SOVIET TRADE

The Government's performance concerning trade with the Soviet has been a debacle of indecision and contradiction. Fraser's early rhetoric has given way to abject appeasement. To begin with, a list of strategic items to be prohibited from export to the USSR was prepared. This included rutile and wheat. Deputy Prime Minister Doug Anthony immediately entered the fray on behalf of the exporters. With one eye, no doubt, on the question of funds for the Federal election that has to be held this year, Anthony emerged as the champion of continued trade with the enemy. He even made the incredible assertion on a television programme that it would stretch the imagination to consider wool a strategic item.
A Courier-Mail cartoon on the same day, showing a Russian soldier nicely rugged in Australian wool, on top of a freezing Afghanistan mountain, made eloquent mockery of Anthony's invincible stupidity. However, it was soon evident that the Fraser Government was shrinking from the one real bold step at its disposal - the severing of all trade with the USSR. Its barbs and arrows would be directed solely at the "non-strategic" Olympics.

Opposition leader Bill Hayden for once hit the nail on the head when he pointed to the shabby hypocrisy of this policy. He suggested that Fraser was cow towing to his rural backers in allowing exports to continue. Although swiping at Fraser, this was also a swipe at the integrity of primary producers, which didn't go down too well. On Friday, February 15th, President of the Maranoa Graziers Association, Bill Bonthrone, issued a statement that was reported on the A.B.C. news that evening. The statement said: "The Opposition Leader, Mr. Hayden, was casting serious aspersions on the integrity of Primary Producers, Mr. W. Bonthrone, President of the Maranoa Graziers Association, said today. Mr. Hayden had suggested that Prime Minister Fraser was continuing to supply the USSR with exports in order to placate rural voters. This suggested primary producers did not care about Australia's security, but rather with "exports at any price".
If it was necessary to stop exporting to a hostile power, primary producers could be depended on to share the burden with fellow Australians."

The truth is, that by adopting realistic financial policies, there would be little burden if trade with the USSR were stopped. The Soviets have nothing of value with which to pay for our wheat, wool and minerals. The financial figures they send back have been borrowed in the West. The USSR's current debt overseas stands at $46 BILLION. This debt money, borrowed by the Soviets, is then transferred back into the income accounts of Australian producers. The Fraser Government has to work out another method of putting figures into the income accounts of Australia's producers, so as to safeguard the nation' s security.

In April of last year, Britain's top industrialist, Mr. Maurice Hodgeson, head of ICI, strongly attacked trade deals being fixed up with communist countries. The Australian, (20/4/79) reported Mr. Hodgeson as saying "...the proliferation of so-called compensation deals with COMECON countries (East European communist trading block) were often very much in favour of the communist country concerned, but not to the West...." When will we ever learn?

RENEWED PRESSURE FOR INTERNATIONAL MONEY CONTROL

On February 14 The Australian reported: "A Commission of 18 prominent figures from developed and developing countries called for far reaching reforms of the world's social and economic structure. This was essential in order to avert disaster, the commission said.
Headed by the former West German Chancellor, Mr. Willy Brandt, the commission proposed that government aid to developing countries be increased from $50,000 to $60,000 million by the mid eighties. It called, too, for a summit of world leaders from both industrialised and developing countries. "This could change the international climate and enlarge the prospects for global agreement which could be negotiated within the United Nations system'' the Commission said in a report outlining its proposals .... A key problem was disarray in the international monetary system.
"It is clear that the world economy is now functioning so badly that it damages both the immediate and the longer run interests of all nations." It proposed large-scale transfers of resources to developing countries, an international energy strategy, a global food program and a start on major reforms in the international economic system..." (end of quote).

Apart from Willy Brandt, the Commission included former British P.M. Edward Heath, former French P.M. Pierre Mandes-France, Washington Post publisher Mrs. Katherine Graham, and former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva." The day after this report, February 15th, the Financial Review reported a plan put forward by French President Giscard d'Estaing for reforming the world's monetary system. At the same time, French Prime Minister Raymond Barre advocated a proposal, which "called for nations' central banks to put their reserve assets in a special account at the I.M.F., combining gold, special drawing rights, (paper gold) dollars and other foreign exchange. Nations would use this reserve like a checking account and draw down their balances as needed to settle their deficits." (end of quote).

All these ideas are merely a re-hash of the programme for a New International Economic Order. The proposals by Willy Brandt's Commission were originally put forward at the UNCTAD conference last May by the Group of 77, a mish mash of Third World countries whose chief spokesman is Fidel Castro of Cuba. If the Australian Government is ever silly enough to put the nation's reserves in an International Monetary Fund account, it will have abandoned the last vestige of loyalty and integrity.

THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN

"The right of Prime Ministers to call early elections should be scrapped, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition Mr. Bowen, said yesterday." - The Australian, Feb. 25th Mr. Bowen is of the opinion that a fixed term of' Parliament would solve serious constitutional problems.

Mr. Gough Whitlam went one further, when speaking at a University of N.S.W. Conference on "constitutional reform" (the left-wing of Australian politics is obsessed with "constitutional reform") - he said that Federal and State Governments should hold elections simultaneously. The Socialist mentality is essentially one of immaturity.

C.H. Douglas somewhere made the observation about the little girl, who, when displeased about one thing or another, or thwarted in some way, blamed her dolly, and told her that she shouldn't be naughty. What he was alluding to is the weakness in human nature, essentially immature, which causes men and women to lay the blame for all manner of faults and imperfections elsewhere but where they should lie. Naughty Dolly!
Mr. Bowen opines that a government that could maintain its House of Representatives majority should be obliged to run its full term. But the House of Representatives is only one prong of Parliament: there are three: and this itself is in conformity with the Trinitarian nature of Reality (see The New Times, Feb.'80 $1 posted).

What the Socialist mentality requires is that Man be a servant of Parliament; for politicians to conform to a rigid parliamentary mould; for them to attempt to legislate in a parliamentary straight jacket. They can't: they must have the maximum freedom to carry out their parliamentary responsibilities on behalf of their superiors, their electors. Their activities are already far too circumscribed by the Party System. Politicians are not elected to be the servants of parliaments: parliaments exist for the real benefit and government of people, as represented by the politicians. The Sabbath was made for Man; not Man for the Sabbath.

RHODESIAN RIPPLES

SUGAR BLUES

Health experts and dietitians have condemned many fruit juice companies for not only misleading in the content of their products but for causing possible harm to people's health." Sunday Press (Melbourne) Feb. 24th.

According to Professor M. Wahlquist, of Deakin University (Geelong) "there is no effort being made to help the people understand the difference between 'fruit juice drink' and 'pure fruit juice".' He added that some fruit juice and fruit juice drinks in bottles and cans often contained so much sugar that the calorie intake was the same or possibly higher than soft drink.
Readers who have not read Sugar Blues by William Dufty should do so. Dufty will convince you that white sugar is ''an addictive poison built into virtually every supermarket package.'' Price: $5.80 posted.