END OF THE TRAIL

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 58, 6 September 1937, Page 9

END OF THE TRAIL

FINAL EFFORT MR ABERHART'S LEGISLATION (From "The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVER, August 18. Mr. Aberhart's final, desperate effort to introduce Social Credit, and the indignation it has aroused in Canada, from the Atlantic to -the Pacific, has convinced his follower? that both he and his sponsor. Major Douglas, are coming to the end of their tether, and that Alberta will be obliged Ho revert to non-Utopian principles,. in accordance with the Ideals of responsible ' government, as laid down in the British North American Act. It is safe to assert that no one, even in Alberta, . is surprised at the result of two years' hysterical search for the elusive Social Credit Dividend. . Mr. Aberhart summoned the Provincial Legislature to a special fourday! session, and then abruptly ad' journed it, after passing legislation which is without parallel in the his-' tory of the Empire. The: legislation was a raid on the banks, and prescrbied that each of the 21i banks in Alberta was to be governec by a local Social Credit Board, on which the bank and its depositors were to have minority representation this despite the fact that all banks in Canada operate under , a Dominion charter, which is reviewed , every ten years by Parliament at ■ Ottawa. , Every bank and its individual em- , ployees was required to pay a regis- ■ tration fee,to the Central Social Credit i Commission within a fortnight o the , passing of the new law. Neglect to do so involved heavy penalties. It was estimated that, the banks would have ; to pay the Commission £4,000,000 a < year for the right to operate. Special ' legislation prohibited recourse to the ', Courts of Alberta for the purpose of appeal. The object was to force the banks to close or to carry out Mr. Aberhart's order that they should operate' as Social Credit houses. Immediately after the special legislation was passed, Mr. Aberhart dismissed his Attorney-General, who had worked his will obediently for two years, only to defj hL leader at last with the charge that he was trying to break down the Constitution of Canada. He was the fifth Cabinet Minister to be dismissed for flouting the will of the Premier. , The Dominion Government, for the , two years of Alberta's crazy experi- i mqnt, remained conspicuously aloof from the issue. None of its members criticised Mr. Aberhart or Major Douglas. Their silenra was not reckoned with. The Social Credit junta hoped, and expected, that it would be disc'Ph'ned by tne Federal-authority. But Mr. Mackenzie King and Mr. Dunning, his Finance Minister, wisely decided that they would not make a martyr' of Mr. Aberhart, although they could have disallowed successive legislative Acts passed at Edmonton. ■ The 'Prime Minister, responding to universal public demand, decided to take the only logical action to clear up the Alberta fiasco by submitting ; the issue to the Supreme Court of ' Canada for a ruling as to whether the recent legislation does not conflict with : the rights of the Dominion as 'laid ' down in the British North America '