CANADA REORGANISES ITS WAR EFFORT

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23625, 30 April 1942, Page 4

CANADA REORGANISES ITS WAR EFFORT

facing pacific term at

OTTAWA, March 3. Canada enters now a new and harder phase of the war. This has begun with a general overhaul of the nation’s war programme on the military and on the economic side. A series of Government announcements, made separately, add up to three main conclusions: 1. Canada is going to increase greatly the defences of its Pacific coast in the belief that Japan may strike at Alaska and the Aleutians this spring. 2. The economy of the nation will be regimented as never before with a selective service plan which will commence by “freezing” farm labour to the farms. 3. Life for the ordinary Canadian will be simpler and more Spartan that he has ever expected. It is now possible to say that the military phase of the national war programme has been based upon a new conception of world strategy. Up to now it had been Based on the assumption that the war must be fought out in Western Europe. The possibility of a major attack on Western America, and the possibility that Canada may have to fight in Asia beside Russia, alike were not foreseen in Canada’s original programme. This is perfectly clear from the Government’s statements to Parliament only a month ago. Strengthening West Coast

Pressure from Western members of Parliament and from within the Government itself has altered this conception and the Pacific Coast is now recognised not as an area possibly in danger of air attacks, but a region of vast strategic importance, from which the war against Japan must ultimately be waged. In pursuance of this new theory, Canada is revising its Army plan, to increase the strength of its armed forces on the Pacific. The character of these changes, the size of the new forces are military secrets, but it is indicated that the changes are substantial.

d?he Government could no longer resist the charge that it was keeping about 100,000 trained men far from points of danger in this country—apart altogether from those who are scheduled to move to Britain later in the year.

The enlarged scope of the war has caused the Government to reconsider also the economic side of its war programme. A careful check-up of figures leads it to the belief that Canada can go much further yet in mobilising its resources for war production and in reducing its output of consumer goods. Persons in income brackets above about 2000 dollars a year are poorer, through taxation, but the great mass of Canadians are better off now than in 1939.

This will not continue long. The best-informed experts expect the living standard of the country to drop during the present year more rapidly than that of any other country in a similar period. The days of the war boom are now definitely numbered. Shortages of materials, including even

[By a Staff Correspondent of the "Christian Science Monitor."]

Manpower for Industry

a prospective shortage in some food* will compel a revision of the Canaj. ian’s whole way of life. The Government will move in o». this problem shortly by the most drastic interference with personal liberty ever attempted here. Farm worker* will be forbidden to leave the land They must remain as farm workers though they may leave one employer and seek work with another. To make this extraordinary regimen, tation acceptable, the Government will bonus farm labourers, probably at the rate of 15 dollars a month. Tnis will not put them on a basis of parity with the worker in war industries, of course but it will help them considerably and it will cost the national Treasury a • huge amount. Such a step is needed to prevent a disaster in agriculture. Canada has taken more than 100,000 workers ofl its farms to labour in city industries and at the same time is asking the' farmer to produce more food (chiefly for England) than ever before. To fulfil its food commitments, Canada must provide'the farmer with a large new volume of labour and, as a first step, must guarantee that his present labour will not melt away. Therefore, the only exception to the new freezing plan will be in the case of young men needed in the active fighting services.

Farming, however, is not the only industry which faces manpower difficulties this year. The Government will need 100,000 more workers soon for its war industries under the existing plan —and that plan is to be greatly enlarged. In fact, the vague limit placed ' - on industrial expansion in the Government’s recent statements to Parliament ;■ already has been scrapped. There will be no limit but manpower and ma- 1 terials, the latter being the chief bottleneck at present. Since other industries besides farming will need manpower, it is clear that farm labour will not be the only segment of the Canadian population to suffer drastic regulation. Most experts believe that before the war has proceeded much further Canadians in general will be “frozen" in their jobs, or at least in their general occupational groups. In a manpower situation as tight as that now ahead of Canada it will be impossible to allow competition among employers for labour or competition among workers for better jobs. Meanwhile, on another front, the Government’s price-control machinery is working to simplify the ordinary needs of the Canadian family. To hold down the nation's horizontal price ceil-v ing, Government administrators . are compelling the shoe industry, for example, to scrap most of its shoe models - and concentrate on a few simple styles. The same process will be applied to the clothing industry, especially in view of the new difficulty in obtaining wool from Australia. Rationing will be avoided as long as_ possible, but it may come in many lines if the war lasts long.