Canada's Land and Air Forces

The speaker was introduced by PRESIDENT EAYRS and was received with applause. He spoke as follows: I deem it a very great privilege indeed to be here today as the guest of the Empire Club of Canada, and to have this opportunity of talking to you for a few moments about some of the work in which we are now concerned, the part that the Canadian Militia and the Canadian Air Force are playing and will play in the future, in the development of Canada's national life.

I must turn back for a moment to get a background for what I have to say. Since the armistice, as you know, the attention of the Canadian people, or what little of it could be spared from our own present problems of reconstruction and settlement of the soldiers again into civil life, has been concentrated on such organizations as the League of Nations and other like movements for establishing peace. As a people we have not devoted a great deal of attention to developing our armed forces. That, I think, is probably a natural reaction, and also I think that if we look at the part that Canadian statesmen played wherever they have come in contact with representatives of foreign powers particularly, and the way in which they have been backed up by the public and by the press, we have reason to be very proud of what we have done in the way of maintaining this will towards peace. We have supported all such movements as the Kellogg Peace Pact for that reason, because the people think that at the very least they will make wars less frequent, and any person who has had any experience of war does not want to see any more of it unless we are driven to it by dire necessity.

On the other hand, there are movements and forces in existence in the world today which I do not think anybody who has considered the question at all can accept as being entirely safe, making it entirely safe for a nation to be without its armed forces; and it is a matter of common knowledge that these forces are controlled by people who are antipathetic to the British Empire and entirely alien to every basis on which we wish to develop our particular type of civilization. I do not propose to argue here today any further as to why I think an armed force is a necessary part of national equipment in these days, but to accept it, and to tell you why I think that for Canada a citizen militia is the proper type for us to have.

It is not possible in an address of this kind to avoid all controversial subjects, and if I could express any opinions on things which have not been settled yet, I hope you will regard those opinions as my own, and not necessarily as a reflection of what the final official attitude will be, because many of these points are still in the melting pot and there must necessarily be other points of view brought to bear as well.

It seems to me that a militia organization for national defence in Canada follows naturally from the very favorable position in which we find ourselves. Geographically on the east and on the west there are wide oceans, across which no expeditionary force of dangerous strength could be transported without preliminary arrangements of such magnitude that we would have at any rate some warning. On the south, as you know, we have a great friendly nation with which we have been at peace for a hundred years and with which we have what is probably the most effective piece of arbitration legislation in existence anywhere; I refer to the Waterways Treaty of 1909. There have been thirty-odd awards under the Waterways Treaty and there has not been one case in which we can consider that we have not had in Canada complete satisfaction and justice. I think also of our membership in the League of Nations as another one of the causes that make for safety in this country; at any rate it tends to delay. And then of course the great organization for which this club stands, the British Empire of which we are a component part. That is one of the strongest safeguards for peace. (Applause.) As far as all offensive operations are concerned, I think it must be pretty obvious to any observer of the course of Canadian national life, or the national life of the British Empire as a whole, that we are not likely to be precipitated into any wars of that nature because the Empire never goes to war unless it is driven to it. It is not offence, it is defence. So I think we can take it as an axiom that we shall be free from small wars, and if we have any great danger looming up we shall have some reasonable notice, or be able to foresee a reasonable time ahead of that danger as it comes along, and be able to adjust ourselves accordingly. In consequence of this situation, I think it is right that we should have a citizen militia, because a citizen militia is of the essence of a nucleus around which the defensive forces of a nation can be crystallized in cases of emergency. I do not think we can find justification for any large standing army in Canada. The most we require in the way of a standing army is a nucleus of instructors, and sufficient troops for the training of that nucleus and for the maintenance and other administrative duties in peace, and for the training of the non-permanent active militia, which is our citizen force. It may be that other nations of the Commonwealth, or in fact other nations of the world, who are faced with conditions which are not altogether similar to ours, need large standing armies, but I would hesitate to get up and attempt to justify placing our defence on that standing army basis in this country.

As for our war organization, whether it be commanders, staffs, or troops, we have got to look to our non-permanent active militia, and the most we can expect from our permanent force is the training in peace-time of the supplement, as they can be free for instruction purposes. The non-permanent active militia in Canada is perfectly organized as a peace establishment, in round numbers of 136,000 of all ranks. It has an actual strength of about 51,000, and last year we were able to train altogether 34,000. In general that training, as many of you know, consists of about twelve days in camp or at local headquarters, devoted to drill and elementary tactical exercises, and it is supplemented by a great many drills which are carried out without expense to the public, by voluntary effort. I may say that without great voluntary effort on the part of the individuals concerned, we would have very little chance whatsoever of maintaining the efficiency of that force. It is essentially a volunteer force. In addition to the drill, a great many courses of instruction are carried out annually, in accordance with a very comprehensive system, which has been completely revised since the war and brought up to date. Last year something over 13,000 of all ranks attended these courses of instruction and received their appropriate qualifications. That is nearly one-third of the total training strength that has been through a course of instruction of one kind or another during the current year. Personally I hope to see those numbers increased, because I believe that as a matter of policy we must concentrate on the training of young officers, N.C.O.'s and specials, and that we must not devote any of our slim resources to training more for ranks than is necessary in order to keep our unit organization intact, and in order to make sure that our training does not develop into too theoretical a character.

When you mention a force of 136,000 men to an audience like this in peace time, it sounds like a large army, but in order to get a sense of perspective I would remind you that the yearly class of young men reaching the age of 21 in Canada, is about 82,000; also in the Great War, that is, during the period of the Great War, Canada mobilized over 600,000 men, of whom over 325,000 actually proceeded overseas. So that measured in comparison with that, the peace strength of the Canadian militia cannot, I think, be considered excessive.

I turn now to the permanent force. Since the war, attention has been concentrated on the development of this corps for its instructional duties. Many of the young officers, and N.C.O.'s have been sent across to Great Britain for courses of instruction in the military schools there, where naturally they have facilities for higher military training which we could not possibly duplicate in this country. They also go over there for another reason, that is, to keep up that close liaison and close touch with the British Army of which we found the benefit in the Great War, and to which we owe the fact that we had any efficient militia at all before. (Applause.) When they return to Canada, these people who have been trained in the schools in England are used in our own military schools so that they can spread the knowledge they have gained, to the widest number of people. I may say today our permanent force officers are required to pass the same examinations, set and corrected by the same authorities, as officers of corresponding rank in the British Army. That is a measure of standardization throughout the Empire. I have now had some years of personal observation of our officers and N.C.O.'s, and I am personally satisfied that we have one of the most efficient instructional corps in the world. (Applause.) I have seen it here, and I have had the privilege of seeing the force not only in England, but on the Continent, within the last two years at odd times. I think our instructors need to be increased somewhat in numbers, as our militia strength increases, and that is, of course, one of our defects. I frankly admit that the conas to draw on the class of young men we want to bring on the ranks for instructional duties to replace our older instructors as they drop out with age. It is one of the great difficulties that face us. If this nonpermanent militia of ours is to measure up to its responsibilities of being able to turn itself on reasonable notice into an army, we have got to pay attention to the tremendous

development in the methods and apparatus of war which took place overseas, and which has since been continued with unrelaxed attention by every leading power in the world. Up to the present on the material side we have been able, frankly, to do very little in the Canadian militia. Under modern conditions of training these to a moderate degree of efficiency we have got to take account of all these developments, a new field and heavy gun, tanks, armoured fighting vehicles of transportation; all those things that tend to make for mobility and hitting power, and in due course we have got to pay a good deal of attention to the teaching of that side of the work to the Canadian militia. I may say that this new type of army, this elaborate equipment introduces very special conditions that we did not have to face before the war, and also it makes the supply of munitions and the keeping up of these forces, -I won't say more expensive, because I think it is not more expensive for a given power, but it requires organization-in fact I would go so far as to say that today, apart from the morale of the people, which I regard as the all-essential factor in a nation's fighting ability, the next most important is industrial mobilization, and the fact that we have in this country facilities for the upkeep and maintenance of these modern types of forces. Of course the armies in the field in the future will be highly technical, and they will require any number of technical personnel to see to it, and when these matters were considered, as they have been considered by the Department, the first question was where are we going to get the supplies of technical men required for these armies,-engineers, surveyors, chemists, radio operators, airmen, and all that sort of thing? A very careful review of the supplies of these men available naturally in this country was made, and it was found that with the possible exception of the air and of operators for radio telegraphy, there were more than ample supplies of people in this country with the right type of education behind them, more than ample for any force that we might be required to raise under any contingency we might consider. So on that technical side of it, it is the radio and the air that have required special attention from the Department. I will turn back to this in a moment.

I want now to say something about officers. In each of the universities in Canada we now have a contingent of the Canadian Officers' Training Corps. What the Training Corps means to Canada is this, that the young men who are receiving their education, an education to fit them to become leaders in the community, are at the same time, if they wish it, being given an opportunity to learn something about military work. It means something more than that, because it means we are turning out into the community a number of citizens for the future who know something about what war is, and if we have a body of informed citizens, we are less likely to be stampeded into a war that we otherwise might keep clear of. So I think the Officers' Training Corps has a great future and deserves the earnest support of such organizations as the Empire Club. There again we have almost complete standardization throughout the Empire, because the examinations written by these boys are set by arrangement with the War Office and the certificates we accept are equally accepted in England. So if a young mining engineer, for instance, had his education and certificate from here, if he were in South Africa and a war broke out, and he wanted to have his services used to the best advantage, all he would have to do is to present his certificate, and he would be accepted for a commission right away. That is a very important thing about our Canadian Officers' Training Corps. (Applause.)

Today the Air Force is of course an absolutely essential arm of our defence organization, and we must have a small staff which has been skilled in the art of design of aircraft. The experience of 1917 and 1918 in Canada showed that military air training could be done in the winter, and our experience in the first few years after the war showed that most of the civil operations, with the exception of air transport, would have to be done in the summer. So we had a seasonal corps to deal with. The government considered the thing very carefully in 1923 and reached the decision that all the aviation activities of the Dominion Government were to be brought under the Department of National Defence. That decision was carried out, and since that time we have had an air force devoting its time in the summer to civil operations of constructive benefit to the community, and in the winter to its own training and the training of people to help carry on. Today that Canadian Air Force of ours in the summer is engaged in the patrol of the forests in the Northwest Territories and in the three Prairie Provinces. They have been carrying out investigations into the spread of pine blister and wheat rust. They are doing photographic work for the Department of the Interior in connection with mapping, and generally the whole of the summer is devoted to operations which are of constructive benefit to this community. This is probably the only military air force in the world that has the opportunity of helping the community in this way.

To give you some idea of the work done last year, I jotted down a few figures. Photographs for mapping covered over 45,000 square miles of virgin territory, which will have a lot to do with the speeding up of the development of the mineral areas of the north. In the forest patrol, over 61 million acres were regularly patrolled. One hundred and six fires were reported and action taken, in cooperation with the ground forces, for their suppression. We have had one air patrol now for seven years along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and during the whole of that time not one single fire has got out of hand-(applause)-whereas previously there were several disastrous fires each year, and I do not need to remind this audience of what those forest fires along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains mean. It is on them, and the conservation of water there, that the fertility of the prairie wheat-growing areas almost entirely depends. I believe that not the least benefit that comes to us from this civil work of our Royal Canadian

Air Force is that our personnel are thrown into contact with the everyday problems of the community, and that they are given an opportunity to take some action that is of constructive benefit in their solution, and they are taught to measure their value in dollars and cents and to realize the value of their efficiency. In ordinary military work dollars and cents are not the measure, but human life. Of course I do not wish to be misinterpreted in what I have said about the air, by anyone assuming that I think all air operations should be under our Department. Quite the contrary. We hope to continually use our Air Force, as we have done in the last few years, for the purpose of developing and pioneering in the air, and when we get it to a certain point we hope that with the data that we have been able to get together, that the Provinces or civilian companies will take hold of this work and push it further, and let us get on to other work. Also the role which 1 think belongs to the Air Force is the training of a supply of personnel for the air, not only for ourselves, but for civil concerns as well, and I hope in the course of time we shall see a large development along that line. At the present moment we are training a number of people that we are turning over to civil aviation, though our facilities are not anything like adequate to meet the demand. We have a small course at Borden this summer, but the applications are four or five times the number of vacancies we have to offer. It has been almost impossible to keep pace with the demand of civil concerns. I hope the time will not be far distant when we can say we can train in Canada a sufficient number of young Canadians for Canadian flying purposes, all around. (Applause.) That training that we give is not confined to officers but we are trying also to develop a system of training for the air mechanics. That has been worked out in the closest cooperation with the technical schools. We take boys during their summer vacations and add a side of training work which cannot be done any place except at a central institution. Not the least of the advantages of that type of training, where we pick candidates from different provinces, is that we bring those boys together at a central place during the impressionable years, and give them a chance to rub shoulders and exchange views. I believe those courses have an important national influence on Canada, bringing the extremes together and rubbing off the corners.

I have considered the air service rather sketchily; the other line on which I told you we were not sufficiently provided, was radio. So the Department has had to take a special interest in the development of radio telegraphic service in this country. When the Department of National Defence was organized in 1923, all the radio communication for the air forces in their forestry work naturally fell to the lot of our forest signallers to carry out. Shortly after that there developed a need in the north country for radio communication in the Yukon Territory and down the Mackenzie, and after some negotiation and a bit of misgiving on the part of other Departments, eventually that work also was assigned to the signallers. Today if you look at a radio map you will find that little corps of the permanent force maintains radio communication from Edmonton to Simpson, to Quebec, to Herschell Island, to Dawson and twenty or thirty other places in the north, country, and already that service is beginning to pay in revenue, and a substantial amount of its cost in upkeep. We have had nothing but the most friendly comment on the work which that military organization has been able to do.

For the Air Service we have another system of radio communication, extending clear across from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and that system is helping tremendously with the spread of meteorological reports, and I have been told by meterological observers, both here, and United States people with whom we exchange information, that for that ground alone, the extra precision of the daily meteorological report, the expenditure on our northern stations was justified many times over. So that today as a result of the practical work which they have embarked on, we have a small corps of signallers whose proud boast it is that it has installed, designed, and operated this complete network of stations covering the whole of Canada. (Applause.)

In the time at my disposal today I have been able only to sketch briefly some of the many activities in which the Department of National Defence is engaged, but I hope I have said enough so that people will realize that the attitude of that Department is not militaristic in the usual sense of the word, but that it is inspired by the desire to serve this country in every way in its power. (Applause.)

The thanks of the Club were tendered to the speaker by Col. Alexander Fraser.