CANADA’S WAR WORK

Evening Star, Issue 23553, 17 April 1940, Page 8

CANADA’S WAR WORK

VALUE FROM REFUGEES NEW INDUSTRIES FORKING [From Ouk Cohkespondent] VANCOUVER, March 26. Thousands of European fugitives with millions of fugitive dollars are finding a safe haven in Canada in the greatest industrial immigration this' Dominion has ever known. Between 5,000 and 6,000 refugees have been admitted into Canada since the German absorption of the Sudetenland, and they have brought with them an estimated 20,000,000 dollars, which already has been put to work in a wide assortment of industries. _ The list of products ranges from animal foods to fine Bohemian glassware. This pride of Czecho-Slovak artistry now is being manufactured in the Dominion under supervision of the Bohemian experts who produced it abroad. A German group which had rescued enough money to bring 700,000. dollars now is establishing Manitoba’s first beet-sugar plant. A German manufacturer of period furniture, who managed to get out 48,000 dollars, is doing well with a new factory in Montreal. A company famous for its bent-wood furniture has left Switzerland and is producing it in Canada. There is a man in a Montreal hotel who, although a fugitive, can still write his cheque for 1,000,000 dollars. He wants to establish a plywood mill in Canada. . He has the money, he knows the business, and all he needs is to be satisfied that there is an opening for such a business in Canada. It is the testimony of immigration officials and railway and financial executives that the money already being utilised is only a fraction of the sums available if Canada can provide opportunities for these refugee industrialists and the funds they have salvaged from wrecked European enterprises. MILLIONS ON DEPOSIT. A Montreal executive estimated that at least 500,000,000 dollars ofrefugee money are seeking employment in Canada. There are already millions on deposit in Canadian banks, he said, and there are more millions in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and the United States awaiting transfer. Of all the hew countries, Canada is most favoured by the refugees with money. These include Christians as well as Jews, and they have come from Germany, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, and Poland. There are others from Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland who saw the storm clouds gathering, and _ even at large financial sacrifice decided to , move across the Atlantic Ocean. Many of the refugees would have preferred to settle in the United States, but were barred by immigration restrictions. The influx is helping Canada’s war effort against Germany. A munitions plant being built at Sorel in the Province of Quebec, where 3,500,000 dollars has already been spent, is virtually the transfer of part of the great Skoda gun plant from Czecho-Slovakia. The Bata Shoe Company at Frankfort in Ontario, which now eemploys 600 persons and will soon employ 1,800, is turning out precision gauges used in armament work. _ Canada is prospering anew. In the, years when she was searching the high-; ways of Europe for good immigrants, none like these was available. The industrialists were firmly settled in their own lands; now they are knocking at her door in ever-increasing numbers, BUSTLING ACTIVITY. A visit to .Montreal reveals the fact that the Dominion is sparing no energy to bring the war in Europe to a convincing Allied triumph, and thousands are working virtually day and night at miscellaneous industries, aiding the Allies in their fight to oust Nazism. The shops of the Canadian Car and Foundry Company are jambed with complex structures ' destined for war, in addition to the regular line of railway equipment going through the place. Their first Hurricane pursuit planes have reached England. Parts of giant bombers are going through the huge shops. Engineers are deep in plans for the manufacture of shells and guns. Everybody with anything from a collar stud to a locomotive to sell to the Government is up at Ottawa. There is the same old jumble and confusion as of 1914 in some ways, but in others a tremendous lot of progress is being made. Canadians are trying to take the war in their stride- Most of them are resigned to the fact that it is going to he along and bitter battle. Canada has a division overseas plus a sizeable air unit. When she gets into her stride Canada expects to be turning out 20,000 pilots, observers, and gunners a year, and it will take a ground force of 40,000 men to do it. A Government purchasing agent has just bought 69 flying fields in addition to what they already have. •