CANADA’S MANPOWER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 July 1941, Page 6

CANADA’S MANPOWER

WAR EFFORTS COMPARED

On the question of manpower, Canadians had widely assumed that as the population of Canada rose from about 8,000,000 in the first World War to something over 11,000,000 now, the number of men available for the fighting services must have risen proportionately. But, writes the Ottawa correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor,” one of Canada’s leading journalists, Mr Grant Dexter, after a careful study of the Government’s latest figures, has come to the conclusion that there are hardly any more men of fighting age in Canada now than there were in 1914. Mr Dexter’s conclusions, which appear to be supported by . the Government’s careful investigations, are explained by the change in the age groupings of the Canadian population. When the first World War broke out, Canada was filled with young people who had come here in the great immigration wave which started at the turn of the century. Since the last war, immigration has been almost negligible. When this war began, there were 2,261,900 people in Canada 50 years of age or over. In 1911 there were only 1,000,961 —less than half. This is the basic figure which explains the present reduction in young men in proportion to the total population. The facts are now plain: In the last war, Canada enlisted 634,087 men in all its fighting services, of whom 422,405 went overseas, and employed 275,000 persons in war industries. By the end of this year, Canada will have enlisted 434,000 men, but will be employing 500,000 workers in war industries. Hence, 934,000 Canadians out of a population of something over 11,000,000 will be directly engaged in the war, as against 909,964 engaged altogether through the four years of the previous conflict. Indirectly, of course, the effort is far larger in this war of machinery, and Canada is spending on it more this year than in the four years of the last war. In other words, the indirect effort is far greater and the strain of the war much more serious.