MOUNTED POLICE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 141, 11 December 1935, Page 12

MOUNTED POLICE

CANADA'S FAMOUS FORCE

Canada's famous Royal Canadian Mounted Police has more automobiles than it has horses, but its name is not to be changed. Recently the Commissioner of the force, Sir James MacBrien, made a speech which was misinterpreted as a suggestion that in view of changed conditions the "Mounted" should be dropped from the name of the organisation he heads. The public reaction was instant,, and unfavourable to arty change, and Sir James hastened to say he had been misunderstood. The name of the force speaks of its pioneering tradition, and it is quite certain that it will not be altered.

The police force consists of 91 officers, 2148 non-commissioned officers and constables, 115 special constables, and 219 members of the Marine Section, a total of 2573 of all ranks. For transport purposes it has 277 horses, 413 .sleigh dogs, 411 passenger automobiles, 31 motor-cycles, and nineteen motor trucks. The Marine Section has nineteen cruisers and patrol boats.

The duties performed by the Mounted Police are of almost infinite variety. It is engaged in the prevention of smuggling, on sea and land, and in enforcement of the Excise Act, the laws against drugs and narcotics, and sundry other federal acts. In six provinces, by agreement with the Dominion, the R.C.M.P. undertakes the duties of provincial forces and enforcement of the Criminal Code. The force has responsibility for the registration of pistols and. revolvers—some 80,000 of them have been listed since the necessity was imposed by law—and the issuing of permits to carry such weapons. It performs such routine duties as the patrol of Government buildings in Ottawa and of Government driveways, the search for truant Indian children on the reservations, to hunting rumrunners on the coasts and enforcing law and order in the wild spaces of the sub-Arctic.