FOR KING DICK AND COUNTRY. New Zealand Soldiers as Political Patriots.

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 96, 3 May 1902, Page 8

FOR KING DICK AND COUNTRY. New Zealand Soldiers as Political Patriots.

NEW Zealanders abroad love their country and its institutions in greatsr proportion a 9 the distance from it increases. Tts institutions become more sacred to them, and, even at the cost of appearing ridiculous, they eire inclined

to go about refuting aspersions cast on it or its people. Some of the Tenth Contingent of New Zealand soldiers made a bit of a scene in Sydney on Saturday night last. They didn't like an allusion to King Dick contained in a paper headline out side a newspaper office. These patriots took the law into their own hands, and made things very unpleasant. Now, our soldiers were not sent to Sydney, en route for Africa, on a political errand Nobody wanted them to make a tour of newspaper offices m search of allusions against Mr Seddon * * * If they had been intended for that purpose, probably the authorities would have given them free railway passes, big bludgeons, a stock of matches, and a year s leave, to carry on a journal-wrecking campaign in the Commonwealth. It does not help King Dick one bit for troopers from his country to assume the role of his protector, and anyhow, if the particular warriors now under notice had not removed the poster, and interfered with an objector, the probabilities are that the headlines would not have hurt Mr Seddon, or lowered his status m the Australian mind. * * * Such incidents have happened before, and have been productive of no good results. If the people of Australia like that style of journalism, it is foolish on the part of a few New Zealanders to try to prevent them taking their fill of it Dick is a fine big mark for slander , his back is broad, and he can bear it. He does not want any championing by hottempered soldiers, who are dying to break a lance with anybody who turns up. That is not the cause for which they journeyed forth. It is probable they will want that lance against a foeman worthy of their steel later on. They belong to a regiment of soldiers, not to a society for the suppression of alleged slander and the championship of the Premier * * • Richaid himself may have seen the offending poster He would not have lowered his dignity by going inside the office to punch the editor's head. His dignity suffers, however, by the conduct of these self-appoint-ed deputies. If they are to tilt at every journalistic windmill they come across, it will be a pretty steep contract. They may, if they like, capture Steyn's "Courant," and the machine he prints it with The staff of that newspaper will hit back, however If all our soldiers catch the championship epidemic, there is a warm time in store for African newspapers, and a restful period for the Boers in the field • * • Those misguided patriots, who are so anxious to take physical vengeance for any pin-pricking of King Dick, give his newspaper enemies an advertisement that they will gladly utilise. It plays right into thenhands. If New Zealand soldiers are looking for fight, there is plenty of it waiting to be done in the land for which they are bound. There is nothing to be gained by starting a little war of their own in Sydney for reasons that really do not concern them as soldiers of the Kins