Ratepayers Loath to Paying Cost Twice

The city of Hull, in the Province of Quebec, wants to borrow $375,000 for public works. The proposed loan was laid before a special meeting of the property owners on January 15. A referendum was demanded by 63 property owners — a sufficient number to make it mandatory. The mayor, the deputy-mayor and the contractor involved expressed bitter disappointment at this turn of events since, according to them, it would delay the work which was intended to relieve unemployment.

WHY THE OPPOSITION?

Now, the 63 were well aware of the critical unemployment situation in the Hull area. Why, then, did they demand a referendum?

We do not know whether any and how many of this group were Social Crediters. The newspapers reported "a number of Crediters' among the 63. If so, the opposition of these Crediters to the loan is quite in keeping with their convictions. Social Crediters fight, everywhere and always, against the system which drives a country into debt in the measure that it produces real wealth; against the system which penalizes a country that produces by obliging it to pay large sums, in addition to the actual cost of the works, merely for permission to engage in the work of production.

No Social Crediter would ever oppose the construction of water works, sidewalks, etc.; as long as they were necessary and feasible. But they are adamantly opposed to the idea that the people should pay some: $700,000 for work that costs only $375,000.

Today's borrowing begets tomorrow's taxes. Borrowing brings in money, repayment takes away money. But there is little balance between what comes in and what goes out.

The city undertakes to borrow $375,000, and it gets no more — even less, the $100 bond being sold for $94 and $96, according to series. But when the city starts making repayments it must tack on the interest. And this interest, spread out over 30 years, adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, none of which accompanied the original loan into the city treasury.

So it is with any loan, public or private; the borrower must repay more money than has been put into circulation. The result — public bodies and corporations are burdened with unpayable debts.

If Hull, like other cities, is unable to pay off its existing debts even by saturating the people with taxes, how can it hope to be in a better position to do so by adding still further to these debts?

Such "financing" only makes public corporations — and with them, families and individuals — the slaves of the financial overlords.

Production springs from the exploitation of a country's resources — its raw materials, its machinery, its sources of power, its men. Take away these resources and production becomes an impossibility.

But take away the financiers of all description, the productive capacity of a country remains unchanged. It might well be that financiers being done away with, men would only be readier to adopt a system in harmony with reality. If society had to begin anew, who would dream of instituting a system which engenders nothing but debts and hampers real progress — as does the present system?

Some will not understand this though it is elementary as two and two make four. But Social Crediters understand it. It is their duty, their task, to stand up and combat any activity which may tend to strengthen this dark empire.

BUT THE UNEMPLOYMENT...!

It could be that both the mayor and deputy-mayor of Hull were sincere in deploring any delay in the launching of the public works project.

Perhaps even the distress of the contractor at the delay stemmed from his real concern for the unemployed rather than from the anguish at seeing his profits held up.

Social Crediters are just as sensitive as anyone else to the hardships occasioned by unemployment. But they also know what is the true cause of unemployment and its resultant evils. For twenty years they have been trying to focus the eyes of the people on the root of these evils. Are they, then, out of pity for its victims, to desist from their attempts to destroy this root and allow it to take a firmer grip on society?

Social Crediters are not such simpletons as to accept the principle that, when so many lie in the ditch of poverty and privation, the entire population should hand over vast sums to those who have flung them there. There are more practical ways of getting people out of this ditch of unemployment.

Is unemployment due to a scarcity of products? Or isn't it rather due to a glut of goods which results in these people being deprived of work?

Does unemployment empty our grain elevators? Then why cut down on the bread destined for the tables of the hungry?

These questions may sound naive, even funny, to those who know nothing beyond the existing financial system. But they are logical questions. If they seem strange perhaps it is because the system, so long unquestionably accepted, they question is basically illogical.

GO TO THE BANK OF CANADA

However, if we must have the unemployed digging sewer ditches in order that they may have the bread sitting on the bakery shelves, then let the Bank of Canada advance Hull the $375,000 with no other obligation than that it should repay, in the course of time, the $375,000 — but not a cent more! This would convert the release of money from a "traffic" to a "service". After all, wasn't the Bank of Canada established to serve Canadians? Surely it wasn't intended only to lead them into poverty in the face of their tremendous capacity to produce; to condemn them to the rapacious maws of the money sharks as the condition of using this capacity to produce?

No one is more anxious than Social Crediters to find some solution to the country's problems. But they want no solution that merely aggravates these troubles. Nor have they the right to give up the struggle against the cause of these troubles since they are the only ones waging it. So let us not ask them to capitulate at such a time merely to accommodate those who have never done anything else but surrender.