VON LUCKNER AND OUR "SOUL."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 85, 11 April 1938, Page 6

VON LUCKNER AND OUR "SOUL."

Count von Luckner has been well treated in New Zealand, and he himself has frequently"' expressed pleasure and gratitude because of the friendliness and hospitality of a people who once knew him only as a dangerous and destructive enemy. For that reason, if for no other, it is remarkable that he should think of pressing his request for permission to irevisit Ripa Island. Perhaps no possible harm I could come of granting him permission to [satisfy his sentimental wish to see his old cell, but that is not the point. Defence is not a game, nor do defensive preparations amount to play-acting. If a New Zealander who was a prisoner of war in Germany were to return there now, and wished to revisit the place he

knew too well, he would —if that place formed part of a military area —find plenty of people with "no soul." And there are plenty of people in New Zealand who think that this Dominion has been far too easy-going in such matters, and that it cannot afford to be easygoing any longer. The officer who refused Count von Luckner's request apparently 'did no more than his duty, and the Minister of Defence should support him, promptly, firmly and finally.