RED CHINA SENDS A MESSAGE SOUTHWARDS

"Tokyo, AAP. - China today issued a 'Hands off' warning to countries looking for oil in nearby seas. It warned Japan and South Korea they are responsible for 'all consequences' in their recently concluded oil exploration pact. And it denounced South Vietnam for occupying some of the Spratly Islands, which could become valuable if oil is found nearby." - The Herald, Melbourne, February 5th.

Red China's recent military invasion of the Paracel Islands, and its claim to the Spratly Islands, should awaken even the most complacent Australian to the realities of "peaceful-co-existence" as practised by Peking Communist Government. Red China has also made claims on Tsengnu Reef, to the north of Sarawak, Borneo. While potential oil fields are of importance to Peking, a look at the map of South East Asia shows that what is underway is a Red Chinese strategic move southwards towards the vital Straits of Malacca. Peking is supporting the move by some nations to extend territorial water limits to 200 nautical miles. Red China's South China Sea claims, backed by Mig fighters and guided naval missiles against the South Vietnam troops in the Paracel Islands, are a warning message which make nonsense of the Dr. Cairns thesis that Red China is not an expansionary power.

Peking's Communist leaders continue to insist that it is their Marxist-Leninist "sacred duty" to give every possible support to "liberation" movements. Malaysia's Communist guerrillas, defeated by Commonwealth forces 14 years ago, are now engaged in a new upsurge of activity under the direction of the veteran Communist leader Chin Peng. Chin Peng retreated across the border into Thailand after the 1960 defeat, establishing a jungle base from which to carry on the campaign against the Malaysian authorities. He has always been backed by Peking, as are the terrorists operating on Thailand's north and north -west borders.
Not even Prime Minister Whitlam's smooth talking removed the Thais deep distrust of the Red Chinese.

Peking is also backing the Communist Government of Hanoi as it intensifies pressure on South Vietnam. Dr. Henry Kissinger's "cease-fire" of January 1972, was accepted by Hanoi primarily to help get the Americans out of South Vietnam. Recent boasts by the Hanoi Government that its troops have been engaged in terrorist activities in South Vietnam indicate that Hanoi is confident that the stage has been set for a major offensive against South Vietnam without any fear of much international opposition. Dr. Cairns will no doubt continue to insist that only a "civil war" is in process and that the forces of "progress" cannot be checked.

In the meantime Australia's military defences are being allowed to run down. Morale in what is left of the armed services is at an all-time low. Defence must be made a major issue at the coming Senate Elections. If the Opposition parties are to convince the electors that defence is vital, they must change their "soft" attitude towards Communism, and inform Australians that the Peking criminals have not changed their Marxist-Leninist spots.

VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT BACKING AWAY ON FLUORIDATION?

"It would not be mandatory for every water authority to introduce fluoride into its water supply, the Minister of Water Supply, Mr. Granter, said yesterday in Ballarat. Some authorities had already written to him indicating that they did not want to fluoridate their supplies, he said. 'I felt the majority of people were for fluoride, and have been surprised at the number of people who have written to me since the legislation was passed, objecting to fluoridation," - The Courier, Ballarat, February lst.

It is no secret that the decision to impose mass medication in the form of fluoridation of the public water supplies produced a clear-cut cleavage in the Victorian Parliamentary Liberal Party between the small "1" Liberals, the progressives", and those who still support traditional Liberal principles concerning individual rights and freedom of choice. Those supporting principles were outvoted and then felt that "party loyalty" necessitated them going into Parliament to vote with the Labor-Socialist Opposition against their own principles. Such is the tyranny of party politics.

However, as admitted by Mr. Granter, Minister for Water Supply, opposition has been such that he is "surprised." at the strength of opposition to compulsory fluoridation. We can report that the Hamer Government generally has been concerned about the strength of the opposition to their fluoridation policy. Those letters of protest do count, demonstrating the fallacy of the hackneyed statement by the shallow thinking and defeatists, that "writing letters of protest and signing petitions doesn't do any good."

The effectiveness of the anti-fluoridation campaign may be judged by Mr. Granter's statement to the Ballarat Water Commission, as reported by The Courier, that "If the commission decided not to fluoridate, it would not need to be done, unless it was required by direction of the Health Commission," While this may be a piece of double-talk as suggested by one Ballarat citizen, it is an admission that Mr. Granter and his colleagues are feeling the electoral heat. If that heat can be turned up a little more, with Municipal Councils and Water Commissions making it clear that they will not tolerate such a blatant intrusion into the basic rights of individuals, the Hamer Government may be content to forget fluoridation of public water supplies.
In the meantime those parents convinced that fluoride is the answer to their children's' teeth problems can put their children on fluoride tablets under the direction of their medical advisers.

WILL WE BE READY FOR THE VITAL SENATE ELECTIONS?

BRITAIN AT THE BRINK

"In the midst of Britain's industrial crisis, a leading newspaper columnist reports the setting up of a vigilante group to guard against a communist revolution. Chapman Pincher writing in the Daily Express reports that a formidable vigilante group has been formed to protect the nation against a communist takeover. Members of the group include former service chiefs, senior ex-members of the secret service and MI-5 and leading businessmen, Pincher claims." - The Age, Melbourne, February 5th.

Allowing for the usual newspaper sensationalism of our times, Mr. Chapman Pincher's report clearly contains much substance. A panel of speakers on a recent ABC programme, "The World Tonight", discussed the question of whether Britain was now in a pre-revolutionary situation. While this panel did not believe that this situation existed, the overwhelming vote of the coalminers to strike against the Heath Government's failure to meet their demands for wage increases sufficient to meet continuing inflation has given a new impetus towards a national collapse. The Communists have a major vested interest in the worsening situation. The large numbers of non-British migrants provide an explosive ingredient for revolution.

Karl Marx said that the English would never make their own revolution and foreigners would have to make it for them. The Economist reports that Air Vice Marshal Donald Bennet (Patron of the British League of Rights) must now be taken seriously with an Independent Democratic Movement planning to contest a number of constituencies in a General Election on the Common Market, the permissive society and coloured immigration. But the organisation mentioned by Mr. Chapman has indicated that it is looking to Mr. Enoch Powell to give a lead which would "unleash a national campaign of support now gathering momentum and anxious to be harnessed."

But we have received from reliable British correspondence a report of how when a Conservative Party meeting recently called on Mr. Powell to give a national lead, he suggested to members of the audience that they also had to accept their responsibilities. Mr. Eric Butler, who has met Mr. Powell, expresses the view that Mr. Powell is a most realistic politician who is not going to risk losing his present Conservative base unless he is practically certain that he is going to be successful in becoming the British Prime Minister. And whether Mr. Powell has the knowledge to remove the basic cause of the British convulsion, and could be sustained by sufficient public support in the fight he would have to wage, is open at present to serious doubt.

But the British are now at the brink, subverted from within, and a disturbing example of how the major Western nations are disintegrating internally because of subversive finance-economic policies, which generate a mounting inflation. Across the Atlantic President Nixon, whose "freeze" failed to halt inflation but created more economic dislocation, has now desperately resorted to the biggest deficit budget ever - $9,400 million. We can predict now that this will take the USA to the same brink being faced by Britain. The answer to inflation has been known for over 50 years. Power-groups have combined to prevent that answer being applied. And they exploit the ignorance of those who keep on intoning "But inflation is international and nothing much can be done about it." A constructive programme is outlined in A Programme for Reversing Inflation, price 32 cents posted. The Federal Treasury was given the task of answering this programme but failed dismally.

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

Dr. Benjamin Spock, famous author on child welfare, whose book on how to bring up babies with little discipline, sold 23 million copies and was the "bible" for misled mothers, has at 70 years of age confessed that his permissive methods were wrong. Dr. Spock at least had the humility to say, "We didn't realise, until it was too late, how our know-it-all attitude was undermining the self-assuredness of the parents." He blames child psychiatrists, psychologists, teachers and social workers for persuading parents that the "experts" knew best with the result that many parents now regard themselves as ignorant or incompetent.

Now that Dr. Spock has confessed that he did enormous damage to both children and parents, would it be too much for the economic "experts" to follow his lead and admit that their financial theories have not worked, that they have no answer to mounting inflation, and that electors would be well advised to use their own commonsense in insisting that their politicians at least attempt something new?

It is to be hoped that the Opposition will take steps to censure Mr. Al. Grassby when Parliament resumes. The Minister for Immigration has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in promoting himself on television and other advertising concerning immigration.

The Annual Conference of the Australian Teachers' Federation, held in Brisbane on January 8-11 decided to spend $20,000 to make education a major issue at the coming Senate Elections. The real purpose of the exercise is to assist the ALP.

Inflation - A reply from Mr. Bill Snedden 16/1/74

"The excess money in the community is the result, primarily, of too much spending by Government. Individuals are not to blame. The industrial unrest which has been precipitated by the Labor Government has aggravated the shortage of goods, and a better approach to industrial relations, resulting in fewer strikes would increase production and help to reduce inflation."
This to some extent is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. It is true that heavy government spending (via e.g. large deficit budgets) is highly inflationary because it makes the economy "run" faster; and as inflation is built into the modern financial system, the faster the economy "runs", the greater will be the "spin-off" of inflation.

Mr. Snedden gave inflation a great boost with his $600-plus million deficit "Save Our Skins" Budget of 1972, and this has been intensified by the spending-sprees of the Whitlam Government. The "excess money" in the community is a myth; the average citizen is in debt paying off home, land, car, various hire-purchase agreements etc. etc. This "excess money" is bank credit, made available to finance public and private capital works, the building industry; and so on. It is not cash in the hands of the common citizen.

Mr. J. Corbett (Country Party. Qld.) says that the Lib.-C.P. Coalition did wonders to hold inflation down to 5%, and that a little inflation is a small price to pay for economic and industrial stability etc.