The Rape of Norway

A Joint Meeting of the Empire Club of Canada and the Canadian Club was held in the Royal York Hotel, Toronto, on Monday, January 13, 1941. Mr. R. A. Courtice, President of the Canadian Club, presided.

MR. R. A. COURTICE Your Honour, Your Royal Highness, Your Worship and Gentlemen: Great Britain now is not alone in fighting the battle for freedom. She' has been encouraged and aided by the ever-increasing active support of her voluntary Allies. The response of Norway, with her great merchant fleet and her Navy, and the reorganization of her Land Force in Scotland and her Air Force in Canada has been inspiring. Today we salute Norway in our welcome to a most distinguished visitor to Toronto. His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Olav of Norway.

The Royal Norwegian and British families are closely related. Prince Olav is a first cousin of His Majesty, King George VI, his mother, the late Queen Maude, being a sister of King George V. Prince Olav is here to inspect the Royal Norwegian Air Force unit. We have become very attached to these men at Little Norway, under the command of Captain Riiser-Larsen, and are proud to have them with us.

Prince Olav is a graduate of Oxford and in addition to being very popular with his own countrymen, he is known internationally as an accomplished skier and yachtsman. He was with the Norwegian Army during the invasion of his country, having the rank of General. Subsequently, with his father, King Haakon, pursued by the Germans, he made a thrilling escape to England where the Norwegian Government has been carrying on the struggle to liberate Norway through an Allied victory.

Gentlemen, it is my great pleasure and my great honour to introduce to you His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince of Norway. (Lour cheers--the audience standing.)

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS CROWN PRINCE OLAV OF NORWAY: Mr. Chairman, Your Honour, Mr. Mayor, Gentlemen: First of all, I want to express my sincerest thanks for the very kind reception you have given me, and for the very kind words with which I was introduced by your Chairman.

It is indeed a pleasure for me to have this opportunity of seeing so many men, so many citizens of Toronto, as the Canadian Club and the Empire Club have given me this opportunity to meet. I am very glad to be able to say a few words to you. I have been asked by your Chairman to say a few words about the development of the war in Norway and a few remarks on what happened after it was necessary for my father, my Government and myself to leave the country, until I eventually, arrived here in Canada to inspect the Norwegian Air Force in training in the camp of Little Norway in this city.

I am afraid that a great deal of what I am going to tell you, you know more or less beforehand, but I pray for forgiveness for that. As you all know, the attack on Norway started very unexpectedly from our point of view. We knew nothing definite. We had no warning of any kind and the complete surprise by which we were all taken I think proves our innocence in any hobnobbing or wanting to go to war, which has been claimed by our enemies, after we had to retreat from our capital, and later on after retreating from our country.

In the evening broadcast on the 8th of April I heard in a news item that there was a concentration of German troops on the Danish frontiers, and that there were a number of transport ships lying in the southern part of the Baltic, south of the Danish Islands, and that was all that was said in that bulletin. The Danish bulletins at that time started at a quarter past seven, and the Norwegian bulletins started at seven. The result was the Norwegian bulletin was usually over at seven-fifteen when the other started, and because of the report of the concentration on the Danish Frontier I decided I would like to hear if the Danish Press Agencies knew a little more than the Norwegian Press Agency, and I switched on to the Danish broadcast. They said nothing. This is very interesting. They said nothing about the troop concentration against the Danish frontier, but they did say something which hadn't been on the Norwegian news, for some unknown reason, which was very important, to my mind. That was that a German ship with a lot of men on board and a certain number of horses on board had been torpedoed south of Kristiansand. I thought this was strange. The Germans don't do irrational things and I didn't think they started bringing horses out in transports just to give them air. I thought this was very suspicious. I was at home with my family and I tried through various people to see if they had heard anything about it, if they had any confirmation about this. I got in touch with some people. Some had heard it, some had not. That was all that I heard.

I said to my wife, "I am afraid something is going to happen. It may happen to-night." We decided to get things a little ready, straightened out at home, and that sort of thing, and after we had done a certain number of these things we went to bed in the usual way. There was nothing new about the situation in the last news at a quarter past ten. At about half-past twelve in the morning the telephone rang and I was informed that the Oslofjord had been engaged with ships. They didn't know what nationality they were but they were engaging them and were trying to stop a big fleet of transport ships from coming up the fjord.

Well, that was very bad news. Of course, we decided we had to get ready to move away or be ready so we could move away if necessary at very short notice, but an hour later the telephone rang and told us some ships had gone past the other ports and were working their way further up the fjords. They were then identified as German ships. We then decided that we really had to get our home in order, pack a few clothes and get ready to move off, because if the ships could force their way up, obviously we couldn't stay where we were.

But an hour later again the King telephoned to me and said it had been decided that His Majesty, the Government, the Norwegian Parliament and as many high permanent officials as they could get, should move out of the town with a train that left at a quarter past seven in the morning. There had been received at four o'clock an ultimatum from Germany which they wanted us to consider and decide on, and the only way they would be able to do that in reasonable peace was to evacuate directly from the capital, straight away.'

Well, my family and I went into town and took the train, after going up and seeing my father, and we all went off together on our way to a small town in central Norway. I think it was about one hundred and fifty miles from Oslo-as far as I remember the figures. That railway passes by the military training aerodrome, which was not very far away from me on the way up, and it takes about twenty minutes by train from the main station in Oslo to get up to the flying field. When we got up there the Germans started bombing the flying field, and the train was stopped. Everybody got out of the train and we went down into the subways under the rails and there we were having a first rate view of the aeroplanes coming over and trying to burn up the aerodrome. There were a few aircraft and machines and they were firing and were fired at from the German planes.

After about an hour of this there was a lull in the operations and they decided we couldn't stay there all day--we had to get the train out. We got the train away and arrived at Hamar in due time. The Germans bombed the aerodrome and left the train completely in peace which was most lucky for us.

A meeting of the Parliament was arranged to debate the question of what should be done about the German ultimatum that was sent in. It was obvious the ultimatum was such as inspired the German Army and Navy to attack Norway, but we had to see what form of resistance to take. We did have a little idea of what the situation really was. When we got up there we were told that Quisling had started a government of his own in Oslo. That was extremely strange to us, and it was quite obvious that this would mean' an awful lot of trouble and an awful lot of misunderstanding, because of the fact he called his government "the Government" and used the titles of the various Cabinet Ministers. In other words, he sent out orders in the name of the Minister of Defence-telegrams signed by the Foreign Minister, the Prime Minister or the Minister of War, and that caused an awful lot of uncertainty in the first few days before that got straightened out.

Anyhow, it was revealed that the Germans were forcing their way up to Oslo. They had not yet landed any troops there. The fortresses in the narrowest parts of the fjord kept the Germans out. They had sunk at least one and possibly two big ships, and those ships had gone through up to the capital. The German Air Force had machine-gunned the streets of Oslo and bombed the anti-aircraft batteries, and were threatening to take the airport of Oslo, which is somewhere outside the town-not the bigger one which is at the same time a commercial air field. That was Oslo.

There had been attacks on Kristiansand, which is the biggest town in the southern part of Norway. There had been some bombing, a good deal of the time, of the batteries around about the town. There was also an aerodrome somewhere outside of the town that had been captured from the air, and ships had forced their way into the undefended harbour after resistance from the destroyer that was stationed at that port. The defences at the harbour of Bergen were pretty old and had not been organized properly. There was just at that time very small garrisons, and they were changed after a certain period. You can't have one garrison in the whole time, you have got to change them. This was a period of changing and the result was the forts of Bergen Harbour were less heavily manned than they should have been, which meant that they could man their guns but they could not at the same time keep up any real protection if troops led in behind them had to choose between manning guns or fighting the infantry troops that came up after them. The Germans succeeded in forcing their way to the front of the batteries and landed troops behind the fort, and that broke the resistance of the main Bergen Fort. The other forts in time had to give up in the same way.

Trondhjem had one small fort, a system of fortresses in the mouth of the fjord. They got a very short range of fire up there because of the lay of the land. Their ships got through the narrows there very quickly, and when they once got through there is nothing that could be done about it. They came in and forced their way through very unexpectedly, as they did everywhere else. The result was that when we arrived at Hamar at about twelve o'clock, the four busiest towns in the country were practically in German hands-the capital, also Bergen, Trondhjemand a little later we got reports that also Narvik had been captured by the Germans. This was indeed very serious and very sad for us all. It was very serious, apart from the military point of view, but also very serious for the reason that all our big radio stations were stationed along the side of our biggest towns. The result was when they got the towns they also got all the main radio systems of the country and it was very difficult for the Government and for Parliament to give out any orders or any information of any sort that could really reach the people and tell them what were their orders and what were Parliament's decisions and expectations:

I don't think anyone who hasn't experienced it can really understand what it means not to be able to get into communication with anybody for about thirty-six hours. It was quite impossible for us to get into any proper communication with anybody in any of the various parts of the country, in the main cities of the various provinces of Norway.

In spite of this, Parliament decided that Norway would resist the invasion of their territory and if possible try and drive the enemy out again. The order for general mobilization that was given out or had been given out in the early morning was cancelled by the German-controlled wireless stations, but was repeated by what means the Government had and I think very soon every one understood that it was the desire of the Parliament, the Government, to fight and try to throw the Germans back into the sea, where they came from.

While Parliament was meeting we got word saying that busses full of German troops were on their way up to try and stop the proceedings of Parliament, and of the Government, and arrest them and take them prisoners. Therefore, the meeting had to be broken off and the whole Parliament, the Government, the King, my family, all moved on to a small place called Elverum which is about twenty-five miles farther east. We went over from one main valley to another there. The result was it took time before the Germans could find out which way we were going and it gave us a little more time to discuss these matters which were of great importance, also, of course, not only of practical importance, but also very great political importance. As yet there was no formal decision on what the official attitude of Norway at that time was.

Elverum was also a regimental headquarters and there were stationed there two companies of guards and a few military assistants--batmen, cooks, and so forth--in connection with a rifle range course for officers and non-commissioned officers. That was just over. We got there, and there our Parliament decided-out of one hundred and fifty members, one hundred and forty-nine were present, and of those present one hundred and forty-eight voted to give the Government all necessary powers to continue the war against Germany and to at all costs retain the Government's independence, even if it meant having to temporarily evacuate into another country. (Applause.)

After this decision was made, Parliament dissolved itself and it was considered that it was impossible to keep any regular parliamentary meetings under the conditions as they were in the country at that time. The Norwegian Government, therefore has power from its last meeting as a free Parliament to carry on the maintenance of Norwegian independence and integrity by all those means that it sees fit, and with that one aim of regaining the integrity and the freedom of Norwegian territory and giving the political sovereignty of Norway back to the free people of Norway. (Applause.)

To achieve this it was necessary to keep the Government of the King in being. In other words, it was necessary to keep him away from the direct influence of the German arms. We had to get in such a position that we could not be taken prisoners by any stray raid that might occur. I say a raid, meaning a raid made by motor cars, tanks and so on.

We had settled down in a small village just east of Elverum where the Government met and discussed in what way we could best conduct the war and the administration of the country in this unprecedented calamity that had come over it.

While we were there the German Minister asked for an interview with His Majesty, with the Foreign Minister and with a small Committee of Members of the Parliament. This was granted and the King went back to Elverum by car. It is not very far. He met the German Minister and he again put forward exactly the same claims as had been put forward to the Government previously-that was the day before, the 9th of April, at four o'clock in the morning, and repeated, possibly two or three hours after the German ships had actually entered Norwegian waters and were engaged in action with the Norwegian coastal batteries and men-of-war. These claims were exactly the same claims that Parliament had decided not to discuss the day before, so the whole outcome of that meeting was that the King had to say that as a Constitutional Monarch he had to confer with his Government and act according to the will of the Parliament and Government as the representatives of the Norwegian people.

The German Minister went back to Oslo, and the next day a representative came up and asked to see the King again and was then brought up to this small village where we were staying. He came again with new demands, or rather the same demands worded a little differently. There was one difference, that the King could choose his own Government, except that he had to have the Prime Minister that Mr. Hitler wanted. Apart from that they were quite willing to let him have any other person in the Government. He said he had to take the Government list submitted to him by the German Minister. That, of course, again had to be rejected.

Then that afternoon-this was the 11th of April-this little village, which consisted of I think about twenty houses in all, a general store or two, a school, a small hotel, a telephone exchange and a couple of farm buildings, quite close to a crossroads, this small place in which there were no services of any sort and in which the only military objective could be the King and his Government, was bombed by five, at least, possibly eight, German bombers, for one and a quarter hours. The first bombs were incendiaries, high explosive bombs, and afterwards the people were shot at by machine-guns. The population, the Government, the King and myself were then in the woods, taking the protection we could get, and we saw the planes quite plainly coming down over us, dropping their bombs and shooting their machine-guns against these small woods in which we were lying. Luckily, no one was, as far as we were able to find out, killed in that bombing attack. Five, possibly six houses were completely burned but all the inhabitants had left them before the bombs started dropping. One man, I know, was wounded by stones that flew up after the explosion from a high explosive bomb, and I was told that a small child had been hit likewise, but nobody had been killed or seriously injured in that raid.

Later on, very much later, there was shot down a plane in Northern Norway, and the airman's guide was found, in which it was said he had written clown his orders for a certain date and the instructions were "Go to Hamar, where the Norwegian King and Government are. Destroy everything." That was the report. I have never been able to find out--I haven't seen the book myself. Anyway that showed it was not an accident that they did this, and we felt very strongly that this was no accident and that it was necessary to keep with great secrecy where the King and Government were if we were to be able to perform those functions which are necessary for a Government and for the head of the State that has to govern and administrate the country's effort, either in war or in peace.

We got ourselves out of the village by cars and we went down where we were behind the front line which had been organized by the spare troops that could get together from the southern part of the country. Because the Germans had seized all the big towns, they were also in possession of all the mobilization places and the most of the depots of the great majority of our various regiments, such as they were. But inside the country, in the southeast, the regiments that belonged there were able to mobilize their battalions, more or less according to plan and they received, of course, any number of volunteers from other parts of the country that came up. There were men, for instance, that came from Oslo, that came through the woods on skis. Some had their rifles, some had no rifles at all. They had forgotten their rifles but they had organized themselves into small bands which grouped themselves into companies, and into battalions, and eventually were organized into the bigger units.

There was great disorder and there were great difficulties in the resistance in South Norway, especially in the beginning of the period. The whole of the south eastern part of Norway was just in the end of winter and you here in Canada know what that means. There was no snow on the roads, and a lot of snow in the woods; there was no snow on the high ground, and snow on the low ground. This greatly increased the problems of transport. You can't use wheels outside of the main roads and you can't use sleighs on the main roads. All these things tended to make a tremendous amount of trouble for these various units as they started their fight.

We were all very pleased when we were told that the British and the French were starting landing troops in the various parts of Central Norway. As time went on these troops came down and the resistance started to grow and we thought that things were looking more hopeful and on the whole, more satisfactory.

Then the Germans started their big air attacks and it became quite obvious as time went on that we couldn't keep any bases without air protection, and air protection was what we couldn't get, because there were no air fields in that part of the country where the initial attack was made. The air fields of any size had all been seized by the Germans on the first day, with the exception of one.

We passed through the Gudbrandsdal Valley, north, up to the small town of Molde, on the other side of the fjord. It is quite a way over there. There we settled clown for about a week to work on the organization and administration of the country, to get things settled and get the general run of the country in some sort of order again.

The Germans bombed the small town of Kristiansand, which is of no military consequence at all. There were no soldiers there and there were no ships there of any sort of military value. The little town got completely burned down and I saw the statistics only the other clay. There are still eleven thousand people who are homeless in that whole town, which I don't think had more than fifteen thousand inhabitants when the war started.

Molde, of course, was one of the bases. First of all, it was the resident city of the Government at that time. Then there was a British naval base, and to a certain ex tent was what we call a military objective in as much as it was the seat of administration. This town was bombed for two days but fortunately it had been evacuated.

The Germans burned out that city very effectively. That was due to the fact that there was very small fire service and the water works were put out of action before the main bombing attack started. I think in these small towns in Norway we did not have more than about a dozen or so firemen and a dozen or so firemen can do no good with twelve big fires starting at once, and even if the ordinary man in the street tries to do something about it, it is impossible without any proper material. In many of these towns the organization of the civilian defence had not been worked up to the high standard that is necessary if you are going to fight fires such as those started by enemy aircraft in a moment of war. We have seen that later on.We have seen that in England.We first saw it in France and Belgium, where it didn't succeed.We have seen how it can be controlled in Great Britain, even if it can at first be very destructive. Because of their organization they have been able to keep them within reason and get them put out before they do too great damage and before they do any vital damage to the various communities in which they have been started.

Well, we left by a British cruiser and went up to Bodo, which as you know is in the northern part of Norway. It is south of Narvik. Great Britain had already built a naval base, and French and British troops had landed there, apart from the Royal Navy, and there we had an aerodrome which was covered with snow but had been cleared by the ordinary labour gangs up there. They were mobilized and told to start at it, and the Royal Air Force established up there a proper air base.

We also had quite a number of those fliers that are here now in Toronto stationed up there. They got themselves up, eventually, starting in the south with old machines which were not capable of fighting in straight fights with the German bombers or fighters, but they managed somehow to get themselves up. They bombed German concentrations when they could and they collected up in the north where they had time to organize and partly refit.

In Northern Norway things were very much different than they had been in the south. First of all the northern division had been mobilized during the Finnish-Russian war, and the men had all been in service quite recently and had clone quite a long time of winter training in consequence of that. Also, the German forces in Narvik were very much hampered by the weather and they couldn't attack the northern part before the first Battalions, the Sixth Division, which is a northern Division was ready for them, and could stop them. That Division got itself in order and started to drive back the Germans as a preliminary to the taking of Narvik and the freeing of that part of the country from the German invaders.

As time went on the French and the Polish troops were landed, in co-operation with the Royal Navy, and assisted by the Royal Air Force, they forced the first landing north of Narvik, on the north of the fjord at Narvik, and cleared up. They worked in close cooperation with the Norwegian troops advancing from the north toward that part of the country. That drove the Germans toward the Swedish frontier and on the north of the fjord which goes in just north of Narvik. I am afraid this is not very clear but when you haven't got a map it is very difficult to give a clear explanation of the lay of the land. Narvik is a small town with a very big harbour and with good facilities for landing. At that point the Swedish side of the frontier is forty miles away as the crow flies, and you come clown by railway to the sea which is the port of Narvik, and they load the ships there very much the same as you do at Duluth and the end of Lake Superior. It is run very much on the same lines. I went there and saw their facilities for loading up ships that were going out on the Great Lakes in 1939 when I visited the United States, and it is very much on the same lines as the harbour of Narvik.

To save time for transports, Narvik is erected on a mass that sticks out into a place where four fjords meet. The one big main fjord comes in and splits into three arms, one going back practically due east; one, roughly, south; and one, roughly, north.

The Germans were originally landed at Narvik and ferried themselves across the fjord to the north and tried to get to the mobilization ground of the Norwegian Sixth Division, which is the northern one. This, however, was not successful, and they were driven back there.

The French were landed on the north side of the fjord and south of the Germans there, and were fighting with the Norwegian troops, fighting from the north, and were therefore driven eastward. That is, north of the main fjord running east and west toward the Swedish border.

Some time later an attack was made on Narvik itself by French--mostly by French and Norwegian troops. That attack was successful, and we drove the Germans out of the town and up along the railway, also eastward toward Sweden.

On the whole the operations around about Narvik were very satisfactory, and the air base just a little further north was getting in good shape, and things were looking quite satisfactory in many ways. We were keeping the German bombers away, that is the fighter squadrons that had come up.

Now, of course, it was about the end of May and the news from the continent proper was not getting very hopeful, it was not very good. It was a great disappointment to us all when the word came that we had to abandon or rather that the Allied troops had to abandon their assistance in the campaign in Norway and they also had to take with them their air squadrons that were stationed at the airport up there. It was obvious without air support and having very little ammunition left, that it was quite impossible to carry on the fight single handed, especially against the German Air Force. We therefore had to decide whether we were going to throw in the sponge or continue the fight from outside Norwegian territory. After thorough thought and contemplation and in full understanding with the original directions given by Parliament, we decided that the correct thing to do would be to evacuate Norway completely and establish ourselves in England and carry on our struggle for independence from a new base. (Applause.)

The decision, of course, was not an easy one. We knew well what we were doing, how difficult it would be for us all to leave our own country and have to start, so to say, afresh. We brought over (when I say "we", I mean the King, the Government and myself) a certain number of the civil servants to form the centre organization. We brought over what we could, what was left of the Norwegian Royal Navy, some few volunteers from the Army and what we could get away of our Air Force personnel.

We then settled down in England, originally in London, where we were very well assisted in every way by the British Government, to try and reorganize our resistance and partake in the general war against Germany and German aggression.

We arrived in London the same day as the final evacuation of Dunkerque was over, and things were not looking too bright, but the fact that Britain had succeeded in bringing out so many men from Dunkerque gave us all great hope for the future, in spite of how dark and how black things at that time seemed.(Applause.)

After we got to England we had to start the reorganization of our armed forces and continue the administration of what was left of Norway, which was at that time our merchant fleet, and those good Norwegian citizens and our friends which were in residence outside of Norway proper. We were well aware in what we had seen and what we had left that everyone in Norway, while fighting lasted, knew that it was necessary to fight, and that resistance had to be carried on as long as possible and to be continued if Norway were ever to regain her freedom and independence. Therefore, we tried to re-establish an Army. Navy and Air Force. Naval ratings and ships had come across earlier from other parts of Norway, being driven out and being unable to get back to their bases, they had gone across the North Sea and collected in various harbours in Great Britain.

Certain armies that had been disbanded tried to get themselves up to the north but had to give it up. Some of those had gone across too, in small boats and some in larger boats, and when we arrived in England they had already started in a small way the reconstruction of a Norwegian Army and a Norwegian Navy. The Air Force was at that time completely without material. They had no aeroplanes left, but we had ordered in the United States, long before our war started, planes and bombers and seaplane bombers which should be delivered to branches of the Norwegian Air Force as soon as possible. Of course, with the general disorganization there was at that time it took some time before these contracts could be straightened out and permission gained from the United States to get them transferred, instead of being shipped to Norway, which was impossible, having them shipped to Canada instead, and the organization of a camp commenced here for the continuation of the training of our air men and for the training of new air men which we hoped to recruit and develop.

There is at this time in Norway a small army group. There are quite a number of various small craft, destroyers, submarines, submarine chasers, and other craft, which are flying the flag of the Royal Norwegian Navy. They are partaking with the Royal Navy in the watching and trying to stop the submarine menace which is one of the problems of this war. Our great, our real asset to the Allied cause, of course, is our merchant navy, which consists of nearly four million tons and about thirty thousand men. (Applause.) Over 80 per cent of the original fleet is outside Norwegian waters today and they are all employed through the agency of the Norwegian Government to the best purpose which they can be placed; partly, directly in the war effort, and partly in maintaining their usual work of being carriers of world trade.

From these sources the Norwegian Government has been able to pay for all their material, pay their personnel and pay for loans in foreign currency, for governmental loans and city and county loans which have been taken up in foreign currency, that is in bonds and in dollars, American or Canadian. (Applause.)

It is quite obvious that the Norwegian Government still exists, both legally and in fact as a paying concern. It is able to pay its own way and it is able to meet all its obligations and it is honestly partaking in the effort that we all partake in, that all here present are partaking in, in driving back the forces of Naziism.

I have been asked by many people, both by journalists and by others if I believe that the British Empire and her Allies will win the war. I have always been able to answer perfectly frankly, that I have seen the British, the ordinary Britisher under the bombardment of London and I have talked to them afterward and I have seen the fighting spirit of the fighting forces. I have seen the work done by the various volunteer services, the fire services, etcetera, and I will gladly say again, that it is my full conviction that if we all do what we can and what we ought to do in thorough co-operation and never forget our goal, we will undoubtedly be victorious in this great fight between the movement for domination of the few, and the government for the people by the people. (Prolonged applause.) I believe definitely that in the long run a free people, knowing definitely what they are fighting for and why they have to fight, are a much better material of which to make a fighting nation than a people who are driven to do what they are told, without any questioning and without any chance of expressing their own views, and being quite refused any participation in their own government for their own good. I do not think it is possible for anyone to be a complete organizer of everybody's welfare, their labour and amusements. It is quite impossible. A system, as I see it, like the Nazi system is built on brute force and it has worked its way to its present position with trickery, in a way that to my mind, at least, cannot possibly last, and I feel sure it will not last.(Applause.)

Gentlemen, I am afraid I have taken up a great deal too much of your time and I will end now by saying, as I began, that I am very thankful for having this opportunity of seeing so many of you and giving you a few words about what I have seen and what I have been thinking about in connection with this great struggle that we are all in the midst of today. I thank you, Gentlemen. (Applause--prolonged.)

MR. C. R. SANDERSON (First Vice-President of the Empire Club): Mr. Chairman, Your Honour, Your Royal Highness, Your Worship and Gentlemen: I think this has been a great day for the Canadian Club and for the Empire Club. It has been a great day for Toronto and for the whole countryside through which this broadcast has gone-that His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince of Norway, should have come to us to tell us in person something about his country, a country small, yet great, a country humble yet, as he has told us, so valiant. And I think, Sir, if I may venture to say so, this may be a good day for Norway. That so vast an audience of Canadians have come here to listen to you today, Your Highness, is proof not only of Canada's interest in your country, not only of Canada's sympathy with your country in this, her time of trouble, but Your Highness, I think you may take it that this great gathering is a token that Canada feels with you and believes with you that these troubles will pass, that these troubles shall pass, (applause) and, Sir, that the day will soon come when Norway will once more be re-established as an independent, sovereign, and free state.

Your Highness, we are much in your debt for taking time out of a very busy life to come here and talk to us. (Applause.)