Excerpt from Canada at War: Speeches Delivered by Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Laird Borden, K. C., P. C., G. C. M. G., In Canada and the United Kingdom; December, 1916-May, 1817

But mere numbers do not constitute an effective army. Men must be trained, disciplined and equipped. Every arm of military service must be organized. There must be long pre paration before a modern army with effective striking power can be created. And this is a war not of armies alone but of nations. Victory depends, therefore, upon the thorough organi zation of national strength the organized force of all the Allied resources must be thrown into the struggle in order that the full measure of striking power may be attained. To this end, the Government have determined that an estimate shall be made of the man power of Canada, and the Board of National Service created for that purpose will place before the people in the immediate future the means by which that estimate can be effectively made.

The work thus undertaken is of supreme importance. 'i have, therefore, felt it necessary to abandon for a few weeks duties of great urgency, more insistent than can be imagined by those who have not participated in them; and I have come before you tonight to urge that the response of the Canadian people shall be adequate to the need. Let me put that need before you as it lies in my own mind. It can be realized most fully by those who have seen the devastated cities and towns of France and Belgium, who have passed over the trail left by ravaging armies, who have felt the horror which war has brought to communities once as happy and peaceful as any within our own land. The indescribable atrocities committed for the pur pose of intimidating the civil population of France and Belgium have been proclaimed to the world. Even now a hundred thou sand Belgians, not bearing arms but peaceable citizens, desirous of using their energies in mitigating so far as possible the miseries of their country, have been forced into captivity and practically into slavery by the strong arm of the enemy for the moment triumphant. In France, although upon a smaller scale, the same infamy has been perpetrated. Upon the coast of Great Britain and in its inland communities women and children have been slaughtered by the shells of cruisers or by the bombs of zeppelins.

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