Members of the Group.

B. J. Boothroyd.
Hildéric Cousens.
Geoffrey Davies.
V. A. Demant.
Philippe Mairet.
Albert Newsome.
R. S. J. Rands.
Maurice B. Reckitt (Chairman)
W. T. Symons.

THE CHANDOS GROUP.

Address for letters:
46, Bernard Street,
London, W.C.1.

16th April, 1935.

Dear Sir or Madam,

May we invite your friendly collaboration in the considera-
tion of Social Credit policy which we believe is called for by
the growing acceptance of Social Credit ideas. This situation
is producing, from several quarters, open opposition of a more
serious nature than ever before, and is raising issues hither-
to dormant. We have reached a point where the public mind
will no longer be satisfied unless it can envisage more clearly
the social, political and economic consequences of the financial
reforms proposed. We believe it is important for Social Credit
supporters to deal with the situation by consulting together
and taking steps to prevent as far as possible confusion either
in theory or policy.

We feel that the Social Credit Secretariat, now concentrat-
ing its activities upon the Electoral Campaign, is not serving
the Movement in the way we have indicated, and that these impor-
tant issues should not be left without an opportunity for their
discussion.

We should therefore appreciate your help if you (and your
group) would let us know the result of your deliberations upon
the questions outlined enclosed. We recognise that these are
not the only questions for consideration by the Movement, and
seek in this present communication merely to initiate a process
of consultation which, in view of the existence of problems
relatively unexplored, we should desire to continue.

In the meantime, we propose, in the light of your own and
other replies to this enquiry, to prepare a report embodying
such conclusions as we may be able to draw. We are sending this
letter to those exponents of Social Credit of whom we are aware,
who we think would wish to co-operate in this way. Unfortunate-
ly we have at present no facilities for entering into discussion
by correspondence, valuable as that would be, but we shall care-
fully consider replies upon the points raised, and send our con-
clusions in due course to those who write us in response to
this letter.

Yours truly,
for THE CHANDOS GROUP.

Chairman.

# SOCIAL CREDIT PROBLEMS.

1. **Statement.** Social Credit envisages a basic reform under two headings: (1) the institution of a National Credit Account, based upon the National Real Wealth, and reflecting the Nation's Productive Capacity. (2) The payment from this account of the means necessary to finance adequate Consumption, by two methods: (a) the Compensated Price; and (b) a National Dividend to every citizen.

**Question.** How should this basic reform be introduced with the minimum risk of dislocation of the social system? That is the general form of the following more specific enquiries:-

(A) How can Social Credit be securely established in the first case: by emphasis upon the Compensated Price or upon the National Dividend? This point is of vital importance both in the propaganda for Social Credit, and in framing definite proposals for instituting it.

(B) Would the morale of industry decline with the removal of the fear of destitution, and if so, how could it be maintained? Widespread belief that it would decline, and that the universal gift of even a small unearned income would disintegrate our present industrial forms, has proved a strong resistance to these economic proposals, based often on a 'moral' reluctance to give money for nothing. So far Social Credit advocates have generally believed, and for some substantial reasons, that the free distribution of purchasing-power would not diminish the incentives to production, though it might stimulate different and higher grade production.

In answering this question, it should be borne in mind that the British public has been largely trained to receive unearned income, first by the provision of war allowances and pensions to millions, and secondly by unemployment allowances - however the real nature of the latter has been de-graded to that of pauper relief under the title of the 'dole.' Also that a recognised share in the common wealth distributed as a civic right and no longer as a charitable provision is the best conceivable basis for a free community in which the co-operation of the people may reasonably be expected.

(C) Should the Social Dividend be applied gradually, and if so, upon what principle of reservation? For instance: should the recipients be limited to those receiving less than so much income from other sources? Should it be granted only to those above a certain age? Should it be raised according to age? Should it be made dependent on expressed willingness to engage in production at the call of the State?

(D) What effect would Social Credit have upon land rents - city, urban and rural? Do you consider that the benefits of consumer-credit would tend to be nullified by enhancement of land-charges, and if so, what safeguards do you think necessary to prevent this? Can such be provided by some form of inducement or is a resort to statutory compulsion necessary?

A great deal of my work simply goes to WASTE, from lack of intelligent brooding/ (and I don't suppose I am the only one to whom this occurs.)

No inter-revising, ( by which I don't mean mutual back-scratching.)

For example / wants 3x4I could have been reviewed by an economist/ instead of which they were given to a piffling aesthete to moul over.

The CONCEPT of art as sharpener and intensifier of perceptions would function as accelerator of social credit. Personally, seems to me the only safe conception of art any how.

But given a paper founded and continued, and financed FOR social credit.

That is the concept, of platform; art platform aesthetic bien, which should be employed.

In distinction to the idea of art as deception, art as embroidered untracessara, the usual bloomsbuggy peck or pale patchoul fugg from the 90's/

or the freudian whisparing down the bag.

Nott's publications go unmentioned/ while hitkats about aimless twaddle abound.

This applies, as far as I see, right through ALL the weeklies. HHA The last Criterion appeared, on the other hand, to have dumped in all the Soc/ Cr/ available., but also gave effect of hap hazard, rather than any very great clarity of intention.

and to hell, specifically, with that kind of kitkating
IN a paper specifically run for a specific END.
I.

//
Can you, as councilor or whatever on G/K's get hold of
WHAT the Distributists advocate AS PROGRAM ?

Have they ANY proposal for definite mechanism
of distribution ?

Have you any idea what the clog is ? what holds up G/K
ipsissimo from Soc/ Cr/
? church
? personal reasons
? editorial policy

II. Any suggestions as to how I can be more useful than
I am now being.

From the Morning Post to ESQUIRE diapason of some extent.

I am willing to play an damn instrument from piccolo to baso;
so long as it is USEFUL to monetray reform.

in fact WHAT I have said and am saying in four or five
languages, is, I believe, the same.

III. Can't the Tory wing get going on Town and Country,
Country Life etc. protest against the destruction of LIFE
ruin of the heritage ( HOUSES, great houses
of England,
which ruin does NO good to peasantry or workers.

it seems to me there is an oppressed aryan strata, that
might be much more effective than the small bourgeois
in GETTING SOMETHING DONE.

we must have UNION of all elements ( from Hargrave to
Milord TomNoddy...
if we are to beat the bank.

No longer the time for mere blue prints/ some of us must stand
measuring the POSSIBILITIES and the order in which
we are to move.
and so forth, ad interim.

10 May 35

Dear M/R eckitt

I have just spent two hours with G/K/C/

He appears to have no objection to Social Credit, or at least
finds nothing to object to in what I understand by Douglasism

and he favours the merger with the M/F/Weekly, each
side of the paper to preserve independence of its views.

**WHICH IS PLAIN HORSE SENSE.**

It is foolish to deprive
Soc/ credit of Chesterton's enormous journalistic experience.
It wd/ be myopic to lose contact with his distributist
fringe, which wd/ progressively become Soc/ Credit

It is pleasanter, for me personally to have two places
to turn loose in/ etc/ by we are not here merely
for PMHHH personal vanity.

Brenton should come in/ that wd/ balance, by B's factuality
, the vaguer generalities of distributist authors ( if any )
In any case the advantage of having THE weekly paper ,
in England , are envious. And a merger of the three
wd/ certainly become that , unless we all go soft in the
head.

A triple union might make it easier for Brenton ( given
his temperament ). Brenton's own page or essay per week
wd/ of course be uncensored by the new editors.

I suppose Macdonald cd/ take some routine off Mairet ,
and leave Mairet freer to write.

IF etc/

Dear Maurice Beckett

To start with the specific questions.

I. The DIVIDEND is the root of Douglasism and the ONE idea which really differentiates Social Credit from other systems of econ/ thought.

As you know the Secretariat don't recognize my existence, etc. I am not listed among Soc/ Cr/ reading matter etc ( as I see it, this is largely due to largely because my having LOOKED at other activities , and tried to perceive the relation of other agglomerates both of THOUGHT and of ACTION.

I believe that Gesell offers an alternative , or at any rate what could be developed into an alternative for the compenstaed price , discount etc. all that complicated machinery

which MAY be advisable in a country already used to Army and Navy Stores , cooperatives etc.

but which may also be inadvisable or inexpedient in countries having no such preparation.

II. Nobody but a god blithering sadistic mania can suppose that a dividend wd/ pejorate the MORALE of of 2 or 3 quid a month industry.

It is the existence of this kind of cretin in England which makes one want a bloody revolution , and to wish the whole English race shd/ be destroyed lock stock and barrel.

"It said for our mental serenity that these fits of annoyance are of short duration , and the guillotine was found impractical.

The degradation of the DOLE ( if you are

is a real degradation.

The Dividend IS EVERY MAN'S RIGHT and no man has ever regarded the receipt of his due as degradation or an an injury to his morale.

Vide all I have written on the Increment of association ( which is NOT usury ) and the cultural heritage as extension of that increment.

### III. The putrid spectacle of my own country shows

A. dividend to ALL equally is the only escape from boodling and government hand outs to favoured sets of grafters and criminals ( in Eng/ it is shipping companies who get it )

B. the only way to avoid that beastliest of all human pustulence, the bureaucrat, the means tester, the snooper and pry/er into individuals affairs/

in fact all the claptrap of socialist papernalism.

### IV/ Gesellites, "en/ Georgeites etc/ all muddle re/ land.

Those who produce FROM land/ etc. are, all the same, PRODUCERS/

at any rate BEGIN by concept that the WHOLE people must be able to BUY what the whole people produces.

" gradually " re the dividend should apply only to the AMOUNT given to each person/ not to any distribution to limited categories of recipient.

I doubt if social scientists or even the social scientists or even the social leaders

have given much thought to ACTION as a process in itself.
Hence my Jefferson and/or Mussolini.

My endeavour to get people
to think about ACTION as such, having different dynamism
from mere thought in vacuo.

ACTION starting (vide Ta Hio) from specific
place and in specific time.

As to my personal beliefs/ IN THE WIDE

I believe that a DIVIDEND paid in STAMP SCRIP

is the most comprehensible solution.

of what C/H/D/ wants to do via
I believe that a great deal of the compensated price, sales un
under cost; etc. COULD

be done by this very simple means.

BUT there wd/ have to be a COMPUTATION of the proportion
of monnaie monnaie fondante ( with stamp tax monthly )

TO THE FIXED MONEY ( paper ) of the country.

and that calculation
etc. wd/ have to be under parliamentary ( or U.S. Congress
supervision,

just as all Douglasite computations wd/ have to
be done under govt. supervision.

this may be very rough and ready, and very HERETICAL
in strict s/c circles.

BUT complicated mechanism and
democracy are ill bedfellows.

I advocate a well thought out SEQUENCE in the timing

## Members of the Group

B. J. Boothroyd.
Hilderic Cousens.
Geoffrey Davies.
V. A. Demant.
Philippe Mairet.
Albert Newsome.
R. S. J. Rands.
Maurice B. Reckitt (Chairman)
W. T. Symons.

## THE CHANDOS GROUP

1st June, 1935.

Dear Sir,

Replies to our letter of the 16th April, including your own, have so far been received to the number of 51, of which 38 have included detailed answers to the Social Credit Problems raised by us, and several groups have also promised to send us their reports upon the questions later. Many of our correspondents have replied at considerable length, and nearly all have evidently given great care to their statements.

We propose to issue an adequate analysis and summary of the replies we have received, as soon as possible which may not be for a few weeks in view of the time and facilities at our disposal. Meanwhile, we offer in the present letter, to those who have answered our enquiry, a few general observations prompted by their replies.

Several of our correspondents having enquired as to the credentials of the 'Chandos' group for initiating such an enquiry, we may mention that the group came into existence during the General Strike of 1926, and in the next Spring issued a book written in collaboration, entitled "Coal, a Challenge to the National Conscience." We were from the first a political group, definitely committed to Social Credit principles in financial policy: and, besides a considerable output of journalistic propaganda in several quarters, we have been responsible for another book - "Politics, a book for the next ten Elections", which was published in 1929.

The enquiry we are now making is an entirely independent activity. We mention this fact in response to a few correspondents who have expressed misgivings that such an enquiry may conflict with other Social Credit activities, particularly the present Electoral Campaign of the Douglas Social Credit Secretariat. We emphatically disclaim any intention of diverting the energies or discrediting the policy of any Social Credit agencies.

It is true, as several have told us, that the struggle for Social Credit has reached a stage at which there must be action as well as propaganda. At this stage, however, propaganda is also necessarily modified: we enter upon a new phase of propaganda. Replies have amply borne us out in this opinion, for they indicate that the questions we raised are in fact exercising the minds of many Social Crediters, especially those who are most active in group work and public propaganda, as well as a number who are actively taking part in the Electoral Campaign, and a few who are working for the Prosperity League Petition. Definition of the true relations between Social Credit and the present problems of social development, far from being a merely academic interest, is now important as propaganda; it is in fact propaganda in actual contact with the institutions and current ideas of the world into which we seek to introduce Social Credit.

2.

We are confirmed in this conviction by the remarkable
response to our circular, and hope that our further co-operation
may lead to conclusions of value for the definition of S.C.
policy. There are, we may add, wide differences expressed in
answers to all the points we have raised, such, for example, as
the manner in which it would be most socially desirable to com-
mence the distribution of a national dividend, which indicate
that the full implications of proposals upon which we are all
agreed in principle, have not yet been satisfactorily worked
out. There are also valuable opinions expressed which go be-
yond the scope of the specific Problems raised by us, and we
will make these available to all our correspondents, in our
Report.

This letter is being sent to all who have replied to our
Circular letter, whatever opinions they have expressed.

Dear Rockutt

I think some of yr/ points re/ the bitch were
answered in an article of mine on social revolution, sent
before the crisis was over: but which I take it, Munirot
isn't using.

At any rate yr/ article is serious/ which about half
the paper is NOT.

Do you feel like answering the following :

That the whole set of "values" implied by present order, throne
british custom etc/ is such a denuded MBMM BUNK that
Eddie has been very useful by throwing a light on it ?

I mean AS BUNK/ Throne/ damnable pawk of
British tribal customs, etc.

2. That The Archbish/ is a shit. That the Church started to
show some honesty and even to define terms ' ( work and employment )
and that this antient pimp and hymoorite was then taken off on Mo
Morang's yacht; and Episcopan curiosity was squelched ?

Trollope's view of the church being sound,
and NO improvement, no greater sincerity or curiosity having
supervised

Naturally you don't think there is an honest
man in the gov't ? or in the archiepiscopate ?

I mean, I am asking quite simply,

I can't believe that there is, but am curious

whether any literate Englisher does.

Why Eddie should be expected to have in any more
branian than the average Sitwell and/or guardsman he has
alone can imagine.

I forget what yr/ church is/ And am not interested in
that question. Church that went advocate common honesty is mere
shit, whatever it calls itself. My point is that Canterbury
as an individual is a damn swine/ NOT even the excuse of me
needing a bribe; but a simple unadulterated toady toady
/ led by Morgan. As dishonest as any bank pimp. And that
the sin against the holy ghost ( to use that metaphor ) is to
shun looking at truth.

Nobody cares whether Eddie goes to
an incense shop or a registrar. All that is dead stuff.
The real is, that Canterbury is a snot. Thet he is led by money:
trumper.

He is the bankers pimp. "Church" etc. theology, dogma
do not enter it, save for purposes of literary superstructure.

Has any church member the
gumption to look the old brute in the eye, and force an honest
answer from him?

Church be blown. NO, of course you don't expect church to
accept Mrs S//

that seems to me more camouflage.