Library

THE BIG IDEA
by

C.H. DOUGLAS

VERITAS PUBLISHING COMPANY PTY. LTD.

ISBN 088636 000 5

Copyright © C.M. Douglas/Donald and Jane Martin
First Printing, 1942
Second Printing, 1983
ISBN 088636 000 5
Printed and Published by Veritas Publishing Company Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 20, Bullsbrook, Western Australia, 6084. AUSTRALIA
In association with:
Veritas Publishing Company, (A Division of Veritas Holdings Limited) P.O. Box 67555, Station "O", Vancouver, B.C., CANADA V5W 3V1
Veritas Publishing Company Pty. Ltd., Box 4389, Auckland, NEW ZEALAND.
Bloomfield Books, 26 Meadow Lane, Sudbury, Suffolk, ENGLAND, COl0 6TD
Dolphin Press (Pty.) Ltd., Box 1564, Krugersdorp, Transvaal 1740, SOUTH AFRICA.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the permission of the copyright-holder, excepting brief quotes used in connection with reviews written specially for inclusion in a magazine or newspaper.

Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................... 1
Chapter II .........................................................................................4
Chapter III ........................................................................................8
Chapter IV ......................................................................................12
Chapter V .......................................................................................15
Chapter VI ......................................................................................19
Chapter VII .....................................................................................23
Chapter VIII ....................................................................................28
Chapter IX ......................................................................................32
Chapter X ........................................................................................40
Chapter XI ......................................................................................43
Chapter XII .....................................................................................47
Chapter XII .....................................................................................52
Chapter XIV ...................................................................................56
Chapter XV .....................................................................................60
Chapter XVI ....................................................................................63
Chapter XVII ..................................................................................66
Chapter XVIII .................................................................................69
About the Author ............................................................................71

iii

INTRODUCTION
Written in 1941, the events to which reference is made in this work of the late Major C.H. Douglas are prior to that date. Subsequent events have merely confirmed the facts exposed in these pages that The Big Idea is a deeply rooted conspiracy, Satanic in conception and nature, for the destruction of what once promised to be a developing Christian Civilisation, and the enslavement of mankind under a ruthless dictatorship. It is, therefore, not surprising that this attack should have as its focus the Christian Church, Christian doctrine and Christian influence in human affairs, and that it should emanate from traditional anti-Christian sources.

The substance of the challenge posed by The Big Idea can be summed up in the following brief extract in its pages:

There is, I think, one safe rule to apply to all Schemes, Plots, and Plans. It is, I believe, called the Golden Rule, and it is not new. Disregard all the fine phrases. Disregard all appeals to your "Public Spirit". Don't bother about Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Don't waste time trying to find out who the Proletariat are going to dictate to, when we're all propertyless, and so all Proletariat. Merely enquire "What are you going to do to me, and how do I stop you if I don't like it? Can I kick your inspectors and your Ogpu- Gestapo and your Kommissars out of my (excuse me, my mistake, the proletariat's) house, or can they kick me? If I believe that it isn't my business to spend the rest of my life making tractors for China, and say so, do I get my coupons, or don't I? In the bad old days, to quite a considerable extent, I did. I should have been just like everyone else in that respect, only the coupon merchants (who seem to have names suspiciously similar to the Planned Utopians) said that what they called a reserve of labour, and other people called them unemployed, must be available and so couldn't have any v coupons". If you ask the Utopian this kind of question, you will discover an interesting fact – that one of the biggest parts of the Big Idea is the indispensability and invulnerability of the Ogpu. Or call it the Gestapo or the G-men. Or the "snoopers". We don't hear much about the Ogpu nowadays, but, like Benjamin Cohen of the U.S.A., it's there. And so we come to the core of the matter – it isn't the scheme that matters – that's just to keep you quiet, like Mackenzie King's cry of "Hands off Alberta". It's the sanctions that matter. You think the World State would be governed by Saints? Remember the wise Lord Acton, "Absolute Power corrupts absolutely".

L. D. Bryne, OBE
Victoria, British Columbia,
Canada. January, 1982.

vi

Chapter I

Now that Haiti and Costa Rica have declared their unalterable determination to fight until V-Victory is assured, it is perhaps possible, and permissible, to consider how we may recognise it when we see it. So far, this has clearly been inadvisable. Haiti and Costa Rica, while enthusiastically applauding war as a spectacle, have shown a marked preference for ringside seats, and there is, even now, a strong feeling amongst their populations that this cutting of the ropes and mauling of the "fans", to use the language of the latest belligerents, is not the treatment they had a right to expect, or for which they had bargained.

But it is one of those attributes of war, which make it so popular in the highest circles, that once you have the populations bombing and drowning each other, and in a fair way to famine and pestilence, it doesn't matter what you say caused it, or what would end it except stopping fighting. No properly brought up people ever do that until they have effectively smashed up the furniture, and made it impossible to talk of "poverty amidst plenty" for a long time. "He that will not work, neither shall he eat", is restored to that eminence from which there were dangerous signs, only a few short years ago, that it would be deposed permanently. Already, the scarcity psychology is fully re-established. Everyone has a tendency to eat too much.

Dr. Arnold Toynbee, Secretary of The Royal Institute of International Affairs ("Chatham House"), in a speech which has often been quoted, remarked that the surest sign that he and others were engaged in what could be paraphrased as treasonable activities was that they strenuously denied it. I feel sure that this technique is widespread. It was explained at some length in

1

Spanish Arena, together with other curious matters. So that what little has been said of the goal of V- Victory is not really reliable evidence that we shall recognise the goal when we stop fighting.

I have said many times, and take pleasure in repeating, that the Germans are, and have been for generations, a godsend to warmakers, and a pest to Europe. The opinions of Lord Vansittart ad hoc, convey to me the impression of being the pronouncements of a competent, trained and experienced expert, and while he has expressly repudiated a "plan" for dealing with Germany and the Germans, I imagine that he could formulate one, and that it would be effective for some time to come – when we are in a position to put it into practice, as we were in 1918, and didn't.

But to agree with all this, and to admit that we have been manoeuvred, or have got ourselves, into a position in which we have to fight a long devastating, and completely unnecessary war to some kind of a finish which will enable Lord Vansittart, say, to embody his views, is one thing, and to say, "It's all that ------ Hitler", or even, "those b----y Huns", is quite another. This war is too entirely convenient to plenty of people who don't intend to fight in it, for that to be much of an idea, although it is earnestly desired that the general public should accept it. To what extent the Germans, for their part, have allowed themselves to be manoeuvred into the position of the "goat", is their business.

If you see a man undress on the bank of a river, and plunge in, and you are sufficiently interested to wonder why he did it, you can form three hypotheses:

(a) He wants to commit suicide
(b) He wants to get to the other side
(c) He likes swimming.

You do not say, "This is astounding. No one ever did anything like this before. I can only assume that he wants to catch the 9:15 train to his office." Which is about the level of intelligence required to accept the theory that if it hadn't been for Hitler, the world would be an example of Great Men serving

2

Noble Ends.
There is perhaps no more convincing single piece of evidence in regard to the existence of conscious, evil, forces energising a continuous policy, than the strenuous and skilful endeavour to present a picture of events and of history, as purely episodic. History is crystallised Politics, not disconnected episodes. Where it is possible to identify a continuous organisation, it is safe to postulate a continuous policy, and as every policy besides having a philosophy, has an appropriate mechanism, or form of organisation, it is also safe to conclude that similar mechanisms have similar policies and philosophies, even if one calls itself National Socialism, a second, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and a third, the New Deal.

At once, I feel sure that some reader will protest, "Are not Haiti and Costa Rica, those great New Deal countries of the West, joined with Britain (once-great)* and our Russian Allies in the struggle to destroy for ever the Nahzee tyranny?" To which, the answer is, in Costa Rica, "Yep".

At this stage, it is, I think, desirable to consider the meaning which could be attached to the remark attributed to the Archbishop of Canterbury nine or ten years ago, that it might take another great war to bring about those changes which were necessary in the world.
*Senator Pitman, Chairman of the United States Foreign Relations Committee, commenting on Munich in 1938.

3

Chapter II

It should be observed that the Archbishop did not specify a war against Germany. Another great war would do. Clearly, it was something proceeding from war in itself which, to him, seemed an indispensable ingredient of the sort of New World he contemplated.
Now, I do not suppose that the Archbishop of Canterbury, in spite of his obvious Calvinism, and its consequent Old Testament philosophy, has achieved such an Olympian detachment from the sufferings of humanity during his numerous holidays as the guest of Mr. Pierpont Morgan that he really contemplated as desirable the scenes from Inferno typified by Rotterdam, London, and Coventry. But I cannot see that he could mean anything but the idea covered by the remark of Planning, the journal of PEP (Chairman Israel Moses Sieff), that "only in war, or under the threat of war, will a British Government embark on large-scale 'Planning'." And I think that it is important to consider how this relationship between the Planned Economy of Russia, Germany and the Costa Rican New Deal, and the contemplation of a World War on the one hand, and the reluctance of the British Government to adopt this policy, while making, with certain important reservations, genuine efforts to avoid war, on the other hand, affects the real, though not specified, Peace Aims.

I am going to suggest, and I believe that it is quite easy to prove, that Britain was the only great power which wanted peace and the only factor which prevented Britain from remaining at peace, and still further, maintaining peace in Europe, was the domination of the Government by international Finance and its tools, notably the "Labour" or Socialist Party.

4

And that it was exactly this domination of Britain which, by wrecking individual initiative, provided a spurious justification for "Nationalisation", now called "Planning". The objective was, of course, as in Russia and Germany, monopoly, miscalled Socialism. Once we accept the proposition that Britain is an obstacle to world monopoly, we can understand why the "Labour" Party first pressed for disarmament and then for war.

I do not think that it is a coincidence that both in Socialistic Germany and Socialistic Russia there were, and are, two features in common. One is steady and continuous preparation for war. And the other is scorn of Christianity, two at any rate of whose principles are that individuals are more important than institutions, and that the end never justifies the means.

Men make no mistake when they say that this is an ideological war. It is the war of the Old Testament against the New Testament, of Anti-Christ against Christ. This is not apocalyptic raving – it is not even, in the ordinary sense, religion. It will not be featured prominently in the calls to prayer of the "B"BC. It is merely a statement of the trinity of philosophy, policy, and mechanism, brought into the present tense – that two philosophies and two policies, those of world dominion and the materialistic Messiah, on the one hand, and individual freedom on the other, are now at death grips. Anyone who cannot see that Judaism and Christianity have come out of the Synagogues and the Churches into the Banks, the Masonic Lodges, the Cabinets and the workshops, has little to contribute to the direction of victory and still less likelihood of recognising it when it arrives. He will not be greatly assisted by the pronouncements of the Archbishops.

To say that the stark issue is abstractions versus realities would of course leave much unsaid. But the Satani c use which has been made of such meaningless phrases as "public ownership and control" is an important feature in the struggle. How can a bloodless abstraction called "the public", having neither position or dimension in time or space, own, still less control, anything? Yet the second largest political party in once-great Britain, the chosen tool of international Finance and intrigue, has largely

5

been built up on blah of this description.

The simple fact is, of course, that the word "ownership" is itself largely meaningless. Except as a legal fiction, you do not "own" anything you do not control, and the object of the drive for "public ownership" is, as in Russia and Germany, to take away individual control and freedom and to centralise power in the hands of a new Ruling Caste. Old Testament moralistic abstractions are perhaps the most powerful agency to this end because they appeal to the lowest mob instincts, and they are not less identifiable when they masquerade under such vestures as "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité." Consider the state of France.

Although the fact is a little obscured at the moment, the human individual is the highest manifestation of divine attributes with which we are in day-to-day contact. What differentiates him from the lower orders, when he is different, is his initiative – the fact that he manoeuvres under his own steam. I am confident that there is an organised attempt to drive him down the scale of existence, so that he becomes primarily a number on a card index, by taking away as far as possible any recognisable initiative, his potentially divine attribute. The present war, and the obliteration of nationalities, the talk of Federal Unions and the United States of Europe, a purely Masonic conception, are all directed to that end. That is to say, war provides the opportunity, perhaps the necessity, for conditions of existence in which the individual is wholly at the mercy of institutions, and those institutions are ultimately controlled by an international junta.

To say that the present crisis is adventitious – that it "just happened" and that everyone did their best to avoid it, seems to me to be merely perverse.

The part of Germany has been sufficiently publicised. Everyone knows that the strenuous efforts (with reservations) of Mr. Chamberlain, who went to lengths never before approached by a British Prime Minister in "appeasement", were greeted with howls of fury not only by the British Socialist Party but by the Costa Rican press urging us to commit suicide, and were finally and irrevocably defeated by the treaty of non-aggression

6

between Mr. Stalin, who had said that he wanted war, and Germany. (Please note that I do not say "between Germany and Russia" – I do not believe that, politically, there is such a place, though there may be later on).

The major strategy was simple, if grandiose. You bring about a state of affairs in which International Finance controls trade, industry, and distribution, and would have no check on its extortions but for private enterprise. You bring about, as in 1928, major depressions and crises, and when you have intolerable conditions, as in Germany and the Distressed (Pardon me, Special) Areas, you say nothing can be done about it because there's no money.

When these conditions inevitably bring about war, you say War is the major evil of the world and comes from "private enterprise"; you spend eleven million pounds a day in pure destruction when you were unable to spend eleven million pounds a month for constructive purposes; and you set every available type of propaganda to work to advocate that the affairs of the whole world shall be finally and irrevocably handed over to a monopoly of the powers operating through finance and subterranean intrigue, so that effective revolt becomes forever impossible.
It is, of course, the convenient fashion to say, "Yes, yes, but that is all past history – we must forget all about that, and work for the future". There is no such thing as past history. Only by being quite certain what has happened, not merely what we are told happened, can we understand what can happen. Or to put it another way, only by knowing and understanding what and who caused the war, can we understand how to win the war.

7

Chapter III

I think that there are two simple concepts which it is essential to grasp in considering the nature of the conspiracy against the individual. The first is that bureaucratic Socialism is probably the most inefficient method of conducting an economic system which has ever been devised. The second is, that a reasonably efficient economic system, such as Laisser Faire combined with a sane financial system, would make "employment" ineffective as a means of Government. Having thoroughly grasped these ideas, it is well to remind oneself that wisdom was not born with us, and is unlikely to die with us. In other words, others have grasped these simple facts, probably some time ago.

From the purely economic point of view as distinct from the destruction of war, efficiency of the scientific management type is completely unnecessary. There is no necessity for cut-throat competition, and it is not "natural". There is no genuine scarcity which is not consciously produced, and I am beginning to disbelieve in the idea that there ever was any genuine unavoidable scarcity.

What is quite clear is that every advance in productive capacity with diminishing human labour effort, has been nullified, and even more than nullified, so that economic life is less secure, and, in relation to possibilities, less widely civilised, than it was five hundred years ago. And that this situation has been used with Satanic cleverness to transfer more and more power to those who have caused it.

Socialism, or to give it its correct name, Monopoly, is not a production system, which is exactly what one would expect from its origins. That this is a simple statement of fact is being

8

demonstrated in this country at the moment. It is a legalistic system based on a power complex supported by a set of abstract slogans which its policies and results contradict, where these have any concrete meaning. The idea so skilfully inculcated that confiscation of property will assist in the distribution of wealth is, of course, completely without foundation. Socialism is a restriction system, as any examination of Socialistic practice in the Trade Unions will confirm, and it has two well defined fundamental principles – centralisation of power, both economic and political, and espionage.

That is to say, every advance towards Socialism is an advance towards the Police State. Five minutes' attention to the increase in the number of licenses he now requires in this country (which even yet is less completely enslaved than Russia and Germany) and anyone can see that for himself. And if anyone supposes that the licensing system is purely a war expedient, then I can only envy his optimism.

Now, it is commonly supposed by those who have not devoted much attention to the subject that the German-Jew, Karl Marx, is the father of modern Socialism. This is incorrect. There is not a single original idea in Marx. "He found everything that his system contains in the British Museum. His Communism was that of Babeuf, his theory of wage slavery was current during the French Revolution, his idea of the class war had originated with Weishaupt, the Illuminist, his theory that labour produces all wealth had been formulated by Robert Owen and the Chartists, his theory of surplus value had also been proclaimed by the Chartists". (Nesta H. Webster – World Revolution).

What is much more important is that at the time that Marx was practically living in the British Museum, supported by the German Engels (who had made an immense fortune by exploiting Lancashire child labour), the whole country was ringing with attacks on the financial system, Cobbett was attacking the Bank of "England" and the Jews, Atwood was writing on currency, and the disorganisation and distress which culminated in the "Hungry Forties" were only kept from assuming the proportions

9

of a panic, by the employment provided by railway and canal development on privately subscribed funds. There is not a word about the dominant position and responsibility of finance, to be found in Marx, and Socialism has attacked every form of property, and at this moment is attacking every form of property, except that which is the monopoly of the international financier, and has steadfastly refused to have anything to do with financial reform. Practically everyone of the theories which Marx had welded into the Communist Manifesto had been tried out experimentally and all, with the exception of the Co-Operative Movement, which is mainly the child of Robert Owen, whose psychology was correct, had failed completely. Had, of course, the Co-Operative Movement obtained control of its own credit, which it never did, and never tried to do, it would inevitably have developed into a completely successful social and economic system.

By 1848, Socialism, as it had been attempted, was dead. "It is evident that at that date, some pact was formed between German Imperialism and the Jews of Germany ... Socialism, a derelict concern, was now taken over by a Company. That Company was the German-Jewish band of 'Social Democrats'." (Nesta H. Webster – World Revolution). Bismarck, it will be remembered, speaking of these people thirty years afterwards, said, "we march separately, but we fight together". This statement seems to close any discussion as to the relation between Marxian Socialism and the constant state of war and threat of war which has been existent since the inception of the Bismarckian Reich.
Now, the policy of the Bismarckian Reich was the policy of Anacharsis Clootz the Freemason, and the same policy which "Hitler" is pursuing at this moment – the United States of Europe, dominated by Germany; and the monopolistic trust, first developed in Germany, and controlled by a great Bank of the type which the Bank of "England" has now become, was the perfect complement to the propaganda of the Social Democrats. The Jews at the head of the Deutche Bank, the Dresdner Bank, and the Disconto Gesellschaft were in constant contact with the

10

German Socialists, and regarded them simply as part of the bureaucratic organisation of European States otherwise insulated from German-Jewish influence.

To what extent Marxian Socialism was a genuine workers' movement, or had as its object the real good of the underprivileged can be gathered from his published correspondence, in which he refers to the French as "Parisian chatterboxes" and to "the English Trades Union schweinhunde" (pig- dogs). Marx worked for Bismarck, tried to paralyse the resistance of the French to Prussia before 1870, just as the Socialist movement in Great Britain has worked for the fifteen years from 1920 to 1935 to make a German victory certain, and was stated to have received £10,000 from Bismarck for his services, and did not deny it.

His gratitude to this country for having sheltered him can be gathered from his message to the Internationale in 1870; "The English are incapable of making a socialist revolution, therefore foreigners must make it for them. The point to strike at first, is Ireland, and in Ireland they are ready to begin their work."

Events, however, were against Pan-Germanism and the bureaucratic State. The latter half of the nineteenth century saw the tremendous rise in the power of the British Empire, and the comparative prosperity of a mercantilist system during a period of rapid expansion. Socialism languished.

The United States of America began to come into the picture, and the Big Idea had to ensure that there was no complication from that quarter. William Jennings Bryan and his bi-metallist campaign were more menacing to the money-power than anything in Europe, and Max and Paul Warburg left the inner circles of German-Jewish finance in the flesh only, to become "Americans".

11

Chapter IV

The Free Silver Campaign of William Jennings Bryan ("The coinage of silver on demand to a ratio of sixteen to one") forms a curious chapter both in United States history and that of monetary agitation. It was unsound in principle, being, in the genuine sense, currency inflation not differing very fundamentally from a bank-note printing scheme. The late Arthur Kitson, who took an active part in it, was in the habit of observing that not one in a thousand of the millions who supported it, understood it, and the man who understood it least was William Jennings Bryan.

But Bryan, known as the "silver-tongued orator", was a spellbinder of the first rank, and in his final campaign in 1907 his speeches raised his nation-wide audiences to a condition of emotional hysteria which was of much greater value to a candidate for the Presidency than mere intellectual conviction. His famous phrase, "You shall not crucify Mankind upon a cross of gold", is still current.

The bankers reacted to the threat of interference in the usual way. They called in overdrafts, ran a press campaign which prophesied blue ruin, and finally engineered a major business panic and depression, the repercussions of which were felt all over the world. Bryan was defeated by a nonentity, Taft, in the Presidential Election, by a narrow majority, after a Primary Poll which excelled all records of intimidation and corruption. Bi-metallism was practically never heard of again.

The political atmosphere which existed after the defeat of the Free Silver agitation was so uniquely favourable to the schemes of the Warburgs that it is almost permissible to wonder whether Bryan was not an unconscious tool of international

12

Finance. In any case there is a warning contained in its sequel which those monetary reformers to whom technical soundness is secondary, might well take to heart. As my experience grows, I am increasingly confident that one, at least, of the key words leading to an understanding of the conscious Evil Forces in this world, is "perversion". The matter is so important that I propose to revert to it at a later stage of the argument.
In working for the monopoly of credit, the Warburgs took the line with the general public, of course without appearing directly, that although Bryan was wrong, banking reform was necessary to "strengthen" the banking system against such shocks as it had just sustained. To the country bankers, little more than pawnbrokers, it was insinuated that unless they were able to increase the volume of their loans, some crack-brained scheme such as they had just escaped would "provide the people with money" and so menace their monopoly. It took about five years of skilful propaganda backed by unlimited funds and the full influence of Masonic Lodges; but the result was the Federal Reserve Board, with practically complete control over the U.S. monetary system, and Warburg at its head – just in time for the War. Or possibly the War awaited its consumation.

In order to understand this series of events in proper perspective, and to account for the emigration of two immensely wealthy and successful German-Jews, closely in touch with the Kaiser, from Hamburg to Chicago and New York, two facts must be grasped. The first is that Great Britain, or at any rate the "City of London", was a very large creditor both of the United States and Russia, and, in consequence, in a position to make representations upon foreign policy to both of them as well as being interested in constantly improving relations with her debtors.
And the second fact is that war with Great Britain was a settled policy of those who controlled Germany, for at least fifteen years before a shot was fired, a possibly for much longer. I speak of what I know.

In the early Spring of 1899, I crossed from New York to London on a fourteen-knot one-class steamer, the S.S.

13

Menominee, of the Atlantic Transport Line. As we were leaving Sandy Hook, we were passed by the crack Hamburg-Amerika Liner, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse steaming at twenty-four knots, flags flying, band playing. One of the Menominee's officers observed, "Those fellows tell everyone they're going to drive the British off the seas". The Hamburg-Amerika Line was controlled by Ballin, the Kaiser's Jewish adviser.
I had not many fellow-passengers, and only one of about my own age and general interest – a young German Baron, von Perucher, whom one would have expected to be travelling on the German boat. He was a diplomatist, and was returning home from Brazil to the German Foreign Office. During the ten days of the voyage we saw a great deal of each other, and on one occasion I repeated the remark of the ship's officer, no doubt in the light of a good joke. He said, very seriously, "It is sad, but war between Germany and England is inevitable – there is not room for both of us. England has passed her apex, and the future is with Germany".

In the light of this policy, it was obviously most important, firstly to minimise the importance of Great Britain's creditor position, and to paralyse Russia, the ever-present threat to Germany's Eastern flank. By virtue of the commanding position over American credit in which Warburg stood at the outbreak of war in 1914, the United States were a serious handicap to the Allies until Jewish influence and bribery brought about the downfall of the Russian Empire and the withdrawal of the potentially irresistible Russian Army from the conflict. By this time, Britain had become a debtor, largely by guarantees on behalf of other belligerents. The fact that a number of Russians estimated at nearly thirty millions perished as the direct and indirect result of this manoeuvre has, in general, only received casual attention.

At the "Peace" Conference in Paris in 1919, when the Financial Clauses were passed, which made the resumption of the War inevitable, Germany was represented by one Warburg, and the Allies by another.

14

Chapter V

Any serious endeavour to identify the origins of world unrest and war inevitably and invariably leads back to what is loosely called occultism – a word which in itself seems to be almost as widely misunderstood as the matters to which it is applied.

To the average individual, it is mixed up with ghosts, seances, and witches. But, as was pointed out in an admirable letter to The Social Crediter of December 20, 1941, this emphasis on the allegedly "supernatural" (itself, a suspect word) is neither justified by the dictionary, which defines "occult" as "that which is secret or hidden", or by the nature of the idea which it expresses, which cannot be static. "Occultism", in fact is simply the reverse of discovery. Demon est Deus inversus.

Now, it would appear to be fairly obvious that writing or teaching about things "kept secret or hidden", is not occultism, whatever else it is. It is either discovery (dis-closure) or it is deception. It is important to bear in mind that in all probability, we have to deal with both forms of publicity, because there is convincing evidence of two characteristics of every major political and social revolution and uprising of the past three hundred years at least. One of these features is the emergence of vague "esoteric" theories, generally stressing the apocalyptic nature of the times, and, in effect, the necessity for a psychic or spiritual sauve qui peut. The British Israel and Pyramid cults are instances. And parallel with these, the paralysis of normal Government, and the assumption of its functions by persons and organisations supported by overwhelming propaganda, whose policy can be recognised as the objective of the crisis. These shadow Governments have uniformly had two features. They

15

derive their apparent support from the towns, not the country, and they have never attacked either the Money Power or the Jews. Cromwell rose to power by the support of the City of London and its shadowy "Dutch" friends, the French Revolution was in effect the Paris Revolution with the same shadowy backing, the American Revolution began with the Boston Tea Party and was primarily "Dutch", and the Russian Revolution was the St. Petersburg Revolution. (The evolution of the name of the old capital of Russia is far from being without significance).

It has been pointed out, with justice, I think, that all of these revolutions tended to the advantage of Germany, or more exactly, Prussia.
Using the word "occult" in its correct sense, it would seem clear that to say, as some of our Superior Persons contend, that occultism is all nonsense, is merely another way of repeating the famous lampoon upon the Master of Balliol:

First come I, my name is Jowett,
There's no knowledge but I know it.
I am Master of this College
What I don't know isn't knowledge.

There are probably more Forces which are occult than there are Forces which are known, but one which was incontestably "occult" in the truest sense, that those who understood it were determined to mislead the general public in regard to it, was the Money System. It is no longer occult, but its Masters are.

Mrs. Webster, whose valuable work is a model of painstaking investigation and documentation, lists five main divisions of secret or semi-secret activity as connected with world unrest and catastrophe:
(1) Grand Orient Freemasonry.
(2) Theosophy with its innumerable ramifications.
(3) Nationalism of an aggressive kind – Pan-Germanism (She might have added, Pan- Americanism).
(4) International Finance.
(5) Social Revolution. —Secret Societies and Subversive Movements p. 351.

16

She then asks, "Is there indeed one power directing all subversive movements – is it one of the five here enumerated, or is it yet another power more potent and more invisible?

"It will be noticed that . . . these subversive movements have (1) A pro-German tendency. (2) All contain a Jewish element. (3) All have a more or less decided antagonism to Christianity."

Mrs. Webster deals at great length with Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 5 but clearly does not consider herself technically competent to deal with No. 4. Had she done so, she would almost certainly have realised what is probably the most significant common factor of all of them – that they are themselves all subverted or perverted.

To go very rapidly through this list, Grand Orient Freemasonry almost certainly descends from the Knights Templars, originally a militant Christian Order ultimately accused of Satanism, sex perversion, and international usury, and expelled from England within twenty years of the expulsion of the Jews (1290).

Theosophy is of course a generic term, but is used mainly by Mrs. Webster to refer to the body of opinion of which Madame Blavatsky was the modern focus. Whatever may be said of that very remarkable woman, it is quite certain that she abominated both the Jews and the Talmud. But Mrs. Webster is quite correct in the suggestion that the Theosophical Movement at the present day is a very different body to that contemplated by Madame Blavatsky.

The Imperialistic Nationalism of Pan-Germany and Pan-America is not in the least a natural development of cultural nationalism, but is merely political mercantilism. The violent reaction to it on the American Continent is sufficient proof of its artificiality.
British Social revolution has lost all resemblance to the ideas of such men as Keir Hardie, or even George Lansbury, whose primary idea was emancipation. Instead, it has become a "racket", the spiritual home of the bureaucrat, of whom Lord Passfield (Sydney Webb) is the Prophet, the London School of

17

Economics, financed by Sir Ernest Cassel, the Staff College, and the Card Index, the Ark of the Covenant. Its creed is, "We came that ye might have life less abundantly". And, one rung higher up the ladder, we find International Finance, of which the central idea is misdirection and perversion. It is of primary importance to an understanding of the underlying causes of world catastrophe to observe the parallelism between the hypnotic propaganda to represent an amorphous accounting or ticket system as "wealth" in itself, and collectivism, which relies on statistics as an indication of well-being. The revolt against "the numbering of the people" was a sound, intuitive, revolt.

18

Chapter VI

There is, in a certain type of metaphysics, a theory, or rather statement, that animals have a "Group" soul, and that the real test of difference between the animal kingdom and the human race is the individuality of the human soul. That is to say, the first "duty" of the human being is to dominate his relationship with the group soul.

This means, if it means anything, that the supreme aim of evolution is differentiation, and that the determined effort to present human beings, and to treat human beings, as a collectivity, is the Sin against the Holy Ghost, for which there is no forgiveness.
Now, this idea has a curious corollary. It implies that organisation is a descent – a retrogression. I do not think that it necessarily implies that organisation is inadmissible, if done consciously and with full understanding by those who are organised.

But it seems to me to offer a very important explanation of the inevitable degradation which accompanies large organisations. It is not human nature which is at fault – that is just exactly what it is not. It is the prostitution of human nature to a lower order of evolution – the group soul.
There is any amount of evidence to support this theory. Mobs, for instance. And our Great Men always appeal to mobs. And the behaviour of Functionaries – in private life and as individuals, decent fellows. In their Function, possessed of devils. Not because of their function, but because they assume powers not proper to that function, arising out of collectivity.

Evidently, an organisation which is expressly designed to make use of individuals without allowing them to understand

19

the true object for which they are being used, is inherently Evil. It is a matter of no consequence whatever that it may have been founded by an idealist with an eye on the Millenium. That is why I am confident that the Devil is backing every horse in the race, at the moment. There is altogether too much drive for similarity in organisation to leave any doubt about that, and too much deception about its results.

That our present plight is due to organisation per se, is not, I think, open to discussion. Clearly there could be no war without it. Apart from the fact that such authorities as Elliot Smith are prepared to demonstrate that man is not naturally a combative animal, the specious and significant attempt to assure us that, on the one hand, war is good for us and on the other, is merely logical expansion of a quarrel between two small boys, is consciously false. A quarrel between individuals proceeds from something inside them. A modem war is a collective prize fight, promoted by outsiders for the benefit of themselves and the destruction of the contestants, who would much prefer not to be involved, and would not be, if they were not "organised".

Organisation is, in fact, magic. It is the evocation of an elemental force, and it is much easier to evoke elemental forces than it is to control them or lay them. I have very little doubt that the necessity of a "circle" for the production of spiritistic phenomena is simply an example.

I would ask anyone who considers that this approach to the problem of world disaster is "fanciful" and "impractical", to pause a little. There is, for instance, a large and growing body of opinion which allots an important share of responsibility for the present world war to "the Jews" – not, in the main, to specific Jews acting individually, but to the collectivity of Jews, although commonsense and common experience informs us that, whether we like Jews or not, it is absurd to suppose that the average Jew spends any considerable portion of his time trying to arrange a World War. But that does not dispose of the matter.

Biologically, the Jews, by their close intermarriage, have a group or race consciousness which is perhaps unique. Over and above this factor, as one of their number, Judge Jerome Frank,

20

of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals remarked in a recent article ". . . it is not generally understood that the traditional Jewish religion – orthodox Judaism – is not merely a religion as that word is usually understood. Unlike the other religions with which Americans generally are familiar, its spiritual values and ethical principles centred about, and were intertwined with a body of Jewish customs handed down from ancient times, which covered minutely every detail of living.

The ancient customs were codified as rules of law. And they were not merely codified; they were Codified . . . the Jews believed that God had enjoined them, as his chosen people, always to adhere to those social habits. Heine called those Jewish laws 'the Portable Fatherland'."* Although he does not say so, Judge Frank is obviously not referring to the so-called Old Testament; he is referring to the Talmud, which regards the non-Jew as cattle.

The Jews had a secret tradition, the Cabala, which was a magical treatise, or what we should term, in our modern vocabulary, a treatise on the psychology of the sub-conscious. I have little doubt that the Talmud so organised the Jews that the Masters of the Cabala were able to use them as one unit, and that it was both unnecessary and undesirable that the great majority of them should be conscious of this use.
Secret Societies all follow the same pattern. Hence the vigorous and entirely sincere and in his case, justified claim made by the ordinary Freemason, in England, that there is no politics in Freemasonry. In 1852, Disraeli wrote:

It was neither parliaments nor populations, nor the course of nature, nor the course of events, that overthrew the throne of Louis Phillippe . . . the throne was surprised by the Secret Societies, ever prepared to ravage Europe. — Lord George Bentinck, p. 552.

Whether Disraeli told all he knew, is something else, again.

The point that I am anxious to make is that it is just as useless to approach this problem of the true nature of organisation by appraising the great mass of the organised, whether Jew or Gentile, as it would be to assess the banking system from

21

your knowledge of your local bank clerk. Or even someone much more important. I notice a significant statement on the part of the Chairman of the Midland Bank, that their part in Finance is "technical".

The problem is simply this. Is it true, as has been stated in many well informed quarters, that all visible Governments are mere executives of a dictated policy? If that is so, then the Dictators of this policy are the Arch Criminals for whom we are looking, and are responsible for the misery of the ages. And our task is to find a method by which the War can be turned upon its Authors.

Before leaving this aspect of the matter, I may perhaps introduce a personal experience.

Some years ago, certain financial proposals I had made were put before a British Cabinet Minister of the inner ring, by an influential intermediary. The reply received, of which I have an extract, was: "Whether Major Douglas's proposal is sound in theory, I do not know. It is a matter of little consequence. I can assure you that no British Government would remain in Office for three weeks, if it attempted to put it into practice".

Nevertheless, as I have suggested, I believe that it was the fear of British revolt against this Occult Power which produced a decision to confront us "with war, or the threat of war".
We have chosen war.

22

Chapter VII

I have suggested that there is an attempt in operation, to impose a World Policy. That is to say, somewhere there is a body of men claiming to be a World Government.

If that suggestion has any grounds, two propositions appear to be self-evident. The first is that all discussion regarding Dictatorships and Democracies, is, to put it in the most charitable form, simply a discussion as to the brand of coating we prefer on our pill.

And the second proposition is that it ought by now to be possible to identify common factors in every country at war, which are evidence of action by an organisation concerned to impose a common policy irrespective of the ultimate "Victors". There are such common factors.
It is of course evident that this World Dominion is not yet absolute. Even if one believes, as I am coming to believe, that its apex transcends normal human activity, it is by no means necessary to accept the view that it is invincible and inevitable. Unless I am much mistaken, there are already signs of important unrehearsed developments, in regard to which the limitations of writing in war-time impose difficulties of description. That is another story.

The first and most obvious indication of a common policy is the similarity – the practical identity – of the methods by which all power is transferred from individuals to officials, who themselves have no initiative. I am not sure that the real character of these methods is generally grasped, even at this late stage.

It is commonly agreed that large undertakings find it very difficult to make rapid changes either in production or policy.

23

To take a well-known example, the Ford Motor Company found it necessary to shut down the whole of its factories for six months, in order to change from the old Model ''T'' to a more modern type. Motor cars are, incidentally, one of the simplest problems of repetition production. Ford's difficulties were much more with items he did not himself produce.

But the bureaucratic socialism which by means of carefully prepared panic legislation took over the management of the whole of Britain at the outbreak of war, gaily assumed a task beside which the complete re-organisation, not merely of the Ford Company, but of the complete automobile industry of the United States, would be an amusement for an idle hour. Even presuming the practicability of unified direction of this colossal character, which, for reasons too numerous to mention here, is an assumption I should not be prepared to admit, experience, trained ability and physical geographical arrangement are lacking.

With the usual premise that the valour of the Russians in defending their own country (whatever the effect – they are certainly not fighting consciously to defend ours) is worthy of whole- hearted admiration, I think a public dis-service is done by suppressing the exposure of the inefficiency of a country of 170 millions, with an army double that of Germany, supposed to be laid out by the best transatlantic talent to be suitable for bureaucratic management, which has been preparing for war for twenty years, and yet has to apply for munitions to an effete and out- of-date country of 45 millions, which has successfully opposed single-handed the continent of Europe for eighteen months. That we have been able to supply them is certainly not due to socialistic management, which has not built up a single industry.

The object of this assumption of power, under the conditions foretold by PEP, had little or nothing to do with the efficient prosecution of the war. It was simply and solely the seizure of power by an international gang of Plotters or Planners, who were perfectly aware of the dangers to their rule in Russia itself, and wished to extend it to this country before it

24

was overthrown elsewhere. This situation, common to Russia and Germany, is specially evident in once-great Britain, in the case of bed, board, and clothes – the domain of the Ministry of Works and Buildings, under Lord Reith*, the congenital monopolist of the "B"BC, and the Ministry of Food under the chainstore enthusiast, Lord Woolton.

Private housing has little or nothing to do with the war but it has been "nationalised". Control of bed, board, and clothes, is, of course, control of life itself. And centralised control of life is the groundwork of The Big Idea.

While contemplating the colossal inefficiency which accompanies, for example, the operations of the two Ministries just mentioned, it is convenient to examine this glorification of Bigness. Bigness for the sake of Bigness, you can't have too much Bigness: Bigger wars, bigger guns, bigger debts. One Big Union, Federal Union. Big Smash. Any ten prize-fighters weigh more than Shakespeare, therefore any ten prize-fighters are more important than Shakespeare. The Albert Memorial is bigger than any Cotswold cottage – grade accordingly. Passed to you for information and necessary action, please.

The first point to notice in regard to this deification of Bigness, is that it is accompanied everywhere by the Lower Middle Class Revolution. I recognise the unpleasant impression that such a phrase may convey, but the French equivalent, petit bourgeois, which has been largely used in this connection, does not appear to be more descriptive.

As perhaps it is permissible to repeat, the real cleavage in the world today is a cultural, not an economic cleavage, although the two may not be wholly distinct. The Lower Middle Class is a warped cultural class. To illustrate this, I should exemplify Lord Reith as representing the Scottish Lower Middle Class, and Lord Addison, and Mr. H.G. Wells, as types of English lower mediocrity. One characteristic of the class is blatancy, quite often joined with qualities much more admirable, and it appears to be specially and no doubt unconsciously, amenable to outside influence.

If a man comes into your house, and says loudly, "I don't
*Since this was written Lord Portal has succeeded Lord Reith and the name of the Ministry has been changed to the Ministry of Works and Plannning.

25

care what you want to talk about, you are going to listen to what I think is good for you," he may be possessed of many good qualities, but your chief preoccupation is to get away from him. But if he returns and says, "You are going to have the kind of house I like, not what you like, and you will pay what I think you ought to pay, and you will not be allowed to build a hen- house unless I agree. And my friend across the way will say where you are to shop and what you are to eat, and which of you is to eat it and together we will tell you why God made you," then it is time to take notice and action.

This curious adulation of bigness is indisputably a common attribute of Socialism (under all its names), Big Business, and what we call vulgarity.

There is a prevalent idea that Socialism is a "Workers'," Revolution, for the benefit of the craftsman. Nothing could be less true. The genuine craftsman, where he takes the trouble to understand it, detests it. The backbone of Socialism in every country (which is not to say its inspiration) is the Lower Middle Class, the type which yearns to have power without respon- sibility and looks to exchange its unenviable situation for a "safe government job". It was the Lower Middle Class who were the tools of revolution in Russia, it is the lower middle class who are the most enthusiastic supporters of National Socialism in Germany. ". . . National Socialism is not merely a political and economic upheaval, but a social revolution as well. To a very large extent it has brought the lower middle class to power . . . . the lower middle class seems to be inordinately in evidence". (Lothrop Stoddard – Into the Darkness. The italics in the text are mine.) The coming revolution in Japan will be of the same nature.

The English Fabians, and their offshoot, the Planners, are in the main the same type. What, then, is the characteristic of "bigness" which makes it a common objective in every country in which we can discern revolutionary propaganda at work? To say that it is efficiency is clearly absurd even if efficiency were urgently necessary. It would be as sensible to acclaim the superior efficiency of the Atlantic Ocean over Lake Derwent-

26

water.
It is not difficult to find an answer. The attribute of size so far as I am aware, the only attribute of size – which grows as size increases, is momentum. The larger the mass, the more difficult becomes a change of direction – the harder becomes the task of individual initiative. That is another objective of The Big Idea, because as the Protocols of Zion remark, "Nothing is so dangerous as individual initiative".

A second identifiable common factor is the appearance of plans everywhere designed to make people forget their historic attachment – as Mr. Curtin, the Australian Socialist Prime Minister put it so engagingly when he undertook to make Australians into Costa Ricans, overnight.

This feature is particularly significant, since it links up the present crisis with the French Revolution. The revolutionaries abolished the old Royal Provinces of France (just as an attempt is being made to abolish Britain's Counties by the appointment of Kommissars of Regions) and substituted "Departments" so arbitrarily that except as electoral divisions, they hardly exist today.

And a third feature is the systematic destruction or perversion of significant history, and particularly that form of written history represented by hereditary experience.

27

Chapter VIII

Mr. Henry Ford ("Cars, Tractors, and Retractions"*) is credited with the opinion that history is bunk. Mr. Ford’s opinions, like his cars, seem to be arranged for replacement on advantageous terms, but in this case he would appear to have noticed something which, seen in its proper relation to other knowledge, is worth examination. The first modifying factor is that the reference was to written history.

Writing differs from memory in being two-dimensional, instead of four-dimensional. It is only possible to write about one thing at a time. Genuine history, that is to say, the flow of events, is just as unwritable as a spring morning. You can pick out certain facts about it, which you think are important, but there are infinitely more contemporaneous happenings than you can possibly mention. In other words, written history is five per cent. fact, and ninety-five per cent historian, even at its best. What value it possesses, and that may be considerable, depends primarily on the historian, and secondarily, on the equipment of the reader –- on his ability to see the related facts in their true perspective.

But there is a type of history which is four-dimensional. Everyone has a certain amount of it, and where it relates to something of the nature of a profession, this memory-history, over the period of a lifetime, has a practical value out of proportion to anything available in print. It forms the basis of effective ability. We call it experience. There is, however, a memory-history of still greater importance, and that is hereditary. Many of the country villages of England and Scotland were full of it. The first essential to its growth is stability.

*Mr. Ford said that what was attributed to him on the Jewish question was said without his knowledge. Mr. William Cameron, Editor of the Dearborn Independent, took the same line.

28

One cannot fail to notice the curious contradiction involved in the passionate study of racehorse pedigree which was so popular in the distant days of uneasy peace, and the carefully fostered contempt for "family" in the human race, which is contemporaneous with Socialism. The subject is complex, and is obscured by the confusion introduced by the rapid growth of a pseudo-aristocracy which possesses no discernible characteristics other than rapacity. I merely wish to refer to it in connection with this most important fact of family-traditional-history, which may take the form of "feeling for the land", water-divining, boat-building, or anything else which has been carried on in the same place by the same families over a considerable period. For the purpose of a "feeling for policy", which is really a subconscious memory of trial and error, the same consideration is equally true if we are to accept the theory of a continuous policy. I do not believe there is any substitute for it, although it requires checks and balances.

Now, I do not think it is possible that anyone who will take the trouble to consider the evidence, can ignore the purposeful endeavour which has been made over at least three hundred years to break up and destroy this hereditary memory of policy. I should not exclude the Crusades from consideration in this respect, but it is sufficient to begin with the decimation of the country families by duelling in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries.
As this began to wane by the recognition of its trend, a wave of the most absurd gambling set in, in which estates which had been in the same family for centuries, changed hands overnight, often accompanied by the suicide of the loser. Both this mania and duelling had the same common feature; they were insidiously stimulated by psychological methods – they were not merely "fashionable", but were, for the country squire, and only for the country squire, an almost inescapable accompaniment to the intercourse with his fellows by which alone his instincts could affect the course of events. "A poor spirited fellow" was not likely to be listened to with much attention.
It is notable that exactly the same sequence of events

29

occurred somewhat later in America. It is commonly forgotten that the United States, between the War of Secession and the American Civil War, was in essence a country of squires, of the George Washington type. Among these, more particularly in the Southern States, duelling and gambling appeared like an epidemic. By the time the Civil War broke out, the class was sensibly weakened. The war practically eliminated it.

The French Revolution, to the records of which Mr. Ford's kind of history is specially applicable, was primarily a massacre of the French hereditary aristocracy. So was the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Anyone who will take the trouble to go through the casualty lists of the 1914-1942 war, can verify the disproportionate percentage of "hereditary" families appearing in them. This does not apply to one side only. The hereditary memory is being eliminated everywhere.

I can imagine many readers, at this point, feeling the inclination to comment in accordance with the orthodox conception of a downtrodden peasantry rising spontaneously to rid themselves of a vicious tyranny. Like so many of these "all black and pure white" pictures, this idea is more remarkable for simplicity than accuracy. Quite apart from the important truth so well put by Sir William Gilbert, that "Hearts just as pure and fair, may beat in Belgrave Square, as in the lowlier air, of Seven Dials", and that, if it were not so, we ought at all costs to treasure our slums as the only school of virtue, there are three significant facts which apply to both the French and the Russian revolution.

The first is that they were not spontaneous. The second is that neither of them was a peasant revolution –- that is to say, while both of them attacked and massacred the landowners, it was not the tenants of these landowners who were active –- it was town mobs and mutinied soldiers. And the third and most significant of all, is that both of these revolutions cut short a period of high prosperity.

(1) There is a greater amount of artificiality in revolution than is believed. This is not solely to be imputed to the Jews. It is not certain that they form its most numerous elements, but

30

thanks to their racial qualities, they are the strategists and directors of the movement, from which they almost alone derive advantage." (Leon de Poncins – The Secret Powers Behind Revolution, p. 239).
(2) Amongst much other evidence to the same effect, numerous passages in Disraeli's writings, such as the well known reference in Coningsby to the occult powers directing affairs, and that, already quoted, in the biography of Lord George Bentinck, which states categorically that the French Revolution was not a popular uprising, may be cited.
(3) The condition of France just prior to the Revolution was one of almost unequalled prosperity, recalling that of England in the later days of the nineteenth century. Chancellor Pasquier, in his Memoires, writes:
"I firmly believe that at no time since the beginning of the Monarchy, had France been so happy as at this period (1783)."
Rivarol, in a typically Calvinistic comment on the same period, remarks "La maladie du bonheur les gagne" – they are attacked by the disease of good Fortune.

31

Chapter IX

If the Social Credit Government of Alberta had done nothing – and it has done many things – to justify its existence, the demonstration afforded by its enemies of one fundamental factor in the world situation would still have made it a landmark in human history.

That factor, completely demonstrated by the actions of the Canadian Federal Government in Disallowing every Act of the Provincial Legislature directed to the inauguration of Social Credit, is that the Secret Government is determined to keep the world in turmoil until its own rule is supreme, so that one uninformed mob may be mobilised against another, should either become dangerous. I do not think that anyone who will take the trouble to consider the actions of the Canadian Federal Government, can fail to apprehend exactly why centralisation, Federal Union, and other "Bigger and Better" Governments are the most deadly menace with which humanity is faced today. There could hardly be a more concise picture of the events which followed the demand of the largest majority ever obtained by a Canadian Provincial Government that it should be allowed to deal with its own difficulties, than that contained in the following statement issued by an authoritative source in Alberta:—

Credit of Alberta Regulation Act
Why Passed

1. Because there was widespread poverty and distress throughout Alberta.
2. Because Alberta, one of the richest provinces in the

32

Dominion could produce abundance for her people.
3. Because the only reason why Alberta's people were living in poverty was the lack of purchasing power.
4. Because such purchasing power should be made available to the people by using their own credit, as would enable them to obtain at all times, what they wanted.
5. Because this could be done by a scientific balancing between money and goods produced.
6. Because control of Credit being in the words of Hon. Mackenzie King, "A public matter not of interest to bankers alone, but of direct concern to every citizen," credit policy should vested in an authority responsible to the representatives of the people.
7. Because banks, being manufacturers of credit and functioning as public utility concerns, supplying a service of primary and vital importance to the lives of the citizens of Alberta should be licensed and subjected to supervision only in regard to policy – the results they provide, and unless the people of Alberta can use the resources of their own Province as they desire, and determine the results which shall accrue to them, they have no property and civil right in the full sense. (Banking administration being under Federal Jurisdiction was in no matter affected by the Act.)

What happened
Disallowed by Federal Government August 17, 1937.

What it would have done
1. Would have secured the results demanded by the People – a lower cost to live, and monthly dividends.
2. Would have provided markets for Alberta manufacturers and traders
. 3. Would have led to tremendous industrial development in manufacturing Alberta goods by processing Alberta produce.
4. Would have resulted in rapidly absorbing every unemployed person into useful employment and relieved the aged and infirm of the necessity of working for a living.

33

5. Would have led to increased business activity in which industrialists, wholesalers, retailers, and banks would all have benefitted.
6. Would have enabled taxation to be reduced drastically.
7. Would have made it possible to deal with the debt problems,

Bank Taxation Act
Why passed
1. Because under the present system, the Government has one source of revenue only – Taxation.
2. Because the people of Alberta are already taxed beyond their ability to pay.
3. Because banks are the only institutions claiming the legal right to monetise the credit of The People to such an extent that they create and issue monetary credits many times in excess of the legal tender money they hold.
4. Because banks can thereby create money out of nothing.
5. Because the present method of taxation of individuals is confiscatory and unnecessary.

What happened
Assent withheld by Lieutenant Governor. Declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court of Canada. Appeal by Province from Supreme Court decision to Privy Council dismissed.

What it would have done
1. Would have placed over two million dollars new money in circulation. 2. Would have permitted an equal amount, otherwise paid in taxes, to remain in the ordinary channels of industry, thus aiding employment and acting as a tremendous impetus to business generally, or, 3. Would have enabled the Government to embark on a six million dollar highway and market roads programme under the three way Dominion-Provincial-Municipal plan, or, 4. Would have provided a hospital and medical service in

34

districts where those are not available, or,
5. Would have set up a fund for Crop Insurance, or,
6. Would have given decreased School Taxes.
7. Would have provided increased purchasing power for the People of Alberta.

Reduction and Settlement of Debt Act
Why passed
1. Because under the present financial system debt cannot be paid without creating new and larger debts. The People of Alberta possess only about 20 cents for every $1.00 of debt – this they owe to the banks, and they can get no money except as a debt to the bankers.
2. Because private debts, largely due to accumulated interest, had increased to such an extent that they were out of all proportion to value received.
3. Because many outstanding debts had been incurred during the war and immediate post-war years when values were high.
4. Because the original debt had already, in many cases, been paid in interest charges while the principal remained unchanged or showed little reduction.
5. Because people could no longer continue to pay interest of 8 to 10 per cent.
6. Because financial corporations refused to recognise that the inability of people to meet their obligations was due to lack of adequate returns on what they produced.
7. Because no people or country can prosper and progress so long as they labour under a burden of those who deal in money as a commodity.

What happened
Declared ultra vires of the Province by the Courts.

What it would have done
1. Would have established a basis of settlement for all out-

35

standing debts.
2. Would have reduced all debt incurred previous to July, 1932, by applying all interest paid from that date to the passing of the act on reduction of principal.
3. Would have settled definitely question involved in debts which had become uncollectable.
4. Would have led to a restoration of confidence and encouraged those who, through no fault of their own were living in poverty and struggling against odds which they could not possibly overcome.

Act to Ensure Publication of Accurate News Information
Why passed
1. Because the control of news and the control of credit are both exercised by the financial interests.
2. Because "The freedom of the press" has become license to distort news, misrepresent facts and withhold information from the public.
3. Because this anti-social aspect of the press, under inspired direction, is being used to thwart the people of Alberta in their struggle against finance.

What happened
Assent withheld by Lieutenant-Governor. Declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court of Canada. In the appeal of the Province of Alberta from decision of Supreme Court of Canada, the Privy Council refused to hear Alberta's argument by their counsel.

What it would have done
1. Would have ensured that all newpapers in Alberta would publish all the facts in their news reports of Government matters so far as this is possible, and if from any cause false statements appeared, equal space would be given for authoritative correction.

36

2. Would have ensured that the same information which every publisher demands from correspondents to his columns, i.e. the names of contributors of articles, would be available People when demanded by their representatives.

Home Owners Security Act
Why passed
1. Because under stress of world conditions and a falsified financial system, over which individuals had no control, many were forced to mortgage their homes.
2. Because conditions had changed since these loans were received so that commodity and labour prices bore little relation to the continued high price of money.
3. Because there was grave danger of many Alberta Citizens losing their homes.
4. Because in most cases, these homes represented the total life savings of many people.
5. Because it is just as much the duty of any Government to protect the homes of individual members of Society against the confiscatory practices of unscrupulous money-lenders as it is to defend its people against the invasion of a foreign aggressor.
6. Because there can be no Sanctity of Contract which does not recognise that human life has, at least, as much value as considerations of "money".

What happened
Disallowed by Mackenzie King Government, June 15, 1938.

What it would have done
1. Would have prohibited foreclosures or sale under mortgage proceedings of any farm home.
2. Would have prohibited foreclosure or sale under mortgage proceedings of any home in a town, city or village, unless the plaintiff first deposited $2,000 with the Court which would be paid to the owner if dispossessed to enable him to

37

purchase another home.
3. Would have induced debtor and creditor alike to seek equitable basis of settlement through medium of the Debt Adjustment Board.
4. Would have enabled home-owners to enter into new contracts commensurate with their present ability to pay.

Security Tax Act – 1938
Why passed
1. Because the Government required additional revenue for one year to replace the loss of revenue from the Bank Taxation Act before the Privy Council.
2. Because the additional revenue was essential to provide the people with the benefits they needed.
3. Because it was equitable that equitable companies and similar institutions should make good some of the taxation they have escaped for years.
4. Because the Government is pledged to the people to remove the burden of taxation from individuals, and until we gain control of our credit resources, this can be done only by transferring it to institutions which are better able to bear it.

What happened
Disallowed by Mackenzie King Government, June 15, 1938,

What it would have done
1. Would have realised $1,500,000 – sufficient revenue to balance the Provincial Budget.
2. Would have helped the Government considerably to give tax relief, to provide additional relief projects, increase School Grants, and undertake many other benefits planned for the people.

38

Credit of Alberta Regulation Act, (1937 Amendment)
Why passed
Because Credit of Alberta Regulation Act had been disallowed by the Dominion Government.

What happened
Assent withheld by Lieutenant-Governor. Declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court of Canada. In the appeal of the Province of Alberta from decision of Supreme Court of Canada, the Privy Council refused to hear Alberta's argument by their counsel.

What it would have done
Would have brought all the benefits of the Credit of Alberta Regulation Act, which it supplanted.

39

Chapter X

Like all undertakings which have been pursued to the stage of realisation, The Big Idea has firstly an objective, secondly a method of technique, and thirdly a dynamics by means of which the human individual can be made to conform to the technique so that the objective may be realised or attained.

The objective is World Dominion.
The technique is centralisation by a graded executive, operating through Law and Finance.
The dynamic forces are Fear and Desire.

There are numbers of fairly intelligent people who accept the idea that the world is moving inevitably to Dictatorship of the type adumbrated by Stalin, in the same way that the drawing rooms of the mid-nineteenth century were filled with believers in the inevitability of "Progress". The two ideas are not unconnected – they are the direct consequence of the delirium of materialism – the acceptance of the dogma that the one end of man is gadgets, that he must at all costs be kept employed under discipline making more and more gadgets, and carrying the blessings of his gadget civilisation to the benighted heathen.

That this is not mere unconscious error is easy to demonstrate to anyone open to conviction. There is not a large newspaper in the world which has not misrepresented the technological increase of production per man-hour as "unemployment", and as a failure of statesmanship. Not because things which ought to have been made, were not made, which may be true, but because of the determination, conscious and vicious, to keep unemployment and poverty synonymous. And that this misrepresentation is part of the Big Idea, is, I think, demonstrated conclusively by the dangerous nonsense being circulated

40

by all the machinery of propaganda at this critical time in regard to the Russian Social and Economic systems.
To anyone who wishes to obtain an unbiased and objective view of Soviet Russia I can recommend the Russian section of Looking for Trouble, by the American journalist, Virginia Cowles, who took considerable risks to get away from the spoon-feeding which is the usual treatment of investigators. The following paragraph gives, I think, a clue to the real situation:—

I saw nothing new. The factories, club-houses, and schools I was shown were third-rate imitations of Western progress. All this I had expected; but what I hadn't expected was that I should be asked to marvel at the most commonplace conveniences, as though I had come from a jungle . . . the misinformation and ignorance of the conditions in the outside world were grotesque.

For a nation that sent its disciples abroad to convert the pluto-democracies to the leadership of Moscow, it seemed to have little to offer from a practical point of view, other than squalor and poverty. But far more disconcerting than the wretched conditions was the tyranny that gripped the capital. It was estimated that the purge, which had swept the country during the past two years (1936-7) had sent over six million people to concentration camps.

This seems to me to be a good, non-technical, description of the salient characteristics of a bureaucratic socialist state. The determination to obliterate standards of comparison, the use of every means of publicity to represent a retrograde tyranny as a marvellous advance, the espionage and the mass cruelty are all there. If this is the New Order that we are fighting to establish, then Flanders Poppies should be superseded by a crown of thorns.

The writer goes on to indicate growths which are beginning to raise their ugly heads everywhere. Minds were doped with distorted information until they became so sluggish that they had not even the power to protest against their miserable conditions . . . the contempt for intellectual and moral values, and the ruthless disregard for the individual was not only

41

depressing; it was evil. I felt the same way as I had in Spain and Germany; that if I didn't get a breath of fresh air, I would stifle. The physical appearance of Moscow helped to accentuate this feeling. The streets were as drab as the mentality of the people . . . not a single gay head-dress, a bright shop front or even a happy smile.

Remember that this Paradise was inaugurated by the introduction in a special train from Germany of a gang of New York Jews, and then consider whether, along this path, is the way to a better world. The matter has been much better put than I can put it:
Ye are of your father, the Devil, who was a liar from the beginning . . . By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather figs of thistles, or grapes of thorns? There is current in Germany a prophecy, known as the Lehnin prophecy, which is said to be one of Hitler's nightmares, that the last King of Prussia will have no successors, but that after him,
"Israel will dare a deed unspeakable, which only death can redeem."

Possibly "Admiral" Canaris*, whose real name is Moses Meyerbeer, and who is said to be the most powerful man in Germany, could throw some light on the story.

*The Times of June 4, 1942, writes in an article Heydrich’s Career of Crime:—"At an early age he became a member of some ultra- nationalist youth organization. In 1922 he joined the German Navy, and in 1928 he became intelligence officer in the Baltic Command. It was probably in this position that Heydrich got into contact with Admiral Canaris, Chief of the German Military Intelligence, a connection which, according to rumour, had never been broken."

42

Chapter XI

It is becoming commonplace to hear people say, "Of course, we're fighting two wars"; by which statement is meant that our enemies are not merely Germany and Japan but a vaguely apprehended and ill-defined factor in regard to which there is some hesitation as to its name.

I am a little doubtful as to the utility of this idea. As I see it, we are fighting Germany and Japan for the benefit of a third party, the Promoter. There are faint indications quite recently that the Promoter may get further into the mêlée than had ever been his intention, but the process will have to go to greater lengths before it can be called a fight.
I do not want to waste the time of the Superior Persons who have long ago risen above what they describe as hidden hand theories, but the rest of us must be impressed by the accumulating evidence that much more is involved than a nice, clean-cut war against Hitler and the Mikado. Let us contemplate our Prime Ministers for a few moments, omitting, for obvious reasons, Mr. Winston Churchill.

Mr. Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada, commonly known as the Washington Post, has had a remarkable career. I may perhaps repeat a germane to the matter the remark made to me by a prominent Canadian when I said that I had been informed in Washington in 1919 that Mr. King (almost as unknown to the general Canadian public as was Mr. Stanley Baldwin to the British public of the same period) would be the next Prime Minister. My friend observed, "Well, we Canadians didn't know it, anyway".

To say that Mr. King's spiritual home is in Washington may perhaps be to limit his domesticity unduly, but it certainly isn't

43

in Westminster. I should be the last to claim that the efforts of the Imperial Government, in the main dominated by Mr. Baldwin, were, during the fatal armistice years, either distinguished or evenly moderately courageous, but anything Mr. King could do to make them completely abortive, was done. The World Economic Congress of 1933 might – probably would because of its limited agenda – have been a failure in any case, but Mr. King left nothing to chance in indicating, in able collaboration with Mr. Cordell Hull of the United States, that any putting-to- rights of world affairs, wherever else it might come from, would not be allowed to proceed from London.

It would be unfair, however, to omit the effective collaboration with the Bank of "England" for which reliance upon him could always be placed. The disallowance of the Acts of the Alberta Legislature, the appointment of an official nominated by Mr. Montague Norman to control the Bank of Canada, and many other minor policies, obviously did nothing to cool the welcome he could always expect to the South of the Canadian Border, whatever the Canadians themselves may have thought, or of the repercussion on the Imperial link. And we may cast a glance in passing, at Mr. Curtin, the "Labour" Prime Minister of Australia, of whom few of us had heard until, like Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Mackenzie King, he appeared from nowhere with no false sentiment in looking to Washington to console him for any very slight regret for the passing of Britain. And there is Mr. Nash of New Zealand, of whom it was said that the interests of international Finance were quite safe while he remained de facto, if not de jure, Prime Minister. At this time of writing, Mr. Nash is representing New Zealand in Washington. It should not be overlooked that, while the "Liberal" or "Labour" Parties in the Dominions, which tend to be the dominant parties, seem curiously liable to develop a nasal accent, England, which seems incurably "Conservative", whatever that may mean, provides a touching example of Imperial Unity by providing Leaders from the Conservative ranks, who are delighted to conduct the calf to the water, even if it may subsequently transpire that there are difficulties in making it drink. The negroid sex-moans detailed

44

by the "B"BC under the title of entertainment are no doubt expected to develop the right culture for the appropriate policy. Taken by and large, the British Commonwealth for the past 25 years provides a remarkable object-lesson on the workings of "d' markrazy".

The subject of what is commonly called India (which is as descriptive as a reference to Europe) is, of course, much too large to be dealt with in detail here, but certain facts are essentially relevant to a grasp of the larger picture. The first is that the Indian Congress (significant title) is not, and never has been, representative of more than the most insignificant fraction of the indigenous population. The second is, that it is known to be, and to have been for many years, financed from the same source as was the Russian Revolution.

And the third, and most significant, is that the so-called "Indian Problem" has assumed intractable proportions only from a date which is common to two incidents. The first of these is the foundation of the Federal Reserve Banking System by the Warburgs, which set the stage for the War, and to which I have already made reference. And the second, which at first sight would appear to be both wildly irrelevant and absurdly disproportionate, is the Marconi Scandal.

There can, I think, be no appreciation of the problem with which humanity is faced, and therefore no hope of a decisive and satisfactory outcome from it, without a recognition that States – Great Britain, France, Germany, the United States are simply "Counters", in the sense that the word is used on the Stock Exchange. Exactly as shares are manipulated by the big Operators, the destinies of whole people are played with by the same type of Group, with as little compunction or respect for the results to the populations concerned as the big share promoter has for the public, where no question of legal danger is involved. M. Coty, the French millionaire, entitled his expose, which dealt with some of the aspects of the situation, Financiers who Sport with the World.

To say that, for instance, the United States – still less the American people – is deeply involved in this policy is funda-

45

mentally as meaningless as to accuse the Pennsylvania Railroad of complicity. We have got to know, and the whole future of the world depends upon our knowing, who are the Directors who use one country after another as a base of Operations. As usual, the surest clue is to be found by a consideration of the enquiry "Quis beneficit" – Who benefits?
We can clear the ground at once of one candidate – nothing which has happened in the political field in the last twenty-five years, to go back no further, could conceivably be expected to advance the interest of the communities linked together by the British Crown. On the contrary, it is obvious that, for instance, the present war is being fought for the destruction of that association. The only question at stake appears to be which of the controlled Groups nominally takes over the assets, the hidden Promoters being in control of a majority shareholding whoever "wins". At the same time, it is essential that the assets shall be handed over in a condition which will not cause trouble. That is to say, they must be converted into Servile States forever unable to revolt against irresistible World Police under the orders of the Promoters.

Bearing this in mind, we can consider the events to which the Marconi Scandal made an important contribution.

46

Chapter XII

The details of the Marconi Scandal are available to anyone interested in them. They were fully reported in the newspapers of 1912 and are in the files of the British Museum or elsewhere.

The only matters which are important in connection with it are (1) The comparative rarity of this type of politico-financial scandal in the United Kingdom. (2) The part played by the Isaacs family. (3) The prominence of the Cabinet Ministers and other public men alleged to be beneficiaries, and their immunity.

It is, of course, well known that every effort is made to prevent the rise to political power of individuals who cannot be blackmailed in some form or other. On the Continent, and more particularly in France, financial corruption became so universal that only something especially flagrant, such as the Stavisky affair, would attract much attention. In England, it is probable that until the opening of the twentieth century, which saw a marked lowering of the standards of political life, together with a transformation of business ethics, financial corruption had in its grosser forms been almost unknown in political life for fifty years.

The Managing Director of the Marconi International interests was Mr. Godfrey Isaacs, brother of Mr. Rufus Isaacs, K.C., afterwards Lord Chief Justice of England and Viceroy of India: first Marquis of Reading.

In 1917, as the result of the collapse of Russia from causes which have been indicated elsewhere, Germany was in sight of victory. Rigid financial orthodoxy had strained the credit of the allies to breaking point. As Sir Cecil Spring Rice has pointed out in his Letters, President Wilson was completely dominated by the German-Jewish group of which Kuhn, Loeb, the Schiffs and

47

the Warburgs were the moving spirits and these had not only done everything possible to achieve the destruction of Russia both internally and externally, thus depriving the Allies of the strategic advantage of a double front, but had obstructed British interests in the United States to an extent which in any other circumstances would have amounted to effective participation in the war on the side of Germany. Lord Reading headed a delegation to Washington which resulted in the entry of America, with the co-operation of Kuhn, Loeb, into the war on the side of the Allies, and the turning of the scale against Germany.

I think that it is important to recognise the philosophic detachment of this group from the interests alike of Germany and the Allies, because it was the primary factor in raising Japan to the position of a first-class Power. No doubt the Pearl Harbour fiasco thus made possible was one of those unfortunate incidents which seem to be inseparable from the operation of God's chosen people when engaged in High Finance.

What was the exact nature and scope of the bargain concluded by Lord Reading in 1917, we shall probably never know. That it was aimed at the elimination of the British Empire, is certain. Beyond making the United Kingdom responsible for the repayment in gold for all sums credited as the price of goods supplied, whether to Britain or any other Ally, some kind of effective control over every aspect of British life and policy was imposed. The Bank of "England" was placed under an American "adviser" and an obviously nominated permanent Governor; an Irish "settlement" which placed, as we are now witnessing, a potential enemy across St. George's Channel, was forced, and Rufus Isaacs, Marquis of Reading, became Viceroy of India, with a member of the bullion-broking family of Samuel Montague and Company as Secretary of State for India in Whitehall. From that date, the chief factor in Indian affairs has been the Indian National Congress, an organisation mysteriously subsidised from outside India, whose maximum "paper" affiliation has never exceeded four and a half millions out of the four hundred millions of India's population and is generally of

48

much less. It is detested by all the better elements of the population.

During the most critical period the Finance Minister for India was Sir George Schuster. It is not unimportant to notice that the present Secretary of State for India is Mr. Leo S. Amery, a colleague on the Board of Messrs. Marks and Spencer of Mr. Israel Moses Sieff. We do not hear much of Mr. L. S. Amery just now, any more than we hear much of Mr. Benjamin Cohen, U.S.A., but it would be very unwise to assume that either of them is idle.
Now, it is difficult for anyone who is not familiar with India to understand that it is perhaps there that the clearest indication of the war of the international Jew against British culture can be perceived. What is being attacked and undermined in India is prestige, and prestige is a basis of credit. To put the matter another way, the Indian problem can be reduced in essence to a battle between prestige based on character, and prestige based on money – real human credit in conflict with the golden calf.

This attack on British prestige has been in progress for a long time – Kipling's Mutiny of the Mavericks, written in the early nineties, was an amusing dramatisation of something which was already no novelty. The unscrupulous attack on the regular Army, and its capable officers, resulting in the warning by the Home Secretary to an illustrated newspaper which, whether rightly or wrongly, is generally credited to the control of Mr. Sieff, and the advertising by the "B"BC of the achievements of overseas troops, to the exclusion of those from the United Kingdom, are examples of the same policy.

It may perhaps be remarked in passing that, taking the condition of India into consideration, British administration in India between 1857 and, say, 1900, was probably the finest example of successful Imperial Rule which the world has ever as seen. It could not be, and it was not desirable that in the nature of things it should be permanent, but it was as far removed from the picture of soulless tyranny which was persistently circulated amongst people who had never been within ten thousand miles of it, as the fantastic figures of "thousands of British Officials

49

battening on a downtrodden peasantry" were from the fact that the Indian Civil Service never reached a figure of 1,500 Europeans, and is now less than five hundred in number. British policy in India is not quite so safe from criticism, for the simple reason that it was primarily a financial and mercantile policy. But even in this, there is little which was peculiar to India.

This vital question of prestige is linked directly and clearly with the financing of Japan, and the parallel corruption of Russia by the Schiff group. The culmination of it was the abrogation of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty under pressure from Washington in 1922, probably one of the most fatal pieces of folly ever perpetrated by any British Government at any time. From the date of this abrogation, it was mathematically certain that any and every embarrassment elsewhere would be complicated by an enemy gratuitously created in the area in which we were, at one and the same time, weakest, and from which it was most necessary we should draw uninterrupted supplies of oil and rubber.
It is not possible that any explanation of the events of the past twenty-five years can be adequate, and therefore not possible to ensure that proper action is taken to deal with their consequences and to prevent their repetition, which does not provide an answer to the following questions:—

(1) Why was Rufus Isaacs chosen to head the delegation to Washington in 1917, and what were the undisclosed terms that he made?
(2) When an Eastern Front was essential to the quick defeat of Germany, why, and at whose request, did the British Government facilitate the release of the Jew, Trotsky, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, so that he might be sent to Russia by Germany to assist in the Bolshevik Revolution, the first act of which was to make a separate peace with Germany at Brest-Litovsk?
(3) Who foisted the British catastrophe, Baldwin, and Montague Norman, on us, and kept them in office until Great Britain was weakened to the status of a fifth rate power?
(4) Why was the Japanese Treaty, which had relieved us 50 from any serious embarrassment in the Pacific, denounced? What, if any, undertakings were given by the United States to meet the situation which was bound to result from the insult involved in its denunciation, and isn't it odd that the Japanese can't take the Philippines, which are at their back door, but can take Singapore, and that there's only one great General, MacArthur, although he's never won any battles, and that all our Generals, who have been fighting for years, mostly without equipment, are "Brass Hats", "Blimps", and "Old School Tie" failures?
(5) Why was a Jew, Rufus Isaacs, anathema both to the Indian Moslems, the Palestine Arabs, and the Indian Princes, the only reliable bases of British stability in the Middle and Far East, made Viceroy of India? Why had Ramsay Macdonald, the "Labour" Prime Minister, to make a visit to Rufus Isaacs in India, before he could assume office? Why has the Labour Socialist Party, the friend of International Finance, persistently meddled with the Indian question, of which it knows nothing?
(6) Who controls the Bank of "England" and its apparently permanent Governor, Montagu Norman? Who authorised him to co-operate with the American-German, Dr. Schacht ("the most unscrupulous and oleaginous scoundrel I have ever come across" – Lord Vansittart), in financing Hitler with British credits? Certainly not the Foreign Office.

51

Chapter XIII

If I have been successful in presenting the outlines of the picture as it presents itself to me in the light of incidents of which I have direct knowledge, certain conclusions to be drawn from it would appear to be inescapable. They are:
(1) That International Financiers may be said to have a key "affix" the mono-syllable "mon-". Money, monopoly, monotheism, monarchy (not kingship, but totalitarianism), monstrous.
(2) That International Financiers, the richest body of men in the world, consciously propagate the theory that the poor are poor because the rich are rich, thus providing a body of uninformed voters always eager to support taxation, so preventing the rise of any considerable body of men with sufficient economic power to oppose international Financiers. There is, of course, no difficulty in paying taxes when you create the money with which to pay them. Once admit this thesis and it is easy to transfer the resentment against taxation to an allegedly "Democratic" Government which is as "Democratic" as the Bank of "England". The object of the present fantastic taxation is not to win the war but to ruin the people. The whole theory rests on the patent fallacy that there is a fixed, insufficient, amount of wealth.
(3) International Socialism is simply world monopoly. It is propagated by International Financiers everywhere, and an elaborate organisation of teaching bodies such as the London School of Economics, is subsidised by them to turn out quantities of "intellectuals" with no practical knowledge of any economics other than the rules of the Gold Standard. No Labour Government ever attacks International Finance.

52

(4) For the better attainment of these ends, the obvious truth that the objective of "government"- "Industry"-"Employment" is simply increased human satisfaction, is perverted to convey the idea that the object of government is to provide employment, with or without satisfaction, and therefore the "Government" should employ everyone. The abolition of private property, which merely means absolute centralisation of economic power, is the primary means to this end.
(5) While all international Financiers are not Jews, many are, and the observable policy of these Jews and of Freemasonry is that of the Talmud. This group can be identified first with Pan- Germanism, and secondly with Pan-Americanism, both of which aim at the destruction of British culture and prestige either by conquest or absorption.
(6) Since 1917, at least, but probably for much longer, the most dangerous enemy of the British people has been a group of German-American Jews operating mainly in America who used Germany first, and the United States later. Had Germany won the 1914-1918 phase of the war, the United States would soon have been put in her place. As soon as it became evident that Germany had lost the first trick, and the Jews had won it by the dismemberment of Russia and the control of the Russian development, along Talmudic lines, the whole weight of this group was directed to obtaining control of the Armistice via the United States. The decline of the British Empire, and the rise of Hitlerian (Totalitarian) Germany is the direct result of this control.
(7) The link between the international Jew Financiers and such politicians as can be easily identified as having facilitated this plot (whether knowingly or because it is part of the equipment of a successful politician) is undoubtedly secret societies such as Grand Orient Freemasonry and the New York B'Nai B'rith. What is the bearing of English Freemasonry on the matter, I am not clear, but I am convinced that it has put the whole weight of its influence in opposition to Social Credit proposals, which I am also quite satisfied offered, at the time they were put forward, the only concrete method of dealing with

53

the menace. The Government knew it, and said so.

It must be remembered that the essence of Freemasonry is that 99 per cent of Freemasons don't know what its about, or what they are doing, if anything.

There is no difficulty in recognising the Masonic group in English politics – it is the group which rushed off to the United States for instructions after the Munich postponement of the second phase of the war. If this war is won by Great Britain, it will be because Mr. Chamberlain delayed it for twelve months, in spite of the efforts of Mr. Baldwin's "white haired boys". If it is lost, it will be partly because of the success of Masonic influence in putting the British Army under the control of a senile incompetent, General Gamelin, and largely by the mass of useless officials foisted on us by the Fabian-PEP agencies of international monopoly. But it isn't going to be, in spite of them.

What bearing, if any, on more recent events, the fairly well established fact that Hitler is the grandson of an illegitimate daughter of Baron Rothschild of Vienna has I do not know. But the naïve idea that attention should be focussed on the largely verbal "anti-Semitism" of German, rather than on the Talmudic Jew policy and philosophy which has been steadily pursued equally by Hitler as by the Kaiser with his entourage of Ballin, Rathenau, Bleichroeder and many others, ought by now to be untenable.

The very large increase in the membership of the Fabian Society, it is stated, is almost entirely due to German-Jew "refugees", who thus mould the "Planners". I have direct evidence that many of these pre-war refugees worked furiously for war, and hardly troubled to conceal their belief that Germany would win it. It is convenient to mention at this point, that the present and preceding articles of this series were written without having the advantage of having read Mr. A. N. Field's informative book All These Things, although, of course, I was aware of its existence. Various attempts to obtain it from time to time have been met with the reply, "Out of print – Temporarily unobtainable". By the kindness of a friend, I have now been able to profit

54

from it. Mr. Field is evidently informed in much greater detail in regard to, for instance, the Marconi affair, than I am. Such information as I had was derived through entirely distinct channels, and the fact that Mr. Field's interpretation of the facts and the general situation coincides with my own is therefore the more significant.

All These Things is in no sense a book on monetary reform, which lends additional interest to the following paragraph:
If the existing social order is violently overthrown as Mr. [G.D.H.] Cole advocates, it will only be because the mass of people are suffering want and privation. The existing order is capable of producing in abundance all that the people require. If they are unable to obtain all that they require, it is mainly because they lack the money to buy it. The problem is thus a monetary one. But if by monetary reform this state of things were remedied, a violent overthrow of the existing social order would be most unlikely. It is a very striking fact that, taken generally, Communists and Socialists are as violently opposed to monetary reform as is the moneyed interest itself. Their sine qua non is not so much the betterment of conditions, as the violent overthrow of the whole present constitution of society. Destruction is the immediate objective.

Quis beneficit?

55

Chapter XIV

A passion for giving orders is almost complete evidence of unsuitability to give orders.

An order, or command, is an inherent pre-requisite of a function. To be justifiable, it must proceed from someone who is fully aware of its effect, of the capacity of those to whom it is given to carry it out in the circumstances in which it is given, and aware of the constant supervision required to ensure fulfilment. All this, in its turn, requires technical knowledge of devolution – the resignation of the order, giving faculty at the proper stage, to someone else; and a rigid self-discipline not less exacting than that imposed. People who have had much experience of giving orders justifiably and successfully, give as few orders as possible, by reason of having learnt that the surest way to make trouble for yourself is to give an order.

A Utopia is a comprehensive order, and it is significant that the devisers of imposed Utopias are invariably those people, organisations and races who manage their own affairs worst.

Notice particularly the use of the word devisers. Observation of political affairs, and some experience of life, has convinced me that the real Plotters, while having the clearest possible conception of their own objective, rely in the main on the devisers of Utopias to provide them with a ready-made popular propaganda. Then, by control of the Press, Broadcasting, Political and commercial patronage and other mechanisms of social and economic power which can be summarised under the control of credit, the widest publicity and assistance is given to the particular Utopia which lends colour to the concentration of power (such as "Abolition of private Property", ''The Classless State", "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"), and the Utopianists and

56

their dupes wake up to "The Dictatorship over the Proletariat" – the Slave State.

There is, I think, one safe rule to apply to all Schemes, Plots, and Plans. It is, I believe, called the Golden Rule, and it is not new. Disregard all fine phrases. Disregard all appeals to your "Public Spirit". Don't bother about Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Don't waste time trying to find out who the Proletariat are going to dictate to, when we're all propertyless, and so all Proletariat. Merely enquire "What are you going to do to me, and how do I stop you if I don't like it? Can I kick your inspectors and your Ogpu-Gestapo and your Kommissars out of my (excuse me, my mistake, the proletariat's) house, or can they kick me? If I believe that it isn't my business to spend the rest of my life making tractors for China, and say so, do I get my coupons, or don't I? In the bad old days, to quite a considerable extent, I did. I should have been just like everyone else in that respect, only the coupon merchants (who seem to have names suspiciously similar to the Planned Utopians) said that what they called a reserve of labour, and other people called the unemployed, must be available and so couldn't have any coupons."

If you ask the Utopian this kind of question, you will discover an interesting fact – that one of the biggest parts of The Big Idea is the indispensability and invulnerability of the Ogpu. Or call it the Gestapo – or the G-men. Or the "snoopers". We don't hear much about the Ogpu nowadays, but, like Mr. Benjamin Cohen of the U.S.A., it's there. And so we come to the core of the matter – it isn't the scheme that matters – that's just to keep you quiet, like Mackenzie King's cry of "Hands off Alberta". It's the sanctions that matter. You think a World State would be governed by Saints? Remember the wise Lord Action, "Absolute Power corrupts absolutely".

There is in existence, unpublished, and carefully protected against "accidents" the main outlines of a Scheme which would accomplish all the social betterments which the realities of the situation at any moment make possible – and that is much more than any Utopian proposal contemplates. That scheme has

57

at the moment no practical value whatever. What is required is a shift of sanctions.

The Jews show a strong preference for the Emperor [Wilhelm], and there must be some bargain. Since Morgan's death, the Jewish Banks are supreme, and they have captured the Treasury Department . . . . forcing upon him [the Secretary to the Treasury the appointment of Warburg, the German-Jew, on the Federal Reserve Board, which he dominates. The Government itself is rather uneasy, and the President himself quoted to me the text 'He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep'. One by one the Jews are capturing the principal newspapers, and are bringing them over as much as they dare to the German side. – Sir Cecil Spring Rice, British Ambassador to Washington, to Sir Edward Grey, November 15, 1914.

The majority of the English do not realise that, having done their duty by the inner Jewish circle, they have now got to disappear as a world Power. – The Coming War by General Ludendorff, Chief of the German General Staff; published 1931.

Well, there we are. Where do we go from here?

It cannot be overlooked that corruption, misinformation, the insidious social poisons of Hollywood and Broadcasting House, the extraordinary success of the abstractionist idea that it is better that all should be miserable than that only some should be happy – that there should be no grass in the field rather than some blades should come up first – have gone very far in this country. It may be – I do not think so – that there are not enough English, Scottish and Welsh, submerged and bedevilled as they are by swarms of aliens, still able to recognise facts, and strong enough to deal with them. But if it should prove that there are enough, the general outline of their task, grim enough in all conscience, is clear.

Like most important matters in the Universe, it appears to have a trinitarian aspect. It involves an ideology, a dynamics, and a technique. They are separate, but indissoluble. The ideology begins very simply. We have to discard the idea that every child is born into the world to mind someone else's business, and substitute the fact that he is responsible for

58

minding his own. That he should help, not meddle. It is not without interest that Mr. G. D. H. Cole divides his time between Planning the Universe, and writing detective stories. The Ogpu complex.

The next point is equally simple and far-reaching – that groups are inferior to individuals. Majorities have no rights and are generally not right. They are an abstraction to which it is impossible to impart the qualities of a conscious human being. The attempt to construct a system of human relationships on the "rights" of majorities is not democracy. If it were, democracy would stand self-condemned. There is nothing of that kind of democracy in the New Testament but plenty of it in the Jewish Bible – the so-called Old Testament. It is only possible to associate, i.e., to form a majority, for the purposes of a function – "we descend to meet". To rule humanity by function is exactly what the Jews wish, and have largely succeeded in doing. Socialism is the complete rule of the individual by functions, and is Satanic. Demon est Deus inversus. "Total war" is a total demonstration.

Genuine democracy can very nearly be defined as the right to atrophy a function by contracting out. It is essentially negative, although, contrary to the curious nonsense that is prevalent about "negativeness", is none the less essential for that reason.

This genuine democracy requires to be carefully distinguished from the idea that a game is a necessarily bad game simply because you can't or won't play it, and therefore the fact that you can't play it is the first recommendation for a chief part in changing the rules. On the contrary, that is an a priori disqualification. For this reason, if for no other, a period of discipline in the prevalent social and economic systems in, say, the early twenties, seems highly and pragmatically desirable. No play, no vote. Bad play, Grade 3 vote. But you needn't do either.
The power of contracting-out is the first and most deadly blow to the Supreme State.

59

Chapter XV

The idea of a political majority is clearly part of the ideology of war, and closely associated with the "Führerprinzip" – the conception of society as an army progressing under the orders of a General. "God is on the side of the Big Battalions." How much, if any, reality, is there in this proposition?

Now the first point to observe is that it finds no support in history. If the outcome of the present Bedlam should result in victory for size, and the rule of the world pass to mere popu- lations, whether German, Russian, or American, it will be something entirely new.

Greece, Rome, Venice, Spain, Holland, England, all of them small, have all, in their turn, set the fashion in civilisation, and, in every case, their eminence has not only been in the midst of far greater, and in many cases, opposing populations, but has, for the most part, been most clearly marked at a period when the disparity in numbers was greatest.

Admittedly, this day of splendour has been to a much greater extent than is commonly realised, a monetary phenomenon. But to say that, is completely to miss the most important lesson which can be deduced from history. That lesson is that the increment of association is greatest where the association is most flexible, or to put it another way, money has been, in the past the most flexible voting system ever devised, enabling the voter to change his policy and to hold an election every five minutes.

It really does not require much intelligence to realise that the idea of a permanent majority involves the permanent disfranchisement of everyone concerned. If I have £500, and can go

60

to a builder and give him my plans for a house, and "vote" my £500 to him, I get action in accordance with my wishes. But if all building is nationalised, I am disfranchised.

This question of the disfranchisement of the individual from minute to minute goes straight to the roots of the war. It is the technique of centralisation of power, and it must be remembered that there is no such thing as the destruction of power. Power once centralised, cannot be used while centralised for anything but the ends of the organisation in which it has been centralised. Have you ever known of a Government Department relinquishing power?
It is obvious that a majority is only a specialised and deceptive word for the "Führerprinzip". No majority can act without a Leader. When an individual resigns power to a leader, he resigns it primarily to be used against him. To the extent that the "Führerprinzip" has been effective, the present state of the world is the result of the "Führerprinzip".

You can't have it both ways – either the device is ineffective, or the results are catastrophic.

This is easily verifiable. Nations have been moving towards totalitarianism in various forms since the French Revolution and the reign of Frederick the "Great". Contemporaneously, wars have been becoming more obviously planned, more destructive, and more certainly the steps to still greater wars and more totalitarianism. The answer is simplicity itself – the restriction of the leader principle to ad hoc purposes. So far from Russia, Germany and Italy, the New Deal and PEP indicating advance towards a better world, they are exhibits of the operation of a policy which has brought the world to the edge of destruction if not over it. A majority ceases to have any validity when it is led to an objective its component individuals do not understand, or when a dissentient minority is forced to accompany it.
I hope no one will run away with the idea that all this is highly theoretical. It is the most deadly practical subject to which attention can be drawn at this time.

Collectivism, economic and political, is the policy of the Supernatural Forces. Its fundamental objective is the Slave

61

World, ruled by a Praetorian Guard in the employ of a Ruling Race. It has no chance whatever of success, but it has a real chance of setting back the clock of human happiness by hundreds of years. Inherent in the subject is the importance of optimum size, and the consequent dangers of megalomania.

62      

Chapter XVI

Dynamics is the science of Force – strictly speaking, of Force in the Absolute. When we come to specific Dynamics Aero-dynamics, Hydrodynamics, Thermodynamics, etc., we expect to find, and do appear to find in general, a kind of absolute dynamics running through them. But it is often forgotten, and it is most vital to remember, that we know nothing whatever about Force – we merely know that things of various kinds behave in a particular way in what we agree to call similar conditions. It is perhaps one of the strongest arguments against the correctness of our conventional idea of time, that broadly speaking, anything I could do last Thursday, under certain conditions, I can do this Thursday, although I am apt to say "Of course this Thursday is not the same as last Thursday". That is to say, I can repeat the experiment, although one, at least of the conditions is not the same.

This digression is necessary by reason of the fact that there is a tendency, which can be traced to the Encyclopedists who were the forerunners and preparers, inter alia, of the French Revolution, to treat of social forces – Social Dynamics – as though they could be separated from human beings reacting to them.

But in fact, human beings do not react in the strict sense to "social forces". The conception of the exteriorisation of force (like the exteriorisation of Divinity) is quite modern in its general acceptance. It is not easily disprovable in connection with inorganic matter (any more than the Pure Idealism of Bishop Berkeley is any easier to disprove than to prove) and it seems to afford a technique of design, although an alternative might be found. But to apply this idea, as for instance, Socialists

63

apply it, as though individuals were iron filings which, if placed in a magnetic field, would obediently assume a certain pattern, is contrary to all experience. Sir Farquhar Buzzard, the well-known doctor, no doubt had something of this kind in mind when he said "It is the business of a physician to treat a patient, not a disease".

The people who say "It is the system we are fighting, not men" are in general, of course, people who don't want to do any fighting at all. By asserting that it is electricity they hate, not the power-station, they keep well away from the troops defending the power-station. To them, the petition "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do" is conveniently taken to mean that no guilt is involved, and therefore nothing need be done about it. The still graver implication that forgiveness is only asked for those who are unconscious, is rarely given any consideration whatever.
Human beings do not re-act to "social forces" they react to facts, although not necessarily what are commonly called material facts. When a considerable portion of the population of the Eastern United States developed a wild panic at the broadcast of Mr. H. G. Well's Martian Invasion, that was a fact, even if it was fiction. "Freedom" does not interest people, as soon as they realise that it does not mean being free.

There is no more remarkable feature of the present chaos than the exoneration, immunisation, and, in many cases, glorification of the chief actors. If we abolished, as quickly as possible, the whole system of rewards and punishments, that might lead at no great distance of time to something like the millenium. But a system which hangs the perpetrator of a single killing, and canonises the author of ten million murders is simply a school for gangsters. Circumspice.

There is only one sound basis for co-operative society, and that is individual and personal responsibility. It is no part of my intention to rest any argument upon theological grounds except where these themselves are capable of demonstration, but it does seem to me to be difficult to have a plainer and flatter repudiation of collectivism in all its aspects, and of the idea that an

64

organisation can absolve an individual of the responsibility for his actions, than the statement "He took upon Himself, the sins of the world" [Society].

Probably the future of humanity turns on the answer to a single question:
"Does Social Power proceed from within, or does it reside in guns, tanks and aeroplanes?"
It appears to be indisputable that there is some definite, conscious, design operating to pervert the efforts of men to their own destruction. Many people have dealt with it – it is an idea as old as recorded history. Lincoln accepted it as axiomatic in his lament that you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time.

Obviously, if "the best brains" are concentrated on fooling as many as possible as much of the time as possible, "the best brains" have, from their point of view, a good reason. I think I know the reason.

The most irresistible social force is Integrity.

When, a short time ago, a body of workmen "somewhere in England", on finding that they were working on material "subject to Japanese Military Inspection" refused to continue, they did something much more important than framing windy Atlantic Charters.

Integrity is single-mindedness – the mind of a little child. It is the test of quality before quantity.
If success is to attend the efforts of monetary reformers, inter alia, it will not be because of numbers. It will be because of a sufficient quality of Integrity.

65

Chapter XVII

While, unquestionably, control of Financial Credit is, or was, the most powerful weapon in the armoury of the Enemy, the attack upon integrity – that is to say, the steady policy of corruption and perversion – is made by many other mechanisms – patronage to High Office, or any office, bits of ribbon, titles, mere advertisement. They are all variants on the Credit theme, and to imagine that money alone (although undoubtedly first in priority) requires decentralisation, is to court failure.

I do not think that, at any rate in the first place, "morality of objective" has much to do with integrity – I should not deny a much higher degree of integrity to a New York gangster than to quite a large number of highly esteemed ecclesiastics. It consists in a certain simplicity and directness – a clear view of what you want to do, and an indifference to by-products. To achieve anything, you must have it, and without it, you will achieve just what your effort is worth. So far as I can judge, little or no integrity has been applied to political affairs in this country for some years, but a great deal to the advancement of politicians and functionaries. For instance, I should regard Mr. Winston Churchill as a man of high integrity – I should judge that he regards every situation from the single-minded point of view of its effect on the fortunes of Mr. Winston Churchill. What is wrong is that far too many other fortunes are affected at the same time. That is to say, a centralised system of totalitarianism requires, even if it could be made to work, a completely selfless integrity which is not only unknown, but is not Christian. "—thy neighbour as thyself", presumably means what it says.

So far as I understand Christianity it is the easy (not necessarily the immediately easy) way – e.g., the proper way – to do

66

things – "my yoke is easy, my burden, light". It is not a pathetic and everlasting effort to do the undoable. The Satanic ideology of work, employment, austerity, sacrifice, is not an ideology of achievement. Surely anyone can see that. It is an ideology of sabotage, destruction, corruption and decay.

Superficially, it would appear possible to make a success of centralisation of Power. The situation is not unlike that involved in the "conveyor-belt" production publicised, but not invented, by Mr. Henry Ford. Until it was copied by his competitors, it gave him command of the market. Nowadays, he is obliged to obtain business by much the same methods as other manufacturers.

As we can see by observation, the only result of building up a "strong" State is to force the building of one still stronger. The British traditional policy of the balance of power was the only practical way of dealing with this outcome of the State system, and had the British Government retained that integrity (in the sense I have defined the word) which it began to lose with the rise of the Whigs and their backers, there would have been no world war. But the oblique vision which was the inevitable result of the conflict between a national policy and a policy warped to advantage the international interests of Rothschilds, Sassoons, Schusters, Schiffs, Sterns, Schroeders, and other sibilants has been fatal to that single-mindedness which was essential. If anyone supposes that a mass grouping of Power will do anything but hasten the coming of a still more appalling war, if we survive this one, then I can only ask him to consider the rapidity with which this one has come upon us, when, twenty-two years ago we appeared to have reached a period of impregnability.

On the other hand, provided that absolute integrity of purpose, combined with freedom to contract out can be maintained, progressive decentralisation must succeed. The integrity of purpose required is not in opposition to human nature, as in the case of progressive centralisation, but in its best interests. It is in fact essential to the further progress of humanity, just as exercise is essential to the growth of a child. Nothing is so

67

destructive as continual frustration (that is one of the worst features of Government Departments) and nothing develops a man like achievement. Such virtues as are peculiar to the newer countries derive directly from the absence of unnecessary hindrances. The British are being stifled with them.

68

Chapter XVIII

Finally, we come to the question of technique.

There are obvious reasons, more particularly at the present time, which are a valid argument against "plans of campaign", just as against "planning". But certain considerations may be emphasised.

Every prohibition of individual initiative is a victory for the enemy to exactly the extent that it is effective. Not only does it, in itself, represent one more step towards the Slave World, but, except under certain conditions, it sets up a habit of apathetic acquiescence which is exactly what is desired. One of the Planners "hoped to keep the war going" for exactly this purpose; those conditions, however, are not unduly difficult to create.

The first strategy has many times been emphasised – it is to insist that Members of Parliament are representatives, not delegates. I am still of the opinion that so long as Parliamentary institutions subsist, which may not be much longer, this line of action is vital.

But the same principle can be carried into every official quarter. Once get the mental attitude well established in oneself that institutions exist only legitimately to serve individuals, and it is possible to make demands of Government Departments with which their organisation cannot deal, but are yet entirely reasonable. It is not necessary and not desirable, to organise this kind of action. The underlying idea is to call the bluff of institutionalism, and to make it either deliver the goods or expose the fact that it can't.

It is necessary to face up to the fact of institutionalised Judaeo-Christianity, the official philosophy of England, Scotland, and Wales, which is simply Liberal Judaism. I may perhaps repeat my belief, not only that Christianity has not failed because it has not been tried, but that it has not been tried

69

mainly because Judaeo-Christianity has taken care that it should not be tried.

At the present time, ecclesiastics of the Churches of England and Scotland, are making every effort in their power to identify the Kingdom of God upon Earth with Jewish Socialism (which is State Capitalism with monopoly control by Finance), and, in many cases, doing it from what, in a restricted sense, might be called the highest motives – derived from assuming as axiomatic, the tenets of a philosophy systematically inculcated almost from birth. Against this hypnotic obsession, argument is useless – dehypnotisation is essential.

It is of the essence of Social Credit ideas that there is an organic connection between peoples, races, and individuals, and the soils of particular portions of the earth's surface which are individualistic. The Russians are fighting, not for internationalism, but for nationalism.
It is important to enquire into, and to pillory, the fact that the Socialist Party, while demanding the evacuation of India by the British (which, in a proper, dignified, and far from apologetic manner, is ultimately desirable) insist on the admission and retention at their pleasure of the most undesirable Oriental the world has produced – the Jew.

The Jew and his philosophy, which is epitomised in the one-way street – must be provided with a country after the war, and returned to it. I cannot imagine a more distasteful fate for him. Uninfluenced by alien intrigue, and inoculated, as he will be by the harsh realism of war, against windy abstractions, the native of these islands can be trusted to hammer out his best destiny. He will not be assisted by Secret Societies. And the root of the matter is – mind your own business, and allow no man to make a business of minding you. Listen, in reason, to what advice seems to be backed by proper experience and ability, and pay no attention to windy idealism. And then – mind your own business. It is in sore need of your attention.

70

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The late Clifford Hugh Douglas, M.I.Mech.E., M.I.E.E., consulting engineer, economist, author, and founder of the Social Credit Movement, was born in 1879 and died in 1952. Among other posts which he held in his earlier years were those of engineer with the Canadian General Electric Company, Peterborough, Canada; Assistant Engineer, Lachine Rapids Hydraulic Construction, Deputy Chief Electrical Engineer, Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway; Chief Engineer and Manager in India, British Westinghouse Company; Assistant Superintendent, Royal Aircraft Factory, Farnborough (England). During the First World War he was a Major in the Royal Flying Corps and later in the RAF (Reserve).

After retiring from his engineering career, he and his wife ran a small yacht-building yard on Southampton Water for several years. The combination of beauty with functional efficiency in a successfully designed racing yacht had a special appeal to him. When he lived in an old water mill in Hampshire he used the water wheel to turn a dynamo which lit and warmed the house as well as providing power for lathes and other tools. Later, when he moved to Scotland, many of his friends and followers remember helping to build his small hydro-electric power house, sited on the local burn which ran through his land. Since decentralisation of economic power was of the essence of his teaching, it should be put on record that he practised what he preached.

One of his most interesting jobs, just before the 1914 War, was that of conducting preliminary experimental work and preparing plans and specifications for the electrical work on the Post Office Tube in London, with later supervision of the installation of plant in what was to be one of the earliest examples of complete automation in the history of engineering. While there were no physical difficulties about the work, he used to get orders from time to time to slow it up and pay off the men. When the War came, however, he noticed that there was no longer any difficulty about getting money for anything the

71

Government wanted.

It appears that he was sent to Farnborough in 1916 to sort out "a certain amount of muddle" in the Aircraft Factory's accounts, so that he had to go very carefully into the costing. This he did by introducing what were then known as "tabulating machines" – an approach which anticipated the much later use of computers, and which drew his attention to the much faster rate at which the factory was generating costs as compared with the rate at which it was distributing incomes in the form of wages and salaries. Could this be true of every factory or commercial business?

Douglas then collected information from over 100 large businesses in Great Britain, and found that, in every case except in businesses heading for bankruptcy, the total costs always exceeded the sums paid out in wages, salaries and dividends. It followed that only a part of the final product could be distributed through the incomes disbursed by its production, and, moreover, a diminishing part as industrial processes lengthened and became more complex and increased the ratio of overheads to current wages. Unless this defect in monetary bookkeeping were corrected (which in his view was perfectly practicable) the distribution of the remainder must depend increasingly on work in progress on future products (whether wanted or not) financed by loan credit, export credits, sales below cost leading to bankruptcies and centralisation of industrial power, or by consumer borrowing. The result must be predictably disastrous – in fact, the modern dilemma between mass-poverty through unemployment and growing inflation, debt and monopoly, with waste of human effort and the earth's resources to maintain "full employment", requiring continuous economic "growth" and economic warfare between nations leading towards military war.

This original engineer's approach, which regarded the monetary system much as Douglas, a former railway engineer, had regarded the ticket system, as a mere bookkeeping convenience for the efficient distribution of the product, was completely alien and unacceptable to the economic theorists of the

72

day. Only one Professor of Economics (Professor Irvine of Sydney) expressed agreement with it, and he resigned his post shortly afterwards. This general condemnation by the economists was, however, along two different and contradictory lines, viz.: (1) that the cost-income gap was an illusion due to Douglas's failure to realise that the costs all represented sums paid out at a previous date as wages, salaries, etc. – ignoring the time factor which was the essence of his analysis; and (2) that it was, on the contrary, a glimpse of the obvious, of no significance whatever, since this was the immutable way in which the monetary and economic system must work for the stimulation of new production and the maintenance of the level of employment – i.e. ignoring Douglas's radically different objective of production for the consumers' use and not for "employment" or other monetary objectives.

When the Great Depression of the 1930's grimly confirmed Douglas's diagnosis and gave him a world-wide reputation and following, his critics explained that he had mistaken a temporary lapse for a permanent defect in the monetary system; but subsequent events have, by now, so continuously fulfilled his predictions that this criticism is no longer credible. Despite rejection by the Economic Establishment of the day, Douglas was called upon to give evidence before the Canadian Banking Enquiry in 1923 and the Macmillan Committee in 1930, and undertook several World Tours in which he addressed many gatherings, especially in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and also at the World Engineering Congress in Tokyo in 1929. In 1935 he gave an important address before the King of Norway and the British Minister at the Oslo Merchants' Club, and in the same year he was appointed Chief Reconstruction Adviser to the "United Farmers" Government of the Province of Alberta, Canada, which later in the year elected the first Government to bear the title "Social Credit". The Canadian Federal Govern- ment, however, frustrated all attempts to implement Douglas's advice by disallowing the legislation, some of which was passed, and disallowed, twice; after which, although the Party remained in power for over 30 years, it progressively abandoned the

73

principles on which it was first elected. It should be placed on historical record, as a precedent, that two "provincial dividends" of little more than token value, were nevertheless paid at one period to the citizens of the Province, and that, while still acting under the advice of Douglas's representative, the province paid its way without further borrowing, and drastically reduced the Provincial debt.

This diversion of Douglas's ideas into the dead-end of Party politics has received far more publicity than the original and experimental approach to politics which is signposted in his later speeches and writings from 1934 onwards, notably in his five major speeches in England: The Nature of Democracy, The Tragedy of Human Effort, The Approach to Reality, The Policy of a Philosophy, and Realistic Constitutionalism. In 1934 a Social Credit Secretariat was formed under his Chairmanship, which started an Electoral Campaign involving the use of the vote for purposes desired by electors rather than by Parliament or the political Parties. This was followed by a highly successful Local Objectives Campaign along similar non-party lines, and a Lower Rates and Assessments Campaign which saved the British ratepayers many millions of pounds without loss of services, by reducing loan charges. The Second World War put an end to these activities on an organised national scale, and dispersed them, with the Social Credit Movement, into a decentralised force, better adapted to the present crisis of World centralisation.

In the final phase of his life, roughly from 1939 to his death in 1952, Douglas consolidated his ideas in depth, contrasting very clearly the philosophy which underlies them with that which activates the Monopoly of Credit. Although the best known of them, which have already exercised considerable influence in the World, lie in the economic sphere: the concepts of real credit, the increment of association and the cultural inheritance, and the proposals of the National Dividend and the Just or Compensated Price – his political ideas, though as yet little known, are if anything of greater importance. They were always worked out with a characteristic practicality, taking

74

account of the feedback from the course of events. No one else has thrown so much light on the true nature of democracy, as distinct from the numerical product of the ballot box; on the need for decentralised control of policy and hierarchical control of administration; on the freedom to choose one thing at a time, on the right to contract out, on the Voters' Policy and the Voters' Veto. In his last address, given in London to the Constitutional Research Association in 1947, he put forward his last proposal for the rehabilitation of democracy: the Responsible Vote, in which the financial consequences of his open electoral choice would be, for a time, differentially paid for by the voter in proportion to his income – a literally revolutionary suggestion which demands an inversion of current ideas about anonymous, irresponsible, numerical voting.

Hugh Gaitskell, a former Leader of the Labour Party, once sarcastically described Douglas as "a religious rather than a scientific reformer". Perhaps he was more right than he knew! It may be that Douglas's thinking on the subjects of philosophy, policy and religion, and the special meaning he gave to those words, will turn out to be his most valuable contribution to the restoring of the link between religious belief and the principles which govern Society. In his view, a "philosophy", i.e. a conception of the universe, always expresses itself as a "policy" – a distinctive long-term course of action directed towards ends determined by that "philosophy". "Religion" (from the Latin religare, to bind back) is not just a set of beliefs such as are expressed in the Christian creeds (which constitute a "philosophy") but is precisely the "binding back" of these ideas to the reality of our lives, not only individually, but in the political and economic relationships of our society.

The policies of centralisation and monopoly now being imposed upon the World through the closely related agencies of Finance-Capitalism and Marxist Socialism derive from a "philo- sophy" fundamentally different from, and opposed to, that of Trinitarian Christianity, which was, however imperfectly, expressed in our Constitution, our Common Law, and the progress towards personal freedom which had been made, espec-

75

ially, in Britain and the Commonwealth. At the time Douglas first put forward his ideas and proposals for carrying forward this traditional policy to its next stage, its Christian basis could be taken for granted as mere "commonsense". Now, that can no longer be taken for granted, and it has become necessary consciously to distinguish the policies at work in our Society, and to relate them to the fundamental beliefs which gave rise to them. In this sense, therefore, "Social Credit" is the social policy of a Christian "philosophy"; and before the end of his life, its founder made this explicit, rather than, as in its beginnings, implicit.

76

BOOKS BY C.H. DOUGLAS:
Economic Democracy
Credit Power and Democracy
The Control and Distribution of Production
Social Credit Warning Democracy
The Alberta Experiment
These Present Discontents and the Labour Party
The New and the Old Economics
The Monopoly of Credit
The "Land for the (Chosen) People" Racket
Programme for the Third World War
"Whose Service is Perfect Freedom"
The Brief for the Prosecution

ADDRESSES AND ESSAYS (PAMPHLETS) BY C.H. DOUGLAS:
Social Credit Principles
Reconstruction
The Use of Money
The Nature of Democracy
Money and the Price System
The Approach to Reality
The Tragedy of Human Effort Security: Institutional and Personal
The Policy of a Philosophy
This "American" Business
Realistic Constitutionalism
The Realistic Position of the Church of England
The Monopolistic Idea The Breakdown of the Employment System 77

After reading this book, order copies for your friends. Please note where hard copies are now available:
Additional copies of this book and a complete price list of other books may be obtained by writing to the following addresses:
AUSTRALIA Veritas Books online:
Veritas Publishing Company Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 20, Bullsbrook, Western Australia, 6084.
Now available from Heritage Books, P.O.Box 27, Happy Valley, South Australia 5159
CANADA & USA Veritas Publishing Company, (A Division of Veritas Holdings Limited) P.O. Box 67555, Station "O", Vancouver, B.C., Canada, V5W 3VI
NEW ZEALAND Veritas Publishing Company Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 4389, Auckland, New Zealand.
BRITAIN Bloomfield Books, 26 Meadow Lane, Sudbury, Suffolk, England COl0 6TD - available at this address.
SOUTH AFRICA Dolphin Press (Pty.) Ltd., P.O. Box 1564, Krugersdorp, Transvaal, 1740, South Africa.

78