CANADA'S WAR FINANCIERING.
Next, the story of how Canada is financing her share of the war, for it is a costly business. Three domestic war loans, totaling $450,000,000, were voluntarily subscribed, each in fact being doubly underwritten, and yet the savings of the people in the banks is (1917) the highest on record—over a billion and a quarter. Part of the war revenue is being raised by war taxes on letters, checks, legal documents and some articles of import. Happily the normal revenue of the country was never so large nor the trade of the Dominion so buoyant. All these factors are helping to carry the war burden.
The generosity of the people, under the heavy strain, was most marked. Many millions were given to the various war help funds, chiefly to the Red Cross and the Canadian Patriotic Fund, of 700 branches, which supplements the Government separation allowance to soldiers' dependents by other grants. Canada had, up to that time, by the way, the highest paid soldiery in the world, privates getting $33 a month.
It is interesting to note that there are several branches of the Canadian Patriotic Fund in the United States, which looked after the families and dependents of Americans who enlisted in the Canadian ranks.
Canadian total givings in cash and kind to their own, as well as to the Belgians, French, Servian, Armenian and other funds and Governmental grants of grain and provision, would represent a very much larger figure than that here mentioned.
The orders placed in Canada averaged $1,500,000 worth for every day in the year.
The women of Canada in every way render practical patriotic service. Hundreds of nurses were placed in overseas and home hospitals. The farmers' wives raised large sums of money as did the school children. Organizations of all kinds came into existence, not alone collecting money, but contributing vast quantities of war material and soldiers' comforts, and sending packages of food and clothing regularly to Canadian prisoners in German camps.
Still another war problem was the care of the returned wounded soldiers, and a serious problem it was. The procession of the disabled was a pathetic one. Military convalescent hospitals were set up in many centres, in addition to the opening of private homes for the same beneficent purpose.
CANADA PART OF AMERICA.
Canada may be an English possession, but to us it is part of America, and certainly no two countries have rested side by side in greater friendship than the "Dominion" and the United States. You can find no great fortifications along the 3000 odd miles of border between Canada and the United States. The countries have lived in peace and harmony and together, or side by side they have battled for peace on the fields of Flanders.