Ashburton Guardian Manga est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1911. RAILWAY "SPIES."

Ashburton Guardian, Volume xxxii, Issue 8375, 23 May 1911, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian Manga est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1911. RAILWAY "SPIES."

Somebody—we forget who —onco remarked on a certain occasion —no matter what it was—that "we are governed too much." This is a great truth. One of the most dangerous diseases from which the world sufters to-day is over-government-; and the disease is probably found in its most virulent' form in Now Zealand, because we have here a superabundance of laws and a multiplicity of statute-made offences. From this evil of overgovernment many other evils spring. As we add to the number of restrictions

and prohibitions, we have to increase our police force, and may also have to enlarge our prisons. This is bad, not only or chiefly because of the added burden thrown oil the community, but

because of the moral deterioration pro duced. For, as has been wisely said the men who are chosen and trained to deal with criminals and law-breakers must perforce bo as wicked as, or even wickeder than, those whom they are set to entrap, to punish and to watch. To be. a successful detective, a man must consort with the vilest' criminals, enter into their minds and learn all .their tricks. To be a successful prison warder, a man must " make his heart as a millstone and set his face as a flint," crushing out all the tender emotions of love, pity and sympathy: But the curse of over-government goes even further than this. As. we go on, with the best of intentions (those pav-ing-stones on the road to Avernus), extending our laws until they touch on nearly all the private relations of life, such as what, where and how we shall drink, and what, where and when we should shoot or fish ; when we enforce by statute the cleaning of backyards; the killing of rats and the eradication of noxious weeds : when we define by law what we must not sell to people under a certain age, and .make it a crime to sell ginger-beer on a Sunday, worse results follow than the annoyance caused by the limitation of our liberties. One of the worst of these results is the evolution of a crowd of spies, informers, busy bodies and cranks of various types, who deem it to be their duty to see that the law is enforced. These are the people who were long ago denounced as being ever ready to .• , "Compound for sins they are inclined to By damning those - they have no mind to." In addition, these laws give occasion for the exercise of the peculiar gifts of those Pharisaic persons who take a delight in exposing a neighbour's fault, hoping thereby to exalt their., own reputation for sanctity. They are also eagerly seized upon by malicious persons, who seek to wreak their private spite, or whose innate " cussed ness makes them delight in causing mischief. Thus the tendency of over-legislation is to encourage ill-will, spying, spitefulness and other detestable and cowardly vices. Let us not bo mistaken, however. We are far from denouncing these laws or disapproving of thenobjects. The Millenium dreamed of by intellectual anarchists of the Herbert Spencer type, when we shall live without laws, 'in that blissful state depicted by the Hebrew chronicler, "when every man did that which was right in his own eyes," is still distant by a millenium or two. Our present condition is a passing phase, and an inevitable one at that, in our progress towards the happier state. Being inevitable, it is our duty to make the best of it, by introducing such safeguards as are necessary to minimise the evils complained of ; and the Government should take the lead in discouraging these detestable and cowardly vices -to which we have referred. .„ „ This brings us to the specific evil that has suggested the foregoing reflections—the inauguration of a system of espionage on the Government railways. Some weeks ago, wo had news from Auckland to the effect that the railway guards were much exercised and justly indignant over the discovery of a practice that they foimd in vogue, of detectives or spies' being employed to convict them of breaches of the regulations. If we remember aright, the General Manager of the Railways gave an emphatic contradiction to the statements of the guards—alleging that the persons employed were simply charged with the duty of seeing that everything was right. They were, in fact, alleged to be analogous to inspectors on tramways, and were meant to see that there was no system of fraud or peculation earned on by passengers and guards respectively. This story remained good until the next one was"told. The "next" in this case is told by the Oamaru " Mail, a journal that cannot be accused of hostility "bo the Government or its methods, liie "Mail" avers that a man and woman have been operating in the South lately, endeavouring to entrap guards into dishonest practices. It says : "The modus operandi may t>e gleaned from what took place recently on the line between Dunedm and Falmerston South. The man boarded the train at Dunedin, taking a ticket tor Merton, the presumption being that he knew well there was no accommodation there. Merton is a flag station, and as this man was the only passenger for it, the guard had to stop the train specially for him.. He asked the guard if there was any accommodation there, and on being told there was none, affected great surprise, and said he would have to go on to Palmerston. He' accordingly got on the train again, and on the guard telling him that he would require another ticket, the man is said to have endeavoured to persuade the guard not to bother about issuing another ticket, but to put the money in his pocket. The guard, however; would have none of this. He issued the ticket, and made the man pay for it in the ordinary way. The man spent a day in Palmerston, and next day went up the Dunback line, where he went through a similar performance, but again without trapping the guard. His general practice is to take a ticket for a flag station and then try to override the distance." .. . ■ : ■Now, if things of this sort are done at the instigation or with the connivance of the Government, we have no hesitation in saying that the Government_ls an active demoralising agent and ouglrt~t<v-bo_takeiLS6.verely to task. More, we say "that this man and woman, and any others who are similarly employed, ought to be prosecuted and'punished. Any person who incites another to commit a crime is equally guilty with the active criminal agent, even though, as in this case, he does not directly profit by the criminal act. And any Government that employs people to go about inciting to crime ought at once to be hurled from office by an indignant and outraged public. The police "sneaks" who endeavour to entrap fortunetellers or sly grog-sellers, by pretending to be genuine customers, come into the same category of condemnation An enlightened and manly public sentiment revolts against such tactics We have even got so far in our ideas of justice, as frequently expounded by the administrators of the law, that we condemn as almost criminal the temptations that some shopkeepers heedlessly throw in the path of the dishonest by exposing goods in the public street without their being secured or watched. That being so, no words arc sufficiently strong wherewith to denounce the direct incitation of public servants to dishonesty by other public ! servants! The thing, 'indeed, is almost too monstrous• for belief; and we draw attention to it in the hope that the Government will have strict inquiry made,with a view to putting a stop to the objectionable practice. It is, of course, possible that the &W\> posed "spies" referred to' by our Oamaru contemporary are not Government servants at all, but mere vulgar swindlers. It may be that they are Government inspectors who have a sadly mistaken conception of= their duties. Whatever, may be,the ease, it is to be hoped that they will be pulled Up sharply and suddenly, and that a most respectable and respected class of public servants will be freed from incitements and suggestions to commit! criminal acts. If the railway authori-j ties have guards that they cannot j trust, let them remove them. The practice of "spyuip" will only multiply 'the evil; for the insinuated suggestion to steal, poured into the ears of a "per-, fectly innocent man, may be his first

lesson in the art of peculation and lead. to his downfall. Better by far allow • th« revenue to be robbed of a fW' pounds annually than employ "spies") of the kind whose operations we havoi been considering. The-Wil effects of| over-government are bad enough m, themselves without being aggravated I by the Government creating an army j of spies, and inciting itslown servants to be dishonest. '