One of the thorniest problems of the Prime Ministers of Canada, Australia and South Africa is internal opposition to sending conscripted soldiers beyond national boundaries. Each country has the right to conscript soldiers for home defense, but relies on volunteers for overseas forces. Each Prime Minister is proud of the number who volunteer, but each knows how the restrictions, growing out of nationalism and past quarrels with Britain, handicap the war effort.
After a national plebiscite Canada's William Lyon Mackenzie King took the power, through an order-in-council, to send conscripts abroad—but has not...