SOVIETISATION BY STEALTH IN N.Z.

Mr. Eric D. Butler reports from New Zealand
A new National Member of Parliament, Mr. John Banks, has described his own leader, Prime Minister Muldoon, as a Fabian Socialist. Discussing that statement on a radio programme in Mr. Banks' electorate, I said that I presumed that Mr. Banks was not saying that his leader was a member of any Fabian Socialist society, but was implementing Fabian Socialist policies. Sovietisation by crushing taxation (a policy straight out of the "Communist Manifesto"), continuing high inflation and a "Think Big" economic policy, is now an obvious fact of life.

A prominent New Zealand business man told me that he had no doubt about the Muldoon Government's Fabian Socialist policies. "We are little more than a department of the Socialist State", he said. "We not only collect, free of charge, an enormous amount of tax from our big staff, but our product is also heavily, taxed. Rising costs under inflation have made it essential to have a bigger overdraft with the banks, whose astronomical interest rates further increase our costs. Our margin of profits is so small that any expansion must be financed with further borrowing from the banks. We are in essence socialised."

The same comment could be made about New Zealand farming. Costs have increased 80 percent in three years. That is an annual inflation rate of 27 percent! Not surprisingly, rural debt has soared. High interest rates aggravate the situation. The overall result is that New Zealand's farmers require increasing government assistance to survive.
In desperation, the national president of the Farmers' Federation, Mr. W. Storey, challenges the government to "state whether it can or cannot control inflation and by what means. If the government is not prepared or able to reduce New Zealand's high rate of inflation...it should say so publicly so the community knows where it stands."

The Muldoon government has no more hope of constructively reversing inflation than has any other government, irrespective of its label, under financial policies, which are mathematically certain to keep fueling inflation. An examination of New Zealand's banking statistics reveals that for the ten years from 1969 to 1979, trading bank advances (credit creation) increased by 446.6 percent! Over the past three years there has been a further expansion by 79.7 percent. As all new credit is issued as a debt, the total debt structure has also escalated.

While going through the usual ritual of calling for "restraint", the Muldoon government in fact welcomes an expansion in the money to finance an inflation rate, which provides them with higher taxation without legislation. In the process the grip of the State and its instrumentalities tightens on the unfortunate individual.

But as this report is being written, a woman in Rotorua has triggered off what is quickly developing into a nationwide protest movement against the latest round in price increases. The bankruptcy of the "Social Credit" League has been demonstrated by the failure of the League's leader, Mr. Bruce Beetham, to use the opportunity to present the Social Credit policy of attacking the inflation problem by a restoration of the consumer price discount system which only a few years back ensured that New Zealanders had some of the cheapest milk in the world without loss to producers. Now an expensive advertising campaign is being conducted to try to offset falling milk consumption in a nation producing rivers of milk!

Mr. Muldoon has temporarily attracted attention away from growing domestic problems by breaking diplomatic relations with Argentina. The cynics observe that Mr. Muldoon did not break diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union when it invaded Afghanistan, suggesting that New Zealand's exporting programme to the Soviet, while there are practically no exports to Argentina, explains the difference.

Finishing on a lighter note, a report by a "Commission for the Future", established by the government, says that while New Zealand could survive a nuclear war, living standards would be reduced because New Zealand would not have the brains to feed, clothe and house themselves out of their own vast resources.

Jeremy Lee reports from Flesherton, Ontario
"The soup line has reappeared in Canada - not for the ever present minority of paupers found in any society, but a big and increasing section of once affluent Canadians. Today's Globe and Mail (April 9) devoted its front page to this issue, claiming "Agencies that give food to the needy say they haven't served so much food to such a broad cross section of society since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Many agencies doubled their output since the unemployment rate started climbing last Fall...."

Canada's unemployment queue now numbers 1,228,000 - 9 percent of the workforce - a figure not seen since 1940. Many of those seeking help were members of an affluent middle class a year ago. Says the Globe and Mail: "...As a result of high unemployment and a housing shortage, an increasing number of those who come.... are from better economic and social circumstances - from suburban families with two incomes, two cars and country club tastes if not country club memberships... The people who work for the missions are disturbed by the new faces they're seeing.

"The most noticeable thing is that there are younger men amongst them," said Paul Webb, director of the Fred Victor Mission...."In the past, most people thought of someone who was 40 or 50 when they talked about skid row. Now we're seeing many 18 to 25- year old..."

There is no doubt the combination of a frightening inflation rate, vicious taxes and a sky rocketing home energy bill, plus some of the highest bankruptcy figures in Canada's history, have produced this ever expanding queue of misery all to be found in a country capable of meeting the needs of all Canadians ten times over.

Meanwhile the same ridiculous thinking on racial matters vented with monotonous regularity by Australia's Al Grassby is also found in Canada. Orland French, a reporter with the Globe and Mail, said in today's issue (again April 9) "Last week the Globe and Mail carried a story that members of Toronto's Sikh community had put out a murder contract on a man sought in the killing of two people at Osgoode Hall. The headline said: $20,000 offered for life of Sikh Fugitive. The immediate response from Borden Purcell, chairman of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, was that the Globe should not have used the word Sikh in the headline, and that the story suggests that "Sikhs are vindictive and this endangers the whole (Sikh) community.
Bhausaheb Ubale, Ontario's race relations commissioner, said the story undid weeks of work to defuse public animosity toward the Sikh Community. I am really starting to wonder how we in the press are supposed to cover any story that involves someone other than a WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant)".
Nobody is supposed to mention that Bhausaheb Ubale, a black, was not even a Canadian citizen when appointed to his current office!

THE FALKLANDS: WHAT THE PAPERS ARE 'NOT' SAYING

"If it (the Argentine Junta) fails to hang on to the Islands, it is finished - just as the British Government of Mrs. Thatcher is threatened if the British fail to sail home victorious." - from a Report from Graham Clark, London (The Advertiser, Adelaide, April 7th).

We were favoured in the past few days by a brief visit from Jonathan Huntingdon, whom many readers will remember has written for us in the recent past on Defence matters. His personal assessment of the Falklands Islands crisis is that the real scenario is otherwise than that being presented by the mass media. Huntingdon sees the real "dagger" of the crisis aimed at Central America, (El Salvador, Nicaragua, etc.) where Argentine expertise is playing a vital role in the training and arming of anti-Communist national forces. The Junta in control of Argentina is not only strongly anti-Communist; it is known to be anti-Zionist.

Huntingdon sees the British Fleet being used as a catspaw not only to "resolve" a very old dispute, but much more importantly to indirectly topple the Argentine ruling Junta, thus destablising Latin America; and taking anti-Communist pressure off Central America. What is the evidence to support this? There does exist some evidence, but not wholly supportive in our own view.

We quote from The Advertiser article (above): "One week before the invasion the (Royal) Navy asked for permission to dispatch a fleet to stand off the Islands - Lord Carrington (British Foreign Minister) refused, saying the Foreign Office was afraid of pushing the Argentine Junta too hard." Lord Carrington was forced to resign his office when the invasion occurred.

Another quote: "The (Falklands) Islanders say the warning signs were there for months that Argentina was about to invade." Jonathan Huntingdon's view is that the invasion by the Argentine "was allowed to happen". Most readers are aware that the real powers behind the scenes of world events are seldom seen.

In the "Intelligence Digest Weekly Review" (U.K.) April 7th. we read the following: "If Britain undoubtedly the stronger, defeats Argentina, which is the guilty party in international law, the result could be a political upheaval producing a leftwing regime in place of the military junta. "If that happens, the security of Britain, the United States, and the entire non-Communist world could become jeopardised". An "unknown" is the role being played by the Soviet (Kremlin). What is it up to? It is making pro-Junta noises; has one or two submarines in Argentine waters: YET the Kremlin's obvious interest is in the toppling of the right wing Junta, and its replacement by a leftwing administration. The Soviet at present relies heavily on Argentine exports, especially grain. More than likely we are viewing, dimly, the Communist dialectic at work (one step backwards, but two steps forward!).

We don't yet have all the answers to the Falklands crisis, but we know what to look for.