PROSPERITY PLAN FAILS

Southland Times, Issue 23000, 21 September 1936, Page 7

PROSPERITY PLAN FAILS

ALBERTA’S CERTIFICATE EXPERIMENT SOCIAL CREDIT NOT TRUSTED (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 7.30 p.m.) New York, Sept. 19. A copyright message from Edmonton (Alberta) to the North American Newspaper Alliance states that the “prosperity certificate” experiment is a failure. Only approximately 175,000 dollars worth of certificates were issued, and these were accepted only by certain stores until the Government announced at, tbe beginning of September that it would cash in currency all the certificates presented to it. The stores then began to accept them a little more freely, but from the number of certificates already cashed it appears that few will remain in circulation for anywhere near the year proposed, and it is not likely that the Government will issue them again.

There are other important aspects of the experimentation of the Premier (Mr W. Aberhart). The Social Credit dividends are still in the covenantsigning stage. Such signatures being necessary before the citizens can receive dividends, the unemployed, and some farmers in the drought-stricken areas have signed, but farmers who have wheat crops ready for the market look askance at the prospect of taking half the proceeds in Social Credit instead of cash, and business men are entirely suspicious of the scheme.

The Edmonton Chamber of Commerce on August 8 appealed to the Dominion Government to stop the circulation of the Aberhart Social Credit certificates. The Prime Minister (Mr W. L. Mackenzie King) referred to the protest to the law officers of the Crown. The Government of Alberta distributed 250,000 dollars worth of certificates all over the province in payment to the unemployed for work on roads. Some merchants accepted them, but the majority refused. Each certificate must have a one-cent Aberhart Government stamp affixed each week for 104 weeks: then it is redeemable for one dollar. The Chamber of Commerce declared that the issue was illegal in that only the Dominion has authority to issue currency, and complained that the issue was creating intolerable confusion in business. Mr Aberhart in reply described the Chamber as the mouthpiece of those oppressing the people. Business men predicted a crisis when the merchants accepting the scrip attempt to recoup their stocks from wholesalers outside the province, who have already declared that they will not accept the scrip. That the Social Credit Government had driven from the province 4,000,000 dollars worth of capital since it took power and had created havoc among Alberta business men was the allegation made by Mr J. J. Bowden, Liberal leader in the Legislature, on August 26. The Government was guilty of intimidation, patronage and even espionage, he said. Alberta people refusing to sign the covenants used in the registration for basic dividends were in constant fear of discrimination.