In the House of Commons at Ottawa, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, pink of face and neatly dressed in brown, rose beside his front bench last week with some news for the whole world. Canada and the U.S., he announced, have agreed to continue their wartime military collaboration in peacetime.
The Prime Minister was careful to state that this is no "treaty" or "contractual obligation." Either nation can stop the collaboration at any time. It is only a "working arrangement," a bilateral declaration of principles intended to clear the air of wild rumors about U.S.-Canadian military intentions in the...