THE GLOOM IN WASHINGTON

President Jimmy Carter's electoral rating is now running at a mere 26 percent, a slide of a further 4 percent in only a month. This is on a par with Richard Nixon's rating just prior to Watergate forcing him from office. Prime Minister Fraser's rating is not much better with the Australian electors, while across the Tasman, Prime Minister Muldoon's savage tax increases are paving the way for his defeat. In the United Kingdom Mrs. Margaret Thatcher's support has already sagged.

What is happening is exactly what the League has consistently predicted. Events have overtaken those who insisted that nothing was basically wrong with Western societies. The contending party politicians have insisted that if the electors would trust them they would prove to be more "competent" and "responsible" managers of the economy than their opponents. Australian Labor leader Bill Hayden is currently making much of the point that he and some of his colleagues have more "economic expertise" than has the Fraser Government. Mr. Hayden stresses that there is not one member of the Fraser Government with any formal economic training. What Mr. Hayden does not say is that the Fraser Government meekly takes the advice of economic '' experts" who have had the same type of training (brainwashing) that Mr. Hayden and his colleagues have experienced. The result is that Mr. Hayden offers but a few variations of the same type of policies being pursued by the Fraser Government. President Jimmy Carter's advisers gloomily predict a major depression with inflation moving past ten percent again, economic activity would be reduced and at least one million join the ranks of the unemployed.

As in Australia and other countries, the "energy crisis" is blamed for the deepening crisis. The BASIC cause of the crisis has nothing whatever to do with energy; it is a financial policy which makes inflation a mathematical certainty and drives all industrialised nations to engage in an increasing frenzy of economic activity which in turn generates a revolutionary situation. If the gloomy reports from the U.S.A. are analysed, the central fact to emerge is that there is no shortage of energy for Americans to produce all the consumer goods they required for a civilised lifestyle. The economy is threatened with insufficient supplies to maintain an EXPANDING economy. And why is this expansion essential? Because the "experts" insist that without such expansion there will be insufficient purchasing power available and the economy would be plunged into chaos.

Ever since the time of John Maynard Keynes, whose theory of never ending expansion and "controlled inflation" delighted the more perceptive Fabian Marxists, (see Eric D. Butler's "Fabian Socialist Contribution to the Communist Advance", price 75 cents posted) economic expansion has been a "dogma" which no one but "money cranks" questioned. Which reminds us of the delightful essay by the great English essayist Charles Lamb, on the discovery of roast pork in Ancient China. Before this discovery the result of a peasant's son accidentally burning his father's house down, burning to death the pigs, the consumption of roast pig was unknown and taboo. But when the peasant's son, in great distress, licked his burned fingers as he sought to find the dead pigs, he so liked the taste that he kept eating. After he recovered from his original outrage, his father joined him, liking both the smell and the taste.
From then on the peasant's neighbours noticed that periodically his house was burned down. Cautiously investigating, they discovered what the fires were about, and soon the whole countryside was alight as the peasants burned their houses down - TO OBTAIN THE DELIGHTFUL ROAST PIG! Eventually, of course, it was learned that it was quite unnecessary to burn houses down to obtain roast pig, that this was a most wasteful method of cooking the pigs, and that a small fire was sufficient. Today the financial "experts" insist that it is essential to waste enormous quantities of energy and materials in order to obtain the equivalent of some roast pork! Sane people would insist that the " economic fire" be only sufficient to cook the amount of consumer production required. But sanity is not as yet widespread. Thus the growing disasters highlighted by the plight of the United States.

Insanity is a divorcement from reality, or Truth. Eventually Truth is the great disciplinarian and it appears to be a fact of history that most people only face reality as a result of hard discipline. This discipline is going to grow intensity, and we confidently anticipate a much greater search for Truth. Australians are perhaps better equipped than any other people, to show the way through the current madness to a world of sanity. Their first action must be to unite to insist that they are no longer going to allow themselves to be destroyed by the policy of crushing taxation and its inevitable consequence, inflation.

BRIEF COMMENTS

The pathetic attempt by Australia's Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock, to have the Soviet "lean" on Vietnam to stop forcing or encouraging Vietnamese of predominantly Chinese ethnic background to leave Vietnam, provides further evidence - if this is required - of how little understanding the Foreign Affairs "experts" have of Communist realities. Both Mr. Peacock and Mr. Fraser babble about the necessity of making Zimbabwe-Rhodesia more acceptable to African black States - otherwise Communist influence will grow in Africa. What do these political lightweights think has been happening throughout Africa in recent years?

The appointment of practising politicians to the judiciary has always disturbed those who hold the traditional view that members of the judiciary should not be directly associated with party politics. The independence and impartiality of the members of the judiciary are essential if they are to have the confidence of the people. When Mr. Justice Murphy and Mr. Justice McClelland, both former prominent Labor politicians, attended the recent First National Conference of Labor Lawyers, they did the Australian judicial system a serious injury. In opening the conference, Mr. Justice Murphy made the disturbing statement that a judge's function is to change the law, not merely interpret it. Would cricketers have much confidence in an umpire who made that type of statement?

We warned at the time of the Egyptian-Israeli "peace" agreement, pressured by President Jimmy Carter, that the agreement must worsen the Middle East crisis. All the talk in the world will not alter the fact that the Palestinian issue is the basic question, which must be faced. Even the Jewish (but anti-Zionist) Prime Minister of Austria has underlined this fact with his recent meeting with the Palestinian Liberation leader Yasser Arafat. Contrary to the spirit, if not the letter of the Camp David Agreement, the Begin Government is inflaming the Middle East by its decision to resume the creation of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. The concept of a Palestinian homeland is fading as the Israelis harden their attitude. One disastrous result of Carter's Middle East strategy is that Saudi Arabia is being driven away from Egypt and towards the more radical Arab States.

The Gold Coast Council has voted 8 - 2 to throw out Fluoridation. Water in the area has been fluoridated for the last ten years. The pro-fluoridationists are predictably screaming. The anti-fluoridationists see this move as the beginning of the end for Fluoridation in Australia. The League's position with respect to Fluoridation is well known: the individual must have the freedom of choice to accept, or reject that which he ingests, be it food or drugs. We do not become involved in technical arguments on the issue. Genuine technical experts disagree hotly in this area. What we do not like, and what also makes us most suspicious, is the personal vilification - by the pro-fluoridationists - that is too often directed at those who disagree with them on this issue. We further do not like the distortions and suppressions, which come to our notice. Fluoridation has been abandoned in many areas in the United States, and by many regions in Europe: yet this information is smothered. One of the Gold Coast councillors who voted against fluoridation is former Labor Party luminary Sir John Eggerton.

A visiting American pediatrician is saying what we have always believed to be true: poor nutrition affects the performance of individuals. Dr. Ray Wunderlich claims that 25% of schoolchildren are slow learners or have reading problems, because of poor nutrition. Many children are made dull, or hyperactive, by eating sweets (white sugar). Dr. Wunderlich urges parents to give their children "time tested" foods. We can recommend three (of very many) books, which will interest those of our readers who are concerned with the subject of nutrition, as we are: 1. "Nutrition Against Disease" by Dr. Roger Williams ($2.45 posted) 2. "You Can't Live without Vitamin C", by Lady Cilento ($4.75 posted) 3. "Sugar Blues" (physical & mental miseries caused by consumption of white sugar). Price $7.00 posted. All books from G.P.O. Box 1052, Melbourne, Vic. 3001.

Another visiting American academic is Professor Arthur Laffer, whose "Laffer Curve" proposes to demonstrate that taxation above a certain point in a particular economy (this variable) - produces inflation, a loss in real government revenue, and a fall in Gross National Product. Whilst we would prefer to use the word "intensifies" (inflation) rather than "produced", there is no doubt that Professor Laffer is on the right track when he asserts that taxation must be cut before incentive can be restored in the entrepreneurial sector of the economy, as with the work force.