Chapter Four
Conscription and Politics, 1919–1939
“It is not the Canada I expected it to be,” General Sir Arthur Currie
wrote on his return to Canada in 1919. “I came back from the war
feeling that all the suffering and sacrifice must have meant something.
But I found, as others have done, that there was little change.... Men
were fighting for the dollar in the same persistent way. There seemed
to be little difference in the viewpoint towards life, little indication of
any growth in national spirit and very little appreciation of the world
situation and its attendant problems. ...”
1
The General Officer Com-
manding the Canadian Corps was undoubtedly correct. There was no
change in the basic attitudes of businessmen, politicians, or thepublic
at large. Only the troopers who had returned from France and Flanders
were different. With many this change was readily apparent in missing
limbs, blinded eyes, or seared lungs. With others it was less noticeable
until the returned men began to talk. The bitterness was deep and gen-
uine, a detestation of all politicians, a passionate loathing for all who
had not shared the hell at the front, a hatred of all things military. As
late as 1935 one returned man wrote: “The majority of those of us who
fought—a not inconsiderable body—sum up their experiences in two
words, ‘Never again.’”
2
Such attitudes were important and long-lived, and they played a
crucial part in shaping the course of the simmering controversy over
conscription between the two wars. This is not to suggest that con-
scription was a vital issue from 1919 to 1939. It had its proponents
among the officers of the tiny Permanent Force, in the militia, and in
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