TOTAL WAR EFFORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 April 1942, Page 3

TOTAL WAR EFFORT

DEMANDED IN CANADA FIGHT FOR EXISTENCE CONSCRIPTION PLEBISCITE. BROADCAST BY PREMIER. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.15 a.m.) OTTAWA, April 8. A warning that the final battles of the war might be fought on Canadian and American soil unless the enemy were defeated abroad was given by the Prime Minister (Mr Mackenzie King). Broadcasting in a campaign for an affirmative result on the manpower plebiscite on April 27, Mr King said a great Axis offensive to cut Atlantic and Pacific supply lines might be launched at any moment. It was essential that Canada should send an army overseas, as well as maintain defences at home. The Government had made an anticonscription pledge upon the outbreak of war, when conscription seemed to be a threat to national unity. At that time the war seemed to many Canadians to be just another European war. Now, however, when Canada was fighting to preserve her very existence, the Government’s pledge had become a restriction upon its exercise of full power. Mr King urged the people to release the Government from its pledge, because conscription had become the symbol of a total war effort, regardless of all Canada was doing to help win the war.