Canada at War: EXTERNAL AFFAIRS: The Will and the Power

Major (no title) James Coldwell, leader of the CCF, usually sees eye-to-eye with Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King on foreign policy. In New York City last week Socialist Coldwell voiced a Canadian criticism of the Dumbarton Oaks formula for a world security league. The stronger secondary nations, like Canada, said Mr. Coldwell, should have better representation on the proposed world council.

He was not the only one who thought so. From Washington, New York Timesman James B. Reston reported that Canada had already prepared recommendations to alter the Dumbarton Oaks formula. As that formula now stands, all peace-loving nations outside the Big Five are equally eligible for places on the Security Council. But in any future war Canada would obviously have to carry a heavier load than a nation like Panama. The Canadians, wrote Reston, were asking that representation on the Security Council, other than the Big Five, be restricted to countries with the will and power to put forces at the Council’s disposal. In Ottawa an official spokesman called Reporter Reston’s piece an “intelligent expansion” of Prime Minister King’s own ideas.