Book Review: The Conscription Crisis of 1944
| Author | C. P. Stacey |
| Date | 01 June 1962 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206201700210 |
| Published date | 01 June 1962 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book
Reviews
THM
CONSCRIPMION
CRISIS
oF
1944.
By
R.
MacGregor
Dawson.
1961.
(Toronto: University
of
Toronto
Press,
136pp.
$3.75.)
This
little
book is
an
incomplete
historical
fragment.
The reviewer
well
remembers
how
its
author,
engaged
in writing the
official
bio-
graphy
of
Mackenzie
King,
was
disturbed
by
the
sensational
account
published
by
Bruce
Hutchinson
(The
Incredible Canadian
(Toronto,
1952),
Chapter
39)
of
the generals'
supposed
part
in
the
"conscription
crisis"
of
1944.
Although
the impact
of
that
account
on
some
minds
was
reduced
by Mr.
Hutchinson's
unfortunate
error
concerning
the
identity
of
the
Chief of
the
General
Staff
at
the
time,
Professor
Dawson
at
once
dropped
his
work
on
earlier
portions
of
the
biography
to
concen-
trate
upon
drafting
an
account
of
this
crisis,
and
set
about
interviewing
participants
in
an
attempt
to
obtain
their
evidence
before
they
died
or
their
memories
were
further
dimmed
by
time.
(These
interviews
pre-
sumably
contributed
a good
deal
to
the
book
now
published;
but
there
seems
to
be
no
reference
to
any
of
them
in
either
the
text or
the
notes.)
Dawson's
death
prevented
him
from
carrying
out
his
whole
plan,
and
The
Conscription Crisis
of
1944
is
the
draft
which
he
left
behind
him.
In
assessing
this
publication
the
student
of
the
period
needs
to
keep
several things
in
mind.
First,
it
is
based
on
a
limited
range
of
sources,
and
primarily
on
the
King
Papers,
which
though
fundamentally
im-
portant
do
not
tell
the
whole
story.
Secondly,
the
author
would
never
have
published
it
in
its
present
unrevised
form;
parts
of
it
are
nullified
by
information
published
after
Dawson
wrote
it,
which
he
never
had
a
chance
to
incorporate.
Thirdly,
it
was
written
as
an
isolated
episode;
Dawson
had not
studied
in
detail
the
events
of
the
years
preceding
1944.
Had
he
done
so,
as
he
certainly
intended
to
do
before
publishing
the
chapters
now given
us,
his
interpretation
might
have
been
different
in some
respects.
Finally,
the
author
harboured
various
strong
pre-
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