Canada at War

By J. Layton Ralston

Canadian Minister of National Defense

CANADA is entertaining thousands of visitors this summer. Many of them remark that they hardly realize the country is at war, for they go about their pleasures, as is the tourists' wont in peacetime. That is as we would have it, for Canada takes pride in its hospitality–a word I pass on now in anticipation of next June, when Toronto, Ontario, will be host to Rotary International's annual Convention.

A war without casualty lists does seem unreal. After a year and a half, Canada has had but 700 casualties in its Army, Navy and Air Force, a number to be compared with 15,000 for a comparable period in the last War. But let the casual visitor be not deceived. Canada is at war–to the finish. From the Atlantic to the Pacific she is throbbing with war activity.

When the war started, Canada had in the three fighting services but 10,500 men. On active service today in the Army, Navy, and Air Force there are a quarter of a million men enlisted to serve wherever duty may require them. And there are over 175,000 additional enrolled in the Reserve Army, subject to call for defense in the Dominion of Canada.

On the English Channel, Britain's front line, are a Canadian Army Corps and other troops aggregating nearly 70,000. Canadian destroyers and Canadian air squadrons have been for many months sharing in the defense of Britain. Canada's Navy and Air Force are doing their part to keep open the vital sea lanes of the North Atlantic. Canadian garrisons are on guard in the Island outposts. Canadian engineers are strengthening the defenses of Gibraltar. In recent months Canada has sent overseas, besides thousands of armed forces, hundreds of radio mechanics for vital defense duties with the Royal Air Force, and 2,500 more of these are now in training.

Sailors and soldiers and airmen are cooperating in the defense of Canadian coasts and coastal waters—and we don't realize half enough what a strain and grind that ceaseless vigil is. The Canadian Navy, which had only 15 ships when war broke out, now has over 180. The strength of the "silent service" has increased from 2,000 to 17,000 to 25,000. Nearly 60 Army mobilization and training camps are operating across the Dominion. In these camps about 175,000 soldiers of our Active Army are fitting themselves for service anywhere, and there are also about 10,000 young men called up under the National Resources Mobilization Act for defense of Canada.

The R.C.A.F. (Royal Canadian Air Force) has grown to a strength of about 50 000. Besides activities overseas and in Canada, the Air Force has the responsibility of administering the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan–which calls for the expenditure of 600 million dollars, most of it supplied by Canada. There are at this minute across Canada no less than 81 establishments of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in operation. The Plan calls for 106, and these will be in operation six months ahead of time. Many graduates of these schools are already in England to take their part in the battles of the air. Twice as many pilots and observers have been graduated as were planned for up to this time, and before the year is out we expect that these schools will have produced six times the number called for by the original schedule.

CANADA'S three services have a quarter of a million men enrolled for service anywhere in the world. About 80,000 of these sailors, soldiers, and airmen are in service in the British Isles at this moment. In addition to these, Canada is pledged to send to Britain's aid this year thousands of reinforcements, ancillary troops, an Army Tank Brigade, the Third Division, and an Armored Division. And out of the 1,450 million dollars estimated to be expended for the three fighting services this year, probably 1,200 million or more is planned to be expended on troops and equipment for service overseas.

In terms of dollars the cost of the three defense services alone is estimated for this year at 1,300 million dollars. It is being paid for in full by the Canadian people. It is a direct, outright, and unreserved contribution by Canada to the cause of freedom. It represents this year's portion of the freewill offering, which our country began to make over a year and a half ago, when Parliament decided that Canada should enter the war at the side of Britain.

But Canada has a twofold task in this war. Not only is the country sharing as a full partner in the struggle, not only are Canadians (with but one important exception—namely, the maintenance in the field of pilots and airmen graduated from the Air Training Plan) bearing the whole cost of equipping, supplying, and maintaining our naval, military, and air forces at home and overseas, giving of life as well as of treasure, but Canada is also helping to supply Britain equipment, munitions, and the other essentials of war.

Today Canada is a major source of supply for Britain. New plants have been built and old plants have been extended to make the complicated instruments of war, many of which were never before made in this country. The response of labor and industry has been splendid. Canada has been constructing an aircraft industry from the ground up. Already more than 50 small naval vessels have been built and many more are being built. Hundreds of motor-transport vehicles are being turned out every day. Canada is producing universal carriers, machine guns, trench mortars, bombs for aircraft, electrical apparatus, and radio equipment, many other types of essential manufactured goods, great quantities of shells and ammunition, a wide range of chemicals, large quantities of base metals and alloys, and an increased output of steel. Very shortly Canada will begin to produce field guns and then tanks and Lee-Enfield rifles, and, before the year ends, naval guns and antiaircraft and antitank guns. The production of cargo vessels is in hand and plans are being made to build destroyers in Canada.

The estimated cost for its direct war effort, sketched in the foregoing paragraphs, is 1,450 million dollars, and for its indirect war effort during the next 12 months–munitions, raw materials, and agricultural products to be sent to England–Canada expects to spend 1 1/2 billion dollars. And Canada will finance these purchases for Britain's account to an amount estimated at 1,150 million dollars.

Ever since the war started, whatever gold or United States dollars Canada gets from Britain to help pay for these goods is used immediately to pay the United States for war purchases. That means that any gold coming from Britain does not reduce by one dollar the amount which must be raised from the Canadian public in taxes and loans.

To sum up quickly: For war alone this year Canada expects to spend on her own account probably 1,450 million dollars. To help finance British purchases, Canada will probably have to find 1,150 million dollars more. In short, this year Canada will probably have to obtain 2,600 million dollars for war purposes in taxes and loans—obtain it from about 11 million people.

The estimated United States' national income is probably over 14 times what Canada's is. On that basis, Canada's estimated war expenditure direct and indirect in this fiscal year would be equal to an expenditure by the United States in a single year of almost 35 billion dollars, and of that the financial assistance which Canada will be giving to Britain would be equivalent to an expenditure by the United States of something over 15 billion dollars. And if the quarter of a million Canadians on active service, without taking into account Canada's Reserve Army, were translated into terms of the population of the United States, the armed forces of that country would exceed 2 3/4 million men.

I do not cite such facts to be boastful. War is too serious a matter for such idle conceit. I bring them forward to show how, back of the scene that greets the tourist's eye throughout Canada, there are a resolute determination and a far-reaching activity to carry the fight to the finish. With planned effectiveness it is summoning the nation's strength for the grim, unflagging task ahead.