THE WAIMATE ADVERTISER SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1902. THE TENTH AT NEWCASTLE.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 252, 6 September 1902, Page 2

THE WAIMATE ADVERTISER SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1902. THE TENTH AT NEWCASTLE.

The “ Trusty Tenth,” our last but not least contingent, has arrived home safe and sound almost to a man, having had a really good time and having seen all that was available. Their officers spoke highly of their conduct, and all was merry as a marriage bell, till the Waimate “ Witness,” a North Island country paper, discovered that although the Tenth had not fought the enemy they had apparently declined to come home without having shed some blood f and had promptly raised a fight with their British comrades-in-aims. Like most sensations this has but little foundation in fact. From the account of a Waimate eye-witness it will be seen that the cause was a very trifling one (although involving a serious breach of discipline), and that the reported deaths did not occur. It was, in fact, a street row caused by some men having more drink than was good for them, and thereby forgetting that they were not irresponsible persons but part

of an army enrolled to do certain work under direction. In the House Sir Joseph Ward said the statement was absolutely untrue in every detail, and the officer who was in charge of the men had called on the newspaper to officially contradict it. Hence we may infer that the papers will be flooded with opinions on

and accounts of the aflair, and that an enquiry will be eet np, costing the country several hundreds of pounds, but not getting twopence worth of good out of the miserable business. The whole trouble lies with the people of the colonies themselves. They have sent away some thousands of men who were no better and no worse than the Imperial soldiers, but who have been so constantly lauded and glorified that they have come to look upon themselves as monarebs of all

they survey, and to think of the Imperial soldier as a “ mere machine," one who has no sensibility and one who is so poorly paid that he must necessarily belong to a held class. Naturally this thinly veiled contempt expressed by our men, combined with the difference in pay for the same work, engendered a bitter-

ness between the colonial and the regular soldier. This was to some extent held in check during the time of war, but when peace was declared it was bound to reappear sooner or later in tne standing camps. Where both sides are “ touchy," it is not hard to start a quarrel, apd the Newcastle

affair, apart from the release of the prisoner, seems to have been nothing more. The real trouble is, as we have said, that many of the colonials are “ too big for their boots”; they seem imbued with the idea that they arc the men who saved the Empire from absolute ruin, and that on this account they can ride roughshod over anybody and everybody. Still, it is our first experience of war; when the next comes 'may the day bo long distant) we might take the matter more calmly and recognise that we are only a small portion of the Empire, and that it is nol the tail end ihat wags the dog.