Crisis Eases

The great conscription crisis suddenly eased. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's political future remained as uncertain as the war's duration. But he still held grimly to his office because there was no one to take his place.

He had not been quite sure of that last week when he marched into the House of Commons to fight for the life of his Government. He took his battle station at his front-row desk, pushing his chair aside so that he could turn and plead with his followers as well as with the Opposition.

Indispensable Man. Mr. King told the House that there had been not one crisis, but two. Crisis No. 1 came when former Defense Minister James Layton Ralston informed the Cabinet that he would resign unless conscripts were sent overseas to reinforce the Canadian Army. Mr. King said he knew that his Ministry would have fallen if he had been unable to find a replacement for Mr. Ralston. So he had made General Andrew G. L. McNaughton Defense Minister. Crisis No. 2 came when General McNaughton confessed that he, too, could not find the necessary volunteers. His voice trembling, Mr. King told how he had striven to keep his Cabinet together. He had asked every member whether he would be willing to be Prime Minister. None would. Now, to drive this point home, he faced the Tories, the socialists, the Social Creditors, asked each group in turn: would it be willing to assume responsibility? If not, the choice, said he, was: King or anarchy.

Zombies with Guns. No one could deny that if Mr. King's Government fell there would be great turmoil. At Terrace, B.C., armed French-speaking troops delayed the departure of a train bearing an overseas draft. For three hours "Zombies" fought with airmen and sailors in the streets of Fort Frances, Ontario. An election now would only accentuate the deep rift between Canada's two nationalities, delay reinforcements. Mr. King asked for a vote of confidence. He said: "I feel that I am in the right and a time will come when every man will render me full justice."

Two days later ex-Minister Ralston rose to speak. Would he back the Government? He had reason to be bitter. He knew his popularity was at a peak. He talked for two hours. All that time the Prime Minister, sitting four benches away, never took his eyes off his former colleague.

Mr. Ralston's points were telling. He had first warned about the lack of reinforcements last June. The Prime Minister had delayed when delay might cost lives. Mr. King had not been really sincere in his search for a successor. "I am far from satisfied," concluded Ralston, "with the delay. ... I am far from satisfied with the piecemeal method that has been adopted. . . . But ... I am determined that neither my dissatisfaction nor those objections are going to deflect me into doing anything which may . . . delay . . . reinforcements. ... I shall vote . . . for the motion [of confidence]." "Je Me Souviens." The rest was anticlimax. The debate droned on, but the galleries thinned out. Nevertheless, P. J. Arthur Cardin, who had left Mr. King's Cabinet two years ago rather than support compulsion, spoke for anticonscriptionist Quebec: "We have tried to do too much for a country of our size and population. We have not enough material for the coat we have been trying to put on the Canadian people."

Conscription was now a fact. But French Canadians, implacably opposed to it, looked forward to the coming election, and recalled Quebec's motto: "Je me souviens" (I shall remember).

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