The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1944. CRISIS IN CANADA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 284, 30 November 1944, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1944. CRISIS IN CANADA

JT will occasion deep regret among British people everywhere, and among all others who are aware of the magnificent war effort of Canada, that at this late stage in the conflict there has arisen in the Dominion a crisis cf ominous portent. Although it has been latent always, it is not fanciful to suppose that if the development of the campaign in Europe had been different, the crisis might have been averted. The Canadian Army has fought hard and almost continuously since D day its casualties have been heavy, and the necessity of ensuring reinforcements has become imperative. If there had been sure signs of a fairly early collapse of German resistance the Canadian authorities presumably would have been able to find another way out of their difficulties, but the prospect, admitted by Mr. Churchill in his latest speech, that resistance may be prolonged into the summer, has evidently forced them to the conclusion that the conscription nettle must be grasped. It was after the Defence Minister, Colcnel Ralston, had visited the Canadian Army that he returned and urged the Government to use the power, long ago granted it by the people in a special referendum, to remove the limitations upon conscription. Failing, he resigned. The Government, impelled either by public indignation or by the facts of the military situation, cr by both, then announced its decision to impose a little conscription—to send overseas some 16,000 men cf the home defence army. This compromise, this attempt to grasp the nettle lightly, has been followed by disturbances among the troops concerned, disturbances which have now been described as mutinous. Their extent should not be exaggerated, but the gravity of their implication is undeniably great.

These disturbances, unfortunately, signify far more than the unwillingness of a few malcontents to fight overseas. They are symptomatic cf deep-seated racial and religious differences between Quebec and the rest of Canada. In some respects, like a section of the Boers, the French-Canadians are a people apart, traditionally and consciously apart, from the majority of their countrymen. Because of their political importance in the Federation, their susceptibilities have to be studied by every Government which desires to gain and retain power. Mr. Mackenzie King, until now, has been conspicuously successful in so directing the broad stream of Canadian policy as to keep them willingly in it. He has been much criticised for the shifts and expedients to which he has resorted with this object; but the present crisis indicates the wisdom of his past efforts in striving consistently and above all for unity. Bad as are the current developments, they would have been much worse if they had been precipitated in the early years of the war. The basic issue is a constitutional one: How far may a majority, in the interests of the State, coerce a minority? Mr. King and his party have been long in office, and of late, for various reasons, their popularity has waned; their prospect cf winning the next election, even if the conscription issue had not emerged, was not reckoned high. It is not impossible that they will weather this storm, though it will only be by the exercise of all the Prime Minister's skill in conciliation and compromise. Unhappily, the issue at stake is not of the kind that can be truly settled by compromise, or by a counting of votes, either in Parliament or in the country.