SOLDIER V. POLICEMAN.

Waikato Independent, Volume XXI, Issue 2441, 8 September 1921, Page 4

SOLDIER V. POLICEMAN.

(To the Editor). Sir. In your edition of the" “Independent” of the sth inst., I notice that our worthy Mayor, when speaking in reference to the death of Constable Dorgan, is reported to have made the statement, that a Police Officer's duties are very strenuous, and even more so than those of a Soldier, and equally as dangerous. As T am one of thousands who returned from the front, and who lipids the sacred memory of those who fell so dear, I cannot let such an injustice pass without comment. In the first place, does a Police Officer know the pangs of hunger, the craving for a drop of water, the days and nights of hard fighting, the roar of guns that shatter the nerves, and the shells bursting in ceaseless din 3 Where are the policeman's dangers, compared with those of a soldier? Wc who have been to the war are fully aware that a great many people fancy that we went to a picnic, but it is not fitting for the mayor of a town to hold such Utopian ideas. . . ■. .If we whose memory

serves to animate those who are to live after us, and who strove to uphold the traditions of the race, are to be told that our*' duties were no more arduous than those of police officials, we will be sadly disappointed. In conclusion, I may state that, if Mr Lewis had spent one half-hour on Gallipoli, or in France, as a soldier, he would have been happy to serve as a police officer for the rest of his life, rather than make up the full hour as a soldier. I am, etc., ANZAC. Cambridge, Sept. 7th, 1921. (Mr Lewis, :in speaking of Constable Dorgan’s death, said nothing disparaging of our soldiers. He emphasised the danger a police officer had to face, often at times when he could not retaliate.—Ed. * ‘ Independent. ”)