GROWING REVOLT INSIDE COUNTRY PARTY

"Federal Country Party members were accused this week of betraying their party's promises and policy. In a stinging attack at the annual meeting of the party's Polwarth District Council in Colac, a branch secretary declared, 'We will not be betrayed any longer'. Mr. Cedric Turner, secretary of the Nalangil branch and a member of the Country Party for 20 years, said the Federal party had 'reached the end of the line. ' He hinted strongly that he would like to see the Country Party lose the seat of Murray, formerly held by its leader, Sir John McEwen. 'It would seem that the only way we can get through to our members in Canberra is to have them lose a few seats', Mr. Turner said. " Colac Herald ( Victoria). February 19.

An analysis of voting patterns in the Senate Elections last year, and in the N.S.W. and W.A. State Elections, reveals clearly that the rural community is turning strongly against the very party, which has traditionally represented it. If the anti-Askin Government vote had been as strong in the electorates as it was in the rural areas, Labor would now be in office in N.S.W. as it is in W.A.
If the decline in electoral support for the Country Party continues, and this appears certain unless there is a change in the present Federal Government's finance economic policies, Country Party politicians only have themselves to blame.

The essence of Socialism is progressive centralisation of power, and it is becoming increasingly obvious to traditional supporters of the Coalition at Canberra, that the very politicians elected to office to oppose Socialism, are taking Australia down the Socialist road at an ever-increasing rate. The criticism of the Country Party by the Victorian branch secretary can be heard all over Australia. It is not so long ago that a member of a well-known grazing family in New England, N.S.W. a family which had been a backbone of the Country-Parry, not only resigned in disgust, but widely circulated a statement concerning why he was taking this action. He used much stronger language than that used by Mr. Turner.

From Queensland comes a report that a group of Country Party supporters are attempting to form a "Back-to-Principles" movement inside the Country Party in an effort to save the party from threatened disintegration. It is no secret that in the Murray by-election life-long supporters of the Country Party, some still financial members, are recommending that the Country Party candidate be defeated in an endeavour to make it clear to Canberra that constructive action is required. The Colac Herald report of Mr. Turner's protest highlights the major points of the growing dissatisfaction of Country Party supporters.

In speaking to a motion that the Federal Country Party either implement its stated policy or get out of the Coalition, Mr. Turner said that the Federal Government's financial policy of high taxation, record interest rates and "an ever-increasing mountain of public debt" was a long way from the lower taxes and safeguarding of the people's savings against inflation" promised in the Country Party policy. Mr. Turner continued, "There is not a primary producer, small businessman or worker who is not reeling from the effects of a financial policy for which Country Party Parliamentarians must share the blame. Although the Country Party owes its very existence to the rural population, that population is today only half of what it was in the thirties and Mr. Anthony seems intent on eliminating the other half."
Mr. Turner's highly critical motion was carried by the Polwarth District Council.

As non-party objective political commentators, we have been warning for several years that if the Federal Coalition Government continued to depart from its anti-Socialist principles, and progressively intensified policies of centralisation, it would destroy its electoral base. It is naked political blackmail for Liberal and Country Party politicians to threaten what will happen under a Whitlam Government if the Coalition is defeated. The Coalition has by its policies convinced a large number of electors that it is just as Socialistic as the Labor Party, and that there is therefore nothing much to lose by voting ALP.

The stated principles of the Country Party and the Liberal Party are excellent as far as they go. Decentralisation has been the very essence of the Country Party's policy. At least the ALP openly states that it is not interested in preserving the Federal system of Government. But the Country Party cannot be surprised if electors become revolted by the hypocrisy of Country Party politicians preaching decentralisation while doing exactly the opposite.

The erosion of support for the Country Party can only be halted if the politicians representing that party make every endeavour to implement their own stated policies. The same comment applies to the Federal Liberal Party.

The Australian League of Rights is concerned with creating such an informed and active public opinion on the basic principles necessary for a free society that it will find expression both inside and outside the Federal Coalition parties. We therefore regard the growing criticism inside the ranks of the Country Party as a healthy and encouraging development.

D.L.P. WANTS PACT WITH SOUTH AFRICA

"Australia should join in security arrangements with South Africa and any other country prepared to join with us for mutual defence protection, Senator McManus (D.L.P.) said last night". - The Age (Melbourne). February 22.

This forthright statement by Senator McManus is further evidence that the unceasing educational work, which the League of Rights has been carrying out, alone, over many years, is now beginning to pay dividends. It is to be hoped that Senator McManus receives strong support for his courageous statement.

Now that the Soviet Navy is probing into the Indian Ocean, only a mesmerised moron can fail to see the dangerous implications for Australia. The Japanese are fully aware of the potential threat to their oil supplies, which pass through the Straits of Malacca from the Persian Gulf. Japan may also be looking to Australia as a supplementary source of oil. The Prime Minister Mr. Gorton, now announces that the Federal Government is much more concerned about the Indian Ocean, a vast improvement on the situation when his friend and former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Gordon Freeth, was discounting the Soviet danger.

By taking his stand on South Africa, Senator McManus is inviting the wrath of those who manipulate the mass media, who claim to reflect "world opinion." As close observers of this "world opinion" for over a quarter of a century, we note that it subtly undermines our friends, and subtly promotes our enemies. But it is now very clear that our "grass-roots" work is enabling an increasing number of Australians to grasp just what "world opinion" is - and who is creating and fostering it.

KEEP THAT FUND FLOWING IN

UNITED KINGDOM DEFIES UN

"The British Government has approved the sale to South Africa of seven Westland Wasp naval helicopters... Britain is thus going to ignore the United Nations Security Council embargo on arms sales to South Africa, which successive Conservative governments have said they could not accept." - The Australian, February 24.

It is to be hoped that the British Government's defiance of UN policies generally promoted by the Communists, will be carefully noted in Canberra. Australians who have written to the Minister for immigration Mr. P. Lynch protesting against the Gorton Government's decision to keep Rhodesian women tennis players out of Australia, while at the same time permitting Russian women players to enter have been told that the Australian policy was in accordance with the decisions of the UN Security Council. In other words, Mr. Lynch and his colleagues agreed to act as willing rubber stamps of the UN Security Council. We suggest that Mr. Lynch and his colleagues now be asked why they should be so careful to carry out UN policy on the question of who shall enter Australia when the British Government, itself a member of the UN Security Council, demonstrates that it does not have to worry about Council decisions.

INDUSTRIAL UPHEAVAL THREATENS IN BRITAIN

"Mr. Heath and his Government have a fight on their hands. If they had any doubts about the strength of trade union opposition to their policies, yesterday's huge Trafalgar Square rally should have dispelled them, "The Age", Melbourne, February 23.

In one of the largest protest demonstrations ever seen in Britain some 100,000 plus unionists signified their opposition to the British Government's Industrial Relations Bill, which will put a hard brake on wage increases, ban wild-cat strikes, and generally make things more difficult for the militants and subversives deeply embedded in British Labor. It won't stop inflation, which is running at a rate of around 8% in Britain at present, but it will feed the flames of industrial unrest. Mr. Heath knows full well that if he can't put a brake on union militancy then Britain's economy will run out of control. The unionists want their 'quite just' wage increases to keep up with inflation.

It can be said that Finance produces the crises, which Communism exploits. In this case the militant communists in the unions would demand impossible wage increases with a view to bringing about a revolutionary situation. A further, and more deeply embedded Communist apparatus, highly-trained well-oiled, and just waiting for the right moment, will then swing into action. The situation will need all the stolid balance of the Anglo-Saxon character, and the British genius for compromise to avert the emergence of the revolutionary climate longed-for by our enemies.

DOSSIERS ON ALL

"Vast government-controlled computer files about individuals could turn America into a police State, a U.S. senator has warned." The Australian, February 23.
Senator S. Ervin said that the ordinary citizen would be in some danger as regards his constitutional rights unless the computer is subordinated to the individual.

There have been many fears expressed concerning government "data banks", which keep files on individuals, even for such apparently harmless purposes as 'social welfare'. The question is really the use to which these "data" banks are put. A totalitarian administration could and would put such information at the ready disposal of its secret police. The compilation of such information is an invasion of privacy of the individual and wrong in principle.

EXPANDING DEBT BASIC CAUSE OF INFLATION

In a Paper given last week at a Queensland Country Party Seminar at St. George, Mr. Eric Butler, National Director of the League of Rights, said that events would demonstrate that the Gorton Government was primarily engaged in a public relations exercise. He suggested that if the Government was really convinced that it could start to put value back into the dollar, it could provide an inspiring lead to the whole community by announcing that all Federal politicians' wages, and those of senior public servants, were to be "frozen" for the next three years.

Pointing out that expanding debt and debt charges were a basic cause of the inflation problem, Mr. Butler provided the following sobering facts concerning the growth of debt in Australia:
Since June 1950, to June 1969, total public debt in Australia has increased from $1870 million to $19,112 million.
Not only is the rate of debt expansion accelerating but the States, Municipalities and Semi-Government bodies are bearing the biggest proportionate increases. The interest bill on the public debt in 1950 was $206 million, but in 1969 it was $879 million.
One of the major factors in the increased interest bill is the increase of interest rates from 41/2 per cent in 1949 to the present 81/4 per cent.

The total indebtedness of the Australian people at June 1969, was approximately $50,000 million, but the total amount of money in the hands of the Australian people was just under $14,000 million. The present economic system could only operate without a major breakdown, by an ever-expanding rate of debt finance.

In a statement in the Victorian Parliament on March 10, 1970, Victorian Premier Sir Henry Bolte said that all parties at Canberra were now centralists. Sir Henry Bolte said that over the period from June 1950 to June 1969, State debts had increased from $2,484 million to $10,676 million, while over the same period the net debt of the Commonwealth had fallen from $3,586 million to a credit of $204 million. When a State Government obtained a loan of $1 million tax money from the Commonwealth, it eventually finished up re-paying $2.5 million.

ON TARGET BULLETIN

SUBJECT FOR DISCUSSION
Consumer Credits

No clear understanding of the case for consumer credits being issued direct to individuals, as a credit, through a programme of lowering prices through the subsidy principle, and through child endowments and pensions, is possible without first facing the truth that the present finance-economic system only operates by expanding debt at an ever-accelerating rate.
The figures provided by Mr. Eric Butler in his Paper at the Queensland Country Party Seminar last week, demonstrate the truth of the situation beyond argument.

The true purpose of a State is to make dividends of some type available to the individual; the size of the dividend must be governed by the profit made through people associating together in society. If a completely automatic economic system is visualised, with a few technicians operating computers being the only labour being used, then obviously only a trickle of money tickets would be issued in the form of wages, and unless some other method was devised for distributing money tickets, the vast quantity of production could not be bought.

An Independent body, the Arbitration Commission, ruled after an exhaustive examination of all the facts, that Australian wage earners were entitled to a 6 per cent increase in wages. This was in effect a ruling that approximately $900 million increased purchasing power was necessary. Unfortunately this $900 million will be obtained from the banking system through short-term loans, these created (and an addition to the nation's money supply) as an interest-bearing debt, which means that employers must attempt to recover the $900 million PLUS INTEREST, in higher prices which further stimulate inflation.

What if this same amount of new financial credit had been created and issued in another way? Suppose that when the Arbitration Commission gave its finding, the Government had instructed the Central Bank, or any other appropriate Government instrument, to create the same $900 million, but as a credit for the actual cost of administration, and had applied it to financing lower prices for basic items in the economy as well as increases in pensions and child endowment. The result would be a genuine increase in purchasing power for all without stimulating further inflation.

There would be one other important result. The $900 million would be cancelled out of existence, as people were able to meet a bigger proportion of their debts.
Surely an end to inflation and a progressive reduction in debt is a most telling answer to the finance-economic problems, which the Marxists of all types continue to exploit?