ction of the Mounted
Police and placing detachments all over the country East as well as
West, Mr. Rowell gave clear and cogent reasons. It was pointed out by
him that there had been for years a Dominion Police Force, under Sir
Percy Sherwood, and that, as this Dominion Force was now absorbed by the
Mounted Police, there was no duplication of law administration agencies.
Broadly speaking, the Mounted Police have to discharge most important
duties all over Canada for all branches of the Federal Government in
seeing the laws observed in which the Federal Government is particularly
interested, because these laws relate to the public revenue or to
special Departments of Dominion administration. Thus, for instance, the
Mounted Police have to investigate all matters in which Federal property
is lost or misappropriated; they have to assist the Customs Department
in preventing the all-too-common crime of smuggling, and the Department
of Inland Revenue in regard to illicit liquor traffic. They have to
co-operate with the Department of Indian affairs, and the Department of
Colonization and Immigration in regard to the admission of citizens who
may or may not be desirable, and also look into all matters connected
with the nationalization of aliens. And more than once of late the
Dominion Department of Agriculture has asked the assistance of the
Mounted Police in stamping out epidemics amongst stock.

And that the placing of the Mounted Police all over Canada was opportune
is evidenced by the fact that, under the guise of legitimate strikes,
movements were begun which led to a sort of reign of terror in some
communities, and in connection with which the real motive of some who
manipulated them was shown, by evidence convincing to Judges and Juries,
to be nothing short of seditious conspiracy to overthrow the
constitutional government of this country. Incriminating papers were
found in many Canadian cities in the possession of many who were
suspected of sedition. And a curious thing arose when these suspected
men raised their voices in appeal to the very law of the land which they
had been denouncing to protect them from prosecution. Or, as
Commissioner Perry, who gave very special and serious study to the whole
situation, says: "Appeal is made by these men to British fair play to
protect them in their efforts to destroy British fair play."

Winnipeg was chosen by the agitators as the storm centre of their
movement, and it began in