THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE EDITORIAL COMMITTEE OF THE ACADEMIC SENATE MR. MORSE A. CARTWRIGHT General Editor THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE publishes contributed articles, the chief addresses of general interest delivered at the University from time to time by distinguished visitors, and also as many as possible of the public addresses delivered at home or abroad by members of the faculty. Papers upon all subjects are admitted to its pages, provided the manner of their presentation is such as arouses general rather than technical interest. Each number contains also the UNIVERSITY RECORD, which presents in brief the annals of the University for the quarteryear preceding each issue of the magazine. Issued quarterly, in January, April, July, and October SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, ONE DOLLAR A YEAR Foreign postage, twenty cents a year additional Subscriptions should be addressed to UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY 1918 VOL. XX APRIL, 1918 CANADA AT WAR THOMAS FORSYTH HUNT No. 2 It was my privilege to spend the latter half of October in Canada in order to determine if possible what happens to a people and its agriculture during three years of war. I will relate a few of the observations which I made. As you read I ask you to note that I am reporting as an historian. If you arrive at any conclusions from the facts stated, please remember they are your conclusions, not mine. THE RETURNED SOLDIER Naturally one obtains information in these times, whether in another or his own country, which he does not deem in the interest of the common welfare to repeat, least of all in public. With this thought in mind I have hesitated about referring to the returned soldier. I have overcome this hesitation, however, because it is a subject that this country will eventually have to face, and some thought given to it before it is upon us seems desirable. I had hardly set foot on Canadian soil when a man said to me, "Our problem is the problem of the returned soldier." "What!" I said. He repeated slowly, "Our problem is the problem of the returned soldier." "Why," I replied, "we have not thought of such a thing. We are trying to get soldiers 'over there.'" "Yes, I know," he said, "but you will later." Two days later a man remarked: "The problem of the returned soldier is some problem." "In what way?" 'To keep them satisfied," was the reply. A week later a college president remarked, "Your Grand Army of the Republic was nothing to what our Great War Veterans will be." Already large numbers of soldiers have been invalided home. Local returned-soldiers' clubs have been formed as a part of the Great War veteran associations. They nominate candidates for municipal and other offices on platforms of their own making. They pass extended resolutions, perhaps because time hangs heavily on their hands. A prominent candidate for office has announced that he will, if elected, favor doubling the returned soldiers' allowance, this promise frankly made as a bid for votes. A Canadian soldier receives $1.10 per day. If he is married he is expected to turn over $20.00 per month to his wife. The wife also receives an allowance from the government of $20.00 and $5.00 additional for each child. Many of the first soldiers to go to the war were married while many others married immediately before or after enlisting. Many of these women now have children. It was explained that many a married woman had more money after her husband enlisted than she ever had before and she did not have the expense or trouble of boarding him. In discussing the new draft plan, it was further pointed out that when a married man is killed the government must continue to support the wife as long as she lives, while if an unmarried man is killed the government's obligation ceases. Perhaps the point of view of some of the "stay-at-homes" is tinged by the feeling that during the present generation preferment, both public and private, wherever possible will go to the man who went "over there" to save his country. The returned soldier has another side. It is a very, very sad side. It would be difficult under any circumstances to present the matter adequately but especially so within the limits of this article. It would perhaps give the wrong impression to assert that many of these men have become mentally as well as physically unfit. It is perhaps better to say that some of them have not yet recovered their mental oise sufficiently to become useful members of society. Judgig by what one hears and sees in Canada, trench warfare is hell raised to the nth power. Shell-shock has even greater mental than physical horrors. The associations formed all over Canada are thus the worst thing that could possibly happen because, instead of leading the men into a new life and a new attitude of mind, it keeps them rehearsing the war scenes. There is just one possible rift in this cloud. The soldiers that have thus far been returned probably represent the most hopeless cases. It seems reasonable to suppose that when the main body of soldiers returns, the situation will be vastly different. For the sake of Canada's sons and for the sake of our own also, let us pray it may be so. In the meantime Canada can be depended upon not to forget that the returned soldier deserves every consideration a generous-hearted nation can give him. Indeed she is making vast preparations to receive the returned men. Hospitals are being erected to receive the invalided. Special curricula are being prepared for the reëducation particularly of the physically unfit and a vast land settlement scheme has already been approved to provide for those who are without employment and have a taste for rural life. RE-EDUCATION OF THE SOLDIER In October, the President of the University of Alberta had just returned from England and France where he had gone under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A. to prepare an educational program for the demobilized soldiers. As President Tory puts it, "to save the intellectual elements of the army." Men's lives have been so intensive that they have forgotten that they ever knew Euclid. Put under the proper surroundings, the lost knowledge would return. The con stant fear of the soldier is that he must take a lower walk in life than he has been accustomed. Out of 1860 men examined, 1370 stated they desire to pursue some form of education after the war is over. Of this number 600 desired training in agriculture, while a similar number stated a preference for engineering. Dr. Tory believes it will be possible at some camp in England to provide intensive training or formal instruction to 40,000 and to provide popular lectures for 100,000 additional men. The professors of the universities of Canada will be called upon, as well as officers of the army who were formerly in the faculties of those institutions. The plan has governmental approval and Dr. Tory is now probably in England working out a skeleton organization and developing the curricula. It is estimated that this salvage can be accomplished for one million dollars the cost to Canada of one day's war, and that it will be easily worth ten millions to the country. LAND SETTLEMENT Canada has passed a law that any returning soldier may have, in addition to the usual homestead right, an allotment of 160 acres of land and a government loan of $2500.00 without any other security than the fact that he is a returned soldier. In the three prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, there are ten million acres of available Dominion land within ten miles of a railroad, fifteen million acres within fifteen miles, twenty million acres within twenty miles, and two hundred and seventy million acres over twenty miles from a railroad. However, there is not full agreement as to the plan just outlined. The Minister of Agriculture of Alberta favors issuing bonds and purchasing railroad lands near railroads. He would sell the land to returned soldiers, provided they were previously farmers or farm-bred, on a 30-year amortized payment plan. He deems it better to locate these people close to a railroad than to try to colonize a wholly new country where there must be de |