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Under the new order of things that Howe has labored to bring about, he himself is one of the few Canadians who can show no gain in his working and living conditions. Howe sold his profitable engineering business when he entered public service, giving up his $100,000-a-year salary and the dividends on his stock. In Ottawa, he earns $18,000 a year. He is still hard-pressed to find time for the conventional relaxations of a busy businessman—bridge (which he plays well enough to have partnered U.S. Expert Charles Goren), golf, which he plays unpredictably, ranging from 80 to 100 plus. He still gets up every morning at 7 o'clock for tea and an hour with the newspapers and government reports. On the dot of 9 he is at his desk, in a nondescript "temporary" frame building, thrown together for office space early in World War II.
Toughest Job? After girding his country for war, then converting it to peacetime production, C. D. Howe is now tackling a new assignment. Named chief of defense production after the Korean outbreak, he is in full charge of placing contracts and speeding the fulfillment of orders for Canada's threeyear, $5 billion defense program. Howe is the only World War II production boss still on the job in any allied country. But even with the backlog of his hardbought wartime experience, the new job shapes up as the toughest of all his tasks.
Because of Canada's vastly increased industrial strength and the depletion of their own reserves in the war, her allies are depending on her more heavily than ever. The U.S. and Canada have signed a joint defense agreement tightly meshing the two countries' war production. Canada's geography, her new industrial plant and her natural resources make her the indispensable ally for the U.S.
The free nations overseas also look to thriving Canada for assistance. She is the only member besides the U.S. who can pay her own way and help the other eleven countries of the North Atlantic alliance. Canada has already shipped $1454 million worth of arms to NATO allies and has sent troops to Korea and Europe. But more is expected, and from a nation of Canada's strength and promise, more will surely come. Said Winston Churchill, when he visited Ottawa a fortnight ago (and, by his own request, sat next to his old friend C.D. Howe at dinner): "With one hand clasped in enduring friendship with the U.S., and the other spread across the ocean . . . you have a sacred mission to discharge. That you will be worthy of it, I do not doubt."
*When he applied for a passport in 1940, several newspapers published the erroneous report that Howe was only then applying for citizenship, and had been serving in the Canadian cabinet for five years while still a citizen of the U.S.