OUR CONTINGENTS. Why Did They Join the Police?

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 9, 1 September 1900, Page 6

OUR CONTINGENTS. Why Did They Join the Police?

IF Mr Seddon had been in the confidence of the troopers who have returned from the front, he would not so readily have accepted Major Jowsey's explanation that the men who joined the South African police did so under pressure from the authorities, and because it was represented to them that there was no fighting to do. There are other and more easily understandable reasons for the defection of our men from the Contingents, and though the actual facts may not be made public for some time yet, those other reasons are sufficient to explain what has happened. # # * One thing that is already abundantly clear is that the Contingents have not been happy families. How far this has been the fault of the officers, and how far the fault of the men, still remains to be determined. But in certain significant instances, officers and men have not pulled together, and the consequent friction has been a considerable factor in the defections that have caused so much chagrin in New Zealand. It is beyond question also that, in certain instances, the best choice of officers was not made, and, singularly enough, the appointments that have proved most unsatisfactory are those that were most subject to political influence. • # • So far from it being a fact that the men joined the police because of pressure and misrepresentation by the authorities, it is related on good authority that one section took service in a body to get free from a particular officer, and for this they were stigmatised by the officer in question as cowards. Not one of those men, however, had shown a trace of cowardice in action. But, to their minds, there were worse things on the battlefield than facing Boer bullets, and their treatment by the officer complained of was one of these worse things. * • * Probably Mr Seddon has never heard of a camp being ordered in a malarial swamp, out of sheer obstinacy or cussedness on the part of an officer, and the considerable sickness amongst the men that happened as a consequence. This little episode had something to do with the large defections to the ranks of the South African police. Other regrettable episodes, pointing to friction between officers and officers, as well as between officers and men, are already a matter of common talk in New Zealand. • * • It is idle to attempt to place the blame for what has happened upon the authorities in South Africa. The blame rests chiefly with our own officers, who have not retained the

confidence of the men under them, , and some of the officers most in favour with Mr Seddon are the men chiefly to blame. From the outset, it was realised by the public that the weakness' of the Contingents was their officers — men chosen chiefly because of the strength of their political influence — and this fact will be fully demonstrated on the return of the troops. To it especially, and not to misrepresentation by the authorities, is this wholesale enlistment in the South African police due.