This article, which appeared in the September 17th issue of THE SOCIAL CREDITER (Sydney, Australia), should be studied by all Social Crediters. — Ed., Cis.
A political party is, if you come to think of it, something fantastic. The House of Commons is, or is supposed to be, an assembly of men and women, representing the British people, for the purpose of governing the country. To get them there, the country is divided into constituencies, each of which sends a representative to the Commons, the M.P. The M.P. for Eastbourne represents the people of Eastbourne, or should do. He is in duty bound to stand up for their interests. Similarly the M.P.'s for Birmingham, Chester, Scarborough, Wigan, and so on. Where then does a party come into the picture? Why should, say, Birmingham and Wigan combine. against the other three? Looked at like this it should make any thoughtful person suspicious of political parties.
Curiously enough for many years until comparatively recently a two-party system worked reasonably well, no doubt owing to the peculiar genius of the British, particularly the English, in adapting, what appears illogical, so as to serve their ends. It may be as well to mention here that many of the issues of the past were based on misunderstanding and misrepresentation, the corn laws, women's suffrage, free trade or protection, and many others. But the two-party system worked so long as the party leaders in power could be thrown out as soon as it was evident that they were incompetent or were breaking their promises. This was of benefit to the people only so long as the policies of the two opposing parties were fundamentally different, the electorate showing some degree of political sense, and the representatives of the electors were reasonably honest men anxious to please their constituents.
Nowadays all three of these conditions are either lacking or apply only partly. The British public have shown a deplorable lack of political sense in returning to power in 1945 the very men whose dictatorial rules and regulations, introduced under cover of alleged war necessity, everybody was sick and tired of, and on many other occasions. Our present M.P.'s having voted themselves a commercial salary and tax-free expenses, are mainly careerists with no idea of service and rarely any interest in their constituents. As for the policies of the two parties they agree in all fundamentals; a "controlled" inflation, the work-state, penal taxation, welfare benefits to undermine the character of the British, subservience to U.S.A. especially to the dollar kings of Wall Street, denigration of every aspect of the British way of life, bleeding Great Britain white economically via rigged exchange rates and the export racket, etc., etc. The only difference is that all seek to conserve their own party.
That all this happens without the violent reaction one might expect from the British is perhaps all due, certainly mainly due, to the power of the Press, the power of the Press to suppress, and the fact that the Press is controlled by the very men who control the money system and also control the H.Q. of both parties. Quite apart from boasts made by international financiers it is only necessary to watch the occasions when the party whips are cracked to persuade M.P.'s to vote against their own consciences and against the interests of their constituents. Modern education is largely designed to make people susceptible to propaganda and no M.P. can under present conditions hope to retain his seat at the next election — important to a careerist — if he loses the help of propaganda forces resident in the controllers of Press and Party. He has, therefore, serious threats over his head should he act other than on party lines, i.e., as ordered from above.
Many Social Crediters seem to think that most of these aspects of modern politics are a good reason for starting a political party of their own. They are honest, they won't be bribed, threatened or blackmailed, they will represent their constituents and not financiers, they will take their oath of allegiance to H.M. the Queen seriously and not regard it as a formality as so many of our present M.P.'s do. These things are so obvious to Social Crediters that they expect the electors to see it too. Unfortunately that is not so. The power of propaganda via the Press with a few local exceptions, the B.B.C. and other broadcasting systems, even largely the pulpit, to the Churches' everlasting shame, is much too great. To build up a new political party, even if successful in the end, would take at least 50 years from now and we haven't 50 years. The Powers of Evil have had over a century of experience of using party machinery, we have none. They are experts at exploiting the evil and weak sides of human nature and are quite ruthless. For us to try and fight them through a party is merely to attempt to beat the enemy on his chosen ground with weapons in which he is an expert and at a time of his choosing
The greatest asset of the Social Credit movement is its fluidity. The greatest assets of the enemy are all rigid organizations. To hem the Social Credit movement into a political organization is to atrophy it. The danger to every organization in history has been twofold. Most of them start as a means to an end and many very soon degenerate into being an end in themselves. This is most marked where leadership of the organization confers power. Sooner rather than later some power maniac will come to the top. His very qualities will help him to get there and at once the real objects of that organization take second, third or no place at all. It doesn't even need a power maniac to achieve such a result. If at the head is a man who, to remain at the head, allows himself to be browbeaten, threatened, or persuaded, that is enough. We have as the classical example the present government of Alberta. There, and in British Columbia, the government, nominally Social Credit, has declared it as its policy to leave all attempts to pass Social Credit legislation or any legislation clearing the ground for Social Credit to someone else. The fact that the rank and file of the Social Credit party there has accepted such a policy shows how superficial the mass of electors are, how unable they are to view anything realistically, and how little the Social Credit spirit is in them.
Let us Social Crediters leave the dirty game of party politics, sham fighting, severely alone. Major Douglas was right when he gave this advice, as he was right in every one of his major utterances.
· H. R. PURCHASE
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