THE OFFICE BOYS OF GRAIN

The Minister for Primary Industry, Mr. Nixon, will leave on Friday for talks in Washington and Ottawa as part of a review of Australia's grain sales to the Soviet Union." - The Age (Melbourne) June 2nd.

Many readers may be intrigued by the title of this segment, viz. "The Office boys of Grain": it will become clearer. In an excellent article by Charles Pinwill, Queensland State Director for the League, in The New Times (May 1980), he reviews a most revealing book, now quite mysteriously spirited off retail book store bookshelves. The book carried the title - The Merchants of Grain, by one, Dan Morgan. Dan Morgan is a former Washington Post foreign correspondent: how he came to penetrate even as far below the surface of the world's grain empires as he did is really a triumph of "investigative journalism". We advise readers not to waste their time in trying to track down a copy of this book; it has been snapped off the market: but because of the good intelligence services available to us, your Editor was able to obtain reference copies for the League: and these are now in the right hands.

The truth of the matter is that the world's grain trade is monopolised by five, extremely secretive, private family companies. They are - Cargill, Continental, Bunge, Dreyfus, and Andre. Each company's annual turnover runs into billions of dollars. Continental has the monopoly of selling Australian wheat to Chile and Peru. Cargill has the Australian wheat monopoly to Iran. Importantly, for the "Big Five" of the world's grain trade, the various Grain Boards, such as the Australian Wheat Board, are no more than collecting agencies to bring grain together into "marketable parcels" large enough for the Big Five's convenience. So, the various Grain Boards may be looked upon, perhaps, as types of regional managers for the Big Five, and mere politicians, with some responsibility for the production and collection of grain, are no more than "the Office Boys of Grain". Mr. Peter Nixon is such an "Office boy", no doubt without an understanding of his minor and most subservient role.

In the hard, real world of money in the billions, politicians and bureaucrats are little corks, bobbing around in a mighty sea. To understand these secret empires the better, it must be understood that "credit, not capital, was the foundation of the business". Dan Morgan quotes a retired grain trade from Michel Fribourg's Continental as saying: "I used to go to the bank and say, 'Can I have one hundred million dollars?' The answer was always, yes." The Big Five operate by favour of the international bankers: the international bankers control the world's grain trade via the Big Five. Wheat Boards are a mere collecting agency for the Big Five. Politicians and bureaucrats lick the stamps and post the letters: just "office boys".

But back to our Mr. Nixon. He says that Australia has given an undertaking not to make up any of the shortfall in grain supplies to the Soviet Union created by the U.S.A. decision to withhold 17 million tonnes of grain from the U.S.S.R. in 1979-80. He made the statement (now quite revealing to us, but not to him!) "we are satisfied that there has been no leakage of any Australian grain, and that the international grain market has not been disrupted as a result of actions taken by the U.S.A." We bet it hasn't. The International Bankers, and the Big Five would see to that!

With this background knowledge we can gain some appreciation of the pressures to which Mr. Nixon and equivalent participants from other countries will be subject when they meet in Washington very shortly to review grain sales, including those of Australia, to the Soviet Union. Whichever nations lose out, we can be sure that the Big Five and the International Bankers won't lose one cent as a result of any possible shifts in grain export policies.

FRESH ATTACK ON LEAGUE

In a new attack on the League, The National Times (May 25-31) asserts that the Australian League of Rights will fade away in 1980. In a full-page article devoted to the "proof" of this we are treated to some amazing "information" about the League we didn't know ourselves. We have it from the grapevine that this article is the prong of a coming major attack on us; and the old League hater, K.D. Gott, author of the little hate booklet on the League, is writing yet another.

In our next issue of On Target, Mr. E.D. Butler, National Director of the Australian League of Rights, who is presently lecturing in Queensland, will be commenting fully on the National Times article. There was no evidence of any League fade away over the weekend, May 30, 31 and June 1st, on the occasion of the Queensland Annual State Dinner and Seminar; both very well attended indeed in spite of drought and high petrol prices. At the evening session of the Seminar on the Saturday the hall was packed.
The Action Seminar on the Sunday was directed by Mr. E.D. Butler, assisted by Mr. Jeremy Lee, Assistant National Director of the Australian League of Rights. Actionist participation was brisk as a result of high interest levels. Mr. E.D. Butler will now head south for Melbourne, conducting meetings of supporters on the way.

THE QUEEN'S VISIT

I do know one thing. What I saw in those four days - and particularly during the two days in Sydney and Melbourne has caused me to do a heavy rethink on my feelings about Australia as a republic. - Buzz Kennedy in Weekend Australian, May 31-June 1st.

Mr. Kennedy is commenting on the four-day visit to Australia by the Queen and Prince Philip. Readers will know that the Queen came to Australia to open the new High Court of Australia building in Canberra and also the new Melbourne City Square. C.H. Douglas made a penetrating reference to the role of the British Monarchy in his work "Realistic Constitutionalism". He spoke of the Monarch as being the embodiment of the soul of the nation, the proper repository of honours and sanctions (where honours should flow from, from where sanctions on any excesses, particularly of government should issue). The Monarch, representing the soul of the nation, keeper of honours and sanctions, is naturally, quite naturally, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. It must be so. Her Governors General, representing the Monarch, should play an identical role.

Mr. Kennedy should not have been so surprised, really. In these days of political changes, and even violence, our Monarchy is a rock steady island in turbulent seas. Our Queen signifies steadiness and tradition amid tumult. Our Queen maintains the highest standards of behaviour, dress, speech, manners, decency, everything to raise the eyes of her subjects up: always up. Pitiful politicians come, and mercifully go but the Monarch goes on and on, maintaining our links with the past (our history) and giving us confidence in the future.

We were most impressed with some of the remarks of Mr. Buzz Kennedy pertaining to the recent short Royal Visit, and do both congratulate him on them, and take pleasure in reproducing them for the benefit of our many supporters who missed his article. We are sure that many of our actionists will personally write to congratulate Mr. Kennedy of The Australian:
''As a born and bred Australian (the first Kennedy arrived in New South Wales in 1795) I have thought for some years it is unreasonable for me to expect everybody or, indeed, very many in this multiracial nation of ours, to have the same feelings of affection and (in the most independent fashion) respect for the monarchy as I have.
"And I thought perhaps my age and reactionary tendencies might be showing if I expected young Australians, whatever their ethnic origins, to feel affection and enthusiasm for the Crown. "For these reasons I have thought that an Australian republic might be the fair and realistic solution. "Yet, now I have watched Mrs. di Giorgio and spoken to Anita Protzman and Mrs. Stephen and Lang Dang... and seen hundreds of thousands who turned out and cheered the Queen and the young man in Swanston St. (Melbourne) who defied the knavish tricks of her enemies I am of a different mind. Above all politics, above ethnic origins, above State barriers and jealousies - the Queen is far and away the most powerful unifying influence in this nation... Long live the Queen."

BRIEF COMMENTS

The coming together of Australia's two largest Communist parties, the Communist Party of Australia and the Socialist Party of Australia, is of significance in that once again it demonstrates that in spite of bitter factional fighting, Marxists can easily come together in a common cause. The Socialist Party of Australia has been a loyal supporter of the Soviet, splitting from the Communist Party of Australia in 1968 when many Marxists found it hard to accept the Soviet military invasion of Czechoslovakia. But following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan unity has been achieved. Which raises the possibility of Soviet and Peking coming together when it suits their common purposes. In all the recent eulogies concerning Tito of Jugoslavia, the man who allegedly "stood up" to Moscow, no reference was made to the fact that when in 1956 the initially successful Hungarian uprising took place, and the Communist world was threatened with a major disaster, Tito announced that he was a loyal supporter of Moscow. It was significant that the staunch anti-Communist Malcolm Fraser had no words of warning concerning Communist China's successful development of intercontinental missiles. What a cry would have gone up from Canberra if South Africa had used the Indian Ocean to test intercontinental missiles.

In "Dictatorship by Taxation" ($1.10 posted) C.H. Douglas quotes Sir Josiah Stamp, at that time one of the Directors of the Bank of England, as saying "with engaging candour" that "While a few years ago no one would have believed it possible that a scale of taxation such as that at present existing could be imposed upon the British public without revolution, I have every hope that with skilful education and propaganda this scale can be very safely raised." We were reminded of this statement by the news from the U.S.A. headlined, "2 BIG U.S. BANKS SLASH RATES." The story tells of the Chase Manhattan and the Bankers Trust Company reducing their interest rates by 1 percent. In April the prime interest rate reached 20 percent as a result of the credit squeeze policy of the Reserve Bank. Not so many years back an interest rate of 10 percent was regarded as devastating. But if the interest rate is first increased to 20 percent and then eased back, those responsible for credit policy are no doubt satisfied that perhaps 12-14 percent will be accepted gratefully as reasonable.

FROM HANSARD

Mr. Peter Shack (Representatives) May 15th. (Tangey- W.A.-Lib.)...."Has the Prime Minister seen the statement by the Vice President of the United States of America that the Soviet Union is building major strategic facilities in Afghanistan? Does the Government have any information, which confirms or denies that report?

Mr. Malcolm Fraser: The Government has information that would confirm the substance of the Vice President's remarks. The Soviet Union is building a major strategic airfield in south-west Afghanistan that will very significantly increase the reach of the Soviet Union in relation to Iran, the Gulf States, the oil producing States and southwards. It will obviously enable the Soviet Union to extend the influence of its military power. The airfield, as I am advised, will be capable of taking a wide variety of Soviet military aircraft. I am also advised that there is no way at all in which the construction of this strategic airfield could be related to the military activities inside Afghanistan. It would seem to confirm that in moving into Afghanistan the Soviet Union had motives other than the suppression of a people."

Hon. Paul Keating (A.L.P.-Blaxland):-Representatives May 21st. Even Ministers with portfolios completely unconnected with national development or energy are up there (at public functions) defending the Government's petrol pricing policy. We saw that approach illustrated late last year when the Secretary of the Liberal Party, Mr. Tony Eggleton, produced a document for Government Ministers, which was published in the media. In that document we saw priority given to the Government's petrol pricing policies, and the need to explain them. The Government cynically believes that it can explain the policy on the cheap; that is, to use taxpayers' money to explain it. The money of the ordinary motorist will be used now by the Government to explain away the high petrol pricing policy which is fleecing that motorist in the first place..."
"We found out this week that the Government is now holding a closed conference for top public servants at the end of next month (June)- the sole purpose of which is to explain its energy policies, particularly its petrol policies. The conference is not a general thing that public servants can go to. Certain classifications of public servants have been invited. They have to be selected on the basis of some criteria, I suppose, proposed by the Government. All of these things fit into too much of a pattern. Quite obviously, what is motivating all this is the fact that the petrol pricing policy of the Government is killing it in the country. It is killing the Government in the electorate.
"The Government cannot explain its policy away on the basis that we need high petrol prices to keep up exploration. That is demonstrable nonsense. Even the Paper, which was prepared by the Department of National Development and Energy for the Minister himself, took the Minister's argument apart. The Paper stated that in no way could the Government claim that there was a need for high petrol prices to increase and continue exploration activity, because that runs under the new oil policy. Because the Government finds it difficult to explain the policy it will try to explain it in terms of conservation. In reality, it is a tax policy (our emphasis) and we all know that everybody in the country is suffering under the impost…"
"… the truth of the matter is that we produce 70% of our oil in Australia. Ninety percent of our petrol is produced from Australian oil. The Prime Minister is always standing up and quoting the prices, which prevail in France and Germany, and saying they are higher than in Australia. Of course they are higher than in Australia. Those countries do not have any oil. We produce 70% of our oil supplies here. Therefore 90% of our petrol is produced here…"