WARFARE AGAINST CHILDREN

"All but 21 of 292 students and staff kidnapped by guerillas from a remote Catholic mission station have been rescued by Rhodesian security forces. The African students, aged from 13 to 18, were captured on Thursday night from the West German Jesuit mission in North-East Rhodesia by about 20 guerillas." - The Australian, 9th July.

Those in Australia who are inclined to think of the terrorist organisations provided with their impetus by the Chinese and the Soviets, now operating in Rhodesia, Angola and Mozambique, as "freedom fighters" might ponder on the news that their attentions have been directed towards abducting, by force, young children. Press reports state that those children who have been rescued were told by the guerillas that they were being taken for training in the "liberation" groups. One would think that if the claims made recently by Mr. Zvobgo had any resemblance to the truth, that both the A.N.C. and the terrorist organisations have widespread support among the African people, there would be no need to resort to this type of depraved activity.

The truth is that the so-called "liberation" movements have had a continual struggle to fill their ranks, and have employed a constant mixture of abduction, intimidation and, in recent months, the use of witchcraft to maintain that numbers. The same techniques were used in Kenya during the Mau-Mau emergency. Natives of the Kikuyu tribe - men, women and children - were forced under penalty of agonising torture and death to take the Mau-Mau oath, administered by the "mundomugos" or witchdoctors, which bound them against their will to the Mau-Mau programme. Much of this has been played down in the glorification of the Mau-Mau in recent years, which also means that the many brave and loyal Africans who died sooner than take the oath have also been forgotten.

Christian leaders at present supporting through the World Council of Churches the terrorist movements in southern Africa might reflect upon the fact that a monument stands in the town of Fort Hall in Kenya memorising the African Christian martyrs who were murdered by the Mau-Mau for refusing the bestial oath of that movement.

The Liberation movements have a sordid record of torture and bloodshed, which reached a peak over 12 years ago, when terrorists of the UPA, a group infiltrating into Angola, under the leadership, at that time, of Holden Roberto, who has since been killed by his own men, attacked a sawmill at Luva on March 14th, 1961. Forty-two men, women and children were rounded up by the laughing terrorists, and put through the circular saws while still alive. Interviewed afterwards by Pierre de Vos, reporter with the French newspaper 'Le Monde'. Roberto confirmed that his men had carried out this massacre. "There is proof of tortures perpetrated upon Portugese men, women and children. "Asked de Vos: "Do you deny these horrors?" "No, "replied Roberto, "all that is true. The slaves did not cower. They massacred everything. "Women and children included?" De Vos asked' "Yes", Roberto replied. "Why deny it?" De Vos asked one of Roberto's men about the sawmill episode, after recounting that the victims were bound to long boards and fed into the giant saw. "Then" said the Angolan revolutionary with a broad smile. "we sawed them length-wise. " - Le monde, July, 1961.

SOUTH VIETNAM BETRAYED

"To recognise the Provisional Revolutionary Government (Vietcong) would, in effect, be to change sides in a continuing and unresolved struggle... .it would most certainly place Australia out of step again with the United States. It would also be most unwelcome to South East Asian neighbours, whose confidence in Australia has already been shaken by Canberra's attitude to the Five-Power Agreement and suggestions that it may abandon SEATO." Denis Warner, in The Herald, July 7th, 1973.

Mr. Warner points out that the Vietcong, currently holding large areas of sparsely populated country in the South, are anxious to have a "Capital" for propaganda show purposes, in time for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly later this year. It is also seeking "recognition" from as many countries as possible prior to that date, and hopes that Australia will offer support. Warner points out that the Provisional Revolutionary Government is totally dependent on the North for survival, and that recognition by Australia (advocated by, amongst others, Dr. Cairns) would spell the end for the Thieu Government, and pave the way for the final subjugation of the South by the North.

HUGE DEFICIT

"The Federal Government had under-estimated last year's Budget deficit by more than half, the Opposition said yesterday. The real deficit was $1,800 million and not $774 million estimated by the Treasurer, Mr. Crean...." - The Sun. July 9th. (Melbourne)

Lest this should be thought the traditional "hay-making" of an Opposition, it should be pointed out that a number of economists have also suggested that the real deficit is about $1,800 million. The Labor Party, meeting in Surfers Paradise, is reported to be badly shaken by this information, according to one week-end paper.

It is certain that the latest moves by the Reserve Bank, increasing the Bond Rate by .5% and calling in a bigger percentage of Statutory Reserve Deposits from the Trading Banks is a sign of the concern. This is hardly surprising, for, following a 20 per cent increase in the money supply in the 12 months of 1972, there has been an acceleration of this to the point where the money supply has increased by 20 per cent in the first six month of 1973.
This is a situation prevailing throughout the western world, taking Australia through to a position of great danger as financial inflation rages almost out of control.

The situation regarding the American dollar is unpredictable as it loses value daily. Once again the world's monetary leaders are assembled in an effort to avert a major crisis. While some economists are adopting a phlegmatic attitude in an effort to play down the danger of the current situation, a few are warning of dire consequences. With regard to the Australian scene, it can safely be predicted that the combination of factors now operating will become the props of a tragic play in the next twelve months. There is, first of all, the massive deficit, which will probably force the Federal Government to abandon its promises of no tax increases.

Apart from that, is the fact that the States themselves have been forced to inflict tax increases in the most inflationary area - that of payroll tax. The massive Local Government debt will mean further increases in rates, which will not be in any way eased as local authorities grapple with the increased interest rates on what they already owe.

The restrictions on bank-lending can only lead to widespread stagnation and unemployment, but it is also certain that this will have virtually no effect on inflation, now no longer amenable to the old Keynesian freezes and squeezes which had some sort of effect before the problem had compounded to the present state.

It is interesting that the word invented by the pundits to describe the new situation is an emphasis of the word "Stagflation" which appeared a year or two back. The new version in economic glossology is "slump-flation" which made its sensational appearance within the past few weeks. We are not quite sure what the economists mean by it, but to the uninitiated it clearly portrays a situation where the expert has his foot so firmly jammed in his mouth that he gives the appearance of talking through his big toe! However, there are at last distinctive signs that some of the sounder leaders in local, State and Federal politics are prepared to have a surreptitious look outside the ranks of orthodoxy, and this is the only hope.

NUCLEAR POLITICS

The enthusiasm with which the World Court decision on atomic bomb tests in the atmosphere was pre-judged and accepted by various government spokesmen was in contrast to the attitude adapted to a decision by the same court concerning the question of responsibility for South-West Africa a few years back. One wonders whether Senator Murphy for example, was as flattering in his remarks on the World Court then as he is now.

Very little comment has been made in the media on the real purpose behind the worldwide propaganda warfare against France. The Whitlam-Cairns-Murphy attitude is not surprising; but Mr. Snedden's effort to jump on the bandwagon is a sad indictment of the health of the Opposition. In fact, Mr. Snedden has been but a pale shadow of the Labor spokesmen. We have learnt that he would have recognised China had the Liberals been re-elected; that he takes the same attitude as Mr. Whitlam towards the Privy Council, and finally, as he assured the Chinese leaders last week, that Australia has no intentions of invading China!

The fact is that if any nation which has any chance of adopting an independent policy should seek for itself the defence sanction which "the bomb" provides, it will immediately attract the co-ordinated antagonism of the Moscow-Peking-Washington-New York world hegemony, and the whole left-wing apparatus - from the radical Union manipulators to the student activists, ably supported by the entrenched media propagandists - which will be immediately mobilised.

John Pinkey, in The Age, 7th July, while not getting to the core of the problem, made some pointed comments:
"The Chinese explode a more benevolent brand of Hell-Bomb than do their French cousins. As every strontium-sullied schoolboy knows, your common -or -Pacific Pompi -detonations cause leukemia and birth deformities for thousands of kilometres around. But by intriguing contrast, anti-Bomb activists seem to deem Sino-salvoes harmless. This doubtless explains why Australia has been so much sterner with France than with the People's Republic (which for its recent bang was bothered with no more than a 'strong protest').
The benignity of Chinese blasts is recognised internationally, too. While relentlessly, and admirably, embargoing items Gallic, world unions have let Mao off (if such a term can be applied to him) scot-free. Crux of the matter is that a bomb is just naturally cleaner if it is ideologically OK. When Peking's gentle people's explosion occurred recently, activists clearly believe, it dispersed over the Pacific nothing more harmful than vitaminised caesium, incense-perfumed iodine and sweet good will."

Mr. Pinkey obviously feels queasy about the fate of those who accept without difficulty such hypocrisy. He concludes: "You may even have that goodwill this morning…in your bones."

SHOULD THE CHURCH BE INVOLVED IN POLITICS?

Those who saw the recent debate on this subject on the ABC a Sunday evening or so ago, between Ian Turner of Monash University and Dr. Frank Knopfelmacher of Melbourne University would have felt the frustration of a non-debate which got nowhere. Perhaps this could have been due to the fact that both professed to be non-believers (in the God whom Christians worship, we assume) and both were, although strangely this was never brought out, ex-members of the Communist Party. It was evident that neither had travelled the full circle, which brings their rejection of Communism into the acceptance of its antithesis.

The fact is that neither Christianity nor Communism can survive in the same environment. Both are very much concerned with alternate forms of power. Although the distinctions are completely clear to the Communists, confusion reigns supreme among Christians. As organised evil sweeps through the world, exploiting every institution, manipulating the evidence on which all decisions are based, deliberately pitting men and women against one another, ruthlessly destroying all genuine freedom. Christians should be up to their neck in politics, winning power for Christ. Sadly, few Christians have any idea of what is demanded of them, or how to go about it. Others have sought to absolve themselves of personal responsibility by their claim that "God will prevail".

One of the central Christian doctrines is that of "making the Word Flesh", or translating what one believes into reality. The great, and so far unattended task for Christians is to retrieve from the anti-Christian confederacy the freedoms which have been filched from every race and creed of people, and return then to the proper place for them - in the hands of the individual; that, using his free will, he may then develop himself and serve others in accordance with the basic tenets of the Christian faith.

The erosion of the individual's opportunity to make choices on his own behalf, and that of his family, has produced already one of the most complete tyrannies of all time in many countries, and gone a long way towards corrupting freedom in all. It is this challenge that the Church has so far failed to meet, and which was so carefully avoided in the debate.

Professor John H. Hallowell expressed the difference in these words: "There is no conception in Marxism of the human being as a person. But it is precisely the conception of the human being as a person that is one of the distinctive teachings of Christianity. We are persons because we are created in the image and likeness of a Personal Being. Through sin that image is defaced, but through Christ it is restored. There is a sense in which it might be said that the restoration of personality is the essential meaning of history for the Christian.

God's purpose for man is his redemption from evil and history has no other purpose. For the Marxist, history is "the activity of man pursuing his own aims". For the Christian, history is a dialogue between man and God, with God taking the initiative and man either fleeing or responding to His call."

ON TARGET BULLETIN

The Reality of the Favourable Balance of Trade

It is true that prosperity does appear to accompany "A favourable balance of trade". This was true, for example, during the Second World War, when nations like Australia and Canada mounted a tremendous "export drive". Suddenly the shortage of finance associated with the Great Depression was overcome. Thousands of millions of new credits were made available - as an interest-bearing-debt through the banking system to ensure that there was total production. But an enormous amount of this production, in the form of bombs and shells was being "exported" to the Germans, Italians and Japanese! This "export" drive was, of course, essential for military victory but it did distribute purchasing power which otherwise would have been unobtainable.

Comparative prosperity replaced depression conditions. Soon after the Americans started competing with the Soviet Union in the space programmes, two American economists seriously suggested that the main virtue of America's space programme was not only the possible technological "fall-out", but also the offer of an unlimited export market! Realistically, this meant that the American community could "export" enormous quantities of their production into outer space without anyone trying to send anything back! Increased financial incomes can be distributed against the "exports" into outer space and used to help buy production for sale in the USA.