The Real Democracy Movement of

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

was a short-lived political movement in New Zealand founded in 1942. The

social credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed in the 1920s and 1930s by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made t ...

movement decided to set up a "separate political organisation" the “Real Democracy Movement” at their annual conference in January 1942, but the RDM got only about 4,400 votes in the . The movement's aims, as stated at the first annual conference, held at

Lower Hutt Lower Hutt () is a list of cities in New Zealand, city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. Administered by the Hutt City Council, it is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington#Wellington metropolitan area, Wellington metropoli ...

on 22 January 1943, was for “economic security combined with individual liberty”, and advocated that all returned servicemen should be paid at least the average wage until they were re-integrated into civil employment. The movement stood 25 candidates in the , and also supported two of the three Fighting Forces League (FFL) candidates. The movement received only 4,421 votes (0.53%, on provisional count of votes). In a post-election letter, F. Allen (a North Island executive member) stated that the movement wanted fewer controls except that "the people should control money or credit policy, something vastly different from what obtains at present"; and objected to the movement being called a party.

Roly Marks Rowland Oswald Colin Marks (4 February 1893 – 12 November 1977) was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and was a pioneer of the social credit movement in New Zealand. He served in World War I as a sergeant and later second lieutenant in the Ne ...

, another North Island executive member, later stood several times for the Social Credit Party. Like nearly half the executive, he was a returned soldier from World War I.

References

Defunct political parties in New Zealand Political parties established in 1942 1942 establishments in New Zealand Social credit parties 1940s disestablishments in New Zealand {{NewZealand-party-stub