he Mounted
Police should be reinforced by the enlistment of 500 more men for
important duty in Canada.

What those duties were could easily be gathered from the general
situation. At the beginning, the United States did not go into the war,
and the authorities there, who have always worked in friendly
co-operation with our Police, intimated that there was a good deal of
pro-enemy activity amongst alien elements south of the line. The
American authorities would not knowingly allow their country to become
the base of hostile operations against us, but, as in the case of the
Fenian raids into Canada, it was possible for enemies along a 3,000-mile
border to elude them and cross over to make serious trouble for us.
Hence it was necessary that an experienced body of men should patrol the
boundary region, and the riders of the plains were the only men who
could carry out that task.

Later on, when the United States entered the war, this work became
unnecessary, but there was still special need for the vigilance of this
famous corps, whose great record and prestige gave such unique authority
to their presence in any locality that nothing more was necessary. There
were 175,000 German and Austrian settlers in the prairie sections of
Canada, a quite formidable army if mobilized. It was specially necessary
that the Government of the country, backed by visible authority, should
see that this large number of people was prevented from making any
hostile demonstrations against the flag under whose shelter they had
sought new homes. And it was equally desirable and British to see that
these immigrants, as long as they observed and respected the laws and
institutions of the country whose citizens they had become, should not
be irritated or persecuted by perfervid and unthinking loyalists. An
immigrant cannot help his racial origin, and if the country has thrown
open its doors to his coming to help in its development, and if he
becomes a law-abiding Canadian, he is entitled to protection. To the
credit of all concerned, it is good to be able to say that there was no
trouble worth noting. There were some tried and convicted for seditious
utterances, but, generally speaking, they were not of alien race.
Doubtless the German in the middle west of Canada was glad to be away
from the cast-iron military system of his Fatherland, and the Austrian
was pleased to be out of the "ramshackle Empire"; while at the same
time, the Canadians around, li