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Social Credit: Election Issues Are Clear-Cut

The main issue which faces the electors when they go to the polls in November is whether they want increased taxation, a higher cost of living and increased debt or whether they don't.

The histories of National and Labour show without doubt that their policies bring about those three burdens. There is so little difference between the two parties that there is no likelihood of even promises that will cause any change.

It seems rather stupid and unnecessary that this young country should pay more money in interest on its borrowings than it spends in any field than education. Just consider what a drain this is on our economy. It means approximately £28,000,000 each year and nothing is brought back in return. This on top of £80 per minute in taxation, debt system.

Social Credit demands monetary reform, but its platform covers the whole range of national life with particular emphasis on individual freedom.

The League is concerned that so many members of the public have gathered the conception that monetary reform is its only aim. That is not so. The League believes it is imperative to the future welfare of New Zealanders that they stop the insidious growth of bureaucracy and political control of matters which should be left to the individual.

This is a fundamental issue in our national life. The League is convinced that New Zealanders have become increasingly concerned with their loss of freedom and that they will express this concern in November. They will not be bought by political bait because they have seen the inevitable effects of these promises in the past. They are realising that there is something basically wrong with our economic structure when purchasing power does not equal production. Social Credit pledges to correct that lack of balance and to halt increases in our National Debt. Naturally, this could not be done overnight because the League would be inheriting the results of a system which has been perpetuated for years. That is no reason, however, for the system to be continued. What is required is a new approach to politics, a new type of thinking based on government for the whole nation and not for a party group and an honest respect for the individual who, after all, elects governments to serve the country and not to dominate it.

It is true that monetary reform is a very important step, although not the only one, in that direction. Today, in almost every part of the world, society is moving towards a condition which gives the State more and more power over the individual, and for that reason there can never be any compromise or alliance between Communism and Social Credit.

There are two major requirements for the establishment of individual freedom. The first is economic security and the second is that the people shall have the maximum control over their government. The long history of the English speaking people is concerned with the light for freedom and after a thousand years of struggle, firstly through the Witan and later through parliament, the British political system—with all its faults—became one of the most democratic in the world.

On numerous occasions when dictatorship by parliament or monarchy threatened the people, it was challenged by a responsible minority and forced to yield to the demand for democratic government.

The British system of democracy was slowly built upon four main factors of great importance. But in recent years there have been very significant changes. The foundations upon which our freedom was built have been attacked in a subtle manner and are now rapidly crumbling or have almost disappeared.

The first foundation was the British Parliamentary system in which all the laws affecting the welfare of the people had to be introduced and debated in open parliament without secrecy. Today, our parliaments are no longer open forums, much legislation being secretly passed in the form of orders-in-council or regulations.

The second foundation was the Law Courts, in which any British subject could challenge legislation resulting in unjust effects. Today, our law courts no longer have the protective powers they once possessed. In some instances, the Minister of the Crown and not the courts has the final power of decision. In other directions, too, the powers of the court to protect human rights have been reduced.

The third foundation was the measure of financial independence enjoyed by a large and increasing number of people up to 1914 who were not being dispossessed by the State through taxation. But today we see that this independence is under continual attack by governments of both the so-called left and right wings, and disinheritance is rife.

Death and gift duties penalise a person for doing as he wishes with his own property. Crippling taxation and ever mounting costs are also implemented in the common policy of dispossession and the consequence destruction of individual independence and liberty.

The fourth foundation was the awareness among the people of the difference between political good and evil, between honesty and chicanery in political statements and practice referred to by some writers as the Public Philosophy. Today, there is much evidence available to show clearly that this ability is on the wane.

In spite of all the acting and appearances to the contrary, there are no basic differences existing between the Labour and National parties. We go to the heart of Moscow with Mr Nash or to the outskirts with Mr Holyoake. Both Mr Nash and Mr Holyoake believe in adding to the great burden of public debt in New Zealand, and overseas, which now exceeds £800,000,000 for just over one million workers; both believe in increased taxation, a growing part of which is levied to pay the interest on the debt; both are quite helpless when it comes to reducing our internal costs or preventing the depreciation of money, and both are adamantly opposed to the creation by the State of its own money, which is the only possible method of reducing debt, taxation and costs.

Because the main political parties, not only in New Zealand, but in all other countries, are travelling the common road to increased public and private debt and bureaucratic entrenchment, all of which sound the death knell of individual freedom, it would appear that they follow a directed course, and we may not have much time to fight against this insidious encroachment on our rights. For that reason, therefore, it is necessary that the public should realise that we are in opposition not only to a fantastic monetary system, but that Social Credit strongly opposes delegated authority, Communistic planned economies, and government in secrecy by bureaucracy.