Canada Casts a Shadow

In Montreal last week men and women waited in block-long lines to apply for permits to get jobs, or to leave jobs they already had. The Canadian Government was mobilizing all the manpower of the sprawling Dominion to put its immense resources completely into the war effort.

New laws provided:

> The Labor Department, the Munitions & Supply Department and the Wartime Prices & Trade Board would establish labor priority ratings for all industries.

> Workers could not quit, and employers could not dismiss, without seven days' notice in writing.

> Farm workers could not take permanent employment in industry except by special permission.

> No one could apply for any job without a Selective Service permit.

> Persons unemployed for more than 14 days could be ordered by Selective Service to jobs for which they were deemed fit.

> Five hundred dollars fine and twelve months' jail for violators, either workers or employers.

During September virtually all women from 20 to 24 must register for Selective Service. Other age groups will register later. Eventually 255,000 men or women will be needed in Canadian industry, to replace those now in the fighting forces.

Labor Minister Humphrey Mitchell took to the radio to broadcast that the new regulations did not freeze workers on their jobs. Nevertheless a Government spokesman reported that labor turnover had decreased.

Canada's unemployed were being put to work, her manpower and womanpower mobilized and regimented, as it has been mobilized and regimented in Russia and, to a lesser extent, in Britain. The U.S. took notice. Commented the New York Herald Tribune: "Canada always seemed to be ahead of us in coming to grips with the grim requirements of war, especially on the economic front, [but] however reluctantly and haltingly, we followed the pointing of her finger."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.