CANADA—A GREAT POWER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 154, 1 July 1944, Page 4

CANADA—A GREAT POWER

THE invitation to the Prime Minister to address the Canadian House of Commons will be warmly esteemed as a compliment by the greatest of the Dominions to the smallest. During his visit to the United Kingdom and to Italy, Mr. Fraser will have had reason many times to be impressed by the- magnitude of Canada's war effort. Like New Zealand, but on a much larger scale, Canada has armies overseas on two fronts. Canadian forces have fought throughout the campaigns in Sicily and Italy as a part of the Eighth Army, and their deeds, like those of their compatriots now in Normandy, need no advertisement The present strength of the Canadian Army far exceeds 400,000. At sea, the Royal Canadian Navy is about fifty times its pre-war size, and is expanding steadily. The full story of its part in the vital fight against the U-boats in the North Atlantic will probably not be public until after the war. In the air, the Canadian achievement has been even more striking. Apart from providing the base, and half the cost, of the Commonwealth air training organisation, which is perhaps the greatest joint enterprise of Britain and the Dominions, it has at least 36 squadrons operating from the United Kingdom—and for every Canadian in them there , are about ten others in the Royal Air Force. The Royal Canadian Air Force is now rated the fourth greatest among the United Nations .and fifth in the world. Yet these purely military achievements have probably been G' less importance than the contribution made by Canadians in the field of war production. It has long since become one of the principal suppliers of war equipment for "the United Nations. Mr. Fraser's visit, on the eve of Canada's National Day, will afford an opportunity to voice this Dominion's admiring appreciation of the great, and indispensable part which is being taken in the war by a partner which, though conscious that it has emerged—in the words of its own leader—as a world. Power of major rank," is yet satisfied to maintain its place within the British Commonwealth.