Canada's Relations with War-Time Agencies in Washington

Abstract

This paper is primarily an account of Canadian relations with the War Production Board and with the Office of Price Administration, and with their antecedent agencies. Large sections of the Washington scene, with which the writers had no special familiarity, are completely omitted. In particular there is little reference to the agencies controlling shipping and overseas trade, or to the armed services themselves. Further, there is no account of relations with the War Food Administration, or with the Combined Food Board on which the United Kingdom is represented as well as the United States and Canada. Even the two Combined Boards dealing respectively with production and resources (on which Canada is represented) and with raw materials (where it is not) are omitted although relations with these Boards are almost indistinguishable from relations with the War Production Board which supplies their United States membership. In short, this paper is concerned almost entirely with relations between Canada and the United States in regard to supplies moving directly between them. In this all-important field the relations amounted to a co-operation so close, continuous, effective, and friendly that the two sovereign nations might in many respects have been two parts of one country.It is convenient to consider first relations in the field of war supplies because it was in this field that war-time co-operation and collaboration first became necessary. Here a pattern was established for subsequent collaboration in the field of civilian supplies.