A MISUNDERSTANDING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 16192, 19 March 1913, Page 8

A MISUNDERSTANDING.

This Reform journal which has undertaken to defend the police from "open and covert attacks " is on 6afe ground when it says that the force as a whole is one of which New Zealand may be proud. We can all agree heartily that the detectives and constables do their work—tho prevention and detection of crime and the maintenance of public order—in a satisfactory manner, that their integrity has seldom been questioned and that they have proved themselves capable of meeting emergencies when they arise. But our contemporary seems scarcely to appreciate the significance of its own words when it says that since the appointment of tho new Commissioner "he has been subjected to tests, and his mon have been subjected to tests, of a type which they had never before experienced in New Zealand." It is just this new factor, the use of tho police in connection with political happenings, that is provoking the criticism, which our contemporary resents so hotly. "When the strong bodies of police which had been gathered at Waihi and Iluntly to stem industrial disorders were taken to Auckland to serve as Mr Massey's escort at the opening of a post office New Zealand experienced a new sensation. We can accept at once the statement that batons were not carried by tho constables who guarded the doors on tho occasion of Mr Massey's meeting in Christchurch, though under the circumstances the man who was threatened with a pair of handcuffs when ho tried to gain admission by an unauthorised method may easily be pardoned his misapprehension. "Wo do not imagine that batons were required by the officers who sought out interrupters at the Prime Minister's meeting m Waimate last night. But tho real point is that the new "tests" have created a condition of affairs which New Zealand finds unfamiliar. "We feel sure that tho people who have been protesting against the changed order, perhaps with unnecessary vehemence, have had no intention of casting personal reflections upon tho members of the police force. Such reflections would bo quite unjustified.