POLICY IN CANADA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 May 1938, Page 2

POLICY IN CANADA

WAR COMMITMENTS DENIED STATEMENTS BY PARTY LEADERS. CONSIDERABLE DIVERGENCE SHOWN. By Telegraph—Press Association Copyright. OTTAWA, May 25. During a six hours’ debate on foreign affairs in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister (Mr W. Mackenzie King), defining Canadian policy, declared that Canada was unlikely to engage in war on her own account or to be attacked and could not be drawn into war by the League of Nations and will not join the Empire in war except by Parliament’s decision. Mr R. B. Bennett contended that Canada, as a member of the British Commonwealth, would be automatically at war if the Empire were attacked. The only alternative was separation from the Empire, which would not be the choice of Canadians. Mr J. S. Woodsworth (Commonwealth Federation) stated that Canada should act to relieve herself from obligation to fight in any war but a war in defence of her own shores. If war came, wealth should also be conscripted. The Prime Minister declared that Canada has no commitments and should not have any. No advice was being offered to London, whose decisions were not binding on Canada, despite assertions to the contrary.

All three leaders denounced Japanese aggression. Mr Bennett warned Hitler agents working among the Canadian minority groups, stressing the alleged rights of citizens in Czechoslovakia, where a German minority demanded military action by their homeland to compel the Czechs to give them what they wanted. No language was too strong to describe the difficulty of the European situation.