ALBERTA EXPERIMENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 200, 24 July 1937, Page 10

ALBERTA EXPERIMENT

MAJOR DOUGLAS’S VIEWS. MR ABERHART CRITICISED. Major Douglas, the author of “Social Credit,” has just published a book in which lie reviews what he described as the “Alberta Experiment.” After declaring the experiment a failure, Major Douglas writes, of Mr Aberhart, Premier of Alberta: “It would not he possible to claim that at any time the technical basis of- social credit was understood by him, and, in fact, his own writings upon the subject, are defective, both in theory and practicability.” _ ■ Major Douglas was appointed clner reconstruction adviser to the Government of Alberta early in 1935. At that time, according to his own beliefs. there could have been no more fertile field upon which to sow the seeds of economic revolution. The province, he claims, was riddled with debt, and mortgaged to outside financial interests. Property had been taxed out of use and the inhuman conditions of primitive farming were driving farmers into the cities, where they lived on public charity. In short, the place was ripe for social Mr William Aberhart, the ex-school teacher, became Premier in August, 1935, and with him came the worlds first Social Credit Government. The general tone of “The Alberta Experiment” is one of reproof for the failure of Mr Aberhart and his followers to seize a golden opportunity. He again disowns their programme, but maintains that it is not yet too late to attain the Elysium which his own theory had promised. “CONSEQUENCE OF DEBT.” No part of the world, according to Major Douglas, is potentially of greater importance than Alberta. Mr Aberhart failed, mainly because he refused to deal with “the consequence of debt —taxation.” He and his followers achieved a spectacular electoral success, but they made the mistake or believing that this was the same thing as the ability to succeed with their programme; and, in any case, that programme, when it developed, was in some respects a direct negation of the tenets of social credit. The plan which won votes for the Aberhart party was, in essence, a payment of £5 a month to ehch adult member of the community, and “while the arguments brought forward by Mr Aberhart as a basis for this. proposal will not hear examination, I have no doubt whatever that hv suitable methods the essential promise could, and can, he validated.” The real basis of what Mr Aberhart attempted, according to Major Douglas, was something in theory between the American New Deal and the teachings of Gesell, the advocate of “disappearing money.”