MILITARY DISPLAY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVIII, Issue 11367, 7 September 1897, Page 2

MILITARY DISPLAY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sie, —Your columns and those of your contemporaries herald the tidings of the approach of our plain Mr Seddon, P.C., IL.D., back to his native shores, and in another instance the return of our hungry contingent, who under penalty of semistarvation are again ready and willing, leastaways so their Premier “ Plain Richard” says, to shed their blood and court death for pure undivided love for their country. lam not alarmed at this rash assertion made by the “ Eight Honourable P.C., L.L.D.,” arguing that a man who has been banqueted and over-fed without the least provocation wherever he went, has naturally the spirit and stomach to do enormous things. But not quite so our starved , sons who, if report speaks true, have had to pay the piper handsomely for backing up his L.L.D.-ship and the importanceof punitive New Zealand generally. Why should the “ Bight Honourable ” feel so bloodthirsty ; has not he had his share? Or has ho after all shared the fate of his ! fasting countrymen ? Let us sincerely hope j that there never will arise the necessity of ! shedding anyone’s blood for New Zealand. This method of legalised butchery is not a progressive sign of social improvement nor of Christian love toward our fellowcreatures, may they belong' to the nearest or most distant creed or nationality. To ! shoot at and kill any individual with intent j in self-defence, or being provoked to the assault by personal injury is_ natural I enough; but to be “ ready and willing ”to kill and maim any poor • unknown, who, like yourself, has never imparted or received personal injury, is nothing short of brutal and inhuman, and flavours decidedly of South Island barbarism or the butcher’s block.—l am, Ac., MAURICE S. BEECHELT.