SOCIAL CREDIT

Hokitika Guardian, 13 September 1937, Page 2

SOCIAL CREDIT

F A NT A ST IC I /EG 1 SLA T 1 ON. CRISIS IN ALBERTA. VANCOUVER, August 20. The question is being asked if Mr Aberhart, social credit Premier ot Alberta, is riding for a fall. Most people in Canada would answer “Yes,” after studying the Acts passed by his Government last week. The new legislation is so fantastic that the Federal Government has ban demands from all parts of Canada for its intervention. But it will move slowly. It feels that Air Aberhart knows be is at a dead-end and passed his Acts for the very purpose of having them vetoed and making political capital out of the veto. Ke would then appeal to the electors, saying that he had tried to give them social credit, but was prevented by the had hankers and their friends in the Federal Government. A situation, in-fact, is developing in Alberta not unlike that which was seen in New South Wales when Air Lang was in power. VForced by Radicals With the social credit regime failing

to accomplish the results promised two years ago, the Radicals—extreme .Left Wing—within the group seized power apd forced Air Aberhart, rather against his better judgment, into very unexpected legislation. There has just closed in Edmonton

the shortest legislative session on record in Canada. It covered three days.

in which 12 enactments were passed, all designed to force the chartered banks to provide ample credit for all operations of the Government, including the payment of £'6 os a. month as a social credit dividend to everyone over 18.

The most novel provision is that local directorates shall take charge of every one of the several hundred branch banks in the Province. Three or live local directors from among burning citizens, who would naturally he social credit believers, will he nominated. They will act with the bank manager, and, as they will comprise the majority on the hoards, they will Imre the power to supervise, direct and control the policy of the Links, including the granting of loans and the fixing of interest rates. No Prevision for Appeals The present, managers of the banks must take out licenses', and power is vested into the Provincial Credit Com-

mission to cancel licenses. Cancellation

of his license would automatically eliminate the hanker from banking business. Should a banker promise to mend his ways and resume operations mcording to the instructions of the Aberhart Board, he could get a renewal of his license, on payment of a line not exceeding ,£2.),({)(). In sonic quarters it is assumed that the Governments expects that the commercial banks will close; in which case the Provincial Government will take control with a currency of its own. This week’s legislation also doses the Courts to appeals by hankers or anyone else against the new enactments. Air .J. \Y. Hugill, AttorneyGeneral in Air Aberhart’s Cabinet, resigned as a protest against this hill.

The best lawyers in Canada have no doubt that all this legislation is preposterously illegal, because control ol bank’.ng is the prerogative of the Federal Government and not of the Provincial Governments.