THE NORTH AMERICAN RURAL CRISIS

Eric D. Butler reports from Canada
"Before the U.S.A. Presidential elections, President Ronald Reagan was listing the lower rate of inflation as evidence supporting his contention that he was presiding over an 'economic recovery'. Two days ago I was listening to a broadcast from a U.S.A. farming function, and a prominent rural spokesman was having some hard things to say about farm economics, stressing that American farmers were playing a major role in subsidising the lower inflation rate through uneconomic prices for their production.
The spokesman referred to the continuing cost-price squeeze, which has in recent years forced tens of thousands of farmers off their properties throughout the Free Nations of the world. He listed high interest rates on heavy rural debt as one of the principal contributors to the deepening rural crisis in the U.S.A. And he warned that if present financial policies were designed to keep driving out the smaller private farms in favour of large scale farming corporations, there would be substantial increases in food prices. The spokesman said that American farmers needed at least 16% increase in prices for their production to halt the present rural crisis.

"President Reagan is strong on anti-Communist rhetoric, but this sounds hollow when before the Presidential elections he offered the Soviet an extra 10 million tonnes of grain, this offer being primarily designed to please American grain growers, who under the financial whip have been flailed into producing ever-greater quantities of grain. No one seems to know what price the Soviet is paying for wheat imports from the U.S.A.

"The rural scene in Canada is just as bleak as the American scene. Figures recently released by the Canadian Federal Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs reveal that farming bankruptcies increased by 19% over the past twelve months. Mr. Charles Gracey, General Manager of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, charges that the high level of farm bankruptcies is the result of monetary policies of the last Federal Government.
Canadian farmers I am meeting are pessimistic about the, future unless they receive some financial help.

Control of food is control of life. The complete totalitarian state cannot be established while an independent rural community remains. The Soviet crushed the private farmers through a policy of 'get big or get out'. The end result is disaster, not only for the rural community, but for the whole nation. Rural communities everywhere are holding a vital front in the defence of civilisation and should be encouraged in every way to organise to defeat destructive financial orthodoxy".

ORWELLIAN STATISTICS

Just like the pig, Squealer, in George Orwell's "1984" who always managed, when things were getting worse, to dig up some statistics "proving" they were really getting better, Australians are being treated to the same manipulation. The week before the election, The Bulletin's front cover claimed the economy was coming to the boil. A highly enthusiastic article claimed continuing economic recovery. The same line naturally enough was pushed by Prime Minister Hawke and Treasurer Paul Keating, both of whom campaigned on their claim that Australia was "the fastest growing economy in the world".

The picture changed almost as soon as the election was over surprise! surprise! The Age (December 5, '84) carried the front-page headline: "Economy Goes Off the Boil". The news broke that September quarter figures actually showed a decline, with a drop in G.D.P. of 0.9 percent. What terrible luck for Mr. Hawke that the figures for the September quarter were not available until three days after the election! We have no doubt that this news will provide an opportunity for the Prime Minister to cancel his pre-election promises that the level of taxation will rise no further. It will probably also provide a fresh opportunity for another National Summit Conference, where the P.M. can once again ask us, with tears in his eyes, to stand "shoulder to shoulder with him" as we tighten our belts once more.

The Australian (December 6th) provided fresh confirmation for the warning given by the League of Rights in its pre-election Intelligence Survey about Australia's dangerous debt crisis: "The head of the Department of Trade, Mr. John Menadue, said yesterday that there was an urgent need for Australia to generate more export income in order to service its growing foreign debt. Mr. Menadue noted that in the past five years Australia's foreign debt had more than tripled from $41 billion and was approaching the levels of financially endangered Third World countries. "These figures are unprecedented in recent Australian economic history", he told a business group in Sydney. "It is not surprising therefore that some question the prudence of such borrowing. They argue ominously that Argentina, Brazil and Mexico have debt commitments not that much greater than ours...."

We notice that neither Mr. Hawke nor Mr. Peacock dwelt too much on Australia's debts during the election. But they will loom more and more in an ominously frightening, economic crisis that looks like breaking in 1985! Mr. Hayden was close to the truth when he described the A.L.P. as looking like a Bankers' and Big Business Party. The same description could equally apply to the Liberals.

THE INFORMAL REVOLUTION

"Far from being one off aberrations that may never re-appear again, the high informal vote and the strength shown by single issue minority parties in last weekend's election now look as though they may be permanent factors affecting the future operation of Australia's complex electoral system". - Peter Robinson, in The Sun-Herald (Sydney), December 9th.

Readers will recall the anguished howl of distress from "Labor" circles as the high informal vote rolled in. It was Mick Young's fault: voters were confused by the block party Senate vote, and transposed this to the House of Representatives ballot paper. In other words, voters are a bit dilly, and the "new" voting system for the Senate backfired! Not much of a reflection of the politicians' fellow-Australians, who in our view are not dilly at all, but rather sophisticated voters.
Anyway, what does all this say for compulsory voting? We have always maintained that the compulsory vote forces an irresponsible vote. People who are just not interested in politics at all are forced to put a mark on a piece of paper. To the best of our knowledge there are only two European democracies which force compulsory voting - viz. Australia and Belgium. Even those terrible New Zealanders do not have the compulsory vote, although Mr. Lange, urged ever onwards to the Red Paradise by his own set of ideologues, may "catch up" with his Australian colleagues.

Mr. Robinson observes, that evidence strongly suggests the high informal vote, along with the vote for minor parties (e.g. Nuclear Disarmament) are really a sophisticated voter reaction to compulsory voting and the ducking and weaving by the major parties to comply with "poll" trends. Labor scrutineers have said that up to 25% of the informal vote in some Victorian seats were blank ballot papers, and another 25% were defaced ballot papers; i.e. at least 50% of the informal vote was a protest vote. We go along with this.

We have, also, already said that Andrew Peacock's "success" was the result of a protest vote (in the main against Labor). Mr. Peacock has little to crow about, and will be a foolish politician if he expects the next Federal election result to fall into his lap. He and his colleagues will have to perform, and perform well. With the authority given him by his good showing at the recent polls, he can crack the whip now.

THAT BILL OF RIGHTS

"The Federal Government should release its draft Bill of Rights as soon as possible, Mr. Justice Kirby said at the weekend". The Sun (Melbourne), December 10th.

Mr. Justice Kirby, former Chairman of the Law Reform Commission, and now President of the Court of Appeal of the N.S.W. Supreme Court, said the Government's refusal to detail this Bill before the recent Federal election was "perhaps understandable". The Age (Melbourne), commonly called "the Spencer Street Soviet", in Victoria because of its consistently Left-wing line in politics and social matters, even went a little further. It editorialised; "Not until the draft Bill (of Rights) is openly published can people judge whether the Government is on the right track or whether the critics are correct." Fair enough, but our bet is that The Age will back Gareth Evans' Bill of Rights once it has been let out of the dungeons.

Mr. Justice Kirby made his remarks whilst addressing the Annual Oration at the B'Nai B'rith (Children of the Covenant} at Caulfield - a Melbourne suburb with a very high proportion of Jewish people. He did observe (interestingly) that he had doubts about the proposals of the Human Rights Commission to introduce the offence of "uttering words likely to result in racial hatred". Surely, a person of common sense would take the opinion that it is far, far, better NOT to create an unstable population in the first place. A person of common sense knows that "prevention is better than cure". Why, why, then bring into Australia inassimilable people, both by race and religion, and thus create an undesirable racial climate? All official "remedies" will fail, and will incite hostility both against the inassimilable races, AND governments. No multi-cultural society throughout history has ever succeeded. "Birds of a feather fly together!"
Electoral comment authorised by J.W.D.Lee, RAVENSBOURNE, Qld., 4352.

JOHN BENNETT STRIKES BACK

Mr. Bennett's letter was published in The Herald (Melbourne), November 29th:
"In answer to my statement (Herald, Oct. 231st) that Mr. Grassby seems to have little liking for the European heritage of Australia, little respect for the Australians of European background and little tolerance for their view on immigration. Grame Orr (Nov. 12) states that only 75% of Australians are of European background. "The official report by the Australian Council on Population (May 1982, page 32) indicates that 96.8% of the population in 1978 was of European background, including 76.9% of British Anglo-Saxon-Keltic background.
"With Mr. Hayden saying it is inevitable and desirable that Australia becomes Eurasian - with whites being eliminated by intermarriage and with current net Asian immigration running at more than 70%, it is possible that Europeans will comprise only 75% of the population within the next 20 years. But Mr. Orr is quite wrong in stating that figure has already been reached. "He is also wrong in stating that Asian countries do not have racially discriminatory immigration policies. Japan, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Thailand all seek to preserve their racial homogeneity. Japan refused to take ethnic Chinese fleeing racial persecution in Vietnam and makes it almost impossible for Koreans who have lived in Japan for decades to take out citizenship. Some whites are permitted to live in Japan as residents - but again it is almost impossible for them to become citizens.
"Mr. Orr's call to give immigrants who have come to Australia a fair go should be heeded. But the 95% of Australians of European extraction, most of whom object to the Asianisation of Australia and who fear that the racial problems of Britain, the United States, Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and other multi-national societies will be repeated here, should also be given a fair go and their views heeded".

A.I.D.S.
According to a world authority in microbiology, Professor Jean-Claude Chermanne, of the Pasteur Institute, Paris, A.I.D.s is becoming even more infectious as it (probably) changes in its nature, like the influenza virus. This makes such viruses especially difficult to treat successfully, and means that a "cure" for A.I.D.S. could be further away than formerly expected. The disease is now endemic in Zaire (formerly the Belgium Congo) where 2 new cases appear every day.