CANADA AND WAR

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 133, 16 March 1940, Page 3

CANADA AND WAR

QUIET DETERMINATION. w

MEN RUSH TO COLOURS.

(Per Press Association). AUCKLAND 1 , March 15

“Like England there is little bandplaying or dag-waving in Canada, but there is the same determination to do the job that has to be done, and there has been many times the volume of voluntary enlistments than can be handled,” •said Mr C. F. Crandall, president of the British United Prqps of Montreal, who is a through passenger by the Monterey for Sydney. Several regiments had been mobilised but were disbanded for the time being because England did not need them, and Canada was hard-pressed to train troops in winter. The dominant factor in Canadian politics was that the Government had been called upon to defend itself from attacks by the Conservatives, who had received some support in their criticism from members of the Liberal Party. In Ontario and in Quebec, where the population was predominantly French, the people were more wholeheartedly interested in this wax'* than they were in the last because their liberties, both civil aiid religious, were threatened by Germany and Russia. Canadians would not favour conscription and probably it would not be introduced. In the province of Quebec and round the city of Montreal French enlistments in the early part of the war were nearly three times those of the English section. Attitude of Americans. Among Americans there was what he called a “phobia of propaganda,” Mr Crandall continued!. That was unfounded, since no'one wanted them to enter this war. It was not a man-power war and so long as they kept their markets open and behaved as they were doing, Canada certainly i and Britain probably would be well satisfied. On the 1 other hand it was incomprehensible to both that if either one should be volved in a war that implied invasion by a foreign country the other would come to her help. “If Japan, for example, should try to effect access to the United States through Alaska,” he said “‘Canada’s interests as well as her sympathies would be completely ranged alongside America, but by common consent Americans and do not discuss war topics.” The general mass of American people, while sympathetic to the Allied cause and very hostile to Hitler and Stalin, were definitely determined to keep ont of the war at all costs, but if a situation should arise that England and France were in danger, and particularly if Hitler did anything to offend the moral sense of the American people, there was no question of their participation.