaign which, if it is once begun, will sweep the Dominion from end to end with disastrous consequences to all who appeal to sectional interests and prejudice. Finally, the league is a trifle previous in assuming that a debate which has hardly begun will become “ tedious repetition.” After those excuses from the Welfare League we are treated to a lengthy—for the league—series of statements concerning tho monetary system and possible changes thereof. The point at issue between us just now is not concerning any particular method of altering tho defective monetary mechanism. That is an entirely different subject. As

a student of the new economics I wouldbe very pleased to engage in a debate ou tho merits of, say, the Social Credit proposals, hut not until the present matter is disposed of. There is no necessary connection between the electoral campaign and Social Credit. Each can be, and should ho, debated without introduction of the other. A man who l,s entirely ignorant of the Social Credit proposals, or who is opposed to them, can urge the electoral campaign. That is its chief strength. Not only will it gain recruits from all parties, and. do so by the clearest and simplest appeal, hut it will educate the people in a way that will cause all party platforms to be useless. Hero, it will make the advocating of any portioning “ way ”■ of fixing the defective mechanism fatal,, as thatVill at once Ire recognised as an, attempt to divide the masses into hos-' tile parlies. Advocacy of a methpd of, doing the job will spell political suicide, under those circumstances, it is not the concern of those who give the orders “ how " the defect in -a mechanism is rectified when there arc experts with, trained minds to do the job. The onus is on the Welfare League to prove that the monetary mechanism is not an in-, volition of man. and that, as is often implied in criticism of monetary reform proposals, it. is in the nature of an economic law with which man can only tamper at his peril.—l am, etc., October 7. A,-