POLICE METHODS

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 November 1934, Page 3

POLICE METHODS

IN MANY COUNTRIES If the co-operative scheme for fighting crime known as the International World Police extends its scope beyond Europe and the United States many unusual and interesting types of police will be united in ohe brotherhood, writes Sir Percival Phillips in the “Daily Herald.”

The guardians of the peace in European capitals do not differ greatly from each other in mentality or in their methods of combating public enemies. You must cross the gulf dividing East from 'West to find entirely dissimilar specimens of the thief-taker, the traffic sentry, and the sleuth whose activities are wholly underground. The Chinese, in particular, have an aptitude for the profession immortalised by Sherlock Holmes —and they like it. They would be’ useless in a foreign environment, but when pitted against other Asiatics their devious minds Work -frith uncaiiny precision and solve problems that to a European colleague appear baffling in the extreme.

Shanghai possesses the most complicated police force in the world. In the International Settlement —run by three Great Powers and several minor ones —a polyglot corps of Europeans and Chinese, directed by a British commissioner, deals with crime in all its aspects. Sikhs carefully selected in India form the traffic control .unit. Russians, trained in the Scotland Yard way, concentrate on the restless “white,” “red,” and “pink” elements of the Russian colony, almost a city in itself. A mild-mannered son of Erin, with a soft brogue and fathomless blue eyes, who speaks Chinese in many dialects to perfection and Russian like a Moscow commissionaire, runs the C.l.i). fie knows more about the netherworld inhabited by Communists, kidnappers, pirates, and opium smugglers than any other* man alive. Cross the busy Rue Edouard Vll, which divides the Settlement from the French Concession, and you are policed by Annamese in funny soupplate hats, with commissaries and the Code Napoleon in the background. Cross another street and the law is in the hands of. slovenly native constables wearing the grey tunic of the Chinese municipality. Leave the International Settlement by the opposite side and grim little Japanese p6licemen with a short sword at their belt are very much in evidence. ~ The Settlement s C.I.D. would surprise the inspectors of the parent organisation on the Thames Embankment. It contains men who can change their identity in the true Sherlock 'fioimes way. The blear-eyed, trembling coolie, obviously shaken by opium who slips by an obscure side door into police headquarters, will emerge later as a smiling, prosperouslooking Chinese in a well-cut lounge suit and gold-rimmed spectacles. Wild-eyed Bolshevik agitators become “white” Russians of professional aspect in their intervals of leisure. Even the ricksha boy, plying foi hire on the crowded. Bund,, hiay Resume an entirely dif <" ' ■ • 111 which football plays l. secret conversation beyc.

door. - The archives of the Shanghai C.i.J. abound in sensational material for the novelist whose specialty is crime. But he will never see them.

If a London policeman saw an arrest in a Settlement street he might be as astonished as his plain-clothes colleague of Scotland Yard. Frequently there is a conflict of opinion between principals when a minor offender falls foul of the law. I once witnessed a painful scene when a ricksha coolie was taken into custody for disobeying a traffic signal. The policeman clutched his tattered jacket in the official way and a complete deadlock ensued. The coolie wept and said he would not be arrested. His captoi’ explained reasonably that he was arrested and would remain so. The usual crowd collected and expressed sympathy for both disputants. The policeman and the prisoner did a few dance steps, shouting all the while, and the constable was seen waving a bit of cloth, a poor trophy, since the coolie’s arm was no longer inside.

Traffic was held up. Omnibus drivers, beggars, and hawkers joined in the debate. The coolie addressed the world with tears pouring down his face. The constable answered him at length. The coolie bolted, slipped, and fell with the policeman on top of him. . The crowd pulled them upright and decided that as the policeman had lost “face” the coolie must continue to be arrested. Off they went to the police station, the coolie now grinning, for his own “face” had been saved.

The police in Japan are no debating society for the discussion of an arrest. A flick of an authoritative finger suffices to beckon an offender to his cell. A word of protest will instantly produce a length of official rope, and he disappears with hands knotted together. Japan has the hardest-working secret service in existence. The police, in and out of uniform, know all about you from the moment you step ashore at Yokohama; they are familiar with the contents of your luggage and your most trivial movements.

India’s native police force is the world’s finest. The first thing- that impresses a newcomer on landing at Bombay is the efficiency and smartness of the sturdy little men in blue cotton uniforms who control the streets and keep order in the bazaars. They are hard worked, highly disciplined, thoroughly loyal—and underpaid. Congress agitators have failed to seduce them from their loyalty to the British Raj. East Africa has also produced a capable type of native constable from raw material which a former generation considered hopelessly unfit for any kind of responsibility. Singapore, with its mixture of Chinese and Indian police under European inspectors, is another example of efficiency achieved by British effort. Our Transport Minister might find a valuable contribution to the solution of the traffic problem in the Sikh pointsman with his portable signal, who controls the conflicting streams of vehicles in the business quarter Of Singapore. He wears a six-feet length of light wicker-work strapped horizontally to his waist. When he turns so that this portable barrier is at right angles to a street, that street' is closed and the intersecting one is Open to cars and pedestrians. What could be simpler?

Perhaps, though, it is too simple for mind of the Minister of Trans-