| Subject: | Re: [socialcredit] question for Joe | | Date: | Monday, September 10, 2007 16:55:22 (-0600) | | From: | Wallace Klinck <wmklinck @....ca>
|
| In reply to: | Message 5020 (written by Joe Thomson) |
Thanks, Joe, as always for your interesting input from British
Columbia. As your enquiries indicate, there is all sorts of material
out there in the Social Credit "World"--but who is going to do all
the footwork to uncover and assemble it? Perhaps if Social Credit
can someday be realized we may have the time in the new Leisure State
to devote to these matters so that they may become recorded and
accessible to the general public as part of the Cultural Heritage.
Meanwhile, and not to dismiss the desirability of accumulating
historical data concerning Social Credit while they may still be
found, I think we have to concentrate on understanding, promulgating
and applying the fundamentals of Douglas's ideas to the rescue of a
faltering civilization. That is, we need contemporary action. (a
bit of militancy from Hargrave!) As Douglas himself warned, we can
talk about Social Credit until the end of time and nothing will
happen unless the talk and theory are followed up by concrete and
effective action. (the attitude of the practical engineer) If
Chant's ideas were consistent with those presented by Douglas, they
are no doubt worth searching, and I would certainly be interested in
anything you might be able to come up with from the Government
Archives in Victoria, etc. I sent my previous message before noting
your posting below.
Best Wishes
Wally
On 10-Sep-07, at 11:47 AM, Joe Thomson wrote:
> From what I can ascertain from looking again at the BC Provincial
> Archives
> website they do have some transcripts of speeches made by Chant in the
> Legislature. Who made these transcripts, or what arrangements, if
> any, were
> in place to formally record the Legislative proceedings before a
> Hansard was
> brought in, (after Bennett left office), I'm afraid I don't know.
>
> Just where Chant's annual one on SC monetary theory would be,
> their list
> doesn't specify. It might have been made in the various annual Budget
> debates, or in a reply to the Speech from the Throne, which they
> list, or
> elsewhere.
>
> Chant's papers were donated to the Archives when he died, and
> they do
> apparently include some material on his interpretation of 'social
> credit',
> amongst a great many other things.
>
> I would think that obtaining a transcript of the interview he gave
> the CBC
> in 1966, (the summary of which I posted yesterday), would be
> probably the
> best indication of his ideas and whether they were entirely
> consistant with
> Douglas. It would appear the Archives charges for that.
> Unfortunately, I
> never get to Victoria, which is only 130 miles or so south of where
> we are,
> when the Archives are open. Otherwise I'd go and have a look, they
> don't
> charge for that. Yet.
>
> I do remember well what Chant looked like, but I can't recall ever
> hearing
> him speak, or be interviewed on TV. Though he must have been.
> Public Works
> was a very 'low-key' Department after Highways was taken away from it.
> About the only controversy I recall involving Chant while he was
> Minister
> was over his joining in with Gaglardi in an attack on unions as
> ''criminal
> organizations". This was considered a bit too extreme by many BC
> Socreds,
> who often didn't like the militancy of various labour union
> leaders, but
> certainly didn't regard them, or their organizations as 'criminals'.
>
> Joe
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <william_b_ryan@yahoo.com>
> To: <socialcredit@elistas.com>
> Sent: Monday, September 10, 2007 1:27 PM
> Subject: [socialcredit] question for Joe
>
>
>> "The BC Legislature did not have a Hansard in the WAC
>> Bennett era, so likely the only record of what Chant
>> was trying to put across in his annual 'A+B' lecture
>> might be found in the archives of one of the
>> newspapers that had correspondents in the Legislative
>> press gallery."
>> ------------------------------------------------
>> -------------------------------------------------
>>
>> But surely there would have been transcripts and
>> records of the proceedings? Here in Texas we have
>> them for the state legislature going back to when it
>> was the Congress of the Republic of Texas, 1836-1845.
>> Not always in neat published volumes, but in archives
>> somewhere, available to researchers. The WAC Bennett
>> era was not that long ago. Legislatures have always
>> been filled with lawyers and lawyers love transcripts.
>>
>>
>> -----------------original message---------------------
>>
>> Bill,
>>
>> William Chant had the unique distinction of having
>> been a MLA and Cabinet Minister in Premier Aberhart's
>> first Alberta Social Credit government, and then, much
>> later on, a MLA and Cabinet Minister for many years in
>> WAC Bennett's BC Social Credit League government.
>>
>> In the second Appendix to Douglas's "The Alberta
>> Experiment" he is listed as Aberhart's Minister of
>> Agriculture. I believe there was some 'dissention in
>> the ranks' during Aberhart's first term in office, and
>> he resigned from Cabinet, and possibly his seat in the
>> Alberta Legislature, too.
>>
>> Whether this was over the 'progress', (or lack of
>> same), towards trying to bring in Douglas 'social
>> credit' in Alberta, (before Byrne came out from
>> England), or over some other matter, I really don't
>> know. Wally may have more information on that. Chant
>> subsequently left Alberta and moved to BC in any case.
>>
>>
>> In BC, Chant was Bennett's Minister of Public Works
>> for many years. This became a somewhat minor
>> portfolio in that era, the responsibilities for public
>> highways having been transferred by Bennett to a
>> separate Ministry of Highways, long under the control
>> of the Rev. Philip A Gaglardi. Who was an exteremly
>> effective Minister, easily the most popular in WAC
>> Bennett's Cabinet, until one scandal too many caught
>> up with him. Gaglardi wouldn't have known the first
>> thing about Douglas 'social credit', but he built some
>> tremendous highways and was a tremendous 'populist'
>> and orator.
>>
>> Chant, along with a number of other Ministers in the
>> WAC Bennett regime, ones who may well have had a much
>> better understanding of 'social credit',
>> (Eric Martin, Lyle Wicks, and a few others), were
>> often regarded as sort of political 'seat-warmers'.
>> The real 'power' in the running of their respective
>> Ministries resided with Premier WAC Bennett.
>>
>> The BC Legislature did not have a Hansard in the WAC
>> Bennett era, so likely the only record of what Chant
>> was trying to put across in his annual 'A+B' lecture
>> might be found in the archives of one of the
>> newspapers that had correspondents in the Legislative
>> press gallery. If any of them qouted correctly and
>> printed at any length what he was actually on about.
>> Which, considering the attitude of the press towards
>> 'Social Credit' here at that time, I seriously doubt.
>>
>> David Mitchell wrote a comprehensive biography and
>> history of the WAC Bennett era, and was, long after
>> WAC had passed from the scene, briefly a BC MLA (BC
>> Liberal Party) himself.
>>
>> Joe
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> ______________________________________________________________________
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> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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> are at
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