The town council of Arvida (the Quebec "Aluminum city") wishes to build a new town hall which will make it possible to bring three departments together in the same building.
Now this is very laudable and no one will oppose such a project. Certainly the Social Crediters won't. They are the first to support progress.
But the method of financing this project rules out "progress"; and this is what raises the Crediters' opposition.
Now, the mayor who is the sponsor of the project and of the loan to finance it, is asking tax-paying property owners for permission to negociate a loan of $575,000 at an interest rate of 5%, repayable through annuities over a period of twenty years.
The Union of Electors is against this interest. They say that the Bank of Canada should provide — or at least be firmly urged to provide — an advance of Credit without any interest rate. For is it not the bank of Canadians, the bank of Arvida Canadians as it is of all other Canadians?
Some will object that such an act is not within the powers of the Bank of Canada according to its charter. Well, suppose it is not. Its charter comes from the federal government. That same government can amend the charter and instruct the Bank of Canada to issue financial credit without interest for the purpose of financing developments in the country, developments in every field of the country's life, wherever development is necessary. Has the town council of Arvida approached the governemnt about this?
Nor does the mayor of Arvida seem at all put out over the interest attached to the final value of the project. Interest, he says, will come to only $300,000.00.
Only $300,000.00! The material and labor for the town hall will come to $575,000.00. But the issuance of the necessary credit for the purpose, which comes from a mere stroke of the banker's pen, will cost $300,000.00. Mr. Mayor, that is $300,000. too much! And it is precisely that "too much" that Crediters are trying to get rid of by insisting that the Bank of Canada be made to serve Canadians and not permitted to penalize them with a fine of $300,000. because they have produced wealth to the value of $575,000.00
Not one cent of the $300,000 pays for a brick or a plank of the edifice. It is nothing but tribute levied by an absurd financial system which plunges the people into debt when it produces instead of sitting around doing nothing.
The mayor of Arvida, Mr. George Hébert says:
"I am sure that the element of the Union of Electors which is moderate and realistic, is in favor of the town hall and that it realizes the impossibility of borrowing without paying interest. That is what each of them has had to do in the case of their own homes."
Mr. Mayor, both the so-called extremists and the so-called moderates of the Union of Electors are in favor of the town hall.
But do not say that it is "impossible to borrow money without paying interest; rather let us say that financiers will not lend money without interest. A loan without interest is not, in itself, an impossibility. I can make a loan without charging interest and I do not violate any moral or natural law.
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Why can money not be obtained without charging interest? Is it for fear of inflation?
Money from the Bank of Canada without interest will no more create inflation than will the money which comes complete with a heavy interest rate from those who traffic in society's credit. Whether the $575,000 comes from one or other, it is the same amount put into circulation. If it is agreed to pay the $575,000 back in twenty years, the money will be in circulation that long regardless of from which source it came and to which it will return. But to return $300,000. more than was issued is to bleed the public in order to fatten the purses and strengthen the power of those who traffic in dollars.
These traffickers know very well that money is only the symbol of society's credit, of its capacity to produce, and that if the country produced nothing, their dollars would be worthless.
Then why, we ask again, why should the people, who are the real owners of this credit, be obliged to make a gift of $300,000 to those book-keepers who have arrogated to themselves the control of money, retaining it or letting it out as they wish under their own conditions as if it were their property?
Mayor Hébert, if he were to see the matter in its reality, would find it very difficult to justify this addition of $300,000 to the $575,000 which is the cost of the projected town hall. But even if he did object to it, would this declaration be as forcibly made as was the statement he previously made:
"We must go along with the existing financial system."
It is because all the administrators support this "must", that the financiers are able to steal the credit from the people and then lend it back to the people with an interest charge tacked on.
Mayor Hébert should at least take the trouble to protest when he feels himself obliged to submit to such a system.
Social Crediters, who are ordinary citizens, do so. And they protest very vigorously. They also are obliged to submit to a system of which they do not approve. But they do not take it lying down. They make their protest heard. But Mayor Hébert, instead of joining his protest to theirs, denounces their protest. And it is in this that he is wrong, in protecting the system instead of trying to liberate its victims.
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The day when all, or a good part, of the municipal councils will join the Crediters in raising a protest, that day the monopoly of credit by the money masters will be much closer to its end. Those who administer the affairs of the people will then be able to foresee the day when they will not have to carry out the plans of these robbers in despoiling the people of $300,000 more than the value of the wealth obtained by the people.
So, Mr. Mayor, praise the Crediters' of Arvida, praise them for denouncing the tribute imposed upon the people of your city by the financial dictators. Do this at last, if you haven't the nerve to join them in their protest. Instead of blaming those who are striving to free municipal councils from the financial straitjacket, tell them, in a loud voice, that they are right; wish them victory. This would be much more honorable than to indicate, by declaring yourself well satisfied, that you are the instrument of a tyranny which uses you to mortage the property of those you were elected to serve.
As long as this building stands, if it is erected under the conditions which you propose, your fellow citizens of today and their descendants will be able to say: "This building represents $575,000 worth of material and work produced by the people of this country, some working to erect it, others laboring to supply the needs of those who work on it. But this building also represents a theft of $300,000 dollars, a theft carried out by those who control the credit of society. And this theft has been carried on for twenty years through the instrumentality of our town, a theft carried out by those who control the credit of council — George Hébert being the mayor of the people to allow themselves to be robbed of this $300,000."
This is no fantasy, Mr. Mayor. For, note well, sir, that in Arvida, as elsewhere, the number of those citizens who know perfectly well that they are being robbed and who understand the technique of this robbery, is growing steadily every day.
(Translated by EARL MASSECAR)
It might well be asked "For what purpose does the Communist party — the Dictatorship of the Proletariat — desire to keep all men forever employed?
There are several answers, each linked to the other, and carrying the same idea a little further:
A wage system is perhaps the best way of keeping men in subjection, and full employment is a necessity of the wage system.
The ability to direct men's lives is the ultimate object of power; the dependence of all men upon employment for their livelihood, gives complete power to the directors.
The power of the tyrant depends upon his subjects being kept as a collectivity, uniformly educated, illinformed, and fully controlled in all their activities.
Thought, meditation, art, in fact all the things by which a man develops his personality and emerges into the full stature of a unique person, an individual broken free from the Collectivity, are the fruits of leisure. If men can be kept employed throughout all their waking hours, like cows in a field, it is probable that they will remain forever a herd, and the party will be left in the enjoyment of power.
Anthony COONEY
(in a letter to The Distributist, England.)