SOCIAL SERVICE MINUS LIMELIGHT

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 88, 11 October 1919, Page 4

SOCIAL SERVICE MINUS LIMELIGHT

Police heroism is, as a rule, heroism without" the limelight. The soldier risks his life under a presumption of glory; the policeman too often does so under the presumption that it is merely part of his contract.' This difference of valuation —a difference both illogical and unjust— is due mainly to the fact that the policeman fights in a normal sphere, the soldier in an abnormal one. The one is like the poor, .always with us; the otheris a visitor from another age, a more or "less picturesque revival ; of what the pacifists thought was a type of dead history. More than that, the soldier is the champion in the, clash'of nations; and the clash of nations is more resounding than the mutterings of the social deepj\ hoarse though the latter are with threat of change. Yet, for all this disparity in advertisement, some attentioncompelling event occasionally arrests the public imagination, as, for instance, when the privilege of being a policeman is paid for with the policeman's life. In the death of Constable Dudding, and in its circumstance, will be found an epic incident of the internal war that goes on always,, and which is even more necessary than is external war U> the safety of the State.

Fortunately, the high-principled gentleman who occupies—and adorns—the post of Commissioner of Police has with natural eloquence driveii home the lesson appended to the "sensation" of Constable Dudding's death. We cannot do better than state in his own words the obligations of the social duty resting upon the soldiers of peace:—■ '

_ We are banded together to preserve for civilisation the priceless boon of peace, and to maintain tho conditions that promote it. Ours is not the duty of the soldier who gallantly takes up his weapons and goes forth as we have lately seen to fight the foes that '^threaten to overwhelm our countries, and evta our civilisation. When that duty is done onoe for all, the soldier rests upon his honours in peace. But that peace applies only to the external foe. All that tho soldier has achieved does not necessarily secure that internal national peace for whose preservation the police force exists. That is the work of the Eolice officer, who from time immemorial as been known to the law as a peace officer. This work is not entered upon with the pomp and circumstance attending the departure of the soldier to the front. Its circumstances haye become so familiar to the ordinary citizen that he rarely, if ever, •• thinks of the reality, that the constable is at all times in the line of battle, . . . liable to fall into the ambushes which exist, in tho dark streets and, alleys; the burglared dwelling or shop; in. the unprepared encounter. with the lunatic, the drunkard, tho street rowdy, and' the domestic disturber. At all times he' literally carries his life in his hands.

In war the navy is the nation's first line of defence; but the police force is society's first line of defence "all the time. A good policeman takes longer to make than a good soldier, is much more liable to error of judgment, and is much more criticised. But if the public was just, it would marvel at the quality it receives, in the police line, for the money it pays; it would pause in admiration, at the fidelity displayed in a calling the hard knocks of which are, by thoughtless observers, so lightly, appraised. . !

..Perhaps the constable's death and the Commissioner's elegy may awaken the public mind to a tardy senise of justice to the police force. Amoral debt to the force, and ft moral and material debt to the widow, call for discharge.^