Social Credit

Although the fortunes of Social Credit in Canada have been well researched, a gap has existed in that no study has been made of the English origins of the movement. John L. Finlay fills that gap and also relates the movement to the wider currents of twentieth-century intellectual development. His purpose is primarily to explain the appeal of Social Credit rather than to present its history, although he certainly provides a wealth of interesting information and references for the historian. Having established the background and traced the different but overlapping critiques of orthodoxy that eventually fed into the Social Credit case, the author establishes that case, seeking to defend it against some of the unfair attacks made upon it and linking it to the personality of its founder, Major C. H. Douglas. He analyses the responses to Social Credit of well-known intellectuals, politicians, and clergymen and presents in vivid biographical sketches many of the "underground" political thinkers of whom little has hitherto been written. He suggests that a common thread of quasi anarchism has run through the movement and indicates that, far from being reactionary, the doctrine may in fact be very up to date.