Here are excerpts from the address delivered by Mr. Bill Daly of New Zealand at our Congress in Rougemont last September:
Ladies and Gentlemen, friends in Truth, Our Lord Jesus Christ and Social Credit, it is a great pleasure to be here, especially on this honourable occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the death of the founder of this movement Mr. Louis Even.
Like in Canada and Australia an interest in Social Credit began in New Zealand during the 1920's but it was the severe credit restrictions after 1929 that made it then the most popular of all movements. During this time there were Social Credit study and action groups all over New Zealand.
There were many Social Credit publications and the movement had the support of some influential people. There was particularly strong support among farming people. Clifford Douglas visited New Zealand in 1934 as part of his world tour and addressed very large audiences in several locations.
In Auckland, our largest city, Douglas spoke in the town hall. Sound systems were put outside as the huge crowd could not all fit into the hall. While in New Zealand Douglas gave evidence to the Government's Royal Commission on Agriculture and was extensively questioned and praised for his advice and great knowledge of economics and finance.
Later in Britain Douglas wrote an article saying he felt New Zealand would be the country most likely to first apply Social Credit monetary principles. He thought this might happen because we were a smaller nation with considerable natural resources, were geographically far removed from the main centres of world power, and unlike Alberta and British Colombia, the Government had complete sovereignty if it choose to apply it.
This did not happen. At least not yet. In 1935 a new party, the Labour Party was elected. They had campaigned also among Social Credit supporters and promised to adopt some Social Credit suggestions. They did not do this except that they copied some Social Credit ideas but these were distorted by the Socialists in the Party.
That first Labour Government did make extensive use of Reserve Bank credit. Many millions of pounds were created from public works schemes such as building hydro power stations, new roads and bridges and for constructing thousands of houses. Instead of families owning these homes as their own they rented from the State. Later, for some years, low interest loans were made available to families to purchase or build their own homes. Much farm debt was cancelled in the 1930s and for several decades municipal governments and primary producer boards had access to overdraft facilities at the Reserve Bank at 1 percent interest.
While this benefited people it also helped neutralise and forstall the implementation of real Social Credit. A serious further impediment to Social Credit was the establishment in 1951 of a "Socia! Credit Political Party" so that for a long time anyone claiming to be a Social Crediter was assumed to be a party supporter.
While many party supporters were well intentioned gradually the party abandoned most of the objectives of Social Credit and nothing was done to advance Social Credit when some party members were elected to Parliament.
This has been a serious hinderance but now the party is almost gone and no longer uses the name Social Credit. Of course there has always been a small Social Credit movement outside of the party which has distributed books by Douglas and other writers and often played a role in various other campaigns such as opposition to the amalgamation of our local bodies in the 1980s and for supporting adoption of the system of binding citizens initiated referenda.
Today we also have valuable educational work being done by The Social Credit School of Studies, headed in New Zealand by my friend Mr Henry Raynel and in Australia by Mr Vic Bridger.
At the age of 18 I had the great fortune to be introduced to Social Credit by a man who had been in and outside of the party system and he gave me good guidance. For me it was in the reading of Douglas that Christianity took on a whole new and deeper meaning - that it had a practical relevance to everything that relates us to our practical world.
I love the suggestion that Douglas gives: that Christianity is either part of the warp and woof (the fabric) of the universe or else it is only another set of ideas which we are free to accept or reject like any other set of ideas. Douglas elsewhere also observed that after formulating his proposals for advancing individual freedom and security that it could be seen to be based on the Christian view of the person. (...)
Less than 100 years ago Douglas, a practical mechanical and electrical engineer of wide experience, gave an ignorant world a wonderful new insight into economics, finance, credit and money. All of Douglas's works encourage us to apply proper, well-established scientific principles to credit and money.
The world has not yet learnt to do this but the ever-deepening problems facing people everywhere are an encouragement for more people - whenever they are open to truth - to realise that we must eliminate from our minds all the theories, myths and false worshipping we apply to money.
Money is an abstractionism; the money system is amongst other things a system of measurement, really no different in principle than our systems of weights and measures. Just as the system of weights and measures can be applied with precision, so too can the system of financial credit.
Of course the credit system is presently administered with at least technical precision - but with the wrong objective, an anti-human objective.
Social Credit is a revelation of a great Truth. A Social Crediter is not interested in only "reforming" the money system. A Social Crediter completely accepts the truth that we can fix or rectify the man-made financial credit system.
A Social Crediter looks at the present money system in the same way a structural engineer looks at a steel bridge that is nearly falling down and is dangerous to cross.
The engineer does not theorise about how to repair the bridge. He does not consult a committee of amateurs concerning technical engineering matters.
No, the engineer gets out his drawing board. He precisely measures the bridge. He measures each span. Using well-established principles about metallurgy and stresses, and the weights of vehicles expected to cross the bridge, the engineer is able precisely to discover how strong each span and leg must be. He can then work out precisely how the bridge can be repaired and strengthened. In exactly the same way ships and aircraft and door hinges are constructed.
This was how Douglas approached the money system. The revelation of Social Credit immediately sweaps away all the theories, misconceptions and mumbojumbo of the economic witch doctors.
From Douglas' revelation an entire Social Credit movement grew but also a fierce opposition because by correcting the debt money system the world will be freeing itself from the greatest monopoly which has ever existed.
And nearly every individual in the world must free themselves from the worship of this abstractionism we call money, and perhaps this is where the biggest battle for us is still to be fought.
This is why we can be so inspired by the extensive world-wide educational work of the Pilgrims of St Michael and other Social Credit groups and the great helpers who are being recruited on every continent.
The idea that small local credit schemes can be started in all parts of the world, particularly beginning in the worst impoverished areas, is not strictly part of conventional Social Credit thinking and action, but they are methods that can achieve at least three valuable objectives:
1. They can provide immediate relief to people
2. They will provide practical educational benefit concerning money and credit
3. They will give us practical experience in credit management.
The Christian belief in a living, personal God, means we see the world in dynamic terms. This means we can never know in advance all the results of our efforts, nor foretell what events are around the corner. Nor do we know in advance just where we will find allies in the battle for Social Credit.
I recall in the 1990s what a great inspiration it was when the Anglo-French businessman, the late Sir James Goldsmith, used his influence and wealth to warn the people of Britain, France, Poland and elsewhere against the new world order and globalisation. I recommend his book The Trap, published in French and English.
He has a brilliantly concise explanation of why orthodox economics is stupid and destructive. He explains that according to orthodox thinking, if a country has a natural disaster and money must be spent to fix this, then economists at the end of the year will say "we are richer because the gross national product has increased."
The great Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his book Rebuilding Russia suggesting that a reconstructed Russia must include local banking facilities in all towns.
And I do not think too that we should ignore those Muslims who in their own countries and communities are involved with various attempts at financial reform.
In this way the advancing of Social Credit will be accompanied by the spreading of Christian love, goodwill, mutual help and learning, love of truth, and true universialism, which is the original meaning of Catholic.
Bill Daly
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