business was not a sin and, in fact, was to be encouraged. The new theology moved Steinbach from a more traditional and agriculturally-based economy to one that emphasized business and industry. Entrepreneurs took advantage of the business opportunities at the time and several small businesses sprang up. Many other important and large businesses developed as well, helping to establish Steinbach as a regional service centre for the area. By 1915, Steinbach had grown to a population of 463 and continued to attract immigrants from Europe. Many of the new immigrants were Bergthaler Mennonites, but Steinbach also was the destination for new German and Lutheran settlers, as well as some British families who had previously settled in the Clearspring Settlement slightly to the north. Steinbach's first bank, the Royal Bank, opened in 1915. During World War I, most Steinbach Mennonites were given an exemption from military service, as promised in the Privilegium they had agreed to upon immigration in the 1870s. Mistakenly considered "ethnic Germans", even though they were actually primarily of Dutch ancestry, the Mennonites were caught up in the anti-German sentiment of the time and Conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden banned Mennonites from Steinbach and other areas from voting in 1917. A year later, in 1918, as soldiers returned to North America, Spanish flu struck the village, killing many. Mennonites in the region were particularly affected by the outbreak, dying at a rate nearly twice that of other ethnic groups. After the First World War, Borden banned Mennonites and other pacifists from immigrating to Canada. The ban lasted for three years, from 1919 to 1922, when the new Liberal government lifted the ban. At the same time, there was the out-migration of the more conservative Mennonites, who left the area for Mexico and Paraguay, after the Canadian government required them to learn English and attend public schools, issues which seemed to be in violation of the Privilegium signed in 1873. In 1920, the village of Steinbach was formed into an "Unincorporated Village District" of the Rural Municipality of Hanover. After the Mennonite immigration ban was lifted in 1922 by Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, a second wave of Mennonite immigration occurred due to the Russian Revolution, and many of the "Russlander" Mennonites took over farms and land left unoccupied by the Mennonites leaving for Latin America. During the 1920s, thousands of Mennonite refugees fled the Soviet Union,