War Supplies Limited (Canada) : By the spring of 1941, after a year and a half of war, purchases of war materials in the United States had caused a shortage of American dollar reserves in Canada. The Hyde Park Declaration by President Roosevelt in April 1941 stated that "in mobilizing the resources of this continent each country should provide the other with the defence articles which it is best able to produce." The result was the opening of a considerable market for Canadian-made equipment in an American economy in the midst of mobilization.
To negotiate and receive orders from departments of the United States government for war supplies to be manufactured in Canada, the officials of the Department of Munitions and Supply incorporated War Supplies Limited as a Crown company on 13 May 1941. The first President, Edward Plunkett Taylor, undertook an intensive selling campaign in the United States. "Taylor positively thrived in the Byzantine atmosphere of wartime Washington, where achievement depended on putting together bizarre coalitions of antagonistic personalities and competing agencies; Taylor was an old hand at that." [Robert Bothwell and William Kilbourn, C.D. Howe; a Biography, p. 153.] Only in December 1941 did the Company open an office in Ottawa: until then operations were handled by the United States Purchases Branch of the Department of Munitions and Supply.
By the end of the war the Company had obtained orders of .4 billion, although 00 million in outstanding contracts were terminated. Materials delivered ranged from chemicals, foodstuffs and fuel oil through to ammunition, radar equipment and even bagpipes for the United States Marines. The American government also supplied Canadian-made material to the British, French and Chinese forces. War Supplies Limited was dissolved on 10 August 1950, having been inactive since the end of the war.
The Company operated as a private corporation with a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer and directors. The presidents were E.P. Taylor, May-September 1941; Harry John Carmichael, September 1941 - October 1942; Vincent William Thomas Scully, October 1942 - Feburary 1944; Francis George Rounthwaite, February 1944 - August 1950.
