CANADA & WAR

Grey River Argus, 20 March 1940, Page 9

CANADA & WAR

RUSH OF VOLUNTEERS. AUCKLAND, March 37. “Like England, there is little bandplaying or llagwaving in Canada, but there is the same determination to do the job that has to be done, and ther has been many times the volume of voluntary enlistments that can be handled,’’ said Mr C. F. Crandall, president of the British United P iass of Montreal, a through passenger by I 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 tram troops in the winter. The dominant factor in Canadian politics was that the Government had been called upon to defend itself from attacks by conservatives who had received some support in their criticism from members of the Libera] Party »n Ontario. In Quebec, where the population was predominantly French, th: people were more whole-heartly interested in this war than they were in the last, because liberties both civil and religious were threatened by Germany and Russia. Canadians would 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 par., 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 ° writer 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 m a war that implied invasion by a foreign country, the other would not come to “If Japan, for example, should try to effect access to the United state , s . through Alaska,” he said, ‘Canadas 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 or the American people, while sympathetic to the Allied cause and- very hostile to Hitler and Stalin, are definitely determined to keep out ot tne war at all costs, but if the situation should arise that England and Franco were in danger,, and P artl .; ul a r]y -Hitler did anything to offend tnc moral sense of the American people, there was no question of their participation.”