CANADA AT WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 January 1942, Page 5

CANADA AT WAR

NATIONAL EFFORT INTENSIFIED. AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS TAKEN. OTTAWA, December 18. War in the Pacific has brought a swift increase to Canada’s war tempo. Air raid precautions have been widely extended to all areas liable to enemy attack. All Canadian born or British born Japanese of 16 years up have been ordered to register. Previous registration was voluntary. It has been announced that plans are under way for national selective service both for men and for Women. Manpower will be mobilised for greater production of munitions and food. Women will be organised to work in arsenals, shops and factories. It is expected that the output of airmen under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan will be tripled within a year. In the economic sphere wartime controls are reaching more deeply into non-war production. Japanese successes in the Far East, with consequent threats io the rubber Supply, found a sequel in prohibitions of the sale of new rubber tyres except on war orders. To conserve metals the manufacture is banned from March 31 of a wide variety of metal goods from children’s tricycles to metal coffins. The January production of radios is heavily cut. From April 1 petrol will be rationed. Delegates of 18 national women’s organisations gathered at Ottawa and volunteered to enlist three million Canadian women to make war on the home front against price inflation. The Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Wm. L. Mackenzie King, announced on December 16 the appointment of Humphrey Mitchell as Minister of Labour and the transfer of the former Minister of Labour, the Hon Norman McLarty, to the post of Secretary of State. The former Secretary of State, the Hon Pierre Casgrain, has been appointed a Justice of the Quebec Superior Court.