Time for Decision

Over Ottawa last week hung an air of crisis. On Parliament Hill newsmen heard rumors that an election might be called, that some Cabinet members had threatened to resign, that there would be a special session of Parliament. Said Toronto's Government-baiting Globe and Mail: "The [Army] manpower crisis . . . is moving rapidly to its climax. All the evidence is that this time settlement cannot be delayed. . . ." Not everything was rumor. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King had called all 21 members of his Cabinet into special session. One member was summoned all the way from Vancouver.

Another deferred a trip to England. The Ministers met for three successive days in a north room of the old East Block. From its windows they could look across the river to Quebec. Most of the Ministers' minds were on Quebec and its people.

No Compulsion. In isolationist Quebec, "conscription" is a fighting word. In deference to Quebec, Prime Minister King had always insisted that there should be no compulsion on any Canadian to serve outside of Canada. Now he had summoned his Cabinet to hear Defense Minister James Layton Ralston, just back from overseas. The Canadian casualty toll, 61,295 in September, was up more than 10,000 since Aug. 1. Since then, the Canadian infantry in France had suffered fur ther heavy losses. The question before the Cabinet: were there enough reinforcements to support the Canadian Army abroad adequately, or had the time come to order Canada's home defense draftees -- some 70,000 zombies idling at home -- to battle overseas? The man on whom the final answer rested listened to his Ministers, kept his own counsel. A winter stalemate on the Western Front might enable Prime Minister King to defer his decision. But the Prime Minister knew, and Canadians knew, that if the war went into another year, the issue would have to be met. They knew also that the zombies had become a source of irritation to men in all the services, of discord to Canadians at home.

They Wanted to Fly. Across Canada 4,200 R.C.A.F. trainees were given their choice of transferring to the Army or going home to wait for a draft call. At Toronto's manning depot, only 126 out of 1,200 had volunteered. When an Army officer tried to persuade more of them to enlist, the airmen greeted him with shouts of "Why don't you call on the zombies?" From London came hints of more zombie trouble when Canada's turn comes to fight in the Pacific. Two of the Canadian Press's senior war correspondents -- Ross Munro in Belgium and Douglas How in Italy -- reported that "servicemen are anxious for assurance that Canada's home defense soldiers will be called upon to serve overseas when the European campaign ends. . . .''

At Verdun, a suburb of Montreal, Alex Walker, national president of the influential Canadian Legion, spoke up: "At this very moment youngsters of 18, 19 and 20 are dying on the battlefields of Europe while a fully trained army remains at home. I tell you that if this is the price of unity, then the price is too high.''

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