Professor Keeton states that the revolt against "statism" has made its appearance in all parties. But when will a revolt against "debtism" make its appearance? How will it profit society, and the individual to exchange the frying pan of control by Planning for the fire of control by Debt? A huge public debt is not a national asset so long as the owners of the debt, the banking institutions, retain their lien over the community. And continuous deficit spending is not essential to the economic prosperity of the nation, though it may be essential to a policy of "full employment". The ancient pharaohs provided "full employment" in the building of the pyramids, but history does not record that they incurred an astronomical debt to do so.
The modern pharaohs provide "full employment" in the construction of armaments, space rockets, goods for unrequited exports, and goods for deliberate State give-away to the underdeveloped countries of the world, at a cost of astronomical debt. And at any moment the cry may go forth that all debts must be paid. At any moment the threat of national bankruptcy may be used to justify the abrogation of our national sovereignty. And a crediters' meeting of "Great Britain Unlimited" could scarcely be paid a few half pennies in the pound.
"Will you come into my parlour...?" Consider these passages from The Times' Leader of May 15th, 1951. The Socialist voters, it states, "looked for more power for the workers and ordinary people and have been given instead the huge impersonal and management-controlled public corporation." They feel, in consequence, "resentment against the State managers, who, as they see it, have annexed Socialism. There is nothing in the history of Socialist thought to suggest that the State is the natural and the inevitable instrument by which Socialism is to be attained... Distrust of the State has been constant element in the development of Socialist ideas. It is the tragedy of the Labour movement that it has over-looked the purpose of its existence... a start could best be made by abandoning the great fallacy of modern Socialist thought that the State and the community are synonymous. There may be nothing in the history of pre-Marxian Socialist thought, but there is a great deal in the history of post-Marxian Socialist thought to suggest that the State is the intended instrument by which the Marxian will-to-state-power will lead inevitably to the Marxian will-to-World-power. Consider the policy clauses of the Communist Manifesto of 1847, and consider how many of them have been fulfilled by the party organizations of this country working through the ballot box and the "majority vote". "By their fruits we shall know them". Well might citizens feel a doubt, as Professor Keeton says, "whether continued encroachments upon individual liberty really advance public welfare, or whether they are not simply stepping stones to a state of affairs in which all resistance to the official policy is futile and perilous."
T. V. HOLMES in
Credit Notes of October, 1960
Good advice!
If Khrushchev's violence gains him admirers in South America and Africa he will have achieved his object. If he creates a feeling of nervousness among the Western nations, he will have paved the way to a coup d'etat in Berlin. The best way for us to take Khrushchev is to regard him as a clever performer, and that is all. We should never, for one moment allow anyone to feel that we are at all impressed with his antics.
(From an editorial of the Sault Daily Star, Oct. 5, 1960, commenting on K.'s antics in New York and at the United Nations' sessions.)
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All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men do nothing.
Edmund BURKE