MORE GLITTER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 126, 18 November 1911, Page 4

MORE GLITTER.

Apropos of "the indispensibility of glitter" and the fact that authority is greatly a matter of clothes, Mr. C. H. Poole, M.P., lately made a contribution to the discussion on military training, averring that he had not considered the possibility of New Zealand soldiers wearing uniform! The New Zealand force is not embodied for any other purpose than use in any possible war that may take place, and in the time of war it is so very necessary to distinguish the non-combatant citizen from the combatant soldier that there seems little reason to explain it. Then, again, the potential New Zealand soldier would himself cordially dislike soldiering in civilian attire. In this regard the Christcburch Press quotes an authority as saying: "All the authorities on the law of nations agree that the considerate treatment of the peaceable population rests on the assumption that an absolute dis'tinct line is drawn between soldiers and civilians, and that the civilian (i.e., the man without uniform) abstains from those hostile acts which are the duty of soldiers. . . . If lie (the civilian) takes hostile action against the foreign troops invading his country, he loses tlife rights of a civilian without acquiring those of the soldier. The condition of a prisoner of war does not exist for him; he must be annihilated in the interest's of humanity." Tf a man must be a soldier he should be garbed as a soldier. If a public man agrees that soldiering is necessary, why he should seek to disguise the fact that a soldier is a soldier passes comprehension. Presumably Mr. Poole might grasp a gun in defence of his adopted country. Will he risk the consequences, of being placed against a wall and riddled should he be captured carrying that gun and wearing civilian attire?