A CANADIAN FLAG

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 80, 5 April 1938, Page 4

A CANADIAN FLAG

MOVE TO OBTAIN ONE

Prime Minister Mackenzie King and Conservative Leader R. B. Bennett support a motion to establish a House Committee to consider the advisability of adopting a distinctive Canadian flag, says an Ottawa message to the "Christian Science Monitor."

Sponsored by Cameron R. Mclntish, Liberal member from Saskatchewan, who has been proposing: flag resolutions since 1929, the motion would set up a committee to consider a distinctive Canadian flag / "representing Canada as a whole, thereby symbolising the Dominion as an equality partner in the Commonwealth of British Nations."

The only opposition' to the motion came from Ontario Conservatives, who submitted it was an inopportune time to advertise to the world any cleavage in the British Empire.

Canada is the only Dominion in the Empire which is unable to fly a distinctive flag, said the1 Prime Minister. ' He believed the time had come when Canada should remedy this condition.

It is "an absurdity found in no Other country," Mr. Mackenzie King said, that Canada officially flies the Unionl Jack at home and the Red Ensign with the Canadian Coat of Arms abroad. Canada is a self-governing nation, yet a .member of the British Commonwealth, and should demonstrate this to the world, not continue to fly the Union Jack, the flag of the colonies, he said.

There is no friction in the Empire and for Canada to take the step at this time could not be interpreted abroad as a sign of disloyalty, said Mr. King.

There might be some objection to Canada designing a distinctive flag if it were the first Dominion in the Empire to do so, he said. But Australia, New Zealand, South. Africa, and Newfoundland had flags of their own, and for Canada to follow suit could not be misunderstood in "the world or in the Empire.