TOPICS of the DAY

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3, 3 January 1903, Page 4 (Supplement)

TOPICS of the DAY

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1.)

LONDON, November 21 PUERILITY IN HIGH

PLACES

The men responsible for the management of our military matters appear usually to be selected because they lack those peculiar attributes which are possessed by successful managers of mercantile concerns. In Ball Mall they give orders that soldiers anall wear their great coats and cloaks on a certain day because it is rainino- at the time the order is promulgated; at Shorncliffe they send men out for review in "brand spanking new" uniforms in a regulair downpour because on the day the arrangements for the review are made it happens to be : fine! In India the same lack of commonsense appears to prevail in high military circles. It will be remembered that the 9th Lancers served with great distinction through almost the' whole duration of the Boer war. On their return to India they were stationed at Sialkot, in the Punjab. The return of the famous regiment was made the occasion of a festive -welcome, and on the night of their arrival at the station they were entertained by the Royal Horse Artillery and the Gordon Highlanders. That night a native was so seriously maltreated that he died some days after in the hospital. During a large part of the interval he was unconscious, but before he died he made a statement of belief that it was one of the 9th Lancers who hacl assaulted him. There seems to have 'been but very little chance of any corroboration of his story. He was found a considerable distance from the barracks, but bloodstains were discovered in the lines of the 9th, and this led to exhaustive inquiry. The matter had in the meantime been reported to the Indian Government, and ai general was despatched from head-quarters to endeavour bo solve the mystery, but his inquiry was fruitless. In a communication to the regiment he expressed his inability to allocate the blame, but stated that the Government had come to the conclusion to punish the whole regiment if the guilty individual could not be found. To avoid the wholesale punishment he called for the guilty man to step forward and relieve his comrades. The. punishment was announced three months ago. All ranks —officers, noncoms., and men—were deprived of leave in or out of India till June, 1903. Officers and men on leave in India were recalled, and sentries were posted on all buildings occupied by the regiment. The order promulgating this punishment also announced that it had been intended to strikp. out the regiment from participation in the Delhi durbar. At this great function, however, many veterans of the Mutiny were to be present, and it was considered that the withdrawal of the famous 9th might be interpreted as a personal insult to themselves, and this part of the intended punishment wais abandoned.

But consider the monstrous folly of it ail. Had the reprment been a parcel oi scno'Oiboys and the crime some venial offence the action of the authorities in threatening wholesale punishment in order to persuade the gTiilty party to "act a man's part" or to overcome schoolboys' scruples against "peaching" might have been quite correct. But in this case the authorities are actually punishing and branding with disgrace a whole regiment in a vain effort to discover the murderer of a native who, in antemortem delirium "believed" his assailant was a 9th Lancer. The night of the fatal attack was dark, and the assault took place in an unlighted road. The officers of the regiment, keen as they were to detect the culprit, could find nothing to specifically incriminate any of their men, nor could the special delegate from headquarters find anything to substantiate tie murdered man's theory, Taut because no private was willing to come forward and take the risk of having his neck broken on the gallows, the sapient Solomons who direct military affairs in India have "made.

an example" of several hundred prices and a score or so of ncm-com.-and officers, who can have had no more to do with the fatal assault than the reader of this paragraph. 1 oi absolute puerility commend me to the military authorities. Their, ac tions would be amusing but for the painful results they contrive to achieve at Tommy Atkins' expense.