3.C. beat

A. history of the provincial police

Policing A Pioneer Province, The B.C. Provincial Police 1858-1950,

Lynne Stonier-Newman, Harbour Publishing, $26.95.
Off Patrol, Memories of 8.C. Provincial Policernen, Heritage

House, $11.95

OR NINETY-TWO years ‘‘the policeman on his

beat’ in most

B.C. communities wasn’t a Mountie,

but a member of the British Columbia Provincial
Police (originally the British Columbia Constabuiary), and
the beat in question might be an area approximately the

size of England.

Established in 1858 to deai with
the Gold Rush influx of fortune-
seekers, most of them heav ily
armed Americans accustomed to
lynch-law vigilance comrnittees
and Colonel Colt’s justice: this
chronically undermanned, under-
funded and underequipped force
was the main reason the settle-
ment of this province was ac-
complished with so fittle of the vi-
olence that accompanied Ameti-
can westward expansion.

Historians have a tough man-
date: enslaved by the prime direc-
tive ef accuracy, years of painstak-
ing research can be wasted if the
final narrative proves a factual but
unreadable bere.

Nat so here: Lynne Stonier-
Newman, whase father served in
the BCPP unti! 1943, before it was
absorbed by the RCMP in 1950,
writes crisp, clear prose that’s a
pleasure to read; the facts are
fleshed out with the kind of anec-
dotal asides from the files that
keep the pages turning.

In the tumultuous early life of
the cclony, Gov. James Douglas
symbolized the law, Chief Justice
Matthew Begbie interpreted it for a
vast jurisdiction, but it was the
Constabulary’s founder, Chartres
Brew and his widely scattered
constables, who enforced it, most-
ly with restraint and compassion
for native people angered by the
white “invasion” and often with
raw courage against white men
who tried to turn B.C. into
Canada’s “Wild West.”

The secret of the BCPP’s success
in doing so clearly emerges as
Stonier-Newman repeatedly
highlights the contrast between
BCPP and RCMP methodology.

The Mounties chose to outward-
ly embody the impersonal nature
of the law in paramilitary British
“redcoat’’ uniform, a potent
symbol of British justice.

Throughout its history, the BCPP
remained remarkably faithful to
the low-key precepts of its found-
er, stressing ‘‘preventive’”’ polic-
ing through constables that were
part of their communities, privy to
local gossip and able to head off

John Moore
BOOK REVIEW

most trouble befure it happened. ©
The BCPP didn’t go into uniform
until 1924 and even then there
were fears that it would hamper
their efficiency by alienating them
from the communities they served.

The voices of the B.C. provincial
policemen themselves, from the
latter years at least, can be heard
firsthand in a series of memoirs
published by Heritage House, the
latest ot which is Off Patrol, fol-
lowing two volumes of B.C. Pro-
vincial Police Stories compiled by
ex-deputy commissioner Cecil
Clark, a 35-year veteran of the
force, who helped Stonier-
Newman with her book.

While they lack her overview,
these are the men and women
(and occasional quasi-official K-9
constables) as they saw
themselves.

The prose gets a bit mauve from
time to time, as it will with self-
conscious amateur writers, but the
authenticity of these tales is un-
mistakable in every line, vividly
capturing the isolation, loneliness,
hardship and sometimes the terror
that went with the territory.

Contemporary policemen, let
alone readers, might quail at the
prospect of arresting a deranged,
“bush mad" homicidal giant
deep in the wilderness with no
helicopter or SWAT team for
backup.

Pressures of population forced
changes in police procedures,
making them more impersonal, yet
some of the BCPP spirit must have
been added to what was already
there under the stiff red RCMP
tunic.

The beat, as they say, goes on.

(COHOTEL GEORGIA.

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