Conscription Again

All Canada goes to the polls this Monday for a plebiscite. The vote is nominally on conscription, but conscription has become such a burning issue that the plebiscite will actually be on the whole subject of Canadian unity in the war.

The question on the ballot is whether drafted men should be ordered overseas, as volunteers are. Prime Minister Mackenzie King has that power already, but even if its exercise is approved by the plebiscite few Canadians believe he would use it. For Canada already has as many volunteers as she is likely to spare for duty elsewhere. Some 150,000 troops are now abroad, and enlistments for expeditionary force duty are averaging 8,000 a month.

Bluntly last week Finance Minister James Lorimer Ilsley put the basic issues to his Nova Scotia constituents: "To vote 'no' is to vote for isolationism, and isolationism is short-sighted and inevitably fails those who adhere to it. A 'no' vote would play into the hands of the enemy and their fifth-column allies."

The Government is sure it will win the plebiscite, for to 9,000.000 Anglo-Canadians Minister Ilsley's words sounded like simple common sense. The real question is how the 3,000,000 French Canadians will vote. In 1918 there were draft riots in the Province of Quebec; there have been draft riots there again this year; and the plebiscite will add little to national unity if the French vote isolationist and Quebec turns thumbs down on conscription.

No Joke

Since Pearl Harbor, jokesters with a grisly sense of humor have issued hunting licenses declaring open season on all Japs.

Last January four young Canadians looted a Japanese candy-store till, shot & killed Proprietor Yoshiyuki Uno. Last week a Vancouver court sentenced all four of them to be hanged.

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