METRIC MADNESS SHOULD BE CURBED

"Canberra - Four members of the original Senate committee on metrics today defended their decision that Australia go metric. The deputy chairman of the committee, Liberal Tasmanian Senator Marriott said today that the committee had been unanimous in its findings. 'I have been told that it was one of the greatest decisions a Senate committee ever made. From all the evidence taken by the committee it was evident that the vast majority of the Australian public was in favour of metrics', Senator Marriott said." - The Herald, (Melbourne) June 15th

A study of the evidence (if it can be called that) presented to the Senate Committee provides no basis whatever for Senator Marriott's sweeping statement that "the great majority" of the Australian people supported metrics. The great majority of Australians had little conception of what was involved. They certainly never thought, for example, that a type of metric madness would insist that mile posts be removed from Australian roads and a greater number of kilometre posts put in. And that untold numbers of man-hours would be wasted changing road signs all over Australia. A vote on metrication conducted last week by a Melbourne television station provides a much more accurate measure of public opinion than the unsupported assertions of Senator Marriott. The anti-metric vote was overwhelming. Which brings us to Dr. Jim Cairns, who has suggested that the metrication programme should be postponed or reassessed because of its contribution to inflation.

Dr. Cairns has been a prominent Member of the Australian Labor Party over the years when it has endorsed metrication. He is on record as having expressed doubts about the metrication of Australia before the recent Federal Elections but only commented after the elections in answer to a question from a Melbourne journalist. However, having expressed his doubts, and obtained enormous public support, Dr. Cairns has started to back away from the question. Dr. Cairns may like to consider himself radical but he is not so radical that he is prepared to challenge the massive campaign to force Australians to accept increasing uniformity in every aspect of their lives.

The same Dr. Cairns may have raised the hopes of some with his public criticism of the Treasury "experts" and his statement that he was not a supporter of Keynesian economics. But we can predict now that Dr. Cairns will not be challenging the basic finance-economic policies being used to destroy the free society everywhere and to impose increasing centralisation of control over the individual.

However, as Dr. Cairns has publicised the metric question, we suggest that electors take the opportunity of asking their Members of Parliament to spare them any further metric madness. Why must the mania for uniformity be extended to the roads? In what way have Australians benefited from describing temperatures in "Celsius"? Who wants to know how many millimetres of rain fell? Or how many grammes or kilograms of weight have been put on in the past week? Are racehorses running any faster because of the abolition of furlongs? Will motor cars perform any better after an estimated $15 million have been spent on converting petrol bowsers to metric, and motorists attach a converter (more expense) to tell them how many kilometers per hour they are travelling? Must cricket lovers have to suffer listening to commentators describing how the ball misses the stumps by x number of centremetres? People who raise these types of questions will be charged with being "unprogressive". The Queenslanders were charged with just that because they considered their local circumstances before deciding that they would not join other Eastern States with "daylight saving" during the summer time.

The imposition of metrication in Australia is another example of totalitarianism, imposed by misleading and untruthful propaganda, and backed by bureaucratic tyranny. We are not particularly interested in the technical arguments concerning the alleged necessity for metrication. But any system of weights, distances and other measures cannot be divorced from a people's traditions and culture. The terms used in the imperial system are rooted in a type of organic growth. But the imperial system is not as "efficient" as a metric system, chorus the metrication propagandists. The British have surely demonstrated that this statement is false. And why aren't the Americans rushing into metrication, but adhering to the imperial system?

The constantly repeated statement that the "majority of the people of the world are now using metrics", is a typical falsehood used by those determined to bulldoze Australians into accepting complete metrication. In the face of widespread public opposition, the British metrication programme is being slowed down. In a most revealing letter of November 26th, 1973, a copy of which we have before us, that great advocate of centralisation Mr. John Gorton wrote:
"I am not sure that the Senate Select Committee took the view that the decision had already been made (to metricate). If it did that was not correct. But it clearly realised that there was no point in the enquiry if it took the view that a decision not (underlined in original) to adopt the metric system had been made. I conceived the idea of the Committee because it seemed that with our major trading partners, and the vast majority of the nations of the world using the metric system, it was to our advantage to do so."

This classic example of double-talk confirms the allegation of those who charge that the driving force behind the metrication programme was international, and that Mr. Gorton set up the Senate Committee, not to examine the pros and cons of metrication, but to pave the way for its implementation.

While we appreciate the arguments of many engineers and similar people that it would be impractical, although not impossible, to reverse what has been done, is a surrender to false propaganda and the philosophy of determinism to adopt the attitude that nothing can be done to prevent the complete metrication of Australian life. All that is required is sufficient vocal opposition directed at individual Members of Parliament. And Dr. Cairns could be asked does he really mean what he has said or is he merely playing politics.

THE FINANCE-ECONOMIC CRISIS DEEPENS

The more the economies of the world are internationalised the greater the disasters resulting from inflationary policies, which are producing increasing havoc everywhere. After a short period of recovery, the Australian wool market has moved downwards to the days of the last rural crisis. But in the meantime wool producers' costs have increased. Now the Australian beef industry faces a crisis. The Japanese and American finance-economic crises are so severe that purchases of Australian beef are affected.

In spite of retail price controls, and a credit squeeze, Japanese inflation roars on. Japanese businesses are running at an all-time high at 1,000 a month. The Japanese Marxists are delighted. Less than a month after being elected, French President Giscard d'Estaing has shocked the French with his programme for dealing with inflation, currently running at about 17 per cent. There is a big increase in taxation; including a 3c petrol tax and 5 per cent increase in taxes on gas, electricity and oil products. The French "experts" insist that austerity is the answer to inflation. The coming chaos, and upsurge of Communist influence, can be predicted with certainty. The British are also being told that they must tighten their belts still further. The British inflation rate is 17 percent. The Canadians and Americans are catching up! President Tanaka of Japan says he can find no answers to inflation in the economic textbooks.

One of the few economists to admit publicly that the post-Second World War period has proved Keynesian economic theories wrong, is Professor A. Waters, Cassel Lecturer of Economics at the London School of Economics, who has stated that "The lessons of the last twenty years are clear. The events are quite different from, indeed almost the opposite of, those described in the textbooks."
Professor Waters was giving a Paper at the Monash University.

We have explained until we are tired of the subject, that there is no answer to inflation inside present finance-economic policies. Mr. Whitlam and his "experts", including Dr. Cairns, are going to be subjected to that most severe form of discipline: reality. According to the Prime Minister's admirer Mr. Laurie Oaks, chief of the Melbourne Sun's Canberra Bureau, writing in The Sun of June 7th, Mr. Whitlam called Mr. Lance Barnard, Mr. W. Hayden, Mr. Frank Crean, and Dr. Jim Cairns to a special meeting at Kirribilli House on the weekend following the May 18th elections. Also present was the permanent head of the Treasury Sir Frederick Wheeler, and "two " of Mr. Whitlam's most senior advisers - Professor Fred Gruen and Mr. James Spigelman. The programme for dealing with inflation, including the hard line with the States, was discussed.

Already that programme has produced deep convulsions in Labor ranks. South Australian Premier Don Dunstan launched a full-scale public attack on Mr. Whitlam, charging him with eroding the power of the State Governments. If Mr. Dunstan were at Canberra, he would, of course, be acting differently! But he realises that his own power is now being threatened. And that he will have to pay the political price for the higher taxes which the Whitlam policy is forcing him to impose.

We have no sympathy with Mr. Dunstan. The Whitlam Fabian-Socialist programme for destroying the States was worked out during intensive discussions between 1966 and 1972. There is no record of Mr. Dunstan opposing them. However, the Dunstan protest highlights once again the value of the Federal system of Government, and the division of power between the Commonwealth and the States. Even a Labor Premier finds he must resist Canberra's centralism.

The stage is now being set in Australia for another major finance-economic crisis. Dr. Ironmonger, deputy director of the Melbourne University Applied Economic and Social Research Institute, warns, "We face a hyperinflation rate of more than 20 percent next year with massive stagflation and large-scale unemployment."
Professor Ironmonger urges abolition of "orthodox but absolutely futile" methods of dealing with inflation, urging as an interim programme an easing of credit, a cut in indirect taxation and consumer subsidies to keep prices down.

The polarisation of Australian politics will accelerate as the finance-economic crisis deepens. That is why we doubt the Whitlam Government's ability to survive for three years. If ever the Opposition parties are going to provide some genuine alternatives to the Socialists, now is their opportunity. They could start by adopting the Bjelke-Petersen two-point policy of the complete abolition of Sales Tax and the introduction of consumer subsidies.

TOWARDS THE WORLD STATE

"Washington, June 14th - The world's financial leaders have agreed on a package plan to reform the international monetary system . . . The committee voted to fix the value of the special drawing rights (SDR) - the IMF's own international currency - in terms of a 'basket' of currencies instead of the U.S. dollar and gold...The move constitutes another stage in the build-up of the SDR into what the IMF hopes will be the eventual successor to gold and the U.S. dollar as the world's most important reserve asset. - The Age, Melbourne June 15th

When the two principal architects of the Bretton Woods agreement, top Soviet agent in the US Treasury, Harry Dexter White, and Fabian-Socialist John Maynard Keynes fostered the establishment of the International Monetary Fund they realised that the World State could not be created without an international financial system which would enable the international controllers of that system to dictate the domestic financial policies of the member nations.

"Paper gold" is a new form of international credit, created like all credit by the stroke of a pen. But its only value is the backing of the real credit of the nations of the world. Genuine economic sovereignty means that the peoples of the world must keep control of their own real credit. This means control of financial credit also.

The proposal by the "Committee of 20" of the International Monetary Fund, to borrow money from oil-producing nations to lend to oil-consuming nations is designed to make the producers of all basic raw materials dependent upon the International Monetary Fund. The World State cannot be established without international control of all the basic raw materials of the world. The Arab world should take careful heed of what is being planned, and by whom.

BRIEF COMMENTS

Visiting Papua-New Guinea Chief Minister Mr. Somare protested last week that it is "ridiculous, unjust and absurd that Australia's border should come within yards of the Papua-New Guinea mainland." Mr. Somare apparently does not know that many nations in the world share the same border, not even yards apart. The islanders in the Tortes Strait he claims do not wish to belong to Papua-New Guinea. They prefer to remain Queenslanders.

The protesters against the French nuclear tests have been rather quiet about the Indian nuclear tests. We have no reports of any protests against the Red Chinese when they conducted an atmospheric nuclear test early this week. We wonder why?

As a result of the postal strike, this issue of On Target will almost certainly be late in reaching subscribers. Could we hear from those advocates of "common ownership" as the answer to our problems? The "common owners" are being treated with complete arrogance by those allegedly working for them.

The Social Engineer and Faith