WARNING TO CANADIANS

Southland Times, Issue 24422, 30 April 1941, Page 5

WARNING TO CANADIANS

WIDE EXTENSION OF WAR

DRIVE TO GULF OF PERSIA PREDICTED

(Rec. 6.30 p.m.) OTTAWA, April 28. The Prime Minister, Mr W. L. Mackenzie King, speaking in the House of Commons, warned Canadians to be prepared for an “extension of the theatre of war on a vast scale.” He pre 7 dieted that there might be a Nazi drive to the Gulf of Persia as the beginning of a huge pincer movement against the whole continent of Asia, accompanied by simultaneous attacks against Singapore, Gibraltar and Suez and an attempt to invade Britain. “Now, as never - before, we must view things in their correct perspective,” he said. “It is important to realize that as long as the British resistance continues the issue cannot be lost.”

Referring to a suggestion that he should go to England and join an Empire War Cabinet, Mr Mackenzie King said he believed he would be of more service in Canada, sitting in the Cabinet and Parliament at Ottawa. The Minister of Labour, Mr Norman McLarty, announced that Canada would be combed from coast to coast for competent workers to man the ship yards for an intensified building programme to assist Britain. Mr McLarty said the machinery of the national register and the Unemployment Insurance Commission would be used in the campaign to transfer workers from less essential occupations to the ship yards. The Ministei’ of National Defence, Mr J. L. Ralston, announced that Canada now had 70,000 troops overseas and another 118,000 had enlisted for service overseas. She also had a large home defence militia. Mr Ralston added that overseas recruiting had been slowed down because of a shortage of transport and shipping.

COFFEE Seized AT VANCOUVER

(Rec. 8.5 p.m.) VANCOUVER, April 28.

The Canadian Government seized a shipment of 1,500,0001 b of coffee aboard a freighter berthed here. The shipment originated at Cristobal, in the Panama Canal Zone, and was believed to be scheduled for transhipment at San Francisco for Germany, via Japan and Russia, but the freighter was instructed by radio while at sea to proceed to Vancouver. The origin of the radio instructions is not disclosed.