The Daily Telegraph. FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1895. SERIOUS CHARGES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 7385, 7 June 1895, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1895. SERIOUS CHARGES.

Ik the Government are not actuated by sentiments akin to those of Mawworm in " The Hypocrite," who " liked to be despised," they must take some notice of the extraordinary charges brought against their administration of the department responsible for the police force. The Wellington Post makes categorical accusations which if true prove the Government to be utterly dishonest or quite incapable—either acquiescing in a system under which jj criminals and useless persons are drafted \ into the police for political reasons, or ■ else so incompetent that such people get into the force without the Government's knowledge. Our contemporary says . —"We have seen men recruited who ludicrously failed to reach the physical standard prescribed by the regulations. There is at least one instance oE a man recruited against whom stood two previous convictions in the criminal Courts of the colony, and it is freely alleged that not only were men recruited whose character should, by any rational code, entirely unlit them for the position of guardians of the public morals and. the public peace, bat men have been recruited who were physically unsound, whom the proper officers had declined to pass, who* had then succeeded in obtaining some sort of' Open Sesame' outside, and had been returned to the Department with explicit instruccions that they were to be taken on with all their moral blemishes and all their physical imperfections on their heads—for in New Zealand politics cover a multitude of sins, and a change of color is eminently calculated to cleanse the subject from alibis iniquities. It is not only in the J.P. list that this is seen. But while the cancer is growing beneath, there are here and theremany more than the sober citizen imagines—eruptions on the surface which indicate the condition of things within, There were the notorious scandals in connection with a Wellington artilleryman, which ended in the Terrace Gaol. There are the known facts that the .leading Magistrates of the colony are alive to the growing clanger, and an ever present weakness which exists in their Courts, and that the chief officers of police in the colony have had their confidence in their men severely tried and sorely shaken many times. It is freely alleged, for instance, that in more than one town of the colony the Inspectors are, owing to being unable to place reliance on some of their men, unable to secure detection and punishment of breaches of the licensing law known to exist, and that while reputable hotels strictly observe its provisions, others can sin with impunity. There are the cases of offences against women on the part of the police constables and artillerymen, which have led to more than one dismissal outside of Wellington, and more than one in it. There was the recent notorious case in which a police constable boasted at Wellington police camps of the seduction of a girl, and then, through a long and extraordinary trial in both the Magistrate's Court and the Supreme Court, perjured himself day by day with regard to it, till he brought down upon his head tho stern reproof of a Judge of the higher Court. Then, when it was known that a warrant was out for this man's arrest, and when it was known also that charges of perjury and desertion of his child were hanging over him, he was allowed to walk out of a Wellington police station with his belongings, and suddenly disappear from ken. And when this fact was discovered, and the Inspector and the Department desired to stop the fugitive at all ports is it not true that the Inspector found that extraordinary delay was shown in the sending out of the telegrams, and that he had ultimately to supervise this himself 7 And the fact remains that the man is still at large, either within or without the colony." If these things are true—nay, if they are only partly true —it is obvious that under the maladministration of the Government Home sections of New Zealand officialdom have become absolutely corrupt. At all events, the matter should not bo left at the stage presented to us by our contemporary. Its assertions are either true or false—they arc either capable of proof, or villainous inventions. Which side must wo take ? The only fitting answer to that ; is, " What are the Government going to do in the matter 7" If they allow ( the accusations to stand as they are, taking no notice, the public can only , conclude that they are afraid of enquiry, i or that they do not view tho facts - brought to light as worthy of notice. ] Yet it appears Government aro going to the , specified charge^^^^^^^^^^H^y^i

tration. ' It is now some days since the detailg of these cases were published, and we have waited to see if the Government would .call upon the Department of Justice to make some report or comment upon the very serious allegations made. But there is no sign of any move being made. As our contemporary put 3 the case, "in theory, the system of taking young men of good character, education, and physique into the Permanent Artillery, and drafting them, after they have undergone a desirable course of drill and discipline, into the civil force, is commendable. But in practice, under the present methods of administration, the system is rotten at the core, and while a base is unsound the superstructure reared upon it must of necessity partake of that unsoundness. It will be remembered that one leading feature of the historic disagreement between Colonel Fox and the Government was upon the question of the enlistment of men into the Permanent Artillery. The Commandant was under the hallucination that considerations of fitness as to physique and character should be the sole guide in the recruiting of the force, and that he should be the judge in these matters. The Defence Minister was of opinion that entirely different factors should be considered, and that fitness should cover matters of political and other expediency not contemplated by the military code or the defence regulations. So there was a difference which widened broadly, led ultimately by accumulation of other differences to the resignation of the Commandant, to a certain Commission, and to various matters which finally ended in the union of the previously discordant and antagonistic elements of Commandant and Minister upon a distinct understanding that the recruiting was to pass from the military to the political branch." If there is only the slightest truth in all this the colony is indeed in bad case. Are the Government going to attempt to dispute the charges brought against them, or are they to be held proved by the default of the Government to challenge their correctness ?