THE POLICE COMMISSION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVIII, Issue 11424, 12 November 1897, Page 4

THE POLICE COMMISSION.

It seems from the news we publish this morning that there is good ground for the fear we expressed the other day that the promised police inquiry will not satisfy the people by whom it was demanded. The removal of the rases of Inspector Emerson and Detective Henderson from the scope of the Commission’s investigations has deprived the proceedings of a good deal of their value and interest, and it does not require much more to reduce the whole affair to a farce. There already appears to be some confusion in the public mind about the matter, if we may judge from the message supplied by the Auckland agent of the Press Association, who implies that the Commission has actually commenced its sittings in the northern city. The truth is, of course, that the investigation going on there is confined to the case of Inspector Emerson, and has nothing to do with the larger inquiry. Then we learn from our Wellington correspondent that several constables against whom complaints had been lodged by the Prohibition Party have been removed from the force, while others have been satisfied in some mysterious way of the wisdom of retiring. All this may be very well in its way, but it will scarcely serve the purpose for which a Eoyal Commission was demanded. ,ihe object of the agitators was not to secure the dismissal of two or

three constables who had neglected to do their duty, but to obtain an independent review of a department of the public service that had fallen into serious discredit,, W e are afraid the position has been prejudiced to some extent by the readiness of the prohibitionists to take all the credit for obtaining the Commission. People have begun to suspect that the agitation was merely an outcome of the perennial licensing question, and that the Premier’s promise was given under pressure from the junior member for Christchurch. But as a matter of fact Mr Seddon was entirely guided by the recommendation of the new Commissioner of Police, and it would be a grave affront to that officer as well as a serious breach of faith with the public to do less than was announced in the House of Representatives.