'THE TRIBUNE' AND MANY HAPPY RETURNS

(1923-1983, Sixty Years of Struggle for Socialism). The Communist Weekly, Tribune, has just "celebrated" sixty years of publication. In spite of the fact that we have recently been assured by some, "officially in the know", that the Communist Party is no longer subversive in Australia; we are incurably swayed by facts which have been demonstrated over a long period of time, and are not influenced by propaganda, disguised as "news". The fact is, that the "line" that the Communist Party in Australia is not subversive, is itself subversive! Some people have encapsulated this stratagem in the words: "The Devil Can Quote the Scriptures".

What interested us in the "birthday" issue of Tribune were the plaudits and felicitations from a variety of sources; principally unions. These are revealing and tell much. Mr. Donald Horne is a well-known Australian. An author, media critic, ex-Editor of The Bulletin (Sydney), he now lectures in the Political Science Department at the University of New South Wales. He has an article in the "birthday" issue of Tribune, headed -"Tribune has a definite future as an alternative".
Then there is an advertisement for "The Journal of Australian Political Economy" (J.A.P.E.). We are told, "subscription to JAPE comes with membership of the Australian Political Economy Movement".
Greetings are expressed (in block notices) by "The South Coast (N.S.W.) Trades and Labor Council", and "The Clothing and Allied Trades Union of Australia, Victorian Branch".
The Miners' Federation, Southern District (N.S.W.) wishes Tribune success in the future.
"The Australian Independence Movement" (A.C.T.) sends greetings, with an emblem of the Eureka Flag.
Now a block ad. featuring Greetings from Italian Communists (P.C.I.) with the hammer and sickle flag waving away.
A large block notice states that- "The Union of Postal Clerks and Telegraphists cherishes Trib's unbiased (how about that?! ..On Target) reporting of industrial action. "Trib. has been relevant and will continue to be". ...
"60 YEARS YOUNG IN THE STRUGGLE FOR SOLIDARITY AND SOCIALISM" ... That notice over the names of the General President, General Secretary and Assistant General Secretary of the Union of Postal Clerks and Telegraphists. Does it please us to know that all communications under the control of this union could be "frozen" if and when the right button in Moscow is pressed?
We mustn't forget the Federated Engine Drivers & Firemen's Association (N .S .W. Branch). It supports Tribune "as a working class newspaper with a 60 year history of support for progressive struggles throughout the world". Names of Union officials printed underneath.

Now on Page 14 is a very large notice with the photograph of ten or so miners (underground, with lantern-helmets, etc.), some giving the clenched fist salute. We read - "Australian miners salute the 60th anniversary of Tribune, the paper that has consistently championed the struggle of workers in Australia". By the side of the photograph of the ten or so miners is a slogan - "This is just the beginning, the struggle continues".
We should not forget the Aborigines. A large block notice (complete with Black Over Red, this time) inserted by the "TRANBY ABORIGINAL CO-OP COLLEGE" is prominent.
Greetings from The Federated Miscellaneous Workers' Union of Australia.
Congratulations from the Amalgamated Metal Workers and Shipwrights' Union (N.S.W. State Council) Mr. Laurie Carmichael will be pleased.
"Keep the Presses Rolling", enjoins "The Water & Sewerage Employee's Union (Wages Division).
More greetings from "The Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia" (Sydney Branch).
Greetings from the "Australasian Meat Industry Employee's Union (Victorian Branch)".
Congratulations from the "Newcastle Workers' Club" ("When in Newcastle, visit the Club that Supports the workers").
There are too many others to quote: we can merely mention their names, all of which send special messages of encouragement, greetings, etc.: "Building Workers Industrial Union of Australia", (Pat Clancy sends a message), "Newcastle Trades Hall Council", "Australian Railways Union (Victorian Branch)',' "Sutherland District Trade Union Club Ltd.", "Maritime Workers' Union of Western Australia", "Fire Fighters' Union of South Australia", "N.S.W. Social Welfare Workers' Union", "Lebanese Organisation for Communist Action", "The Vehicle Builders Employees' Federation of Australia (Victorian Branch)", "The South Australian Branch of the Food Preservers' Union", Finally, "The Plumbers & Gasfitters Employees' Union" urged Tribune to "continue the Light for peace and a socialist society". - But of course, we all know now, having been reassured that only silly people see "Communists under the beds", that the Australian Union Movement is absolutely free of any subversive Communist influence!!!

KEYNES

"There is no doubt that it was in Keynes' name and on the basis of his theoretical work that the modern world has experienced the longest period of general inflation, and has now again to pay for it by a widespread and severe depression". Professor F.A.Hayek, writing on Keynes in The Australian June 25th.

Professor Hayek was joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974. We can well recall the period, over some decades, when Keynes was the Ultimate Guru of Economics. Hayek remarks that it isn't easy to explain why these ideas suddenly went out of fashion, leaving behind a bewildered community of economists. We well recall, ourselves, being admonished by local economists that we have no business writing on economics unless and until we had mastered Keynes' "General Theory". Then, a few years later we can well recall a Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics (Professor Walters) stating during an address at Monash University (Melbourne) that "modern economics were a failure", or words to that effect. Now, Keynes is "old hat". Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman, and others, are the new "buzz" names.

Hayek states that the "old truth" is being rediscovered, i.e. that the acceleration of inflation cannot be indefinitely continued. Keynes himself, states Hayek, was thoroughly aware of the danger of growing monetary demand degenerating into progressive inflation: he feared this might happen. It did. Hayek says that Keynes was scientifically wrong "...I am claiming that perhaps the most impressive intellectual figure I have ever encountered ... was wholly wrong in the scientific work for which he is chiefly known..."

GANDHI

More information is coming out about this strangely gifted personality as a result of the current film now screening around the world. The current issue (June, 1983) of our monthly Intelligence Survey carries an article - "The Suppressed Truth About Gandhi'. Send $1.00 for a copy.

The Weekend Australian (June 25-26) carries a review of a new book, "The Viceroys of India" wherein there are some most revealing snippets about Gandhi, one of which is that Gandhi was introduced to the Hindu holy writings, the "Bhagavad Gita", by British Theosophists in London: he read it first in English! Lord Wavell, the second last Viceroy of India, said that Gandhi was 15% saint, 15% charlatan, and 70% extremely astute politician. One comment from the reviewer, Edward Kynaston, we know to be true: i.e. "Gandhi could not have existed without the British". We fully agree with the remarks that - "he (Gandhi) could not have got away with his campaigns of non-violence in any other colonial empire: one thinks of the Belgians and the Dutch and the French in North Africa, and certainly not within Hitler's Third Reich".

Brief Comments

Inflation Ready to Blast Off in USA
"The rise in the rate of inflation in the past two months has been brushed off as being due to energy costs - yet this development represents a major danger and a threat to the defences against another rape of the wealth of this country (U.S.A.)". Maxwell Newton, in The Australian (June 27th)

Prime Minister Hawke has assured us that Australian Business should prepare itself for a sharp upturn early in 1984, following on from an earlier upswing in the economy in the U.S.A. At least Mr. Hawke is optimistic: no doubt his Government's political and economic strategy is now based on such a hoped for recovery. We fear that Messrs. Hawke and Keating will be waiting for longer than they anticipate, and that disappointment lies in wait for them.

The fact is that the "highly stimulative" policies over the last ten months will result in higher inflation, and higher interest rates. Maxwell Newton reports the expected: viz, the inflationary action of America's Central Bank ("the Fed.) was followed by renewed weakness in the dollar and a rise in the price of gold. The so-called hard heads in the financial world "fly into gold" whenever their currency weakens in the belief that it will, under the circumstances, more than hold its value. This often is the case, but we warn people about pinning hopes in permanent financial salvation from ownership of gold. In a general economic collapse it will be found that few speculators will have the money to buy gold. This is how financial fingers are burned!

The Canadian Intelligence Service (June '83) carries a report from the Toronto Star (May 5th, '83) and highlights the fierceness with which the Money Power will protect its monopoly: "State bank examiners have brought the full force of the law crashing down upon a group of children who started a bank at school to learn about high finance. 'The law is the law', said Robert Ledbetter, a deputy banking commissioner. His examiners closed the bank at Easton Middle School for not having a charter, which would cost $200,000, charging too much interest, collecting loans without a licence, and using the word 'bank' in the title of a business without State authorisation.
The bank was started as a learning tool, teaching 11 and 12-year old children the rudiments of finance by lending money for lunches and pocket cash…"
'The banking official, according to the report, said that the students were charging too much interest. Their maximum line of credit was $1.50!

Compared to what banks have been doing for many years, these children must be guilty of some heinous crime in financing hot dogs this way. We rather suspect that the bankers want a monopoly on this 'banking' business and are not too anxious that our younger people learn too much about it."

Creation of Money
The following letter was published in The Chronicle (Toowoomba, Qld.) on June 13th over the name of a "G. Patch", of Duaringa:
"There have been enough statements by bankers (and the occasional economist) to leave no doubt that banks create money (in the form of financial credit) in the process of granting a loan. "In Readers' Digest (October 1982), in an article entitled "Why are Interest Rates so High", the author, Steven Schwartz, states: 'To start with, banks literally create money by lending it - either adding to an existing deposit or creating a new one: "In 'The Story of the Commonwealth Bank' (D.J.Amos, F.C.I.S), the author states; 'Money is also created by the banks making advances of credit to people, then entering these 'advances' upon the opposite side of the ledger as 'deposits' to draw against these credits by means of cheques provided by the banks. The money thus brought into existence is destroyed whenever a bank chooses to call in its 'advances', and by so doing to lessen its 'deposits'.
"With the foregoing in view, we would do well to ponder on whether the Prime Minister, Mr. Hawke, is sincere in his apparent concern for the deficit being larger than was apparent before he became Prime Minister, because, as the economist H.W. Herbert points out, the deficit is the nation's overdraft, the Reserve Bank advancing money to the Treasury to make up the shortage of Government revenue.
"Mr. Hawke should be asked why, far from taxation being increased because of the increased deficit, could not the deficit be increased still further, and issued not as a debt - but as a credit, this (draft) then being used to reduce total taxation, and to finance a system of consumer subsidies which were used with great success during and after the Second World War.
"With Australia's enormous natural wealth and productive capacity, we have every right to insist that our well paid political servants do all in their power to get us off the road of escalating debt, and implement a financial policy which would begin to bring genuine stability to the economy.

Need for a State Bank
The Chronicle (Toowoomba Qld.) published the following letter (June 13th) over the name of an "A.T.Leahy", of Toowoomba:
"Congratulations to E.Eiby (T.C.25/5) for the letter on the problem of finance. "This problem will not be solved while successive governments are not prepared to take on the establishment which controls general banking and finance.
"It is on record that the Commonwealth Bank was established on July 15, 1912, with no subscribed capital. Its only assets were in the form of a loan from the Commonwealth Government of 10,000 pounds, or $20,000. It is also on record that this same Commonwealth Bank, by July 1921, has created credit to the equivalent of $700 million to finance Australia's 1914-18 war effort, and it is my information that this credit was made available to the Commonwealth Government at five-eights of 1% interest.
"The real rot set in for Australia about 1923, on the death of the first Governor of the Bank, Sir Denison Miller. Within one year of his death moves were made to emasculate the Commonwealth Bank. In June 1924, Dr. Earle Page introduced a bill, which amended the Commonwealth Bank Act, placing the Bank under a directorate largely dominated by the private lending sector.
"Thus, in 1929, when the Great Depression hit, the Commonwealth Bank was no longer in a position to repeat its courageous and beneficial policies for the people of Australia. From that time on, the Trading Banks through their nominees on the Board controlling the Commonwealth Bank ensured that the Bank was never again allowed to operate, as it has been able to do under Sir Denison Miller.
"This country will continue to be strangled by debt and inflation unless and until our Commonwealth Government abandons its policies of recent years of borrowing its credit needs, at ridiculous interest rates, from the established banking system.
"Our Government must re-establish the Commonwealth Bank and instruct it to make credit available to the Commonwealth Government at cost of issue, to be used for Australia's internal Government funding. Thus only will we be able to beat inflation, reduce working hours, and create employment. "To continue with the present debt finance policies must inevitably lead to bankruptcy and disaster. As the present Federal Government is unlikely to do this, the only possible alternative is the establishment and correct management of a State bank."