THE LANG “PLAN”

Hokitika Guardian, 6 May 1931, Page 8

THE LANG “PLAN”

(From Sydney Bulletin). When Air Lang sent his reply to the Federal Government’s offer o. financial assistance, lie told the Prime Minister that if it had money to spare .t might hotter spend it on our own unemployed rather than on foreign moneylenders. Almost every day since then some echo of this has been heard. “We are concerned with our own unemployed, not with the oversea bond holder,” is the burden of the «ry. So. in the opinion of a large number of the workers of Australia—of N.S. Wales especially—Air Lang stands for the unemployed, while his opponents stand for the overseas bondholders —“and to Hell with the starving worker of Australia” as one lervid orator puts it.

Air Lang is a house and land agent at Auburn. Do the tenants on Air Lang’s hooks pav their rent because they love the landlord? Of course th>',\ don’t. They" pay because they know if they don’t pay they will be out rootless on the street. And that is the relative position of the Australian borrower find the oversea, lender. When Air Lang’s angry tenant tells Air Lang that the landlord can go to the Devil, that he, the tenant, hasn’t got much money and what lie’s got he’s going to spend on himself. Air Lang, as a good property agent will say “That’s all very well, my friend. But you’d better pay, for if you don’t, you’ll have to go out.” And a very good lriend Air Lang is to the tenant in giving him advice. Yet the tenant has far less to lose by telling the landlords to go to the Devil, than N.S. Wales Iras bv telling the overseas lender that interest payments are off. A man can swind! ■ one landlord without every other landlord knowing it ; N.S. Wales cfinn >c swindle one foreign lender without every other foreign lender .'knowing all about.it; so loudly and widely is the thing advertised. For all practical purposes there is only one foreign lend'M- in the world; and the man who doesn’t pay his butcher's bill in a place where there is only one butcher, announcing that lie can find better uses for this money, is well advised to become a.' vegota rian.

Another trouble is that, the butcher is likely to talk; and if lie can suggest to the grocer and the baker that his late customer is a person not to he trusted, not to say a rogue, the latter is very likely to find himself only a cash customer for bread and sugar, too. There are times in a man’s life when it doesn’t matter to, him whether lie can get credit or not —lie can do without it. But there are other times when, being without means, be must get credit, in order to live. That is Inst bow- Australia stands now. ft has had the worst set-hack of its career: it probably never before had half so many unemployed. And. (as with a man who lias just suffered a great, reverse, to get a start again it must have credit. To got credit a man must make sacrifices; If ho has promised In pay. lie must pay even though he b:is to pinch himself and family to do it. Credit thus established, he can go forward. The ease of a country is no different—a: country being merely a man multiplied many times. Wo can get out of our troubles by making momentary sacrifices in order to establish our credit; or we can go deeper into trouble by refusing to make even •ii momentary sacrifice, and so destroying our'credit and therefore our hope of recovery.

So it is (Hit of no affection for the foreign bondholder that Air Lang lias been begged to keep his interest paid, it is out of affection for those people—ourselves included —who will '.suffer when the financial baker and grocer will no longer trust Us and help us to get back on our feet. Air Lang and his friends may be credited with the best of intentions; it is not at all necessary to assume that the injury they are doing to the workers is done deliberately. Unfortunately it is a moot point whether more damage ha? not been done in the world by friends than by enemies. Certainly in this ease no enemy could be a worse friend.

It is possible, of course, to take ether ground. It is possible to believe that Air Lang is an agent of the International Communist party, whose purpose is to “establish the rule” of the “proletariat” which plan involves the destruction of the British Empire as being one of tbe great obstacles to the consummation of the plan. And more than ilie destruction of the Empire—the destruction also of democracy, which since it seeks the rule of the majority, seeks, in the Communist plufnse. '“The rule of inaction and stupidity”. On this charge of base treacherv to this country and democracy Mr Lang may he given the benefit of the doubt. But that applies only to the underlying cause of his po'icy. ()f the evil consequences of the poliev itself there can he no doubt whatever.