CANADA: Master Madness

Intended as a prescription to cure the ills of Capitalism is “Social Credit,” the invention of an engineer by the name of Major Clifford Hugh Douglas who spends much time tending the delightful garden of his rural English home and knocking together small boats. Last week Major Douglas had had enough of the farce which has been going on in the Canadian province of Alberta in the name of his Social Credit (TIME, Sept. 2, et seq.). Taking pen in hand, the Major resigned his $10,000 per annum job as Alberta’s adviser, canceled his proposed voyage to oversee the setting up in Alberta of Social Credit. This tended to leave stranded the rotund, frog-eyed school principal and radiorating lay preacher William (“Bible Bill”) Aberhart who won Alberta’s last election and its Premiership by promising $25 per month in Social Credit to every bona fide citizen of the province. Premier Aberhart, whose detractors now derisively call him “Abie,” spent the week getting off to Major Douglas pious cablegrams urging him to reconsider.