Messiah, Major, Money

Canadians boast the greatest per capita wealth in the world, $3,148. Even more blessed is the Province of Alberta, with $3,518 per head. Yet Depression has hit Alberta hard. For years its breezy, two-fisted, hospitable citizens have been feeling poorer & poorer. Galavanting to the polls last week, they raised merry Empire hell by turning over their province to a Bible-babbling high-school principal who promises to crack open Alberta's frozen wealth and pay dividend" of every at bona least fide $25. citizen a "monthly dividend" of at least $25.

For 20 years pupils at the Crescent Heights High School in Calgary have regarded bald, square-shouldered Principal William Aberhart as a good, inspiring man. They have seen his Prophetic Bible Institute grow from milk & sandwich evenings at his home into its present $65,000 plant & structure. Seldom does Mr. Aberhart address Albertans without first having them sing Our God, Our Help in Ages Past and he always closes with a heartfelt prayer. To the sturdy citizens of the Pioneer Province (with Saskatchewan last to enter the Dominion of Canada) a final seal of goodness was set on William Aberhart last week by the fact that he himself did not stand for election. "If the people want Social Credit," said this studiously modest Messiah of $25 dividends, "there will be room for me to fit in somewhere . . . perhaps as Premier." To Canadians outside Alberta the election seemed in advance a messy maze, with 240 candidates of four major and several minor parties running for 63 seats and nothing certain except that Premier Richard Gavin Reid of the United Farmers Party, which came in on a landslide in 1921, would go out into limbo as a victim of Depression. When returns began to trickle in, when Montreal's rock-ribbed conservative Place d'Armes -- Canada's financial centre -- learned that 57 of the 63 seats in Alberta's Legislature had been won by henchmen of Social Crediteer Aberhart their astonishment was as vast as their dismay. Only a very few Canadian tycoons took a calmer off-the-record view. Sniffed one: "Social credit is interesting and the sooner it fails in Alberta the bigger the lesson to the world will be."

Social Credit Is What? Few Alberta voters seemed to know much about Social Credit last week, merely having faith in Messiah Aberhart's assurances that it is not Communist, does not seek to abolish private property or Capitalism and is a positive sock at "The Bankers."

That, plus the $25 monthly "dividend," would satisfy most farmers, and Albertans are mostly farmers. On the morning after election day they itched to know how long it will take to set up Alberta's proposed "State Credit House" and start paying dividends. Said William Aberhart: "It will take at least 18 months."

What slim, ascetic Dr. Sigmund Freud is to Psychoanalysis, bald, beefy Major Clifford Hugh Douglas is to Social Credit. The Major, a Scottish engineer, a graduate of Cambridge and a cousin of Lord Weir, once worked for Westinghouse in India, now has his swank abode in London and contrives to rent his ideas for fat fees. In 1934 the Alberta Government which was thrown out last week paid him $30,000 to go to Calgary and expound views which they proceeded to ignore but which fired High School Principal William Aberhart and his Prophetic Bible Institute, spurred them on to victory. Major Douglas last week was still technically under contract to the Government of Alberta and Messiah Aberhart has said, "Though we do not see eye to eye in all respects, Major Douglas will be invited to superintend in Alberta the inauguration and ad ministration of Social Credit with its three basic principles."

One, Two, Three. Underlying Social Credit is the attractive British doctrine that, after all, there is nothing much wrong with the world. To blast Depression, say Social Crediteers, is as simple as any other sort of blasting once you know the trick. Major Douglas supposedly knows it better than anyone else. Possession of this Great Secret has somewhat oppressed the Major, caused him to write : "We all know Mark Twain's story of the man who was imprisoned for 20 years and then walked out, having just discovered the door never had been locked, and some of us think it funny. I consider it a some what boring statement of fact. The world at large is in prison, shows many symptoms of dying in prison, and there is nothing whatever to prevent it from walking out."

The world, according to Major Douglas, is suffering from the absurd delusion that it cannot buy and enjoy all that it can make and wants to sell. Only lack of money keeps people from buying all there is to sell, and all that keeps people from having enough money (or credit) is "The Bankers." A total solution, dazzling in its drastic simplicity, is for the State to seize control of money and credit from "The Bankers" and diffuse purchasing power among all citizens. In businesslike fashion Major Douglas starts by making a survey to determine the total capital assets of any area in which Social Credit is to be applied. To this he adds the capital value of its citizens; he once opined that an average U. S. citizen aged 25 might be considered worth $50,000 to the community. The grand total is the capital of the State. Against this prime security, money is issued and credit established without recourse to bankers. A sum is then paid each year to every citizen by the State in cash or credit and termed a dividend. Scotsmen have been assured by Major Douglas that their dividend would amount to at least $1,500 per family. As the people buy more & more, the aggregate value of their purchases piles up, thus increasing the State's total capital assets. Major Douglas' followers make a great point of insisting that the production of national wealth shall at all times keep well ahead of dividend payments. To spur such production, the State is to loan working capital to industry without interest, this being easy because bankers who would charge interest are to have no finger in the pie. Their function will be to receive deposits, keep them safely, charge a fee for this service, pay no interest to depositors. To spur production even more everything is to be sold at a "just price." Under this proviso the buyer is to obtain goods well below cost of production but the seller is to make his usual profit because the State will pay the difference in each transaction. This is supposed to be to the State's advantage because it keeps production of every sort humming with never a let down, and therefore keeps adding to the State's wealth against which money is constantly being issued. Simple as one, two, three to Major Douglas are these three basic elements of Social Credit: 1) "national dividends for all"; 2) "socialization of money and credit"; 3) "the just price." Christians Rejoice-- In the Empire no one was more glad at the results of Alberta's election last week than the Very Rev. Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury. He announced at once that he will cross the Atlantic to see Social Credit established and pray with Alberta's Aberhart for its success. Threatening such success is mankind's rooted conviction that money is good only so long as everybody thinks it is. If sellers in Alberta prove cheerfully ready to part with their goods in exchange for what Messiah Aberhart and Major Douglas enable Alberta buyers to offer, Social Credit will have worked to that extent. The difficulty must remain of putting other Canadians and finally the rest of the world in the same frame of mind; otherwise Alberta will be unable to buy necessities across her frontier because outsiders will not take her money. Failing this, Alberta will have to close her frontier as tight as Russia's. Inside such an iron ring Social Credit could at least be tested on a limited scale. In Alberta it was freely predicted that Messiah Aberhart will never be able to make Social Credit work unless he makes himself a Dictator. Canadian jurists meanwhile believed that Social Credit as proposed in the Province of Alberta is "contrary to the North America Act" which is the fundamental law of Canada's Constitution. Being unconstitutional it should present the Government of Alberta with insuperable problems leading to a stalemate. Last week this thought kept holders of Alberta bonds from dumping them overboard. All Canada's great banks and nationally spread industries held emergency directors' meetings. Rich Albertans, as soon as election returns were known, began rapidly transferring their funds from the province to Montreal and Toronto.

After pious rejoicing at the Prophetic Bible Institute and devout singing of Our God, Our Help in Ages Past, Messiah Aberhart announced that he was ready to accept the call to be Alberta's Premier, declared: "It has been a revolution not of bullets but of ballots!"

Hoboes and roustabouts, who might think they can get $25 in hard cash dividends per month by trekking into Alberta, were served notice that the dividend will only be paid to bona fide adult Albertans of some years standing, and then not in cash but in credit. Unemployed Albertans who refuse to work will receive no dividends.

An economic pontiff, William Aberhart makes his followers sign pledges that they accept Social Credit "on faith," forbids them to debate or argue its merits.

"They say what we propose to do is unconstitutional!" he snorted. "Just because an old paper was signed in the past doesn't say we can't do this. The British North America Act is a fool act. We can do what we want! . . . Social Credit is spreading like the measles."

"Like Printing Money!" In Pasadena Novelist Upton Sinclair was pained last week when asked if Social Credit is not about the same as his "End Poverty in California" on which he failed last year to get himself elected Governor (TIME, Oct. 22).

"Social Credit fools many people," said onetime Socialist Sinclair with a patient smirk. "Actually it's just like printing money. When you give the people more money to buy more products, as in the Douglas plan, you are simply diluting money."

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