The Evening Star. WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1890.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 160, 9 July 1890, Page 4

The Evening Star.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1890.

For tha cause that laoks as3istanoe. for the -wrong that needs resistance, ?or the future in the distance, •And the good that we caa do.

In an article upon strikes in our day's issue we alluded to the frequentarraying of the power of the law against popular sympathies represented by trades unions. There is no doubt that in many instances —notably the dock strikes—members of the force inter, fered reluctantly; their own sympathies were with the strikers. The grea t labour movements in London have now entered upon a new phase—the police themselves have become the strikers, and the soldiery have been called out to preserve law andorder, while the perfect loyalty and obedience of Tommy Atkyns himself is under suspicion. The situation is serious. In the 'nether world" of London there are gathered all the elements of a social revolution. The vast rabble of the great metropolis is kept under contro by an army of 14,257 policemen of ail

grades. Remove these for a single night from their beats, without replacing them by an equal force, and anarchy would reign ; turn them into tomentors of disorder, as they appear to have become according to our cable news to-day, and who can answer for the consequences? The military will no doubt, answer temporarily for the preservation of order in the streets, but soldiers are an incompetent body to perform the work of preventing and detecting crime. There is, besides, the bare possibility that the military as a body will strike, as the Grenadier Guards have already done, against the imposition of police duty, and thatflikethe French National Guards during a popular demonstration,they will one of these fine days step out from the ranks and join the mob. This, however, is not a probable contingency. Discipline holds the soldier in a firm grip ; the penalties of disobedience are also more severe than in any other calling, and unless they are driven to desperation by some unbearable provocation, the fidelity of the men will remain unshakeu. If even police and military should unitedly revolt, there is still in society an overwhelming preponderance of units who would in any crisis instantly array themselves actively on the side of law and order. Many important establishments are already protected by the employment of private watchmen. This precaution is being widely adopted in London during the present disturbance. If occasion should arise, bands of special constables and vigilance committees would be formed readily enough, so that there is no real ground for apprehending the delivery of the modern Babylon over to anarchy. Nevertheless, the necessity for the adoption of such precautions by private persons argues the failure of organised government. The chief business of those in authority is to preserve the governing machinery in good working order, and although we have no means of judging at this distance the merits of the men's case, ft is pretty well known that the police in London are very poorly paid and that their lives are not to be envied. It is worth while to make a class performing such useful and important duties in the community thoroughly contented ; and in this respect the authorities have utterly failed. No doubt the police are more or less infected with the spirit of the times, and there is a serious danger of men, flushed by past successes, going to extremes in their demands; but the rapid changes that have lately been made in the Chief Commissionership of the Metropolitan police force is almost a confession of want of capacity at the head of affairs, while the pushing on of the Police Pensions Bill under the pressure of agitation also seems to indicate that the msn have substantial grievances which ought to have been redressed without allowing matters to Srift into trie present extremity.