Weaven, Vrs. Weatrm ano, Dit Prof, Frederick Soday, May Pika, Geo, Allen, TOs. 02.
The author of this book is a Nobel prizeman and one of that group of brilliant physicists who have revealed to the world the extraordinary phenomena of radioactivity and thrown so much light on the strueture of the atom. He is also a very able writer so that any ook by him will be read with great me terest. On the other hand, Prof. Soddy is rather a novice in the field of "Political and. Economic ce" and it does not always happen that a specialist who raises 2 bumper harvest in one field is necessarily able to produce good crops in another. We have already fan example of this in the case of Sir Oliver Lodge, another great physicist, who writes on "psychic fal research" with an, almost complete disregard for the science of psychology and cotises the infidel 10 Ecofl accordingly.
Prof. Soddy is either a seer or an 'Mlusionary and' it is to be feared that readers of his book will view it with prejudi for or against. He endeavours very rightly to indicate a theory of res! wealth on the basis of energy storage and Tt is of course true that the stock and rate of degradation of available energy is to some degree better indicator of real wealth '2nd consumption than money. value Dut the subject: is much involved with "trigger action" questions to say nothing of psychological siderations. He invents. the, terni '"victual Wealth" to represent, the imaginary entity corresponding to collective credit, It is however in the subject of "debt" that the author finds his widest scope. He proves to his own satisfaction that all our troubles (he seems to mean principally sthdse "of England, as not very much is said of interna tional affairs) are due to squeeze exercised on debts, without real wealth to correspond, which have been built up by the exploitation of the cheque system, the banks being the principal culprit, He) holds that. finance exerte a strangle. hold on the scientific: expansion. agriculture and industry which prac= tically neutralizes all the immense opportunities which science hax given for the provision of. decent competence to all, He advises control of paper cure rency and adjustment of purchas ing value, by an almost omniscient") (1) state with super honest officials, panacea, He advises the annul ment of the interest on part of 'National Debt by its immediate, payment in £2,000,000,000 of paper, currency, at the same time annulling the banks' practice of using the mae Jor part of current accounts" fof loans. He is also strong ea the necessity of amortising all debts, making amortization a concomitant of interest payments. Does this mean anything in practice but the simple juggling with rates of me terest and/or a capital Seys eral questions that suggest thems selves are (1) Can it be proved that the banks actually do credit themselves (i.e. their shareholders), with so much unearned value og if indicated over and above that. due to their services as. distributors?
(2) What part does internation. al trade play in the matter? Gan England really be self-supporting ju the manner indicated, having regan to its large population, foreign obli resources, ' Woe ations and limited ' agricultural (3) Can a Government "monkey," with" currency, credit and interest without doing more harm than good, (4), Is not the real evil tha grasping nature of the average man in every class of slite, and.
not: this factor enter into any, chemo of social structure?
He is very emphatic as to the ale surdity of the contemporaneous ex= istence of unemployment and deste tution, suggesting that the labour available could be utilized were not the means and methods of produce tion in the hands of financiers whose sole concern is the interest they, receive from debts Which they do. not wish to be paid, One matter of which he seems very sound is the necessity of increasing agriculture in England: by the application of scientific methods, but it is not very, clear how he proposes to get over the present difficulty of labour costs which make agriculture unprofit. fable, Curiously enough, while bij shows very clearly that England's real industrial capital consists larg in her coal supplies, he does not Some portion of England's food supply must come from abroad and to pay for it some products must be exported, "The food. change value of those exports determined by conditions " abroad over which England has little ea trol. Tf the total food imported is less' than the deficit of home supplies. there must be a shortage, Which shows itself as unemploy: ment or a reduced standard of live ting. Temporarily at least, one of these two alternatives seems une ovoidable. "Unemployment can avoided if the unemployed will work the Jand at low wages, which they are said to refuse to do. What conceivable help would Prot. Sod-cly's proposals provide in this dilem= mat" His notion seems to, bo 10 release credit which is tied up in. business, for the benefit of the forme unless he can be sure of hour ata reasonable, price. On Yinue to a Togical conclusion of his thesis and annihilate all credit and property rights, and unemployment will be increased nearly ten th since then the bulk of the popula tion must live on agriculture and the necessary land is lacking. In
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.