The Enemy Within the Empire (an excerpt)
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND
By ERIC D. BUTLER.
Most orthodox history that is crammed into the heads of our children is one long list of contradictions. There is no real background to our social development because the main underlying factors have been completely ignored.
The part played by the money system in the growth of society has been tremendous;
yet how many of our historians mention it?
We teach our children about the development of the British Commonwealth of Nations, although the real basis of this growth has been either neglected of distorted, while the development of that powerful, private and anti-social institution, the Bank of England, is very rarely mentioned.
If we are really desirous of preserving and developing British culture, it is essential that we attempt to gain at. least an elementary knowledge of the attack which was launched against the British people at the time of Cromwell.
It is significant that the introduction of what has been termed a "spurious Whig culture," marked the origin of the present banking racket in Britain. This cultural and financial attack has been going ever since, although there is sound reason to believe that the enemy is at last being turned on both flanks However, as yet, there is no sign of a rout in the enemy's ranks. Even the London "Times," one of the chief mouthpieces of the financial oligarchy, offered the following criticism of "Whigism" in its issue of August 4, 1840:
"There is certainly in 'Whigism' an inherent propensity to tyranny; and of all the methods which tyranny ever invented for sucking out the essential vitality of free institutions, without appearing materially to touch their forms, this centralising system is the most plausible and the most pernicious. . . If it shall be fully carried out, British liberty ... will rest no longer on the possession of constitutional power by the people, but upon the sufferance of a majority of those who, for the time being, may call themselves the people's representatives."
The man who wrote the above lines, 100 years ago, had a deep insight into the principles of social organisation. Those who seek to re-write history find it a very formidable undertaking, because it has become a "vested interest" with the official historians. Any historian who refused to portray Cromwell as a saviour of the British people, pointed out that his real name was Williams, and that he belonged to a small group of men who had been enriching themselves at the expense of the Monarchy...
Our "Whig" historians tell us about the tyrannies of Charles I. and Charles II, and how they reigned without Parliament. The impression is given that Parliament in those days was similar to what we have to-day. Nothing is further from the truth. It was comprised of. a group of wealthy men who were not very responsible to the British people.
The real fight was between the Money Power and Monarchy, with the victory of the Money Power in 1688 when James II was driven off the throne by his son-in-law, William III., who was brought to Britain at the behest of the financial interests. The Bank of England was formed six years later - 1694 - and with it began the National Debt.
Friday 15 May 2009
Sunday 10 May 2009
Greenshirts for Social Credit
In 1935, the poet born in America, Ezra Pound, dedicated one of his booklets on the monetary reform: Social Credit: year Impact, “with the Green Shirts of England”. Pound combined poetry with the defense of the Social Credit and Fascism. They saw them both as opposite with the international system of financial interest which he regarded as having a harmful impact on civilization.
In Canto XLV (With wear), Pound made a particularly lucid talk of the destroying nature of the financial interest on the social and cultural welfare:
“With wear… no table is made to last, nor to live/but to be sold, to be sold with haste/with wear, sin against-nature/your bread is always a stale hunk/your bread is as dry as paper… /and no man can find a place to live/the stone mason remains without stone/Tisserand remains without wire/with wear… against-nature…”
In other words, wear is a parasitic company which prevents the creativity.
Even if the partisans of the Social Credit found apparently Fascism very unpleasant, the fact remains that Italy and Germany reorganized their financial system by restoring in the State the prerogative to emit credit. In New Zealand, the eminent monetary reformer Henry Kelliher, member of the direction of the Bank of New Zealand, and director of the Breweries of the Dominion, published a newspaper, “The Mirror”, which recommended a monetary reform, and included an examination of the economic reforms of Germany. Kelliher was thanked publicly by Labour the Prime Minister Joseph Savage for his countryside which made it possible the first worker government to apply a financial policy of social credit (although they were only half-measures).
New Zealand had also its own Green Chemises recommending the Social Credit, the Legion of Zealand News, under the direction of the famous surgeon Campbell Begg, who recommended also a semi-corporative State which would join together all the factions of classes and economic in an Economic council to advise the government (the New Zealand party of the Social Credit also continued in the Fifties to recommend something of similar).
WHITE FOX
However, the Green Shirts of Great Britain had their origins in a movement of discovered forests, coming from the scouts of Baden Powell; at the time of the Great Crisis in Great Britain, these Green Shirts undertook a campaign as militant and as daring as that of the Communists and Black Shirts of Mosley.
The Green Shirts owed their existence with the charismatic personality of John Hargrave, a veteran of the 26 years old war. Whereas he was still Commissaire for the Forest and the Camp-site in the movement scout of Baden-Powell, in 1920 “White Fox” (the pen name of Hargrave in the newspapers scouts) and other scouts chiefs created the Tribe of Kibbo Kift (KK), according to the old dialect of Kent, “proof of great force”.
The movement was to return to the medievism and the Saxon heritage. Debates and of Althings [general meetings] popular were organized. The instruction included the knowledge of the forest, the creation of guilds of the trades, cultural development, and the use of ritual. The movement was clearly of a nature very “völkisch”. The ceremonies had a strong taste of sagas Scandinavian and habits saxonnes.
The members of the movement were organized as Clans and Tribes. The uniform of the KK was made with the hand by each member or a “rooftree” (family group), and consisted of a Saxon unit, with cap, waistcoat, shorts and long coat. The chiefs wore embroidered silk dresses for the ceremonies.
Whereas it was scout, Hargrave had promoted the solitary concept of scout, somebody being held on his own feet. Its experiments in the world of the war as a sergeant in first line with the stretcher-bearers (it was at the time pacifist coming from a family of Quakers) had led it to the conviction that civilization had failed, and that only a small number of people would be able to take up the challenge to be rebuilt while being withdrawn from a corrupted company.
This reconnection with the countryside was high on a spiritual level like that of Wandervögel, the groups of youth nationalist hikers who explored nature in the hills and the forests, seen like the paramount gasoline of Germany. Like Kibbo Kift, Wandervögel were to give a major contribution to the later political movements. The books of Hargrave on the forest were translated into German and accomodated very well in this country. Members of the KK took part in camps of youth of Wandervögel where they were well accomodated.
Up to that point Hargrave had scorned the policy, in spite of its horror of the contemporary company. Nevertheless, its movement had received the support of some eminent members of socialist Fabian Society, including H.G. Wells. A certain number of young idealistic Socialists were attracted by the KK. Hargrave was confronted with the prospect for an incursion of socialism into the movement. It was determined to be opposed to it.
At the time of Althing of 1924, the socialist faction led by Leslie Paul disputed the direction of Hargrave. He answered by giving ten minutes to his detractors to make their bag and to leave the camp a small number was carried out and created Woodcraft Folk [People of the Forest] which continues to exist like socialist youth movement.
SOCIAL CREDIT
Hargrave now had success as an artist and a short story writer, and obtained an use of draughtsman in an advertising agency. The director of the agency put it in contact in 1923 with major C.H. Douglas, father of the Social Credit. Douglas had written in a series of articles in the magazine “New Age” that the phenomenon of “poverty in the middle of abundance” was caused by a lack of purchasing power due to the creation of the credit like private product.
If the élitiste ethics of the KK made it possible its devoted members to obtain a purified individual life of the corruption of modern industrial civilization, the Social Credit could be the means by which the company as a whole could be released from corruption. Hargrave declared: “The half of our problem is psychological and the other half is economic. The psychological complex of industrial humanity can be removed only by solving the economic dead end”.
In 1927, Hargrave had converted the majority of the leaders of Kibbo Kift and then added the topic of the Social Credit to its principles.
In 1930, a Legion of the Unemployed was created in Coventry. In 1931, the Legion adopted a paramilitary style with green shirt and green beret Bientôt the Legion was called openly the Green Shirts of Kibbo Kift. The following year, the KK itself adopted the uniform with the green shirt, and in 1932 Hargrave changed the name of the KK in favour of that of Movement of the Green Shirts for the Social Credit.
At the time of the annual festival held in January 1931, Hargrave declared that the duty of the KK was to break the capacity of the “money merchants”. That could not be done at the Parliament, but by a movement which would show the people that it was based on “this devotion absolute, religious, military, towards the duty, without which no great cause led forever to a victorious exit”.
Hargrave recommended a new orientation for the Social Credit, which until this time had been limited to groups of study and a discrete approach. A militant campaign could break the silence of the media, while carrying the message directly with the people by steps, gatherings of streets, streamers and drums, easy ways advertising and a tabloïd. Major Douglas gave his approval to the movement.
GREEN SHIRTS MOVING
Vis-a-vis the opposition of the media and Communists, and even of the clashes with the Black Shirts of Mosley, the Green Shirts pointed out themselves by their discipline and their order vis-a-vis the provocations. They gave also a direct support to people economically dispossessed and impoverished, uniting or leading steps of the hunger and manifestations of the movement of the workers to unemployment. Unfortunately, but without surprise, such a radicalism raised the opposition of certain partisans of the Social Credit, who thought that such a militancy was not in agreement with their ideals.
On June 9, 1932, the first meeting in the open air was held in Lewisham High Street. Until October 1934,3.426 meetings in the open air and 32 demonstrations were held, 56.000 sold newspapers, and 223.000 distributed leaflets.
From 1933 to 1937, the newspaper of the movement, “Attack”, was published.
Part of the nature of the enthusiastic radicalism of the movement, if different from the Social Credit that we had the practice to see, can be deduced from the course of the year 1934:
- May 16: delegations at the Bank of England and the 10, Downing Street.
- June 27: a brick painted in green is thrown by the window of the 11, Downing Street (the bricks and the arrows painted in green were to become the mark of the actions of the movement).
- July 4: Lord Straboli receives a delegation of the Green Shirts, and raises the question of the National Dividend to the House of Lords (the question is also mentioned with the House of Commons).
Other major features of the countryside of the movement during the years of pre-war period included what follows:
- November 14, 1935: general elections. W. Towsend obtains 11,01% of the votes with South Leeds.
- November 13, 1936: Hargrave goes on a journey in Alberta, and is named economic council of the new government of the Social Credit, where it develops the “Hargrave Plan”. Unfortunately, major Douglas writes some comments scornful on the technical aptitudes of Hargrave, which causes a rupture between the two men.
- January 1, 1937: the Act of the Law and order prohibited the political uniforms, a measurement directed as much against the Green Shirts as against the Black Shirts.
- October 11, 1937: “Remove your legs of Alberta! ” painted in green on the Bank of England.
- February 20, 1938: a brick painted in green thrown in a window of the Bank of Montreal, Threadneedle Street (the government of Social Credit of Alberta was unable to apply most of its policy because of the regulations of the central government, although it preserved the government during many years).
- March 24, 1938: first cry of “Social Credit, the only remedy! ” in the public gallery of the House of Commons.
- May 1, 1938: demonstration with green shirts hung on posts, a protest symbolic system against the prohibition of the uniforms. New green bricks thrown to the 10, Downing Street.
- July 20, 1938: open rupture with major Douglas at the time of the meeting of Short Chiltern.
- October 28, 1938: petition with the King with Coventry, asking an investigation in the monetary system.
- November 5, 1938: the effigy of Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England, is burned in front of the Bank.
- January 10, 1939: a sheaf of corn is burned beside a meeting of the Commission of Corn: “They burn the corn which we want to eat! ”, an allusion to the phenomenon of “poverty in the middle of abundance” during the Crisis, when the farmers were paid to destroy their harvests and their cattle while people were famished because it misses purchasing power.
- April 25, 1939: “Recruit the bankers in first! ”, demonstration against the war with Throgmorton Street in London.
In spite of the difficulties caused by the war, of many militants having been called for the service, the movement manages to continue its countryside:
- February 29, 1940: from the “Robins of wood” wearing the illegal green shirt draw a green arrow on the 10, Downing Street.
- March 6, 1940: an effigy of Montagu Norman is thrown at the entry of the Bank of England (the person in charge is condemned to three months of forced labors).
- April 23, 1940: women out of green dresses with crinoline (“obsolete, as the financial system”) protest in front of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
- January 2, 1941: “Release Great Britain of the Interest! ” is painted on the Bank of England.
- May 22, 1942: launching of the countryside “Great Britain can nourish itself”.
As for Hargrave, in 1935 it published its news Summer Times Ends [the summer finishes], on the apathy of ordinary people, with a judgment of the social system and economic and of its politicians and bankers. In 1937 he invented an automatic navigator for the planes. In 1939, it published a news based on the governor of the Bank of England. The Bank counteracted by buying all the specimens of the book to prevent its distribution. From March 1938, it launched its semi-monthly “Message of Hargrave” which lasted until 1951. In 1944 it began another part of its life as an healer paranormal, obviously with a great success.
POST-WAR PERIOD CAMPAIGN
With the end of the war, the Party of the Social Credit was reactivated, its first meeting since 1939 was held in May 1945, and a Gospel of the National Social Credit was launched to break the blackout of the media by a return to the spectacular methods.
- December 12, 1945: demonstration “Britannia” against the agreement of Bretton Woods which creates the World Bank and the IMF, the world control mechanism of international finance in the post-war period.
- January 1, 1946: publication of the book “the clearly explained Social Credit”.
- July 1, 1946: demonstration with Whitehall: “Atomic energy - Life or Dead”.
- July 20, 1946: demonstration “has the rationing of the bread low! ”.
- June 7, 1947: manifestation of the streamers to the Derby of Epsom.
- August 16, 1947: manifestation of the streamers at the time of the Oval (test match).
- November 28, 1947: Hargrave declares its intention to be submitted to the Parliament.
- May 15, 1948: first National Assembly of post-war period of the Party of the Social Credit. The group of the Party, “Agriculture and breeding” is formed in face, with the slogan “Great Britain can nourish itself! ”.
- November 4, 1949: Hargrave speaks with 5.000 elderly with Central Hall, Westminster.
- February 23, 1950: general elections: Hargrave obtains 551 votes with Stoke Newington and Hackney.
- November 16, 1950: first of a series of eight cries in one month: “Social Credit, the only remedy! ” in the public gallery of the Parliament.
In spite of this activism, the apathy of mass reigned in Great Britain of post-war period, and after the poor result of Hargrave in the elections of 1951, it was solved to dissolve the party.
Hargrave was a considerable success as a writer in his later life, and was greeted by the public when it assisted in 1976 with representations of a musical comedy on the Green Shirts. In 1977 the Foundation of Kibbo Kift was created with Hargrave as president, “with an aim of providing an authority and a permanent property of the files and badges” of the movement. Most of the energy of Hargrave in the post-war period was occupied showing that he had been the inventor of the process of automatic navigation, largely used on the planes including on the Harmony. Finally it was to receive a recognition of bad grace but one refused a compensation for technicality to him. Hargrave died on November 21, 1982.
If the Social Credit had known the zeal of crusade and the radical engagement of the past, including in New Zealand, the history could have been very different.
In Canto XLV (With wear), Pound made a particularly lucid talk of the destroying nature of the financial interest on the social and cultural welfare:
“With wear… no table is made to last, nor to live/but to be sold, to be sold with haste/with wear, sin against-nature/your bread is always a stale hunk/your bread is as dry as paper… /and no man can find a place to live/the stone mason remains without stone/Tisserand remains without wire/with wear… against-nature…”
In other words, wear is a parasitic company which prevents the creativity.
Even if the partisans of the Social Credit found apparently Fascism very unpleasant, the fact remains that Italy and Germany reorganized their financial system by restoring in the State the prerogative to emit credit. In New Zealand, the eminent monetary reformer Henry Kelliher, member of the direction of the Bank of New Zealand, and director of the Breweries of the Dominion, published a newspaper, “The Mirror”, which recommended a monetary reform, and included an examination of the economic reforms of Germany. Kelliher was thanked publicly by Labour the Prime Minister Joseph Savage for his countryside which made it possible the first worker government to apply a financial policy of social credit (although they were only half-measures).
New Zealand had also its own Green Chemises recommending the Social Credit, the Legion of Zealand News, under the direction of the famous surgeon Campbell Begg, who recommended also a semi-corporative State which would join together all the factions of classes and economic in an Economic council to advise the government (the New Zealand party of the Social Credit also continued in the Fifties to recommend something of similar).
WHITE FOX
However, the Green Shirts of Great Britain had their origins in a movement of discovered forests, coming from the scouts of Baden Powell; at the time of the Great Crisis in Great Britain, these Green Shirts undertook a campaign as militant and as daring as that of the Communists and Black Shirts of Mosley.
The Green Shirts owed their existence with the charismatic personality of John Hargrave, a veteran of the 26 years old war. Whereas he was still Commissaire for the Forest and the Camp-site in the movement scout of Baden-Powell, in 1920 “White Fox” (the pen name of Hargrave in the newspapers scouts) and other scouts chiefs created the Tribe of Kibbo Kift (KK), according to the old dialect of Kent, “proof of great force”.
The movement was to return to the medievism and the Saxon heritage. Debates and of Althings [general meetings] popular were organized. The instruction included the knowledge of the forest, the creation of guilds of the trades, cultural development, and the use of ritual. The movement was clearly of a nature very “völkisch”. The ceremonies had a strong taste of sagas Scandinavian and habits saxonnes.
The members of the movement were organized as Clans and Tribes. The uniform of the KK was made with the hand by each member or a “rooftree” (family group), and consisted of a Saxon unit, with cap, waistcoat, shorts and long coat. The chiefs wore embroidered silk dresses for the ceremonies.
Whereas it was scout, Hargrave had promoted the solitary concept of scout, somebody being held on his own feet. Its experiments in the world of the war as a sergeant in first line with the stretcher-bearers (it was at the time pacifist coming from a family of Quakers) had led it to the conviction that civilization had failed, and that only a small number of people would be able to take up the challenge to be rebuilt while being withdrawn from a corrupted company.
This reconnection with the countryside was high on a spiritual level like that of Wandervögel, the groups of youth nationalist hikers who explored nature in the hills and the forests, seen like the paramount gasoline of Germany. Like Kibbo Kift, Wandervögel were to give a major contribution to the later political movements. The books of Hargrave on the forest were translated into German and accomodated very well in this country. Members of the KK took part in camps of youth of Wandervögel where they were well accomodated.
Up to that point Hargrave had scorned the policy, in spite of its horror of the contemporary company. Nevertheless, its movement had received the support of some eminent members of socialist Fabian Society, including H.G. Wells. A certain number of young idealistic Socialists were attracted by the KK. Hargrave was confronted with the prospect for an incursion of socialism into the movement. It was determined to be opposed to it.
At the time of Althing of 1924, the socialist faction led by Leslie Paul disputed the direction of Hargrave. He answered by giving ten minutes to his detractors to make their bag and to leave the camp a small number was carried out and created Woodcraft Folk [People of the Forest] which continues to exist like socialist youth movement.
SOCIAL CREDIT
Hargrave now had success as an artist and a short story writer, and obtained an use of draughtsman in an advertising agency. The director of the agency put it in contact in 1923 with major C.H. Douglas, father of the Social Credit. Douglas had written in a series of articles in the magazine “New Age” that the phenomenon of “poverty in the middle of abundance” was caused by a lack of purchasing power due to the creation of the credit like private product.
If the élitiste ethics of the KK made it possible its devoted members to obtain a purified individual life of the corruption of modern industrial civilization, the Social Credit could be the means by which the company as a whole could be released from corruption. Hargrave declared: “The half of our problem is psychological and the other half is economic. The psychological complex of industrial humanity can be removed only by solving the economic dead end”.
In 1927, Hargrave had converted the majority of the leaders of Kibbo Kift and then added the topic of the Social Credit to its principles.
In 1930, a Legion of the Unemployed was created in Coventry. In 1931, the Legion adopted a paramilitary style with green shirt and green beret Bientôt the Legion was called openly the Green Shirts of Kibbo Kift. The following year, the KK itself adopted the uniform with the green shirt, and in 1932 Hargrave changed the name of the KK in favour of that of Movement of the Green Shirts for the Social Credit.
At the time of the annual festival held in January 1931, Hargrave declared that the duty of the KK was to break the capacity of the “money merchants”. That could not be done at the Parliament, but by a movement which would show the people that it was based on “this devotion absolute, religious, military, towards the duty, without which no great cause led forever to a victorious exit”.
Hargrave recommended a new orientation for the Social Credit, which until this time had been limited to groups of study and a discrete approach. A militant campaign could break the silence of the media, while carrying the message directly with the people by steps, gatherings of streets, streamers and drums, easy ways advertising and a tabloïd. Major Douglas gave his approval to the movement.
GREEN SHIRTS MOVING
Vis-a-vis the opposition of the media and Communists, and even of the clashes with the Black Shirts of Mosley, the Green Shirts pointed out themselves by their discipline and their order vis-a-vis the provocations. They gave also a direct support to people economically dispossessed and impoverished, uniting or leading steps of the hunger and manifestations of the movement of the workers to unemployment. Unfortunately, but without surprise, such a radicalism raised the opposition of certain partisans of the Social Credit, who thought that such a militancy was not in agreement with their ideals.
On June 9, 1932, the first meeting in the open air was held in Lewisham High Street. Until October 1934,3.426 meetings in the open air and 32 demonstrations were held, 56.000 sold newspapers, and 223.000 distributed leaflets.
From 1933 to 1937, the newspaper of the movement, “Attack”, was published.
Part of the nature of the enthusiastic radicalism of the movement, if different from the Social Credit that we had the practice to see, can be deduced from the course of the year 1934:
- May 16: delegations at the Bank of England and the 10, Downing Street.
- June 27: a brick painted in green is thrown by the window of the 11, Downing Street (the bricks and the arrows painted in green were to become the mark of the actions of the movement).
- July 4: Lord Straboli receives a delegation of the Green Shirts, and raises the question of the National Dividend to the House of Lords (the question is also mentioned with the House of Commons).
Other major features of the countryside of the movement during the years of pre-war period included what follows:
- November 14, 1935: general elections. W. Towsend obtains 11,01% of the votes with South Leeds.
- November 13, 1936: Hargrave goes on a journey in Alberta, and is named economic council of the new government of the Social Credit, where it develops the “Hargrave Plan”. Unfortunately, major Douglas writes some comments scornful on the technical aptitudes of Hargrave, which causes a rupture between the two men.
- January 1, 1937: the Act of the Law and order prohibited the political uniforms, a measurement directed as much against the Green Shirts as against the Black Shirts.
- October 11, 1937: “Remove your legs of Alberta! ” painted in green on the Bank of England.
- February 20, 1938: a brick painted in green thrown in a window of the Bank of Montreal, Threadneedle Street (the government of Social Credit of Alberta was unable to apply most of its policy because of the regulations of the central government, although it preserved the government during many years).
- March 24, 1938: first cry of “Social Credit, the only remedy! ” in the public gallery of the House of Commons.
- May 1, 1938: demonstration with green shirts hung on posts, a protest symbolic system against the prohibition of the uniforms. New green bricks thrown to the 10, Downing Street.
- July 20, 1938: open rupture with major Douglas at the time of the meeting of Short Chiltern.
- October 28, 1938: petition with the King with Coventry, asking an investigation in the monetary system.
- November 5, 1938: the effigy of Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England, is burned in front of the Bank.
- January 10, 1939: a sheaf of corn is burned beside a meeting of the Commission of Corn: “They burn the corn which we want to eat! ”, an allusion to the phenomenon of “poverty in the middle of abundance” during the Crisis, when the farmers were paid to destroy their harvests and their cattle while people were famished because it misses purchasing power.
- April 25, 1939: “Recruit the bankers in first! ”, demonstration against the war with Throgmorton Street in London.
In spite of the difficulties caused by the war, of many militants having been called for the service, the movement manages to continue its countryside:
- February 29, 1940: from the “Robins of wood” wearing the illegal green shirt draw a green arrow on the 10, Downing Street.
- March 6, 1940: an effigy of Montagu Norman is thrown at the entry of the Bank of England (the person in charge is condemned to three months of forced labors).
- April 23, 1940: women out of green dresses with crinoline (“obsolete, as the financial system”) protest in front of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
- January 2, 1941: “Release Great Britain of the Interest! ” is painted on the Bank of England.
- May 22, 1942: launching of the countryside “Great Britain can nourish itself”.
As for Hargrave, in 1935 it published its news Summer Times Ends [the summer finishes], on the apathy of ordinary people, with a judgment of the social system and economic and of its politicians and bankers. In 1937 he invented an automatic navigator for the planes. In 1939, it published a news based on the governor of the Bank of England. The Bank counteracted by buying all the specimens of the book to prevent its distribution. From March 1938, it launched its semi-monthly “Message of Hargrave” which lasted until 1951. In 1944 it began another part of its life as an healer paranormal, obviously with a great success.
POST-WAR PERIOD CAMPAIGN
With the end of the war, the Party of the Social Credit was reactivated, its first meeting since 1939 was held in May 1945, and a Gospel of the National Social Credit was launched to break the blackout of the media by a return to the spectacular methods.
- December 12, 1945: demonstration “Britannia” against the agreement of Bretton Woods which creates the World Bank and the IMF, the world control mechanism of international finance in the post-war period.
- January 1, 1946: publication of the book “the clearly explained Social Credit”.
- July 1, 1946: demonstration with Whitehall: “Atomic energy - Life or Dead”.
- July 20, 1946: demonstration “has the rationing of the bread low! ”.
- June 7, 1947: manifestation of the streamers to the Derby of Epsom.
- August 16, 1947: manifestation of the streamers at the time of the Oval (test match).
- November 28, 1947: Hargrave declares its intention to be submitted to the Parliament.
- May 15, 1948: first National Assembly of post-war period of the Party of the Social Credit. The group of the Party, “Agriculture and breeding” is formed in face, with the slogan “Great Britain can nourish itself! ”.
- November 4, 1949: Hargrave speaks with 5.000 elderly with Central Hall, Westminster.
- February 23, 1950: general elections: Hargrave obtains 551 votes with Stoke Newington and Hackney.
- November 16, 1950: first of a series of eight cries in one month: “Social Credit, the only remedy! ” in the public gallery of the Parliament.
In spite of this activism, the apathy of mass reigned in Great Britain of post-war period, and after the poor result of Hargrave in the elections of 1951, it was solved to dissolve the party.
Hargrave was a considerable success as a writer in his later life, and was greeted by the public when it assisted in 1976 with representations of a musical comedy on the Green Shirts. In 1977 the Foundation of Kibbo Kift was created with Hargrave as president, “with an aim of providing an authority and a permanent property of the files and badges” of the movement. Most of the energy of Hargrave in the post-war period was occupied showing that he had been the inventor of the process of automatic navigation, largely used on the planes including on the Harmony. Finally it was to receive a recognition of bad grace but one refused a compensation for technicality to him. Hargrave died on November 21, 1982.
If the Social Credit had known the zeal of crusade and the radical engagement of the past, including in New Zealand, the history could have been very different.
Friday 8 May 2009
The Ghurkas
Gurkhas are fighting for Justice. They want the same terms and conditions as their UK and Commonwealth counterparts. Britain has had no greater friends than the Gurkhas. They have served all across the world in the defence of our Country for nearly 200 years. Over 45,000 died in the two World Wars as part of the British Army. They are still fighting in the British Army today.
The Government decision of 25th April 2009 on Gurkha settlement rights is yet another huge betrayal of the Gurkhas who have served our country.
Only a tiny fraction of the Gurkhas who retired before 1997 will win settlement rights under the new policy. A Gurkha will have to have served 20 years or more or won one of a handful of medals: the big majority of Gurkhas served for 15 years under standard army policy.
The issue goes to the very heart of the identity of Britain, this oh so liberal government in some respects, gay members of the government itself indeed, seeks to deny the rights of residence to those that have served King and country loyally, playing in the murky waters of crypto-racism, yet residence extended to some who would do the country down. Hard to understand surely.
The British Government needs to know they will have a huge campaign against them by those committed to righting this wrong.
The Government decision of 25th April 2009 on Gurkha settlement rights is yet another huge betrayal of the Gurkhas who have served our country.
Only a tiny fraction of the Gurkhas who retired before 1997 will win settlement rights under the new policy. A Gurkha will have to have served 20 years or more or won one of a handful of medals: the big majority of Gurkhas served for 15 years under standard army policy.
The issue goes to the very heart of the identity of Britain, this oh so liberal government in some respects, gay members of the government itself indeed, seeks to deny the rights of residence to those that have served King and country loyally, playing in the murky waters of crypto-racism, yet residence extended to some who would do the country down. Hard to understand surely.
The British Government needs to know they will have a huge campaign against them by those committed to righting this wrong.
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