GREAT EXPANSION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 February 1941, Page 5

GREAT EXPANSION

CANADA'S WAR EFFORT SOME REMARKABLE FIGURES EMPIRE AIR SCHEME AHEAD OF SCHEDULE I (By Telegraph—Press A.<sociaiton—Copyrights OTTAWA. February 2.' The Prime .Minister. .Mr Mackenzie King, in a broadeasi. predicted that Germany would make a iremendmis ef- ; fort io destroy the British Empire "within a verv short while." He revealed that Canada is planning . to send overseas a third Canadian i division and also a fourth armoured ■ division, and expects to increase its i naval strength from 175 ships to 413: and also double the naval personnel. | The Empire air training plan, he . said, will be in full operation in Sep-! tember, or eight months ahead of the! schedule. The present Royal Canadian Air; Force personnel of 36,000 will be doub- i led by next December, and the present, 1700 planes will be well over 4000 by the end of the year. The Premier add-. ed that 25 new Canadian air squadrons; will go overseas. Informed circles estimated that more: than 125,000 men will be added to the < fighting forces in 1941 on the basis of Mr. King’s speech. The Minister of Supply. .Mr. Howe, ; stated that: the total production of ex -> plosives in Canada this year should ap- i proach in quantity the entire output realised during the Great War. One plant was already in full production on a 100.000.000-dollar programme and would have a greater capacity to produce one type of explosive than al! the Canadian plants between 1914-18.