STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER.
WELLINGTON, May 28. Replying to a question to-day regarding the action of Mr Justice Chapman in ordering a man to appear in the dock in Auckland in civilian dress instead of in military uniform, Mr Allen, Minister of Defence, said: —
"It is the invariable custom in the Army for soldiers mobilised to appear in uniform on all occasions. I can't understand the objection now taken to the practice. Soldiers are human, and they make mistakes like other men, unfortunately, and for their offences they are liable- to correction by tho Civil authority. I don't see that tho King's' uniform generally is disgraced by the lapse of a few rnoii here arid there, .Our Army is not made up of men so perfect that we do not find among them a few who commit broaches of the law. We can't argue that every man who gets into uniform is perfect, although wo wish he were. I can sco no reason for varying the present custom. The soldier, when arrested, is usually in camp; hq has no clothes exeent his uniform there, and we should have to keep a supply of civilian clothes to fit out these men approhonded by the police. This is not au insuperable difficulty, but wo don't want to go on multiplying cvon little difficulties.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AG19160529.2.7.2
Bibliographic details
Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8461, 29 May 1916, Page 3
Word Count
221STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER. Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8461, 29 May 1916, Page 3
Using This Item
Ashburton Guardian Ltd is the copyright owner for the Ashburton Guardian. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Ashburton Guardian Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in