THE Evening Star. MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 1869.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1971, 30 August 1869, Page 2

THE Evening Star. MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 1869.

It does not appear from the Defence resolutions passed by the General Assembly that the Government have really fixed upon any plan for meeting the Maori difficulty excepting that of organising an efficient police force. This probably will prove all that is needed. At any rate it will be a far more manageable force than that which has proved equal to repulsing and dispersing the hordes of savages who, forsolongaperiod, kept the North Island in fear. In this respect the policy Jof the present Ministry presents a striking contrast to that of the last. The great fault of the Stafford Administration was want of preparation. The most common preparations wore not observed. Whether this resulted from placing confidence in officers who were unable to maintain the necessary discipline, or from the nature of the service in which the Colonial forces were engaged, or both, we cannot say ; but when under circumstances of similar inaction, discipline can be preserved in the British army, the laxity that invited the Maori rebellion seems inexcusable. But more than this : the numerical strength of the Colonial force was unequal to the task they were suddenly called on to perform. Mr Stafford and his late colleagues appear to have been utterly unequal to the emergency. When the danger was most pressing they were the least prepared. They had two difficulties to overcome which, thanks to the courage and skill of the commander of the little force, were both gallantly met they had to fight and to organise at the same time. With this warning before them, it would have been madness for the present Government to have followed a similar reckless course; and profiting by the blunders of their predecessors, they have adopted a plan that, on several grounds, we think will meet the difficulty. The Colonial force is to be divested of its solely military character, and to be placed on a similar footing witli the Irish Constabulary, whose efficiency has been proved throughout all the various phases of rebellion in Ireland. There is a strange perversity in many minds leading them to form wrong estimates of the degree of respect in which certain classes of public servants should be held. It is not long since that the term “ demilitarise ” was commented upon by a correspondent of our contemporary, the Daily Times, who seemed to imagine that divesting the Colonial force of its purely military character and investing it with the civil functions of a police force, was degrading it. It, therefore, seems a duty to point out that so far from that, it raises the force to a moral and social position to which none except such a force or a volunteer military corps has any title. The very composition of an army, apart from the purpose it is designed to serve, proves this. When on the emergency that occurred some twelve months back, on the escape of Te Kooti aud Tito Kowaru, it became necessary to recruit the Colonial army, none were refused. It was not necessary that there should be intelligence or moral character. What was wanted was men wlm could fight j and bodily

strength and courage were all that were looked for strength to endure the fatigue of a campaign—courage to face the enemy and follow him into his lair. Skill and intelligence were to be the essentials of the guiding and directing minds. Individuality in an army is comparatively merged in the movements of the mass. Cut in a police force other requisites are necessary. Its members must be of a different class. The licence that may be tolerated in the soldier cannot be permitted in the policeman. The soldier’s functions are altogether separate and distinct from the employments of his fellow subjects. His work is to fit himself to become the most efficient possible agent of destruction. That is the end and purpose of his training, and when he is not engaged in that work or in preparing for it, he is idle. But a constabulary has other and higher duties. When it is necessary to destroy, in order to protect society, they are called upon to do it; but the main object of the force is conservative, so that its functions never cease. It is not merely physical force that is dangerous to civilization. There are more insidious enemies, born and nurtured within the most orderly communities, that, unchecked, would undermine and destroy them, —enemies born of vice, nurtured by human passions, tending to degradation and misery. The conflict of the police is to a great extent with these dangerous moral agents, and this necessitates higher qualities in them than in mere soldiery. A soldier off duty is usually excused if he has been guilty of some escapade not involving him in positive crime. In fact the conventional idea of soldiery qualitiesfavors peccadilloes that could notbe tolerated in civil society. He may indulge, but a policeman must resist temptation. If a soldier is worse for drink, so long as he can take care of himself, and docs not insult others, he passes usually without censure, but a policeman must not have even the semblance of it manifest. He must be sober, intelligent, of strong nerve, and capable of self-com-mand under the most trying circumstances ; for his duties require the exercise of all those qualities of mind, and in proportion as they are possessed, he is fitted for the work he has to do. What nonsense therefore it is for men to utter, and the Press to disseminate worn-out traditions respecting our brave defenders. The police force is a creation of modern civilisation —the army a traditional offensive or defensive agent, whose services we do not wish to under-estimate, but who, in a comparison of functions must be content to stand second to those admirable organisations to whose watchful care modern society owes much of its safety.