GUARDIANS OF NORTH

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1935, Page 8

GUARDIANS OF NORTH

AUSTRALIAN MOUNTEDS THRILLING STORIES TOLD. NATION PROUD OF THE FORCE. Once every now and again Australia’s imagination and national pride are fired by a thrilling and romantic story of the exploits of that fine brotherhood of,men —the Northern Territory Mounted Police, says the Melbourne Herald. A story perhaps of a lone policeman “out in the blue” in the Never Never chasing down a fierce and cunning tribe of aboriginal killers, courageously getting his man, and fighting his way back by almost superhuman effort to civilisation with his capture and witnesses. Dominant is a feeling of pride that Australia can boast a corps to rival the world-famed Canadian North-west Mounted Police and possess a body of men, any one of whom will coolly gamble with death for the sake of duty. The fascination, and glamour the life holds for adventurous youth is reflected every two. years or so, when hundreds rush every vacancy advertised in the force. Behind the years of painstaking training that awaits every recruit, lies the wonderful success of this outpost force. The system that turns out men capable of defeating the aborigine—the world’s best bush-craftsman—on his own battleground, is unique in Australia.

! HARD YET HUMAN SCHOOL. ’ It is perhaps the hardest, yet the most human school in the world. Every graduate is a vivid personality, not a cog in a machine, a good social mixer, a walking storehouse of administrative and legal knowledge, a keen psychologist, and , nowadays a gentleman, yet toughened and hardened for work in a country where nature and her black children are alike cruel and merciless. School life begins easily and pleasantly for recruits at the Darwin headquarters. Strict police routine is little in evidence around the fem-decked barracks and assembly room. There is more an atmosphere of home at these informal daily assemblies, where morning tea is served and first lessons in camaraderie and tradition are absorbed from the informal gossip and yams of the veterans and the humorous or pointed anecdotes supplied by the chief himself (Superintendent A. V. Stretton) from his rich store of experiences. Then to town patrol to learn that they are the townsfolks friends, not their policemen, and that a tactful word and helping hand serve better than the lockup in a land where the climate is nerve wearing and thirsts are great. Minor frailties of human nature meet sympathetic understanding and tolerance. More often than not drunks are taken home, rather than to the cells. REAL EXCITEMENT. For real excitement though, there is always a raid on a pakapoo or opium den in the offing, when word filters through from the Chinese quarter that lottery tickets are being openly hawked, or that some aborigines have been caught smoking opium charcoal—the dregs of smoked opium sold them by Chinese addicts! A severe test of eyesight follows —“nigger spotting” on a dark night—a colloquial term for special patrols to clear the town of prowling aborigines after dark when they should be in their compound. From the lighter side of life, and first steps in pidgin English practised on barrack orderlies and black runners, the police code is mastered. Court routine is learned, a few trips made up and down the "line on prisoner escort duty;

and then at last the recruit is packed off “bush,” as junior .to -a carefully selected and experienced station , man. And here ill the bush, 'perhaps hundreds of miles from a settlement, the hard and .’practical side.'of police work really begins.?’..if; A start may be made on breaking in a score or so of lively horses for next season’s patrol string and building stockyards for them; on learning how to make and repair harness, to pack the team, and to drive them for weeks on end without knocking them; up; ■ and on how to-“vet” sick:animals.:.' ■ Then come the vital elements' of. bush- ; craft to master—-simple things such as the I right ■ quantity of baking powder for a • damper or Johnniecake, which of; the i many variety of lily roots is edible,' how , to find water: from surface indications; how to trace wild bees to the nests and ■ to catch game without firearms—all les- ; sons that may, one day mean the differ- . ence between life and death. ROUNDING OFF EDUCATION. Finally comes a patrol to some, quiet district to round off the. education • and prepare • the budding policeman for the time when he will face the wilds alone. t A few patrols like these ahfl the “mountie” develops that initiative and resource without which he would surely die. And then he is fitted, to plunge into the wild haunts of the uncontrolled districts; to live with finger on his rifle trigger for weeks on end, and to. move with the silence of a shadow into a sleeping aborigines’ camp at picaninny daylight, and wait—covering his man until he awakes and surrenders in stupid surprise. Fitted, also, to over-awe the rest of the tribe with his rifle, and then gain their confidence so that he may learn the details of the killing, and reason with them, until witnesses volunteer to travel to civilisation with him. After which he. will hurry for his life out of hostile territory and the range of vengeful spears. It is no job for. a weakling. Brawn atone does not fit a man for success in life. Coupled with physical courage and capacity for endurance must be brains, for in that country of vast distances every policeman is his own detective. There is no squad, of homicide experts ready to rush by fast car or ’plane with all the latest aids of science to the spot of the crime to clear it up. The “mountie” must win his case, as well as get his man. ' ' .< /.

The stamp of man who daily struggles to keep the north safe for whites is as varied as could ■be imagined. Hard riders all, they are carrying on a tradition handed down by the tough veterans of a decade and more ago—the chief himself, Stott, Bridgeland, Lovegrove and scores of others. .

At Katherine, Bob Wood, boasting the strength and heart of a lipn, rules the turbulent mining district with a rod of iron, and a forearm and fist like a steam hammer. He once nipped an incipient riot in the bud by gathering the two ringleaders in his huge paws, and bashing them insensible by knocking their heads together, and single handed throwing a score of malcontents bodily over a verandah fence!

In the south-east at -Lake Nash, . Ted Morey, leader of the Groqte Island garrison, and the Adopis of tjie north, wastes on the rolling plains a figure, face, smile and voice that would earn him a fortune in the movies. An unsurpassed horseman, and one time representative of Australia at Wembley Rodeo, Ted prefers the open-air life. He has refused the screen offers, he has no time for theatricalism—sham, or in every-day life.

Five feet six of energy and fearlessness, Jack Mahoney, of Darwin, has had more- than one narrow escape from death, his closest shave being a spearwhich cut his hat.

An expert photographer, and possessing a keen eye for the picturesque, Mahoney owns perhaps the best coir lection of photos of police work, and out of the way places and scenes of the Northern Territory in existence. .

JOURNALISTS’ AWARD

CHRISTCHURCH AGREEMENT. By Telegraph—Press Association. • Christchurch, Last Night. Complete agreement was reached -in the Conciliation Council to-day when the claims of the Christchurch Journalists’ Union for a new award were considered. It was agreed that the restoration of the 5 per cent, cut made voluntarily by the proprietors at the end of March should be added to the present wage scale and that cadets and copy-holders should get additional increases in wages ranging ■from 2s 6d to 7s 6d a week. The institution of a 48-hour week instead of a 96-hoqr fortnight was . also agreed upon, while the annual holiday provisions were amended to provide three weeks’ holiday annually for subeditors, senior and general reporters and two weeks’ holiday annually for all other grades.