Economics of Armaments

At a meeting of the Social Credit Club, Mr. R. W. Johnson, candidate for Miramar, said that every country must get rid of its surplus products and it must indulge in production that people do not want—armaments.

Mr Johnson said that the export drive inevitably led to trade rivalry and military war. War solved all our economic difficulties. If there had not been a Second World War, every family in the U.S.A., Britain. Canada. Franco, the U.S.S.R. and Belgium could have had at least a £12,000 house, £4.000 worth of furniture and £2,000 in cash.

In the U.S. today there are over 5 million unemployed and they found it necessary to recruit more people in the army. If it was not Berlin, we would have a crisis somewhere else.

Because the markets are shrinking today, he said, China and India are going to find the same problem as the

U.S. and Britain. Arms are an economically good capital development as the product does not take money out of purchasing power.

Trade has become perverted—it tries to get other countries into debt. Every country cannot have a favourable balance of trade and there is an ill-feeling between many nations.

A Social Credit New Zealand would show other countries what could be done. We have to equate purchasing power with goods and services available. The only way to eliminate the need for armaments was to do this equation, Mr Johnson concluded.

—R. J. Bromby.