Hitler Takes a Hand

Canada still waited for Mackenzie King to do something. Faced with an open breach between English-and French-speaking Canadians because the English-speaking had voted for overseas conscription and the French-speaking against it (TIME, May 18), the Prime Minister was, as usual, doing nothing. He stalled Parliamentary debate on the conscription issue, in the hope that something would turn up. As usual, something did, this time in the ugly form of torpedoes (see p. 20} streaking across the chill waters of the St. Lawrence River, for centuries the heartstream of French Quebec. The St. Lawrence sinkings had the effect of dousing cold water on many of the hotheads in Quebec who had not been able to forget old grievances, economic maladjustment and religious and racial issues in the face of common danger. At week's end, a two-week truce was called while Ottawa played host to United Nations airmen planning integration of the air forces of all free peoples. But this did not mean that the internal Canadian crisis was over. It was merely another indication, like the torpedoings in the St. Lawrence, that those with common interests would stand or fall together in World War II. The dwindling number of French-Canadian M.P.'s (reduced from over 40 to 13) who openly proclaimed that they would bolt the Liberal Party in a conscription showdown gave hope that the Quebecois' sound common sense was mak-ing him at last aware that Hitler, not his fellow Canadian, was his enemy.

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