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Boy Scouts Association Dinner. Toronto. 5th February, 1938.

III

This is the third time since I came to Canada that I
have had the honour to attend your annual dinner. I need not tell
you that I find it one of the pleasantest occasions in the year. It
gives me an opportunity of meeting many friends, and it gives me a
chance of getting a bird's eye view of our progress. Although I am
always on the road and meeting Scouts everywhere, it is only on this
occasion that I can get our work into proper perspective.

Of our progress there can be no doubt. Take the question
of Scout Leaders. Since I came to Canada there has been an increase
of 868, or nearly 14 per cent. But we want a bigger increase. I
want to double that figure and add 1730 before I leave, for without
the Leaders one cannot get and the boys. This last year in the Maritime
Provinces, and in Ontrio, and among the Salvation Army Scouts,
there have been substantial additions to our numbers; but here
have been losses in the Western Provinces, and the result is that
out total membership at the end of 1937 is just about the same as
it was at the end of 1936. Well we must do better than that. We
use a familiar phrase of the Great War. That means that we have to
add 14,000 recruits within the next two years. I appeal to Canada
to give us these 14,000 more boys and 1,700 more Leaders, and I am
quite certain that my appeal will be met, for you don't want your
Chief Scout to leave Canada a disappointed man.

There are two things I want to say to you this evening.
We are accustomed to repeat - I repeat it frequently myself - that