Demand For Monetary Reform in England: 1943 Letter
The following letter was written and sent in 1943. It was addressed to His Excellency, Most Reverend William Godfrey, the Apostolic Delegate to Great Britain, and to the Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury, York and Wales and to other ecclesiastical dignitaries in Britain.
It's signed by 32 people, a Nobel Laureate and two aviation pioneers among them. One of the signatories, Frederick Soddy (the Nobel prize winner of the lot) said:
"The most sinister and anti-social feature about bank-deposit money is that it has no existence. The banks owe the public for a total amount of money which does not exist. In buying and selling, implemented by cheque transactions, there is a mere change in the party to the whom the money is owed by the banks. As the one depositor's account is debited, the other is credited and the banks can go on owing for it all the time.
"The whole profit of the issuance of money has provided the capital of the great banking business as it exists today. Starting with nothing whatever of their own, they have got the whole world into their debt irredeemably, by a trick.
"This money comes into existence every time the banks 'lend' and disappears every time the debt is repaid to them. So that if industry tries to repay, the money of the nation disappears."
Things haven't changed one iota since this letter was written 60 years ago, and have become a damn sight worse.
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Your Grace,
(1) We, all of British blood and descent, having studied the fundamental causes of the present world unrest, have long been forced to the conclusion that an essential first step towards the return of human happiness and brotherhood with economic security and liberty of life and conscience, such as will permit the Christian ethic to flourish again is the immediate resumption by the community in each nation of its prerogative over the issue of money including its modern credit substitutes.
(2) This prerogative has been usurped by those still termed in general "banker", both national and international, who have perfected a technique to enable themselves to create the money they lend by granting of bookkeeping credits, and to destroy it by the withdrawal of the latter at their discretion, in accordance with entirely mistaken and obsolete ideas which they do not defend against impartial and informed scientific criticism and examination. In this way, a form of national money debt has been invented, in which the lender surrenders nothing at all; and which is physically an impossibility for the community ever to pay. Any attempt to do so produces the artificial "economic blizzard", as it did after the 1914-18 war.
(3) This has led to the gradual rise of a form of national, international and supra-national power, dominating through its monopolisaton of the National social credit all the basic creative activities of mankind. Thus, in this as in other countries, it has become impossible to obtain publication in the press, or to broadcast on the radio, the truth concerning this economic enslavement which holds the peoples of the world in thrall.
(4) Under the world's present financial system the money, except for a now trifling portion, is originally created by the issue of a loan at interest by the "bankers", who lend nothing of themselves but in effect make a forced levy in kind on the Nation by conferring on the borrower the power to purchase a corresponding amount of wealth on the market, which wealth does not belong to them, or those who borrow from them, but to the community. The proceeds of the issue of new money - whether of paper or any other form of credit money - belong to the Nation in which it is, or is accepted as, legal tender, and not to the issuer. Herein lies the basic flaw of the existing monetary system.
(5) By this method, which has come to be regarded as legal by virtue of established practice, the banks in our country are responsible for the issue of new money of their own creation amounting today to between two and three thousand million pounds - this being the difference between loans extended, including those to themselves, and those repaid since they instituted the system a number of years ago - and are thereby extracting by means of interest an annual tribute from the Nation of over £100,000,000 for what has now become to them a relatively costless and riskless service. But the real danger, well understood in every preceding era of history, is the undermining of all lawfully constituted authority by the creation and destruction of money carried on in secret for private gain and the acquisition of power.
(6) All forms of government, whether conservative, liberal or labour, fascist, socialist or communist, fall alike under the control of a political Power Group, which is ultimately, and in large measure unwittingly, dominated by the Money Creators and Manipulators. In this way the national political power, which, if the individual is to enjoy the maximum of personal freedom consistent with his duty to his conscience and his fellows, should be distributed throughout the people, has been usurped without their knowledge and consent.
(7) It will be seen that the present monetary system, which by its disregard of primary physical and ethical laws is inevitably destroying the civilisation into which it has been introduced, requires rectification both in the material technique and in the ethics which at present inspire and control this technique. It is particularly in view of its devastating effects in the moral sphere that we have ventured to refer to Ecclesiastical Authority, and to invoke the Churches to action.
(8) We therefore appeal to you in your position of great authority and influence to proclaim the truth to the Nation on this subject and in the hope that you may see fit to disseminate as widely as possible the text of this statement, whereby this vitally important question may be brought to the light of day and earnestly enquired into by the peoples of the British Commonwealth.
(9) We do so in all Christian fellow-feeling, knowing and honouring the efforts you are making against the abuses of our present economic system and the evils of usury, and believing that the world is now in the gravest crisis of its history. The issue of new money by the money-lender is an unforeseen result of the modern cheque as a substitute for national money _ a valuable invention which in itself was undoubtedly social and benevolent in intention and effect. If the cheque system were corrected, as it can be simply corrected, to restore to the nations their rightful prerogative over the issue of money, there is every reason to retain it. We fully appreciate the services which banking organisations have rendered and can continue to render to the community. But the issue and destruction of money by the money-lender is not a service, but a weapon which can be and has been unsed to perpetuate poverty amidst abundance, which renders individuals and nations powerless to protect themselves, and which may even be perverted to serve vast designs for the complete subjugation of the human race to tyranny, exploitation and the powers of darkness and evil.
NORMAN A. THOMPSON (A.M.I.E.E., Research Engineer, Inventor of the Norman Thompson Flying Boat, 1914, and other developments in aviation and in mechanical propulsion; Originator of this appeal)
FREDERICK SODDY (M.A., LL.D., F.R.S, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 1921; pioneer in the Economics of Wealth, author of Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt (1926), Money versus Man (1931), Role of Money (1934))
J. CREAGH SCOTT (D.S.O., O.B.E., Lt. Col; Chairman, The Farmer's Action Council; Advisory Chairman, The Service for Economic Action)
REGINALD ROWE (Kt., author of The Root of All Evil)
JOHN HARGRAVE (F.R.S.A.; inventor of the Hargrave Automatic Navigator for Aircraft (1937); Economic Advisor to the Planning Commission of HM Govt. of Alberta (1936-7); Founder and Leader of the Social Credit Party of GB)
WILFRID HILL (Industrialist, Birmingham and London; President, Comite International de Echanges, Paris; Chairman, Econ. and Monetary Joint Council, London; Anglo-American Comm. World Trade Alliance)
CHARLES TURNER (Mechanical and Mining Engineer; Knowles Gold Medallist; inventor of the Oil-from-Coal Process and Plant)
ALLIOT VERDON-ROE (Kt., O.B.E., F.R.Ae.S., M.I.Ae.E.; Aviation Pioneer)
A. G. SEAMAN (M.I.E.E.; Inventor of Automatic Sorting of Heavy Goods) ---
(ed. note: Also signed by 24 other authors, MPs, economists, businessmen and other notables of the day).