| Subject: | Re: [socialcredit] Switzerland & People Power | | Date: | Sunday, August 7, 2005 08:59:55 (-0700) | | From: | Joe Thomson <thomsonhiyu @....ca>
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| In reply to: | Message 2398 (written by cymric) |
Hello Peter,
Some comments inserted below.
(Peter wrote:-) > I agree with your first comments regards the seeds of the
war were sown much earlier and predicted at least as early as 1923 by
Douglas if my memory serves me well.
> But as to the "myth" about Mickie Savage and 'social credit' policy
getting the country out of the depression, whether from Hughe's book or not
is synical
> for some unknown reason.
> Savage's party campaigned on the promise of nationalising the Reserve Bank
( Montague Morman creation) and using it to build NZ by its direct creation
of credit rather than borrowed pounds from the Bank of England.
(Joe replies:-) This seems to me to be a similar policy to the one
President Roosevelt was pursuing in the USA. And our BC Premier of that
time, Duff Pattulo was advocating for this country. Of massive public works
spending to create 'employment'.
Whatever the merits of such a policy at that time, it wasn't 'social
credit'. And for some to infer that it was, is deceitful. What Douglas
proposed for New Zealand was something quite different, and my question, to
which I await an answer from those Kiwis who no doubt know their own history
far better than I do, was how many of those Douglas's proposals were enacted
by the Savage Labour government?
(Peter continues:-) > Curton in Australia and McKenzie King ran similar
campaigns which won them elections as well, but only Savage actually did
anything, is that whe reason for the synicism?
(Joe replies:-) MacKenzie King fully nationalized the Bank of Canada, which
had been created by the previous government as our central bank, and
originally had private shareholders as well as government participation. He
did not, to my knowledge, use the Bof C to 'deficit finance' and pursue
trying to 'spend' our way out of the Depression like Savage's government may
have done in your country. In this, he was at odds with people like
Pattulo, who wanted to go that route, (and continually tried to put 'the
bite' on Ottawa to finance 'infrastructure' in what was called here Duff's
'mini-New Deal'). Even if Mackenzie King had gone that way, it still would
NOT have been 'social credit'. The desired 'end' was something quite
different from that of Douglas.
(Peter continues:-) And as you said they all benefited from the primary
produce sold to Britain in war time, which totally irrevelant to what Savage
did.
(Joe replies:-) They did, but that's not what I said. I referred to the
period well before the war, where NZ (and also Canadian) 'export' markets
had collapsed, leaving your country with a massive foreign debt, (primarily
to Britain), and no 'conventional' way to pay it.
In the case of BC, our primary export in that era was lumber, and we'd built
up a good trade with the USA as well as with Britain and other countries.
After the onset of the Depression the US enacted the Smoot-Hawley Tariff to
protect its domestic lumber industry, and that priced BC lumber out of the
US market. Britain, at that time, was sourcing lumber from here, but more
fom Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Russia, and the US. When Imperial
Preference was established in the early '30's, countries outside of the
British Empire had their products tariffed while ours were not. There was
intra-Empire 'free-trade', so to speak. This re-vitalized the BC lumber
industry, and, I believe, also made quite a difference to the agricultural
industries of New Zealand and Australia, since your closer European and
American 'competitors' were largely frozen out of UK markets pricewise. So
much so that when Britain 'entered Europe' decades later that seems to have
had quite some impact on the 'favoured position' previously enjoyed by those
'down under', did it not? Or was all the 'hand-wringing' when that happened
just pure nostalgia?
(Peter continues:-) > The late Prof. John Hotson who had the Economic Chair
at US Waterloo university toured NZ about 1990 was persuaded Savage did
something effective as compared to you and Hughs. He praised NZ for getting
out of the depression by the practical and sovereign use of the Reserve Bank
and not using the war like the rest of the world, and advocated we return to
that policy.
(Joe replies:-) That may well be so, Peter, but what you're advocating is
NOT 'social credit', and shouldn't be called such.
(Peter continues:-) > AFter his ( Savage)death Nash who was the Finance
Minister took over and when visiting the Bank of England was threatened with
an embargo on our exports if we didnt realise the error of our ways. Now
why would they want to do that if Savage and Hotson had only talked through
a hole in their hat?
(Joe replies:-) Why should that be of any concern to you if you could use
your 'Reserve Bank' to fund yourselves as you are advocating you should 'get
back to'?
(Peter continues:-) > Would you like Kiwi's to tell you your political
history?
(Joe replies:-) If they are familiar with it. The perspective from afar
is always useful in that we cannot always see things ourselves about our
countries that others elsewhere can.
Regards,
Joe
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