CANADA AND WAR

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 March 1940, Page 4

CANADA AND WAR

ATTITUDE OUTLINED [PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] AUCKLAND, March 17. “Like England, there is little bandplaying or flagwaving in Canada, byt there is the same determination to do the job that has to be done, and there has been many times the volume of voluntary enlistments than can be handled,” said Mr. C. F. Crandall,, president of the British United Press of Montreal, a through passenger by the Monterey for Sydney. Several regiments had been mobilised, but were disbanded for the time being because England did not need them, and Canada was hard pressed to train troops in the winter. The dominant factor in Canadian politics was that the Government had been called upon to defend itself fiom attacks by Conservatives who had . received some support in their criticism from members of the Liberal Party in Ontario. In Quebec where the population was predominantly French, the people were more whole-heartedly interested in this war than they weje in the last, because liberties both civil and religious were threatened by Germany and Russia. Canadians w’ould not favour conscription and probably it would not be introduced. In the province of Quebec and round the city of Montreal, French enlistments in the early part of the war were nearly, three times those of the English section. Among Americans there was what he called a “phobia of propaganda.” Mr. Crandall continued that it was unfounded, since no one wanted them to enter this war. It was not a manpower war, and as long as they kept their markets open and behaved as they were doing, Canada certainly and Britain probably, would be well satisfied. On the other hand it was. incomprehensible to both that if either one should be involved in a war that implied invasion by a foreign, country, the other would not come to help. “If Japan, for example, should try to effect access to the United States through Alaska,” he said, “Canada’s interests as well as her sympathies would be completely ranged alongside America, but by common consent Americans- and Canadians do not discuss war topics. The general mass of the American people, while sympathetic to the Allied cause and very hostile to Hitler and Stalin, are definitely determined to keep out of the war at all costs, but if the situation should arise that England and France were in danger, and particularly if Hitler did anything to offend the moral sense of the American people, there was no question of their participation.”