THE GUNS IN THE RESERVES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23046, 24 November 1936, Page 12

THE GUNS IN THE RESERVES

ro THE EDITOR. Sir, —Well, the old guns have gone, and a cause of congratulation to us all will be the assurance that Councillor Batchelor will not be overcome with a feeling of nausea when he passes the spot where they once stood. We have his statement “ that they made him sick every time he saw them.” It would have been a case of “ God help the women and children ” if such as he had been enrolled as a gunner in defence of the home. That sickness would have been awful. I witnessed the burial and was surprised that Councillor Silverstone was not there with his henchmen of the City Council. It would have been fitting that he should

read the burial service, and perhaps request a firing tquad from H.M.S. Dunedin and the “Last Post” by our bugle band to lend impressiveness to the occasion. I wonder how the men of the Dunedin would have received his request, and whether they* would have loaded the rifles with blank cartridges? What valiant fellows these are who have achieved the passing of these harmless old relics of a glorious past! Certain it is that the greatest Empire the world has ever known was never built with the type of men of this description. We have heard of the sword being beaten into ploughshares. Well, during its lifetime that heavenly state never came to pass. It has been the medium of argument from the days of the Pharaohs down to recent times, but, as an implement for the destruction of human life to-day, it is, compared with the modern engines of destruction, about as effective as a toothpick. We shall have to coin a new phrase to meet the case of the poison gas, the fearful bomb, and the other manifold inventions of present-day warfare. Future historians might have to record that the peaceful members of the council timidly approached the savage foe, and, with soft and pleading words, made the enemy so ashamed that they buried their tanks, etc., on the spot. Just in what year that may be I am not prepared to hazard a guess.

It is a remarkable thing that the British Empire, for all the detractors within its borders, is the safest and happiest, for its peoples, of all the nations on the earth. One is reminded of the saying: “Home is the place where we are treated the ■ best and grumble the most.” It was ah American -who said that British rule in India was a monument to the British nation. In the Empire to-day there are thousands of aliens who seek and obtain sanctuary under British rule. It would be interesting to know just how many of the royal blood of foreign Powers are residing in England to-day. In this Dominion, too, we have our sprinkling of foreigners, and in this domain of free speech they are never loth to raise their voices in protest against the iniquities of British rule —an exercise which would have brought them face to face with a firing squad in their own country. But let us to our muttons! The end is not yet. Surmounting the monument at the Oval stands a soldier with rifle and bayonet at the ready. That will have to be shorn off. How can the harmless sport of our young athletes be played in the proper spirit on the adjacent sward with such an emblem of desecration overlooking the peaceful scene? Councillors Silverstone, Batchelor, and Company must see to it. There is much yet to be done. The AngloSaxon race is long suffering, but there is a limit.—l am, etc., An Old Gun.