August 5, 2005 -- Is the Labour Government and are some other politicians guilty of potential mass Treason against the country they represent in trying to make the European Monetary Union an attractive option, thereby potentially bringing down the Bank of England, or are they merely being misled, and if so, by whom? Before taking on a new currency we need to clear ourselves of our involvement with the War in Iraq and sort out the social problems of the unemployed and their difficulties in claiming benefits under the new system.
“ Gold would therefore be preferred to currencies unless and until these doubts were (i)removed by wholly convincing national and international actions, or (ii) confirmed by the adoption of a new structure of gold parities that was expected to endur... ”
Since money is something we use to represent our wealth, then it seems most strange that Europe in its entirety wishes to use a single currency and it smacks of impending Dictatorship. Once a country dictates the currency of other nations then it would not be long before they also started to dictate to the people of those nations since they would hold the purse strings in every respect. Let us face it, none of us can live without money in our pockets and long gone are the days of bartering. Therefore, it does not make sense, and there must be an underlying ulterior motive. Otherwise why suggest it in the first place? Therefore, is Mr. Tony Blair and the labour government guilty of Treason for selling off the gold bullion and trying to bring down the Bank of England and what effect will this have on the Royal family of Great Britain and their treasure locked up in the Tower of London?
The utility sell offs from 1987 onwards was an ominous move and now that Emu is almost on our doorsteps it really does seem that the UK has been sold off to Europe.
It was the case in Germany after the First World War, when a million-mark note couldn't buy even a newspaper and the German people had to walk about with a wheelbarrow in order to buy a newspaper. Therefore, it must be considered that the introduction of a 'brand' new currency will serve to devalue the second currency if there are two currencies proposed to be in operation at the same time. Of course, there cannot be two currencies running in tandem and the British pound would have to disappear just as the Lira has disappeared for the Italians and the Guilder has disappeared for the Dutch people. It only makes sense for a poor nation to join the Euro and not a rich and affluent nation. Switzerland would never join the Euro and Great Britain enjoys a parity by financial comparison, to Switzerland.
Another example of union with Europe is the inflation which Great Britain experienced when we went metric in line with Europe, and which erring Prime Minister led us across that bridge? Was it by any chance, a Labour Prime Minister?
Almost overnight the pounds shillings and pence in our pockets were worth less and less because the pound was devalued overnight and investment in the United Kingdom ceased to be a viable option and manufacturers took their business elsewhere. The union with the Common Market has created catastrophe for the farmers of the United Kingdom and the Fishermen and shipbuilders and all other areas of the manufacturing industry such as the car industry which relocated to Japan and the mining industry which was relocated to Russia.
Now we are dictated to by Europe as to what we may export and import and now our export market has effectively disappeared and the shipbuilding and car manufacturing and steel works industries have moved elsewhere in the World. It has been a never ending downward spiral and has made us all worse off in the United Kingdom and it created mass unemployment in the manufacturing areas of Great Britain.
I think the British Government are being led up the Garden Path on this one and they should not let the wool be pulled over their eyes.
What would happen to the nation’s defences? Where would the money come from to buy or build military equipment if needed, in the event of threatened invasion? Hitler might not have lived long enough to invade England, but now his German counterparts want to run our monetary policies and dictate to our Government and our future governments.
What would happen to the Royal Mint. Would it close down? Or would it be owned and controlled by the German Bundesbank? Would we have a need for the Royal Mint of Great Britain and where would the Euros be minted? In Germany?
When did the Recession of Great Britain really start? In the 1920s, in 1987 or in 1965 to make way for Britain’s entry into the Common Market and decimalization in 1971 or was it something to do with the bringing down of the Berlin Wall and joining up of Eastern and Western Germany, making them a superpower in Europe.
Also at this time, in 1987, the Utilities and train companies of the United Kingdom were starting to be sold off to rich private investors in Europe Who are those investors who wish to control the utilities of the United Kingdom? The structure of European Monetary Union was really decided upon in May 1989. When was the German Bundesbank created and why are they selling Bunds or German Bonds, which are being invested into by the American Government on high interest yields?
There was a devaluation of Sterling in 1965 ready for decimalization in 1971. At that time America was at war with Vietnam and the American Dollar was in trouble. Sterling’s devaluation in 1967 “led to the disbanding of the official Gold Pool in 1968, although the London gold market continued to function.” [quoted from a secret report written under the Direction of J. S. Fforde]. “The instantaneous effect of a devaluation of sterling would be to raise the sterling price of gold on the London markets in line with the devaluation itself. This would be followed by a massive increase in the market demand for gold. The change in the sterling parity would not only create expectations of changes in other parities: it would cast great doubt on the ability of the U.S. Treasury to maintain its selling price of $35.00 an ounce (at that time 1965). Gold would therefore be preferred to currencies unless and until these doubts were (i)removed by wholly convincing national and international actions, or (ii) confirmed by the adoption of a new structure of gold parities that was expected to endure”
In this case, the sale of Britain’s gold reserves has been diverted to manufacture the Euro coins, pre-entry into the Emu. Even though the Euro coins are not made of Gold but of alloy.
So what has really happened to the Gold Bullion that the British Chancellor Gordon Brown has sold off? Has it been sold to America to increase their own stock of Gold bullion in order to buoy up the American Dollar even further as they suffer the effects of impending recession due to their war with Iraq? Or has the Bullion of Great Britain been sold off to pay for the cost of the war with Iraq because the British Government are involved with the War in Iraq.
The Americans are very fortunate people indeed. They enjoy a good standard of living and most of them can afford a house to live in a nice car to drive themselves to work in, and they all seem to have good jobs that pay well; as opposed to the people of Merthyr in South Wales, for instance, who used to enjoy a better standard of living when the coal mining and steel industries still existed pre-entry into the Common market. Now most of the people of Merthyr have to endure poverty on a massive scale, so that they have a ratio of the most unemployed people in the UK, claiming and living on Government benefits and condemned to a life of poverty, and with the introduction of the Euro, that pound in their pocket will be worth not 100 pence but a total of 60 pence, thereby perpetuating a cycle of poverty for those people, the scale of which is never likely to be exceeded in this country.
In May 1816 the “British Government officially adopted the Gold Standard under Coinage Act 1816, which formally linked the value of the pound sterling to a fixed quantity of gold. It came into operation in 1921” and Britain enjoyed the Industrial Revolution and we had cloth manufacturing, iron and steel works, ship building, car manufacture, the farming industry, the fishing industry, and the list goes on and on.
On 28th April 1925, Winston Churchill then Chancellor of the Exchequer partly returned Sterling to the Gold Standard at $4.86, the pre-war parity. Winston Churchill knew the value of money and we saw the roaring twenties in the United Kingdom. The pound went further and our people enjoyed themselves. It led to investment in the United Kingdom due to the strength of our currency, being Sterling.
Modern British history therefore shows us, with the benefit of hindsight, that to drop the system of governing the Sterling currency and parity with the London Gold Market will cause a decline in the investment of Great Britain.
Gone now, are all the industries that Britain relied upon prior to entry into the Common Market. All our investors have taken themselves and their industries abroad, which includes the manufacture of underwear for Marks and Spencer, which used to be manufactured by Maurice Cohen in Merthyr Tydfil, for M&S and that manufacture has now been relocated to Taiwan and we, the purchasers of M&S garments are left to endure the most inferior materials and manufactured products known to man, when once, the products of Maurice Cohen were highly sought after. It might only be underwear but it has to be agreed that where once a pair of M&S underwear would last two years in the wash, now it lasts two weeks. And so another industry has been destroyed and not just left on the brink of destruction. It happens overnight and the purchasers of the underwear will of course and do of course, go elsewhere to seek out quality. We get what we pay for in most instances, and underwear is no exception, except that M&S still want to charge the same price for an inferior product and it is a hard hitting fact that people will not pay a pound for something that is worth two pence.
Let us not forget that America suffered a colossal recession in the 1920s. Therefore, then as now, it is not construed as financially viable for the UK to hold gold reserves but in fact the American government considers that they should do so. If Britain had not decreased its gold reserves throughout its history, Great Britain would not have experienced the recessions it has been taught a lesson by. Lessons hit us hard in history and none more so than war.
King Henry VIII knew best, but in some respects. King Henry VIII and his father, King Henry VII before him, knew that to swell their coffers with gold made them the richest men in the World and because of this, Britain became known as Great Britain and we were one of the most respected and admired nations on the face of the Earth. That is history. Much of the treasure was used to pay for wars, and we had English Pirates to swell the coffers of Queen Elizabeth I even further, such as Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake. The rest of the world were jealous of the British Empire and our British historical background, and now they all want to bring us down to their own level but we as a nation, cannot let that happen.
If we join the Euro we will become the laughing stock of the World. Why? Because we do not need to join the Euro and spend Emu’s. We need Pounds Shillings and Pence to spend again and why cut off our noses to spite our faces. Why devalue the money in your pocket and spend sixty pence instead of a pound. What sense does it make to anyone living in the United Kingdom to ask for a cut in wages?
The coffers of the modern day British Royal family in the Tower of London, are probably worth in excess of £50 billion in addition to the Dutchy land. All that treasure is locked up in the Tower of London but with the domination of the Bank of England which was founded by Royal Charter on 27th July 1694, (King Charles II?) by the British Government since 1947, it is questionable whether the Queen of England could even go into the Tower of London and ask for King Charles I’s Cap Badge, which was stolen at the Battle of Naseby by Oliver Cromwell or one of his accomplices, and it is probably now owned by the Freemasons which are strongly advocated against by the Roman Catholic Church.
When King Henry VIII wanted a divorce from Queen Catherine of Arogan of Spain, he broke with the Church of Rome and created the Church of England. Had that break never taken place, the principal bank of the United Kingdom would probably be the Banca di Roma with assets in excess of £xbillions with affiliations to Capitalia and Minghetti. There is no good reason why the national dish of the Italians should be spaghetti; not any more. If you invest in Minghetti you are sure to reap a good reward for your money as the principal bank of the Vatican is not dominated by the banking laws of Italian government, who have joined the Euro and spend Emu.
Britain sold off Gold in 1999 to the tune of £4 billion in Gold reserves of 415 tonnes from its 715 tonnes on Friday 7th May 1999. Don’t forget that America is at war again and this time with Iraq, and their currency needs to be propped up again and the currency of the UK devalued to meet that need. The Americans use a reserve of gold bullion of 51% to secure their currency of the American Dollar, as opposed to what is left of Britain’s gold reserves of 7% reduced from 17%. Much of Britain’s gold reserves were sold off to pay for the effects of war from 1939 to 1945. What is left is now being sold off by Chancellor Gordon Brown to devalue the British Pound. What sense, rhyme or reason does this effect have on the British economy except to destroy us a nation and this has been going on since the end of the first World War. Winston Churchill tried to nip the trend in the bud by reintroducing the Gold Standard and Mrs. Thatcher carried on this trend by holding up the parity and refusing to join the EMU. Mrs Thatcher was very opposed to union with Europe for obvious reasons. Look at the effects of introducing a new currency. It lasts five years and disappears. A new currency has a very bad track record of surviving. Trust the old and not the new and remember, you get what you pay for. If you pay 60p for a pound sterling you are not getting your money’s worth and so why buy a pound for 60p when you could get a dollar in American money. Therefore the Euro is just another way to make America richer and Britain poorer. It is a hair brained scheme to devalue gold.
This is to pave the way for the devaluation of Sterling for entry into the Euro with the European Central bank. The Pound would have to lose 30% in value, in order to join the Euro. The German Bundesbank will control the monetary system of the United Kingdom.
It is like saying to the Chairman of the Bank of England: 'You have no choice but to hand over all the wealth of your nation to us and in return we will give you pieces of paper to spend which represent what we say that paper will represent. Who for instance will set the interest rate? Will it rise or fall? What advantages would the Government of Great Britain have for the people they represent if they consent to EMU? Will the wages of the workforce rise or fall?
It stands to reason that prices will rise in the UK as a result of devaluation of Sterling. There will be less investment in the UK and not more; our currency will have disappeared and interest rates will be set by the European Central Bank Houses will cost more, council tax will go up, a price of a jar of coffee will go up and so will everything that costs money. The Euro in our pocket will be worth about 60 pence when we first join the Euro. Is that going to happen?
In 765-96 Great Britain saw the launch of Pound Sterling as a monetary currency “when King Offa of Mercia began to mint the first English silver pennies, known colloquially as “Sterlings” (which remained the sole denomination of English coinage for almost five centuries)”.
On the 28th October 1489, King Henry VII minted the first ever pound coin, officially known as a “Gold Sovereign” and it was worth 240 pence or 20 Shillings.
On the 27th July 1694 the Bank of England was founded by Royal Charter and on 2nd March 1797 the Bank of England issued the first £1 bank note.
The Bank of England was opposed to the sale of British Gold Bullion. Will we still have the choice of using English money with the Queen's smiling face upon it? Or will we see instead the face of a Dictator staring back at us when we pick up a coin or a note?
The paper itself represents nothing. It is not valuable. Whether it is a cheque or a £50.00 note. It only means that you have £50.00 in your hand because you were paid with a piece of paper for the work you did. We cannot be paid in gold coins because there are not enough of them to go round.
The Crown Jewels, being the diamonds, rubies, emeralds, gold, and silver are the items of value upon which the monetary system is based and why it holds it strength as a currency, backed up of course by the Gold reserves held by the Bank of England.
Since the Bank of England has been owned by the British Government since 1947, it makes you wonder who really owns the Crown Jewels and whether Hitler really did reach the UK metaphorically speaking. How much are the Crown Jewels worth to the British Government. Do the Royal family or the British Government own them? Have the Crown Jewels been 'pawned' then, to pay for the last two World Wars and now the War with Iraq?
A few years ago, I saw in a Museum in Holborn, the John Soanes Museum at 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, King Charles I's Cap Badge, and that beautiful Cap Badge was sold at auction for a relatively small amount of money. Since it is a Crown Jewel which is pre-restoration, stolen during time of war from the personal bag of King Charles I at the Battle of Naseby, in the days of Oliver Cromwell; does that make it the property of the thief who stole it or does it still belong to the Royal Family and can it be recovered?
Why did Barings Bank disappear when Nick Leeson gambled the Bank’s assets away in a Singapore Stock Exchange in 1994 - but did the Bank really disappear? No, it was sold for the goodwill of £1.00 and became ING Bank. This came about due to overspending by Leeson, in the unknown realms of Liffe (London International Foreign Futures), and its financial markets throughout the World. On that occasion it was Singapore, but it could happen just as easily in London.
Too much emphasis is placed on paper and the foreign exchanges.
A newspaper worth 20 pence could be sold for £100 if someone wanted it for a collection. But in real terms it would become a piece of scrap paper once it had been read and would be worth less than 20p after its reader had finished with it.
What if the Treasury decided to open up a new Bank and invited shareholders to invest their money on the strength of that Bank's investments in Floating Rate Notes and projected currency swaps; or in world commodities? Then its future returns for those investments would be hypothetical projections in terms of those World Commodities from various countries, being only a prediction. What if there was a drought, or a heatwave that destroyed the crops. Man cannot dominate rainfall, nor can he dominate how much sunshine the Earth will receive. The outcome of future profits would be uncertain to materialise in terms of interest, if, for instance a War broke out in a country which produced sugar or coffee or tea. Would the bank disappear overnight because it had spent more than it had earned? The Bank itself would merely disappear and it would be the poor investors who lost their money. How would they recover it? From the Treasury? Would the Treasury be able to cope with that sort of demand?
The wealth of the United Kingdom is represented by the Treasury and its Gold Reserves, based on the wealth of the nation, being the Crown Jewels and the income generated from exports and for instance the tourist industry, which in the United Kingdom is very strong indeed due to our historical background.
Does the monetary union of Europe mean that all the wealth of the United Kingdom and its Treasury will be dominated by the German Bundesbank and its Consortia or investors?
The European Central Bank is located in Frankfurt and is the central bank of the Eurozone in charge of monetary policy for the 12 countries that use the new euro currency.
If I were asked if we should join with Europe in the Monetary Union I would say: What is wrong with the currency we have and Sterling has worked for us since 765. What is wrong with the banking system we already have?
I would not join the EMU. There appear to be no advantages and the track record of the Euro is quickly becoming a financial nightmare for the countries which have joined already.
I'll bet if you asked the Chinese government to devalue their money and join with another nation and pour all its wealth into that nation they would laugh their heads off and say "No thanks, we like our own money!" and the Chinese were the first to invent what we would call 'real' money, being coin money. And now their currency is the Chinese Dollar.
Any politicians of a country that devalues their currency in order to make way for another form of paper to replace the first form of paper to spend, whether it is made in their own country or any other chosen country, which is in this instance, Germany, need, quite frankly, to have their brains tested!
Bring back Mrs. Thatcher and her Government! Bring back Pounds Shillings and Pence and Gold Bullion reserves and let us rely again on the Gold Standard and the Bank of England, and stop all this nonsense connected with trying to create a United States of Europe which does not have the interests of Great Britain in mind, and in their hearts they want to see our decline, otherwise they would have never enticed us into the European Common Market in the first place, in the late 1960s which led our people into the quagmire of unemployment when we saw the disappearance of British Industry in our nation. That industry can be enticed back again with the re-introduction of the Gold Standard. Let us forget about propping up the American currency and concentrate on propping up the Sterling to which we have become so attached since its introduction in 871 by King Alfred the Great.
Let the leaders of Great Britain run Great Britain and let Europe run itself. Why build a bridge to the UK so that all the nations of the World can come in and run our country and decide what money we spend and what our industries should be and who should work and who should not.
If we had any real common sense, we would become a Principality like Monaco. The Principality of Great Britain. What a lovely ring it has to the British ear.
The writer of this article has been sectioned four times under the Mental Health Act since 1988 (once whilst pregnant) in the United Kingdom.
Barbara O’Sullivan
Author of The King’s Quinto (ISBN 1413708285)
