The actual work of getting the soldiers home and out of khaki was in the hands of the Department of Militia and Defence; but the methods of peace and war are as far removed as day and night, and it was soon recognized that the re-absorption of returned soldiers into civil life, with the least disturbance of economic conditions, could not be best performed by an organization of the military type. The first step in the direction of providing a suitable organization was taken when the Military Hospitals Commission was formed in the same year. The duties of this Commission eventually embraced almost every phase of the problem of demobilization, from the provision of hospitals, convalescent homes and treatment, to vocational re-education for those who, through a disability were unable to return to their former occupation. Not all the emergencies were, of course, foreseen; and from time to time changes for the better were made in the regulations. Shortly after the formation of the Commission a conference of representatives from the various Provincial Governments was called at Ottawa, and the suggestions there adopted involved an extension of the work by the appointment of a sub-committee of the Federal Commission in each Province, to assume the responsibility of finding employment for discharged soldiers. Immediately following this conference the Returned Soldiers’ Employment Committee of Nova Scotia, or, as it was afterwards known, the Nova Scotia Returned Soldiers’ Commission, was appointed. The importance of this work at the time could not be overestimated, for is not reconstruction fundamentally a problem of employment and employment conditions? This function, however, by no means exhausted the activities of the Provincial Commission. On executive questions of a local nature it was the advisory body of the Federal Commission at Ottawa, and its scope was extended as the need arose, until it embraced practically all matters dealing with returned men. On certain occasions the Commission maintained an early and aggressive stand on problems which were not merely of a local character, but which affected the economic life of the Dominion.