ALBERTA’S FINANCES

Evening Star, Issue 22449, 21 September 1936, Page 2

ALBERTA’S FINANCES

PROSPERITY CERTIFICATES EXPERIMENT A FAILURE Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright NEW YORK, September 19. A North American Newspaper Alliance copyright message from Edmonton states; “The prosperity certificate experiment is a failure. Only approximately 175,000 dollars’ worth have been issued, and these were accepted only by certain stores until the Government announced at the beginning of September that it would cash in currency all 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 anywhere near the year proposed, and it is not likely that the Government will reissue them. Thero are other important aspects of Mr Aberhart’s experimentation—namely, social credit _ dividends, still in the covenant-signing stage, such signatures being necessary before citizens can receive dividends. Unemployed and some farmers in drought-stricken areas have signed, but farmers who have wheat crops ready to market look askance at the prospect of taking half the proceeds in social credit instead of cash, while business men are entirely suspicious of the scheme.