Albertan Finance Mr. Aberhart has already given some severe shocks
to the credit structure of Alberta and the Dominions, and it now appears that he may have to default on payments of principal as well as interest. The Alberta Treasury has only $366,000 in the sinking fund to meet a Provincial bond issue which matures on November 1st ; an application for a loan to the Dominion Government has been unsuccessful, as the Dominion has no power to make advances to the Provinces for the purposes of meeting bond obligations. The position is the more curious because the Albertan Bondholders Committee of investigation has reported that Alberta is fully sol- vent and can without , drastic economies meet all its obligations. Mr. Aberhart has ignored this report ; there appears, therefore, no justification for his methods of reducing Provincial debts. His 50 per cent. cut in in- terest on Provincial 4 per cent. and 44 per cent. Registered loans is one which, to relieve a small and purely temporary embarrassment of the Albertan Government, will inflict a permanent loss of 50 per cent. in income on the province's creditors. Meanwhile the "Prosperity Certifi- cates" which were to finance the Government have lost their novelty and their appeal.
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