CANADA AT WAR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 148, 29 August 1941, Page 3

CANADA AT WAR

UNITY OF EFFORT RAPID EXPANSION There are 11,500,000 people in Canada, and twice in twenty-five years these Canadians have joined forces with Britain in order to light for freedom. From coast to coast, whether they are men or women, whether they speak English or French, they are striving to further the Empires war effort. Here are some of their feats performed in cur common cause : Roll Call: Expansion at a pace unparalleled in Canadian history is' the record of each of Canada's three lighting services.. Her Navy: At the outbreak of war it mustered onlyi thirteen ships and 3600 officers and men. To-day those numbers are 250 ships and 20,000 men, and the numbers are 1 still rising. Six months hence 400 ships will fly the ensign of the Royal Canadian Navy—an increase of over 3000 per cent in two and a half. Her Army-: During the last war Canada raised and maintained five divisions. This time she is already topping that figure. At this moment 100,000 Canadians are manning the coasts of Britain at strategic points of possible invasion. We in Britain welcome their lusty frames and cheerful faces not only on our cliffs, but in our trains, inns and homes. 1 They represent the Ist, 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisions. The sth Armoured Division is shortly: due. The 4th Division is stationed in Canada. The 6th Division is now being mobilised. | Her Air Force: The personnel of the Royal Canadian Air Force to-day ■is more than twelve times as large as it was at the outbreak of war. An even more spectacular contribution to the Empire's air strength Is the output of the British Commonwealth air training plan. This great three-year scheme, conceived | in Canada in 1939, is well on the I way towards its goal of training | each year 50,000 men who will emerge as the best-trained airmen (n the world. To this Empire undertaking Canadians are contributing GO per cent of the students now being schooled, not to mention 65 per cent of the cost of the scheme asi a whole. Expanding Industries. Factories must groAV in order to .neet the growing requirements of these expanding forces. By the prosaic but important process of turning more wheels and stoking more furnaces, Canadians have keyed their industries into high gear with the slick efficiency of a fine machine. As a result Canada this year alone is turning out more explosives than she produced in the whole of the last war. More than 100,000 Canadian-produced trucks and lorries are already in service, chiefly in the Middle East. Canada is justly proud of the Cruiser tank, 100 per cent. Canadian, even down to the design, which is built faster than any tank of its size yet pro'luced in Britain or America. Starting almost from zero, the Canadian factories have already produced 1500

aircraft and Are now turning out air-frames for all types from Clatalinas to trainers at the rate of 40 a week. People whose maritime instincts are as intense as those m Britain are appropriately concentrating on shipbuilding also. A,t the beginning of the war the Canadian shipyards employed only 1500 workers. To-day? they employ more than 20,000 men and are laying down -every type of vessel from destroyers downwards. Their new shipbuilding programme started last year will produce a million tons of cargo shipping in 1942. Aid for Britain. In the past year 3500 ships with 21,000,000 toqf of Canadian cargoes have made safe journeys across, the Atlantic escorted in large part by the Royal Canadian Navy. Canadian exports to Britain in the financial year ending March, 1941, were 45 per cent greater than those of the previous year, and those for the current year will be greater still. Here in Britain our power of resistance is fortified not only by Canadian men and machines but also by Canadian food. We know that Canadian homes are voluntarily denying themselves of cheese and bacon in order to fill our larders. One of our London parks, the city's biggest evacuation centre, is wholly stocked with foods from Canada. It feeds daily consignments of children that pass through its hands on their way to safer homes. Financial Aid. Canada is not only spending every cent the war effort requires—she is already devoting nearly half her national income to the purpose—but she has made large indirect contributions by tariff concessions on British imports and large sacrifices by financial adjustments in connection

with British purchases in America. Up to March, 1941, she had provided Great Britain with more than 500.000,000 dollars to help her to finance those purchases. The figure will have risen to nearly 1,000,000 dollars by March, 1J942. Women's Part. Canada, like Britain, has to consider the apportionment of manpower between her industry and her fighting forces. As in Britain, her Jvomen are helping her to solve the problem. Forty thousand of them already are serving as auxiliaries in the three fighting services. It is thanks in no small measure to the women that Canada is now turning J out those forty air-frames weekly. One Canadian woman—Alison Settles—is Chief Aeronautical Engineer at a famous aeroplane factory, where ?he designs military planes—some | for the British Air Ministry. Spirit of Uni'ty. Of the eleven million inhabitants of Canada over 98 per; cent are of Eluropean origin. Five millions and u half are Anglo-Saxon, 3,500,000 are I descended from French ancestors. Nearly 2,500,000 are descended from European nationalities other than British and French. No one element predominates. All are minorities; oven the Anglo-Saxons are now less than half the total. But Canada, like Switzerland, stands as proof to the world, that national unity does hot presuppose racial or even linguistic uniformity. Fused by a common cause, her inhabitants are l all Canadians, entering, each with his own capacities, into a rich and vigorous national amalgam which is pouring out its energies on behalf of the Allies. Canada every Canadian his day will do his duty. She does not expect in vain.