Probably one of the outstanding reasons why St, Dunstan's hax been so successful in dealing with men blinded on active service, is that the founder Sir Arthur Pearson was blind, and that the present chairman, Sir Tan Fraser suffers the same disability, having been shot through both yer while Teading a bombing party. three Weeks after his arrival in France in 1916, Such ly best able to realize the of men suddenly stricken with blind= hess. Expecially must this be the ease of Sir Tan, who is said to be typical of the sightless ex-service man determined to overcome disabilities and "learn to be blind," for not only Was he called to the Bar in 1932, but became director of several companies, and is now a member of Parliament, In. this connection the course of a recent article he wrote the following interesting. passage:
1 believe that the founder of St. Dun Arthur Pearson, once said that the Ste which so! many blinded men set out fu this their new aalventtre Into living. Sight embarrassinents—and inevitably there ich for all of us=becarme matter of and there are stories recalled again aid any, gathering of St. Dunstan's moh, Maybe theve® jokey and: ancedoten are. rather for ourselves" alone: but to. uy. ike. ly perhaps an Adventure that Isolates ts with our poewllae ox periences, Just ax men Working In coat mine, ay, a" of & whaler have their peculiar Jokes one Yariny that ave at thes puzzling othe halntt to our signed friends to, wath Dost a Totter In a Chelsea Bilge box?" Or toh tus assure my readers that these yarns ave not Haunt to "ts. They are. part_of" the complex venture of life In which we are engaged.
There are, of course, some things a blinded an has to learn slowly and patiently, He hob Ty" absorb the Tullest tatlataetion from wing 'There Ws no short-out to Beale, for. example 'One who hay been blind from Infancy may often ead 'Braille. ata' speed greater than the most rapid speech: rarely" can aman blinded ly hie wen tien hope to attain this profeleney. He Is, InT may so express It, hampered by his memories sight: the tineonscious elvort to visualize the embossed letters ts frequently a alain, unt he Naw clapted himsett to this novel medium. To those who have some sllnieriog. Of sight ott the effort to tea fence' the: steam town, experience, that while. they" can Satlary some specialist reader, they de format' man requires for his Ing." Nevdient (3. say, the noisage, poultry-Keepiny and. so fort the amply. socked with "ni a I Hoes even turthe= than ian or French almost entirely from the Fesourees of the rabiteolleetions Canada's Effort Al parts of the British Empire are united in putting forth their maximum strength to meet the critical times which appear to be immedi Jy ahead. Some parts ted to money jons, and they have made them without Oihers have sent money and men—men whose equal as fighters cannot be matched anywhere else in the world. Australia is turn ing owl munitions with unprecedented speed, while Canada will factories for the supply be dificult to produce continuously in Britain when once the Nazi air attack is) commenced fon the scale which is generally anticipated. Already there are (we fully-equipped Canadian divisions in Britain, One of them was sent to Franco, and) be withdrawn hurriedly Before the men had seen any real we tion. The other was formed in Canada with the iden of Keeping it as reserve from which replace ments could be sent to the first division. This idea was quickly abandoned, however, when it became obvious that te position in' Flanders find France was so sevions that every man who could shoulder a ville was needed to stem the] ide of the Nazi advance. The second division followed the first, wel a third was formed in Canada itself, Re for the Royal Air Force have been plentiful in Canada, which has been made the focal point of the Empire Air Trai lung Scheme; more than thirteen thousand pilots have already fied the RAF, and thousands rady 10 do their bit. Cana out enorm= us quantities of munitions, including articles Which formerly bad tw be purchased in fore countries, Shipyards in the Dominion are aged in the construction of no fewer than ninety Wessels of war. In the corresponding period of the last war, Canada's naval expenditure was $3,000,000; the estimate for this year over 100,000,000. Canada's motor factories are also working overtime in turning out nearly ten the es, more 3,000. of which have already been delivered in an attempt to make good the heavy losses of motor vehicles suffered as a result of the disaster in Flanders. And all the time the capacity of the Dominion to produce an increasing volume and fan increasing variety of munitions is being developed. The Empire's front line may at present be the British Isles, which may soon be' attacked with all the brutality the Nazis have their disposal. Those who will be called upon to withstand the threatened Invasion are encouraged and strengthened by the knowledge that there exists behind them a powerful second line of defence—the Empire, every unit which is doing its almost in the equse of Freedom and Democrary.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.