Anyone who suggests correcting the weaknesses in our present financial policies and 'democratic' processes is often brushed off as a crack-pot. But no amount of disparagement can successfully impugn the weight of the evidence of the following witnesses:
Vickers was a Deputy Lieutenant of the City of London; a director of Vickers, Ltd., for 22 years; a director of the London Assurance; a governorof the Bank of England; and a leading industrialist.
Before his death in 1939, this banker-industrialist exposed the international financial monopoly in a revealing book — Economic Tribulation, Vickers, with all his material wealth, saw clearly that our present financial system (which had caused a decade of poverty amidst abundance) was leading everyone to disaster.
Vickers at the outset warns: "Slowly but inevitably the old financial system is crumbling under the weight of modern conditions and the better education of the people; the sooner it crumbles the better, and the sooner it gives way to a better and more modern technique the sooner will the world achieve goodwill and peace amongst men."
He goes on:
"'Let us acknowledge the truth. Humanity is not suffering from unavoidable circumstances over which it has no control, but from the results of deliberate and dishonest actions of its own creation and invention. Fundamental laws, originally designed for the common welfare of the individuals of a community, have been broken — community laws which were never intended to permit the individual to grow fat upon the poverty of others, nor to permit him, in pursuit of his own personal profit, to base his standard of honesty upon his own flexible conscience, consoling himself with gratitude that he is within the law. Nevertheless, just as man has tribulation, so can he play his part in undoing the harm that has been done."
Vickers points out that our so-called 'economic experts' and politicians have done little but confuse everyone with high-sounding technical jargon, adding: "The experts have hopelessly failed. What is needed is a little less economic and a little more common sense."
We have a choice, he says. We can make the necessary reforms in our social and economic system now and avoid socialism and communism, or we can resist all necessary reform and finally have a frustrated people trade their freedom for the promise of security. "Socialism always holds out the promise of freedom, but is in reality the gateway to the established slavery of Bolshevism."
The first objective of any party, says Vickers, is to stay in office. And the party or parties which can count on the support of the "chequebook influence" usually win elections. It is hardly necessary to note that here we see genuine responsible government thwarted, and the Money Power rather than the electors ruling supreme over parliaments.
"With the help of nature, mankind today is capable of producing far more than mankind can consume; more food than he could eat, more clothing than he could need, more houses than he could occupy... more leisure, more opportunity. If need be, the world can produce more than the whole world can usefully consume. How fortunate we are, and how contented we should be! What a wonderful world!"
While some doubt might arise as to Vickers' inclusion of Asia, with its teeming and rapidly increasing population; certainly there can be no doubt that the West, when not diverting great energy and material wealth to armament and war, can now produce a super-abundance for all. Mr. Vickers adds these words:
"...We are confronted with the undeniable factthat the chaotic state of the world is due to the inability of consumers to use and profit by the world's ability to produce."
The banker-industrialist continues:
"If the producers are waiting to produce more, if ships are waiting to carry the goods, if there are railway and transport services wheresoever there is a demand for them, then the fault must lie with the consumer. Why does he hold back the trade and commerce and progress of the world, and prevent the consummation of a lasting peace by deliberately refusing to avail himself of the good things the world can offer him? The answer is obvious. THE CONSUMER CANNOT AFFORD TO BUY MORE: HE HAS NOT ENOUGH MONEY! Let us discard all biassed opinion, and we shall find it possible only to arrive at one decision — THAT THE HEALTH AND WELFARE OF THE INDIVIDUAL, THE HAPPINESS OF THE COMMUNITY, THE CONTENTMENT OF THE NATION, AND THE PEACE OF THE WORLD, ARE MAINLY, IF NOT ENTIRELY, A MONETARY PROBLEM."
The free vote, says Vickers, no longer assures us of democratic government, as monopoly and international finance are in control of all governments today — a virtual financial dictatorship. For the sake of our children, he pleads, let us discard our policy of inaction, and face the fact. "Our democratic system and our existing financial system can no longer live together; one of them must give way to the other."
Vickers says that the true wealth of any nation does not consist of its gold or 'book-entries', but lies in its ability to produce goods ( real wealth).1 Among the essentials steps in future policy outlined by him are:
1. "State control and State issue of currency and credit."2
2. "Any additional supply of money should be issued as a clear asset to the state; so that money will be spent into existence."
3. "Abolition of the Debt System where all credit is created by the banks and hired out at interest to the country.".
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Father Levesque is one of Canada's most distinguished scholars. His illustrious career includes: Professor of Economics, Laval and Montreal Universities; and member of the Massey Royal Commission.
The last paragraph in his booklet, Social Credit and Catholicism, reads: "
"And if you want neither Socialism nor Communism, bring Social Credit in array against them. It will be in your hands a powerful weapon with which to fight these enemies.".
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The Bulletin, authoritative insurance magazine published in Toronto, in its March 30, 1946, issue said:
"...The view is now prevalent that the monetary system should be made to serve and not govern the economic system.
"One of the reasons for this change of attitude towards the monetary system has been the suffering brought about by the depression of the 1930's, when, although the productive powers of the country were not impaired, a large part of the population was unable to find employment as the means of subsistence because the monetary system proved inadequate to the task of distributing the existing abundance either within the country or abroad."
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"The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of the Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own Government. Money will cease to be the master, and will become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power."
[ For the full story of Lincoln's struggle to restore to Congress its prerogative of issuing financial credit and money, which led to his assassination by agents of the Money Power, read "Lightning Over the Treasury Building" (see our literature list on page 6)
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C. H. Douglas, the author of Social Credit concluding an address entitled "The Tragedy of Human Effort", October 30, 1936, said:
"We of the official Social Credit Movement are concentrating upon this problem of devising a mechanism, to enable the individuals who comprise the public to impose their policy on the organisations which have no sound reason for existence other than the will of the people. We have organized a device known as the Electoral Campaign, to obtain a demand, backed by a sufficient number of votes, that every Member of Parliament shall regard himself as the spokesman of the policy of his constituents; rather than as an expert elected for the purpose of managing the business of the country.
"The Electoral Campaign is a means and not an end. The end is, in general, the putting of the expert in his proper place, and, in particular and only as a beginning, the distribution of a Nation Dividend. Any other means which will produce the same results in a shorter time will be utilised...
"... Personally, I have no doubt whatever that if the policy, which I have outlined were pursued by every voter through the mechanism which is provided, with one-tenth the energy which is put by the average individual into his favourite game, the whole outlook of the world would be changed within twelve months' time..
"I am equally convinced that if control of policy is left in the hands of bankers and industrialists with their present mentality, while at the same time parties, organisations, and individuals wrangle about means, a world catastrophe is a mathematical certainty..."
The "Union of Electors" technique used by Social Crediters to UNITE electors around RESULTS rather than divide them through 'parties', and to compel elected representatives to serve first their electorate rather than some 'party', is in line with the advice of C. H. Douglas.
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Pius XI, in his Encyclical "Quadragesimo Anno" — "The Social Order, Its Reconstruction and Perfection" — said:..
"It is patent that in our days not alone is wealth accumulated, but immense power and despotic economic domination is concentrated in the hands of a few, and that those few are frequently not the owners, but only the trustees and directors of invested funds, who administer them at their own good pleasure... This power becomes particularly irresistible when exercised by those who, because they hold and control money, are able also to govern credit and determine its allotment, for that reason supplying, so to speak, the life-blood to the entire economic body and grasping, as it were, in their hands, the very soul of production, so that no one dare breathe against their will."
1.) To this we would add the character, spirit and faith of its people.
2.) Social Credit policy is designed to put at the disposal of the individual his financial (reflecting his real) credit, not to issue and spend it for him on so-called 'welfare' or 'security' schemes. — Ed.