CANADA DETERMINED

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 November 1939, Page 7

CANADA DETERMINED

FIGHT AGAINST NAZISM “WITH BRITAIN TO THE END” / [BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS] RUGBY, November 4. Mr Crerar, the Canadian Minister attending-the Empire War Conference, in a broadcast address, recalled that his last visit, to England was on the occasion of the Coronation, when Br - tain was a scene of peace and happiness. Now he saw Britain at war, but, as always, calm and resolute, and he paid a tribute to the spirit of the British peoples, which would triumph once again over difficulties “ln this war we in Canada are with you, as you are with us, to the end. We are fighting not merely because of a sentimental impulse to come to help the Mother Country in the hour of need. That feeling is strong, but it could not alone account for the dedication of the strength and spirit of Canada to meet the challenge of conflict. To a great part of Canada the United Kingdom is not the Mother Country. Approximately half of the people of the Dominion are not Anglo-Saxon stock. We are made up of every race of people—French, who, without emigration from Old France, have in the past 200 years increased from 50,000 to 3.500,000; Scandinavian, Italian, Ukrainian. Polish and even Corman —German Canadians who are loyal to the best that is in Germany, and are, for that reason, joining with other Canadians in the fight against £ debasing creed of Nazism.” u p ga id the Canadian nation would see the struggle through, because they were fighting for their own ideals and existence Canada was not a colony com ng to aid a mother country, but “a State Conscious of the help that it can give in the struggle for the maintenance of a decent world order.” Since 1914 Canada had grown from a colonial State to an equal partnership in the British Commonwealth, and she came into the war as the result of the free decision of its sovereign Parliament—a decision later reaffirmed oy the results of the election in the second largest province. Co-operation was full and free be cause Canada knew that the British

nations were only forced to fight after all efforts at a peaceful settlement were exhausted. The fight was against the very spirit of evil in a government founded on brute force, and a negation of every moral and spiritual value. There could only be one choice for Canada, who stood with Britain for ideals founded on liberty, and tolerance. The war must be fought through to a just, victorious peace, and, to that end, Canada would make a worthy contribution.

In return for joint sacrifices, and with the lesson of the years between 1918 and 1939 still in memory, “we must this time not merely defeat the enemy, but, on that defeat, lay the foundation of a new society—one where war will be outlawed as the barbarity it is, where, instead of the Nazi dream of a world composed of brutal, bellicose despotism, there will be a world of free self-governing peoples, willing, if necessary, to surrender certain of their sovereign powers in the interest of the peace and prosperity of the whole international community.”