THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY MARCH 19, 1896.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10083, 19 March 1896, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY MARCH 19, 1896.

The outrage perpetrated on the two tourists Messrs. Austin and Mounsey, is happily exceptional in our criminal procedure, but that is no reason why, as affecting the credit of New Zealand, it should be lightly passed over. Errors of identification are not infrequent in criminal cases, and many an innocent man before has been wrongfully accused. But there is something so asinine in these proceedings, as to lift them wholly out of the category of common events, and to hold up our police and criminal machinery to the contempt of all the colonies. These two gentlemen, arriving from the South Sea Islands at Auckland on an extensive tour from Australia, were in this city on the night on which a robbery was perpetrated on the Rotorua Post-office over a hundred miles away. Happening to proceed to that district subsequently one of them had the misfortune, as; it appeared in the sequel, to enter the same bath with a man who was afterwards charged with the crime, and to accentuate this misfortune by joining in • a drink with the culprit at the hotel bar. Such an incident might occur to any tourist, for as a class tourists are not usually reserved in their manner with

people with whom t p y casually rub shoulders in their trarta fa & consequence the two trav^ er3 on their arrival at Auckland were^ rres t e[ l on a telegraphic intimation a country policeman, searched, and Marched in handcuffs through the pub; c streets, and landed in gaol, bail being peremptorily refused. It made n\ difference that well - known citizens with whom the tourists had spent the night in Auckland on -hicli tlifi robbery had been committed at Rotorua, were ready to testify to',he fact. No; the police had for ofce caught somebody that they meant o hold, and with a zeal outrunning discr*. tion, and without a shadow of evidence and while refusing any information as to the grounds of their action, they detained these men in custody for two days. Apparently even at a time when —on Tuesday evening—they knew that a blunder had been committed, they refrained from hastening to admit to bail, or relieve in any way the burthen of disgrace imposed; and they kept these gentlemen quite needlessly another night in gaol, and then brought them before the Court to say that there was no charge against them. The whole thing was such a wanton wrong, and is such a public scandal that it is difficult to speak of it in temperate terms. This colony lias already been the laughing stock of the other colonies and of a good part of the Eng-lish-speaking world, because of the fence it was sought to have erected arouud it against " undesirable immigrants'—tourists having the onus placed on them of showing that they were not in the objectionable category. But the inhospitality of the country to visitors will seem to be accentuatud, if intending tourists have to calculate on the chances of being run in at the caprice of a wrong-headed policeman, On this occasion it is said that the. suspicion which wrought so unpleasant results had its origin in a wink, which the up-country policeman saw, or thought lie saw, or was otld that somebody else had seen passing from the optic of the unfortunate traveller, and as showing "what great events from trifling causes spring," this movement of the eyelid, spontaneous or of intent, was sufficient to put the whole machinery and terrors of the law in motion,

If this were an ordinary error the public might allow it to pass in accordance with that rule, itself the embodiment of unwarrantable tyranny, which recognises no right to redress in Her Majesty's subjects against the mistakes of the minions of the law. But in this particular case there has been such a concatenation of wooden-headed blundering from the beginning to the end as to call for fornnl and exhaustive enquiry, and if the Government is afraid of the political power that might be evoked by instituting such an inquiry, we hope that there will be found some members of Parliament with sufficient independence to compel it. For the credit of the colony such action should be taken as will in its results make itself known in the other colonies, and show that neither is the feeling of the country callous to such an outrage inflicted on a stranger, nor is the machinery of government so defective as to permit such tilings to be done with impunity. The victims in this case are apparently not men to whom pecuniary compensation might be a consideration. But irrespective of this ; exception should be made and liberal compensation should be voluntarily given, as would have been readily exacted if the Government of the country or its officers had been private persons. But besides the reparation due to the victims it is due to the country, and to the police that such a stigma as now attaches to the administration of the law should be removed, and that to this end the most searching enquiry should be made so that the blame should be equitably adjudged and sheeted home to the guilty parties, It would be affectation to deny that there is at the present hour a good deal of dissatisfaction in the public mind in relation to the police, and to their dealing with crime and criminals; and for the good name of the police themselves and their officers, this singular case of professional blundering ought to be put before the world in its clearest light. The fact that these tourists were strangers, and have no votes should not affect the position, for their case is one of s'ich wrong as must affect the sentiments of thousands of voters, and on far higher grounds even than that, the incident is one that calls for enquiry, and for the meting out of satisfaction as well as of punishment as the occasion demands.