Men with a Mission
By DESMOND E. HENN pOLITICALLY and in other ways, a deep-seated antagonism exists between Western Canada and the two major Eastern provinces. In the combined drought and depression of the 1930s, the West's predominantly agri- cultural economy was very severely affected and the cash-crop farmers were left largely at the mercy of banks which were controlled in Toronto and Montreal and which, by foreclosing mortgages and refusing further extensions of credit, were to a large degree responsible for aggravating the economic diffi- culties and delaying their eventual solution. Moreover, since that time the impression has persisted that the Liberal Govern- ment, which has been in power since 1935, normally views those problems peculiar to the West without either under- standing or sympathy, and that it is willing, if necessary, to sacrifice the interests of Western Canada in order to appease the majority of voters who live in the heavily populated and industrialised centres of the East.
Viewed against this background, it is not altogether surpris- ing that a specifically Western political party, pledged to transfer .the control of credit facilities from private to public hands, should have come into being and continued to flourish up to the present day. The Alberta Social Credit Govern- ment, however, consists of two distinct elements, an economic theory and a religious belief, which must be considered separately if the Party's attitude is to be understood.
Major Douglas, the originator of the Social Credit theory, believed that, once the barter system has been replaced by a more intricate economy, credit is the only means by which goods and services can be interchanged—and he regarded legal tender in the form of money as being merely a conveniently tangible form of credit used in only a small percentage of commercial transactions. By their ability to create credit by advancing sums which they do not in fact possess—so the theory goes—bankers exercise a monopoly over the power to create " effective demand," this power being used not in the interests of the population as a whole but rather for the purpose of private gain. Douglas foresaw International Finance rather than Capitalism as the villain whose selfishness would eventually lead, as the rate of industrial expansion decreased, to world economic collapse; and amongst other measures he advocated complete Government control of financial credit and the issuance, in times of economic slump, of credit vouchers to each citizen; these would be usable as, but not exchangeable for, cash, and would revive the economy by increasing purchasing power, the vouchers being backed by the country's real " wealth," i.e., its undeveloped natural resources and the intelligence and skill of its people. So much for the principle of Social Credit, of which the foregoing is admittedly an over-simplification and which Douglas himself required several volumes to expound in detail.
In 1933 this theory attracted the attention of a pious Calgary school-teacher named William A,berhart, who was at that time well known throughout the province as the founder and Dean of the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute. This remarkable organisation has as its doctrinal basis a belief in " The Divine Verbal Inspiration of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and in their absolute supremacy, infallibility and efficiency in all matters of faith and practice; in the creation of man in holiness by the direct act of God and not by an evolutionary process, the historicity and terrible reality of the fall of man and the resulting total and universal depravity of human nature; and in the everlasting happiness of the righteous and the awful and everlasting misery of the unbelieving wicked, in a literal Lake of Fire prepared for a real, personal devil and his angels."
This alarming doctrine was propagated with immense success throughout the Province of Alberta in a weekly broad- cast known as the Back-to-the-Bible Hour, and it was from this platform that Aberhart first began to preach the gospel of social credit.! So great was his personal prestige as a spell- binding Evangelist and so desperate the province's economic plight that although his exposition—which, according to Major Douglas, was all wrong—remained completely unintelligible to ninety-five per cent. of the electorate, his newly-formed Social Credit Party, having promised everyone a " prosperity dividend " of twenty-five dollars a month, was returned to power in 1935 with an overwhelming majority.
From the beginning nothing went right. Major Douglas, who had been hired by the previous Government as Principal Reconstruction Adviser, found his suggestions ignored and the name of his beloved theory usurped by a Government which, whether from inexperience, stupidity or wilful blindness, embarked instead on a policy of higher taxation and a balanced budget—both of which were diametrically opposed to Social Credit teachings. Finally Douglas washed his hands of the whole business, and the Alberta Government, its first timid attempts at interfering with the monetary system having been declared ultra vires and void by the Federal Courts, relapsed into complete financial orthodoxy.
The Government of Alberta is not now, and does not pre- tend to be, a Social Credit government, though the name has been retained in order to confuse matters. The Provinces' powers to deal, with financial matters have been so curtailed by the Federal government that the Party has abandoned hope of implementing its doctrines otherwise than on a nation-wide basis, and not a single measure now stands on the statute- books of Alberta that would not have been promptly dis- owned by Major Douglas.
When Aberhart died in 1943, he was succeeded by a personal protege, Ernest C. Manning, who, in addition to being Premier of Alberta, is also Provincial. Treasurer and Minister of Natural Resources. He has inherited the Bible Hour broad- casts, which are now heard on fourteen radio stations across the nation, and there is no doubt at all that the Premier's personal and sincere desire to rescue depraved sinners from the Lake of Fire—which adherents of the Institute estimate as being heated to approximately 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit —has been responsible for much of the Province's most curious legislation, including a farcical set of liquor laws which com- bine a maximum of restriction with a maximum of profit to the Government.
That the Alberta Government is honest there can be little doubt. Manning and his colleagues, with a Bible in one hand and a concise edition of the works of Major Douglas in the other, are either thoroughly sincere men or warped fanatics, depending on one's point of view. Certainly they are men with a Mission, and although Social Credit is no longer mentioned in the Bible Hour, these broadcasts are regarded by the Party as a useful basis for extending its influence. If people listen now to Premier Manning's views on spiritual matters, then later on they will pay attention to his proposed solution for temporal difficulties. It is an attrac- tive argument which probably holds true so far as the Western provinces are concerned; whether such methods will find-favour with sophisticated city-dwellers in the East is another matter.
The neighbouring province of British Columbia has recently returned a Social Credit government to power, and the party was hoping to extend its hold there in the federal elections. In the event, however, it secured only four out of twenty-two seats—mainly, so Social Crediters reason, because it did not field sufficient candidates to form a Government. Moreover, the Social Credit Party did not win a single seat east of Alberta, and with only fifteen members in the Federal Parlia- ment it is now numerically less strong than in 1935.
This does not discourage the Social Crediters, who are confident that they know the Truth and that some day the rest of Canada will see the light. The Party's best hope undoubtedly lies in another depression; in prosperous times it is difficult to convince people that International Finance is a cancer gnawing away at the fabric of society. But the Canadian practice of buying everything on Easy Terms has its own drawbacks in times of economic recession, and the advent of bad times might possibly enable the Social Crediters to capture the• other two Western provinces of SaskatcheWan and Manitoba, where conditions are not unlike those prevail- ing in Alberta. In this event a Western bloc could, be formed which, under threat of at least economic secession from the Dominion, could extract concessions from the Dominion Government regarding Provincial control of the financial system. Social Crediters envisage the sudden wave of pros- perity consequent to the implementation of Major Douglas' proposals as serving to convert the rest of Canada.
This may be no more than an agreeable—or frightening- pipe-dream, but one thing is fairly certain: so long as Canada continues to develop and prosper, the Social Credit Party is unlikely to win any very wide popular, support.
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