THE MAYOR AND THE SPECIAL POLICE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 118, 21 May 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE MAYOR AND THE SPECIAL POLICE

The Mayor’s reply to what fte chooses to call the insulting question asked by one of our correspondents is that he has “done his full duty in the maintenance of law and order,” and wil. not be “instructed in what he should do by people who obviously an* impertinent catch questions for political purposes.” It would be more useful it he would drop this bold manner and say plainly what the correspondents want to know. They know that he “identifies himself wit; tho police authorities in the maintenance of law and order’’; that he has “repudiated violence”; and that he has “appealed to the citizens of every section to maintain the peace and good order of th community.” They do not know whether he identifies himself also with the special police, and he ought to tell them. He should say, too, hither he is as grateful as the police themselves are for the work the special police are every day ’oing; or grateful at all. For the special police exist only becau • the regulars arc not numerous enough to guard the city and its services at every point. They were brought into existence primarily to protect property and prevent rioting and disorder, and if tho Mayor thinks that they arc not doing these things, or that they are things that do not require to be done, he should say so. If he thinks that they are doing them, and that there is no one else able to do them, it should not give him much trouble to thank them as warmly as the Prime Minister docs to-day, and to appeal for other volunteers' to reinforce and relievo them. Until he is willing to do that his declaration that he has “taken every necessary step” for the protection of tho city will leave thousands of citizens cold.—Press, Christ church.