BYNG OF VIMY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1928, Page 9 (Supplement)

BYNG OF VIMY.

HOLDING THE LONDON FRONT.

COMMAND or POLICE FORCE.

KEEPING THEM IN LINE,

Viscount Byng of Vimy, the famous p oTnT nfl w| pr t' n6 Canadians, in France gild former Viceroy of Canada, has tackled a good many queer jobs in his career, but none so queer as the comjnand of London's 20,000 police in a period of historic transition, The job is bigger than it sounds. In fcct, the Home Secretary, Joynsonjjjcks, maintained in the face of a Parliamentary storm that Byng was the only TP aTI in sight to handle it. And tjrobably he was right, for Byng is an interesting psychological study and a jnoet unusual man. He was living the peaceful life of a retired soldier on his modest demesne at Thorpe le Soken, a little Essex village, when the notorious Money-Savidge pett'ing-in-the-park case sent a train, spluttering through Parliament and the press and exploded a large-sized mtne Bnder Scotland Yard and its chief, the former army provost marshal-general, Sit William Horwood. The opening picture is worth etching. An unusually fine night in spring. Hyde Park, with its celebrated tan fcoree ride, its fountains, avenues, statues, pools, bird and rabbit, sanctgaries, lies dreaming under the blue, sky, just across the road from the western wall of the King's back garden. One would have said that the lights tad been especially dimmed and thinned out by a romantic city council to favour fevers' talks and caresses. Into this enchanted park at the witching hour of 9.30 p.m., having dined tete-a-tete at a discreet little restaurant, / stroll Sir Leo Money, noted economist (married) and a pretty blonde, Irene Savidge (spinster), and sit on a secluded fenph to talk of this and that. Here the picture should fade out. But the action is unexpectedly carried on by two members of the plain clothes patrol, who, padding along on the lookout for trouble, perceive the elderly man and the young girl in what they subsequently ■wear to be a highly indelicate posture, warranting instant arrest. The sequel may be given succinctly Jn three phases: Pha?e I.—Arrest of the aforesaid fcouple. Acquittal by magistrate, who doubts uncorroborated police evidence, leaders in press, questions in Parliament. Police commisisoner's inquiry and contemplated prosecution of the two policemen for perjury. Director of Public Prosecution, directed by Home Secretary, orders Scotland' Yard inspector to get statements, preliminary to ■.< framing charge. Phase 2.—Scotland Yard, detectives call for Irene Savidge at her place of business and carry her off to the Yard in a fast car, and there interrogate her for five hours—at times indelicately, she J subsequently alleges. Her goes to. the House of Commons* geta hold of a Socialist member in lieu of the Tory member he wants, tells him what has /happened, and said member gets up and i tells Parliament all about it. effect! For once Socialist and- Tory share a common indignation. This: jiß the notorious third degree.! Also, a dear infringement by tie police of the first and most sacred' principle of life, government and; the constitution:—the liberty of the, subject. Phase 3—Worried Home Secretary appoints a tribunal representing all par— ;; ties, which proceeds to call everyone involved before it, from police commission er of tits metropolis down. Before their report can be published: the: com-H-i-missfapar resigns, and the Home Secrecy to admit that the police are. conducting a sort of passive strike by refusing to. make arrests in the. park— ||the usual average is forty a, month—with the result that the park wiH become • "scandal to, civilisation.'* ij world,, reading the story through ™ cabled day-to-day reports, laughs, «B*Md laughs. But. Premier Baldwin, Ife i 9 . Secretary and the Tory party 1 !w e " laugh, for they recognise that the laugh of the nation is a sour f ' * lacking real mirth. They realise: .fftifsomething jg Q o t done quickly to the island race, jealous of its **""■»» *nd sweeten the relations, bepolice and public,, there will be jgg.::jgWlJie in the party, and a, gust of ™ the country that win swing *®tes into- the enemy camp. gfflieral election. , >* that on ait issue of police »■**», the people the latter will win, and WW know that if the police feel M 25 £*. tein ß ,nadie scapegoats in this the sluicegates that hold the criminal underworld will slip litis? present figures of 130,000 crime* and- 150 murders per show a, large increase, t *■ the practical solution : 'y L ~~ complicated politico-police probis to "reinspire" the police. t__i the police fort while a with the. Earl of 1 I®®# m, . er Chief Justice of Indian Viceroy, and once' 2#!®? to Washington, in enaHv investigates the whole police ltti 'frames, its; report. , * Byng had earned the repose *- ii when he was called, out of to. head London's police. His «°mering-- life covers the British of forty years. He had his Ik j • B^ee ' an( l lead charging at M'*.: . - °* cavalry troop against the the s "dan, back in '84. The ' ?thn * * 6rn la ' da y developed into l^iZ. ln V I .. who manoeuvred the 300,000', . *l»rd British Army in the 1 iffr, "Potions smashed the great ill : ' flrrm ** nc ' w ith it the. iron it ■ T^ b * ck » in 1918. rmrou™ waa that memorable vice- i 'ifl' tnao* w ,n C ' a, ! ada - has written a Jr. ""P" 8 history, because at its *®*-iSßue of Crown versus. Colony ' I (U«k IC ! i ra ised in the three-cornered W SdSr ST" Tory lead «> laSe "' l ' Plir Governor-GeneraL , • seventh son of the Scottish 5 bodv Bt ™ fford . blue-eyed, a r ' ri«o + .'Pcord and steel, he owes his : Pmfttiii as sur vived searching 1 is {„«•!! eved a unique prestige. He al)oUt the only general j oes na<: possess the i ','"4 |n «,„ • —with its notable defects j B« sphere. ~ • Srtf +r„ tß i. twenty-one when he drank his M t tC £? fc >° " The Kin g!" in old port in ISMeiacV^L 0 l°th Hussars, one of the i S twenty-two. when he | forpn Sudan war with the-' r to j aVenge the murder of i on at Khartoum; and; [•- ■ If wJlcn re tumed front the j war, a colonel, »

There end the stories of most British patricians who adopt the army as a career. They retire with a colonelcy, a pension of £000 and a paternal or avuncular inheritance or allowance (or a rich wife) andlive happily every after in a good hunting country. But Byng was set upon a career. He had done fine work. He had youth, energy, ambition, purpose, and little beyond his pay. He came home, broke away from the regiment dead end by way of the command of a cavalry school, and at fortythree got his brigade and his first step in the world of general officers. Byng in 1912 got the command in Egypt where Kitchener was England's viceroy; and it was in the commander-in-chiefs big, cool house in Cairo, two years later, that he heard the first rumbling echoes of the war. He was too good a man to be left in the Egyptian theatre. Kitchener summoned him home; and, in command of a cavalry division, he was a tower of strength to that first little British army that retreated from Mons, stood on the Ypres Ene, and after tremendous fighting held the old cloth town. °

Byng was "blooded" as an infantry general in the Gallipoli campaign of '15. It waa wild and desperate work, flinging to the toes of "that damned peninsula," aa the Westerners, who hated Winsta*. Churchill's Dardanelles strategy, called it. But Byng did well and presently returned to the Flanders front with a new order (Knight Commander of the Bath) and a jump in rank to lieutenantgeneral.

In the late spring of '16 came his bi<* ehance. The Canadians needed a com" mander oif a special type. A formal man was no good. A spit-and-polish general | would break their hearts. They required a leader who was at once physically impressive, able, strong, a firm disciplinarian and yet a man whrf could capture their hearts and imaginations, a general, besides, who would not "get the goat 5 * of tli© citizen officers. °

The war chiefs took council and chose Byng.

was a success. The Canadians admired his robust physique and the "no damn nonsense" air about Tiim, They liked his bhie glance, like a sword thrust, his cajm deliberation in a crisis and the broad, smile into which hit blunt, stern Nordic, face so easily crumpled. Also they liked his knack of leading them to victory after victory.

i For his part Byng, a cavalryman, understood these_Canadians, a wilder crowd than the British troops he had always been accustomed to, less amenable to discipline, men with more dash but less dour obstinacy — magnificent storm troops, at their best in the assault. He never made a. mistake with them. And he earned them the admiration of the entire AlEed forces by the operation which resulted in the storming of Yiiny Bidg#, the tremendous bastion from which Byng takes his title name, the most glorious of all the Canadians* exploits in France.

The feat won Byng, hitherto a eorps commander, command of the Third Brit!ish Army, incorporating the Canadian Corps. j. He helped to break through the German line in September, and after the war went over to Canada, where he made an immensely popular GovernorGenerat