THE DOMINION POLICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14209, 4 November 1909, Page 4

THE DOMINION POLICE.

Those who have followed with scrutinising care the daily parade of evidence given before the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the state of the New Zealand Police Force will generally agree with the conclusions arrived at by the Commissioner, Mr. H. W. Bishop, S.M. Reduced to the simplest terms, they amount to an indictment of the Head Office administration, which is so unmistakably incapable - that a prompt change is inevitable. The Force is sound at the core and public opinion will heartily endorse the compliment paid to it» by Mr. Bishop when he affirms that, " taken as a whole, it is a credit to the Dominion and compares favourably with any similar Force in the world." But this creditable character and the respect generally felt for an institution upon the reliability of which so much of our public comfort and security depends are evidently due to the individual exertions of hardworking officers and men, to the continued momentum of longestablished discipline and to the.instinctive fidelity to duty inherent in the loyal members of a traditionally honourable organisation. - We cannot speak too highly in praise of the officers and men who have done such good work and preserved such a commendable; reputation in .the face of difficulties, and discouragements now clearly brought before • Parliament. The immediate work of the Government and of Parliament is to relieve the Force of the dead weight it now carries in the shape of incapable superintendence, to remove the true grievances which a wiser superintendence, would have attended to long ago, and to place headquarters administration in thoroughly competent hands while making adequate provision for the reasser'tion of sound selective methods. As for the Police Commissionership itself, which is the crux of the difficulty, we do not hesitate to assert that the time has arrived to abolish for good and all the antiquated system of importing an officer whose training has been necessarily carried on under , conditions fundamentally different to those prevailing in this country. In the inevitable order, of things, when we import a Commissioner of Police to whom New Zealand is altogether strange, we place him in an utterly false position. The utmost that we can expect of him is that he will have sufficient shrewdness to avoid displaying his ignorance of colonial -conditions and sufficient tact to allow competent subordinates to guide him without involving himself in animosities and intrigues of which he does not understand either the beginning or the end. In any case, why should we go abroad in order to fill colonial positions which should be the reward of colonial merit and should be the recognised goal of laudable and legitimate colonial ambition We might just, as well import our magistrates and our judges, our Cabinet Ministers and our Departmental managers as our police commissioners. We have in New Zealand competent and deserving police inspectors, who are in practical charge of extensive districts, who are intimately familiar with every detail of the work and wholly absorbed in maintaining the credit and enhancing the usefulness of the great organisation which they serve with a loyalty that has become part of their life. These men should form the candidature from which a Commissioner of Police should be selected, and we do not doubt that were this done the true interests of the Fprce would be firmly guarded at headquarters, while the efficiency of the Force would be steadfastly held in view. For the true interests of the Police Force and the efficiency of the Police Force are inseparable. If officers and men are underpaid, if legitimate grievances are unnoticed or ignored, if the reasonable prejudices of loyal and faithful men are treated with indifference, the State cannot pick and choose its constables from among the flower of its manhood and it is only picked men, proud of honourable occupation and conscious that they belong to an organisation which, though it

may work them hard and discipline them sternly, treats them justly and respects their self-respect and rewards them for merit, who can discharge with tact and discretion the complicated duties of a colonial police force. Mr. Bishop dismisses, as unworthy of any but the briefest comment, the allegations made of sectarian influences; and as for those political influences which are undeniable, he very wisely'asserts that safety lies in having "strong men" as Minister for Justice and Commissioner of Police. Which is but to restate that the crux of the difficulty lies with the Police Commissionership. As things,are there has been something like a feud between, police headquarters and some of. the most competent and capable of the inspectors, and while occasional bad characters have been admitted t to the Force, and while many good men have sent in their resignations, such important questions as increase of pay and house allowances, the institution of a term of probation, the better organisation of districts, the removal of irritating grievances, and so forth, have been practically ignored. Mr. Bishop's report will be worth far more than it has cost if it leads to the placing at the head of the Police Force of a capable chief and true disciplinarian, under whose expert superintendence not only the reforms recommended but others which are almost equally desirable could be carried out. /