SCIENCE TO THE RESCUE.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sza—Major Douglas's remarks on my review of his Social Credit find me entirely willing to leave the matter just where he leaves it ; in the hope that his letter may serve any one who wants to think the matter out, as a basis to begin from. It will soon enough appear that there is no incompatibility whatever between what he says and what I say. The point could be formulated thus. Even amid all our present want and distress, •the things whereby people live—enough and to spare of them—are either actually in our warehouses and stores or are potentially there. But the people who need them cannot conjure them out. They have not the money. I suggest that they might conceivably conjure them up— the most indispensable of them—out of the earth, by their own labour ; and so be independent of the magic store of money. Major Douglas, on the other hand, says : See that they have the money (and see that they spend it, too, as " a country becomes richer by spending "). Only, the naive policy of simply giving them the money is of no use—either for Major 'Douglas or for myself. The money must come to them, regularly, automatically, infallibly, in the course of the ordinary working of the economic system, not from any dens ex machina outside thereof. New, I am not out to deny that this may be done. There may be some clever twist that may be given to the whole economic system, that will just make it do the trick. I don't know. I confess I am British enough to shake my head a little, and say I would have at any rate to be awfully sure of it, before I commenced any experimenting. But meanwhile, what is the relevance of this that -comes from the " National Currency League " ; and what is it that they are saying about a " wheat standard " ? This cryptic language seems to awaken echoes, faint and far away, of something one had heard, long and long ago. " Wheat " and " currency " I Did not Adam Smith say somewhere that wheat was the only currency one ever really buys things with ? And have not we often heard that if an omniscient archangel had exclusive control of the currency, he could by judicious manipulation keep " prices " steady ; when they were high issuing more, when they were low withdrawing some ? What is the suggestion, then ? Is it that it needs no archangel ; that anybody—even a poor fallible Lord Cunliffe, perhaps—might do ; if he simply kept his eye on wheat, issuing more currency if harvests were poor, less il they were good ? But there are still questions. In the first place, could you steady wheat that way, any more than you could steady the price of artificial hair ? And, secondly, even if wheat were steady, would " prices " be steady ? This intriguing suggestion would also, I am afraid, need some thinking out. And yet—the impish thought will hardly stay out of one's mind—perhaps these people and Major Douglas are in the same boat ; perhaps what they have in their shop-window is precisely Major Douglas's magic trick !-
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