The people's voice., 1942-01-07

weeks, that 1t would be the heigf
! OF wisdom to listen to some Of thos
people who are getting so used I
aerial bombs that they can think g
the same time especially In the dar
of "blackouts."
The Rev. Peck tells of his gran
, father who had been born in Suffol
/ village in 1881, was a miller an
, ground wheat for the neighborin
, farmers. One of the stories he use
| to tell, and one the Rev. Peck use
| to laugh at the most was when hi
grandfather decided to move up t
London He had announced his ir
tention to his old cronies at the loca
Inn or pub" (saloon in America)
1t was received in gloomy silence
in wrath and said "Tm ashamed o
you William. But let them go t
London who will, give me Old Eng
land forever"
The notion that In leaving an OBJ
scure village his grandfather was for
saking Old England seemed to thu
Rev. Peck a ludicrous example O.
rustic ignorance. Today, he says, ",
have just begun to understand tha
1t was l that was ignorant, he says
''It was to new strange unnatura
England that my grandfather was go
ing. The rural exodus as econo
mists call 1t created the mass man
in England, as we are now learning
1t was a catastrophe. 1t denuded the
countryside and it debauched the
towns. Men learned to accept them
selves as the gadgets Of financeers
There was on the whole less and less
food grown In England-what did 1t
matter? England was the worlds
workshop" (Arsenal Of democracy in
the American language.)
| At last thousands of acres Of fine
| fruitful land were buried under the
concrete Of hideously sprawling urban
areas or were smothered by brambles
and bracken-this was no cause for
alarm-it helped rather than hindered.
When In the Munich period, the clouds
Of war already heavy In the skies, the
minister of agriculture" at the mo-
ment was asked to take steps for
growing more food in England, he
replied, "But what fools we should
look IL there were no war after all"
He evidently believed that England
could survive as the worlds work
shop" and that still seemed much
more certain way Of accommodating
money profit" than growing food in
English fields. But the capital and
dominating consideration we now face
(says the Rev. Peck) is that England
cannot survive as the worlds work
shop" and he goes on to prove that
fact
1--WE know that an immense world
production attempting to operate by
an obsolete method OF distribution,
produced the world slump" which
was relieved, temporarily by turning
the worlds unpurchasable surplus Of
peace time goods into ornaments of
wa (which have their own irrational
market. We shall return to the prob
lem when the war is over, and we
ket for the valid human production of
peacetime." This all readers of The
Peoples Voice probably know already,
but l am concluding with really
realistic remark by the Rev. Peck
which (however unwillingly) we must
consider
1T is commonplace yet neverthe-
less true observation that the pro-
gress OF power technique In industry
musth produce either a leasured COM
munit yor chaos. 1t is credibly stated
that modern power technique multi
plies each mans productive power
three thousand times. 1t necessarily
follows that the one chief task of
civilization Is to translate technolog
ical unemployment into creative leis-
ure "St. Paul" to the contrary-not-
withstanding."
l enclose another Of Mr.. Brittan's
short economic studies which bear on
this point, perhaps on another Sunday
l Ai4ehy 10 tOLiPtOd W WliLC yOu lul thCi
on this important study and give more
detailed accounts OF the reverend's g
conclusions.
Banks Unrestricted Power
Sir, One banker, Mr. McKenna, has
clarified the issue; writing on the
World Economic Conference of 1888
he tells us that with the abolition of
the gold standard "the Bank Of Eng
lands powers over the quantity of
money were 80 wide, whether in the
to be for practical purposes unre-
5tricted. 1t therefore became urgent |
that the Bank of England should be
given some definite guidance as to its
future policy, and obviously he gov
srnment alone could have the neces- |
5ary power and authority to instruct |
he bank"
What we want is not "nationaliza-
ion OF banks" (this would be quite
Useless and possibly fatal, but "state-
hat the money supply may be regu-
ated solely for the benefit of the
country as whole, and not with prim-
Try consideration given to the money
business of financiers and bankers.
To-day the shortage of purchasing
,ower Tin peace time) is generally
ldmitted to be fact; the credit of
demonstrating that fact is mainly due
1t Maj c. H. Douglas. l am con-
rinced that the Douglas method would
ffectually remove the shortage-close
he gap between incomes and prices;