Everything Was Made Right

Because we had not, we Canadians were forgotten completely until we had a visit from Colonel Ralston, which was the Minister of National Defence. He came over to see us, and he represented Prince Edward Island in the Canadian Government at that time. And I can remember quite well, he, when he came in to visit us, he said . . .we were all lined up very proper army style. He said, "Break ranks and fol-, cal-, and gather 'round me." And we did. Well, we just gathered about, just a circle around him. He, he said, "Now have you got any complaints? " And we had one of the boys from Charlottetown here, I will not say his name, but he was very outspoken. He said, "Yes, we have lots of complaints." He said, "The uniform I have on is made in England." He said, "We don't have any Canadian uniforms here. We're getting English stuff." He said, "There's the English unit down the road and they get a bottle of Canadian beer every week." He said, "We don't." He said, "We get an English beer." He said, "They get Canadian cigarettes.", the English unit. He said, "We get English cigarettes." And he said the cigarettes were three and one. Three shovels of horse and one of tobacco. And, and he said, he said, "These are things we, we don't, we don't . . . we think's wrong," this gentlemen from Charlottetown said. And the colonel, Colonel Ralston turned to our colonel, and he pointed his finger at him and he said, "If you crime this man . . ." Now, the word crime means that if you did, made a, had a misdemeanour in the army, you were put on a sheet and said that you were, had a crime against you. He said to the colonel, "If you crime this man for speaking out," he said, "I personally will crime you." Within one week, we had a Canadian beer. We had Canadian cigarettes, and we got all new Canadian uniforms. This was how we were forgotten. But, you see, when, when we had a visit from the National Defence Minister, everything was made right.