SPECIAL CONSTABLES.

Evening Star, Issue 15343, 18 November 1913, Page 6

SPECIAL CONSTABLES.

TO THE EDITOK. Sir, —The. special constable is th-a most ancient officer of the. realm for the conservation of the peace ; and wherever the Union Jack fli°s his services avo always readily given to maintain law and order. Magistrates and law-abiding citizens may, with advantage to themselves, look up Wise on 'Riots.' p. 65 onwards; the military duties, too. are thcro fully eot out by Chief Justice Tindal, in his charge to the. gram! jury r>n unlawful assemblies. There, is nothing to prevent an officer of the Permanent Force taking charge of the "specials." because- ho is acting under his instructions from the Minister of Justice, who, again, is responsible- to Palliament. English-shaking communities insist on policing themselves in their own way, and only seek military force as a last resource for the maintenance, of law and order. In the present crisis politicians forgot that a stage. ha.s now been readied when filence should be. maintained. Parliamentary laws are mighty, but necessity --in the present instance, law and order—is mightier, hence, all should aid thospeciat constables ;u the performance, of their arduous duties. Your editorials throughout the present unfo.'tunate upheaval are to be commended by strikers and non-strikers alike for their impartiality. Would that one could write, the same, of some of our political firebrands.—l am, etc., Constable. November 17. P.S. —Since, writing I read Dunedin needs special constables, as wero needed in 1890 ; and this again reminds me that the secretary of the then Seamen's Union, now the. Hen. J. A. Millar, notwithstanding his secretaryship to his union, stood loyally to law and order by voluntarily coming forward and taking the. special em? table's oath. He was of the. first of the many to whom I administered iho oath in the Town Hall in 1890. —C.