RURAL RECONSTRUCTION ASSOCIATION,
LE PLAY HOUSE, 35, GORDON SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.I.

The Rural Reconstruction Association is an independent non-party organisation, concerned in securing
the restoration of Agriculture to its rightful place in our National life.

President: THE LORD O'HAGAN.

Council: 1937/8.

Chairman: *MICHAEL BEAUMONT, M.P.

Hon. Secretary to the Council: *MONTAGUE FORDHAM, M.A., F.R.ECON.S.

Hon. Treasurer: *TRISTRAM HART, Dean Farm, Beaconsfield, Bucks.

R. ST. BARBE BAKER

R. L. BARCLAY

MISS MARGARET BLUNDELL

R. A. BUTLER, M.P.

MAJOR P. H. CARTER

DR. STELLA CHURCHILL

WILLIAM D. CLARK

MRS. GUY DAWNAY

ROLAND DUDLEY

ALEXANDER FARQUHARSON

MISS CAROLINE HASLETT

DANIEL HOPKIN, M.P.

*E. EPEY LANE

*MISS O. LLOYD-BAKER

E. C. LOVELL

DR. HAROLD MANN

*MRS. MUSGRAVE

*LORD O'HAGAN

*MRS. ARTHUR PENTY

MRS. MATTERS PORTER

M. PHILLIPS PRICE, M.P.

LORD RADNOR

HAROLD RANKIN

FREDERICK RATHBONE

DR. REDCLIFFE N. SALAMAN

*C. RUSSELL SCOTT

PROF. J. W. SCOTT

DR. GILBERT SLATER

MISS ZOE SMITH

*C. F. STRICKLAND

*CAPTAIN WHITFORD-HAWKEY,
M.C. (Hon. Secretary)

Executive Committee)

*Members of Executive Committee.

General correspondence may be addressed to the Hon.
Executive Secretary, Captain Whitford-Hawkey, M.C.,
Hill Farm, Haslemere, Surrey.

24th December

1937.

Dear Mr. Ezra Pound,

I read with great interest your article translated
from the Italian in the British Union Quarterly and felt
that if I had time and spare energy I should like either
to write to you or reply to it in an article.

Now my friend Raven Thomson has sent me your address
and a message from you. Before dealing with it I hope
you will forgive me if I make some comments on your
article.

It clarified in my mind a subject which I have been
working on for many years and also *put forward* a point of
view which I believe to be largely if not entirely
mistaken.

To take one point, I do not think one can distinguish
between the orthodox and the so-called 'new' Economics, as

2.

set out by English writers at any rate. Both schools
are based on a materialistic interpretation of life, and
therefore, having no real basis, have to make a number of
assumptions creating creeds or dogmas, on which their
arguments are based (take for example Adam Smith's
definition of trade between nations), which appear to me
as a rule fundamentally untrue. The only difference
that I can see between the 'orthodox' and the 'new' (in
this country) is that the latter throw emphasis on those
dogmas that the former only now preach with their tongues
in their cheeks. Moreover both groups are obscurantists
and always ignore simple and direct explanations, even
when they are obvious. They have a passion for elabor-
ation. The difference between the two schools of thought
is only one of emphasis: they bring out in their analysis
different facts. Of course both schools of thought often
bring out useful ideas of great importance, but as a whole,
to me, the whole of these two schools of economics is an
illusion, and I may remark that the study of illusions of
the mass mind is one of the most interesting aspects of
history, to which I have given some attention.

Another point in your article that impressed me is
that you entirely ignore, what I should have thought was
one of the most important influences in modern life -- the
return to Christian Economic theory (with its simple
explanations of economic problems) and in particular its
recent incorporation into important legislation in this
country.

Now to turn to your specific point -- I do not
think it is likely that anyone will (or could) make an
intellectual explanation of what money has become in its

3.

relation to our modern civilisation. It would take me
a long letter to explain why. But perhaps it will
clarify my point if we consider the word 'value' as used
by economists: is there any intellectual explanation of
or test of value ? Moreover, is it important to define
such things ? Should we not be deciding for the future:
for example, what should economics be ? My view is that
it should be treated as the Christian Church used to teach
it, as a branch of the art of applying spiritual law to
material problems. Similarly, what should money be ?
I suggest it should be a medium of exchange, a common
measure of value, and a means, through issue of credit,
of creating new wealth. And so on. This seems to me
important. thing.

I must apologise for this long letter.

If you wish to pursue the subject, the two enclosed
papers of my own throw some light on it. The two books
of which I enclose notices are based on the point of view
expressed by me in this letter.

Please do not bother to reply if you are not
interested.

8 Jan

Dear Mr Fordham

Getting round to yr/ letter in first free moment.
Excuse abbreviations/ I take you point by point.

I LABLED my first ABC. of Economics " Volitionist " / and
years age " attacked " Douglas for " error " in presenting Soc.
Credit as GREED system.

I can't be responsible for errors of
ethers/
and " New Econ" means nothing to me apart fromspecific
ideas/

I mean there is no use discussing a whole heteroclite
bag of ideas under a covering title.

Orthodox economics IS however a fairly HAMM
clear term for a pack of infernal lies/ Keynes/ Schacht, Neimeyer
Pigeous/ Mc Kenna
and all the HAMM filth of the
usurers.

So that I agree with you as to " materialist " etc. being
error but deny it is MY error.

I can't even accept blame for
not making that clear in a single article TO a reader who
hasn't yet correlated that article with what I have written
before.

My writing in the B.U.C. ought almost to free me of
charges of "egelianism or materialist view of history Charlie
Marx etc.."

What makes me see red is the buggaring bishops
who pretend to ethics and refuse to carry their ethics INTO

questions of money, its nature, prices etc.

They are shirkers/ they may be merely
stupid, but in most cases they are ROTTEN to the core.

Wonder if a few passages in my article in *an Criterion bear on
the rest of yr/ comment.

Good attack on keyserling in recent New Eng/ Weekly
title like the " fallacy of profundity ".

ANYHOW, you've got to start with rectitude, directie voluntatis
to get any clear MAP of sane economics.

The liberals, and all
their spawn merely MESS.

I have been hammering on catholic awakening/ on the Canonist
economics for some time. Can't drag it into every article.

There is another in the *Bassegaia Menetaria*, which
I can send you if you read Italian,

"e/ " what money has become "/" It wd/ be impossible to show
so
to vivisect a human body as to trace every calory or whatever of
phosphorus eaten by the patient, but it is possible to
isolate chemical substances. (DONT apologize for long letter/
I err so often by trying to make mine short.)

4r/ p. 3. repeats various things I have printed.

"Marx utterly befogged, or rather never got the word "value"

out of metaphysical mist.

What I hate is the continual dogg dogg
dodging of the KNOWN facts about money and its nature/

Until men have the courage to put down what they KNOW and can
know, all talk of the unknown is mere defentism.

The Rassegna Monetaria articles, are a drive for TERMINOLOGY.
clear definitions of at least the most rudimentary terms.

have you read Cairoli's " Giusto Prezzo nel Medioevo "/ It ought
to be published in English.

Yr/ definition of money OMITS the factor "CLAIM ". Money is
a measured CLAIM ( or title or mandate ) CLAIM is the best word in
english.

If it were merely a measure it wd/ NOT work as a
stimulus or cause of exchange.

Appalling LACK of education in
definition, has spread since renaissance. Mediaeval scholasticism did
have at least the virtue of pushing people into thinking about
definitions ( verbal definitions ).

ad interim.

At present moment Schaacht needs squelching.

"Is/ question in yr /lecture paper. The Xtn/ church HAS laid down
more ECONOMIC code/ but the bastardly Crowmellians hid it.