Some 3,000 Crediters of the Union of Electors flocked to Levis, Quebec, for the big annual Congress of the movement, September 2, 3 and 4. Levis, situated across the St. Lawrence from the historic city of Quebec, is a stronghold of Social Credit. The spacious auditorium of the Marist Brothers' school was full and each session of the congress found an ever attentive audience of enthusiastic Crediters.
Through the devoted labours of the local members of the movement, all those attending were able to find lodgings, gratis, from the kindly people in and about Levis and Quebec city. It is perhaps one of the signs of the growing popularity of the movement that at such congresses, attending members have never been obliged to pay for lodgings. The people residing in the district have always thrown open their hearts and their homes to these people who are working for a better society for their fellow-men.
There was a difference, however, between the Congress at Levis and those of previous years. As Mr. Louis Even, director-general of the movement remarked in his comments on this year's assembly:
"We left the organization (of the congress) to the initiative of local Crediters. Everything went off perfectly. No collective organisation was made to get people to come to the congress; yet a multitude was present. Surely this a token of the strength and maturity of the Crediters of Vers Demain. Our congress was a family meeting. There was no exterior demonstration. We cut from our program the automobile cavalcade, the band, the parade through the city on foot. The most perfect harmony reigned. It is a wonderful thing to see such unity in such a large family; to see such fraternal charity holding sway. Such is the fruit of 25 years of labour. Let such unity and fraternal charity extend itself to all society; and let the economic proposals of Social Credit, naturally, hold sway, and we would have our better world."
What Mr. Even said about perfect unity based on a complete spirit of fraternal charity, was the significant characteristic of the Congress ending the Crediters' year of 1960-61,
Any organization of men which bases its march towards a common goal upon a particular philosophy, goes through a process of evolution, both in thought and act. This has been true of Social Credit movement guided by the Union of Electors under the Institute of Political Action.
Perhaps the outstanding principles of Social Credit, those most widely recognized by all who have any acquaintance with the school founded by Major Douglas, are those dealing with monetary reform. Most of what has been written about Social Credit both for and against has revolved about such monetary proposals as the universal dividend and the compensated price.
And yet how false it is to believe that the whole of Social Credit philosophy is wrapped up in these proposals to correct the monetary and financial systems. In the box which we have placed at the beginning of this article are the thoughts of Major Douglas himself on this point. "Social Credit covers and comprehends a great deal more than the money problem." Indeed it does! And with his genius for brevity while yet encompassing an entire system of thought in a few words, Major Douglas points up the basic concept of man's relation to his neighbour and the relations of groups of men to other groups of men.
It is here then that the idea of the complete Crediter issues forth. For the complete Crediter, being a man who comprehends the philosophy of Douglas in its entirety, is infused with the spirit of the pioneer of a new and better world; a pioneer who would build not only a new world of finance, of economy, of social order, but one who would also bring a rebirth of the spiritual to such an order.
The complete Crediter is, of necessity, a spiritual man if he is a Crediter.
Levis, more than anything else, was a demonstration of how the loyal and steadfast members of the movement have developed from crusaders for financial and political reform into crusaders for a new and better world in every sphere and plane of human life, with special emphasis upon the spiritual.
For, as we mentioned above, the Union of Electors has evolved. It began with the cry for financial reform, went on to fight for political reform (including a few faltering steps in the field of electioneering politics, which served no other purpose than a school of hard experience)) and has finally reached the stage where the scope of its activities comprehends not only the financial, political, and social, but the spiritual as well.
Levis showed that the members of the movement have learned truly the lesson that the truly complete Crediter must be a man who is spiritual if he is to accomplish for man the building of a better world. This was evident in the discourses delivered by the directors and by the words spoken by individual Crediters. It was marked by the fervor with which each and everyone dedicated himself and herself to the task of building up spiritual strength to fight for a better world against an enemy which wars not only against the people but against God himself.
As Mr. Even remarked: "The spirituality of the Crediters is sincere. They have learned to place first values above everything and to guide their lives by them. They are learning more and more that as Christians, baptised and confirmed their duty is to be active in the line of their vocation, in the great battle of Christ against the forces of Satan. No one has the right, today more than ever, to remain, neutral, weak, apathetic or indifferent."
The lesson which the Crediters assembled at Levis have learned is that which Christ preached during his fasting and temptation in the desert. Man liveth not by bread alone but by every word of God.
Surely, man must live by bread. The corporal and material life which God has given him must be sustained by bread. And the principles upon which Crediters are fighting for a better world include precisely those which would give to each and every man daily sustenance, a decent living and security from want.
But these are not enough. The cattle in the barn are given all these by the farmer. The opressed peoples behind the cold walls of the Iron Curtain are given as much of these as are necessary to make sure they can go on serving the State efficiently and well.
Man cannot live by bread alone. And countless multitudes of brave men and women have fought and suffered and died in defence of this principle.
Man must have the right to live in the dignity of a child of God, which he is. Without this he is nothing more than a higher type of animal, and as such he is fit for nothing more than exploitation by other animals stronger and more intelligent, perhaps, than himself.
But man is not just a higher type of animal. He has an immortal soul. It was created by God and infused into him at conception so that he might during the course of his life on earth fulfill adequately the great two-fold commandment of God love of God and love of one's neighbor for the love of God.
Being a child of God, then, can he be limited to a crust of bread, shelter from the elements, and sufficient clothing so that he may be kept warm and decent?
Here then is the great and uncrossable chasm between the Socialist and Communist on the one hand and the complete Crediter on the other. While the former cry out a program which they say will take care of man's material wants while depriving him of the liberty which is so essential to his spiritual life, the Crediter would give him at once, the means to care for his wants, and the individual liberty with which he can fulfill his destiny on earth of loving God and his neighbour.
The Social Crediters who attended the Levis congress, are men and women thoroughly imbued with the principles that a new and better world - the Social Credit community as visualized by Major Douglas - can only be built through bread and the word.
Bread - because a man with an empty stomach has little thought for things spiritual, a concept which the churches have long recognized. The word, because the word is from God. It is God's great commandment to men. Without obedience to this great commandment, the life of man can never be anything other than a series of catastrophes interspaced with periods in which society lives the life of the concentration camp. The utter desolation in which the people of Communist-dominated countries live is ample evidence of what a philosophy which denies God can lead to.
The Social Crediter can never be content to fight for monetary reform alone. He can never rest with teaching men how to conduct their political affairs so that they and not political parties or the vested interests behind them have the final word. He cannot be satisfied with achieving individual liberty for men, for liberty without obedience to the law of God leads to chaos, moral decay and the ultimate loss of true liberty.
When he has achieved all these things he still must strive to infuse in men the awareness of the spiritual, of man's destiny as sons of God, of their obligation to love, to fraternal charity; a love not of sentimental and unreal philanthropy which is nothing more than pandering to pride, but the genuine love of men because of the love of God.
The Social Crediter who would teach man this lesson must be himself a spiritual man. He cannot give to other what he himself does not contain.
As I conceive it, Social Credit covers and comprehends a great deal more than the money problem. Important as that is, primarily important because it is a question of priority, Social Credit fundamentally involves a conception, I feel a true conception but you must enlarge upon that yourselves - of the relationships between individuals and their association in countries and nations, between individuals and their association in groups.
Major Douglas in
The Approach To Reality, p. 6