LAWS AND VET MORE LAWS

NZ Truth, Issue 1136, 8 September 1927, Page 4

LAWS AND VET MORE LAWS

m New Zealand Legislation and Far-reaching Effects CRIME DETECTION AND PREVENTION

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Auckland Representative.) There is a growing feeling among the citizens of the Dominion that the detection and prevention of crime is being neglected to a certain extent while polic-s and plain clothes men and even detectives are engaged m trapping those who break laws, which all said and done are simply a matter of opinion.

THAT ia to say that whereas the detection and prevention of crime ag-ninst tho person and property miiy result m tho apprehension and subsequent punishment of tho offender without any addition to the Slate coffers, there is a very considerable revenue to bo derived from the trapping of bookmakers and those who infringe tho Gaming Act. Another source of revenue not to be despised as means of revenue is the Sunday trader who may sell a few orange's, or a meat pie, or an icecream cone. Recently there would appear to have been a boom m bookmakers who trespass upon the monopoly of the State and encourage the gambling instinct which our legislators are making such strenuous efforts to suppress. The remarks of Vivian Potter, M.P., m regard to the methods which the police use m trapping offenders ranging from bookies to sly grog sellers are very much to the point. He said it would be • just as logical to provide the police with jemmies that they might encourage the burglar m his own peculiar profession. Gambling and graft, lotteries and breaches of the Licensing Act, it cannot be denied, are, m New Zealand, offences against the State. Indulging m gambling and conducting the lotteries is only an offence m the moral sense, and while the State revenue is greatly augmented by a direct encouragement* of horseracing, through some remarkably hypocritical reasoning there is very vigorous opposition to any form of State 3ottei*y which would bring hundreds of thousands m revenue, and

i would do little or no harm to the i morality of the inhabitants of the ■ Dominion. "Graft" goes unpunished while some • of those who grow rich through it are held up as examples of rectitude and are not remotely liable to punishment. There may be those who will say that such matters as we have mentioned are m a widely diverse province, i but the fact remains that they are all linked up together because they all come within the province of those who carry out the law. If the execution of the law is carried out m a manner to bring it into disrepute it not only reflects upon those who are its instruments, but upon those who make its statutes. If obedience to the law must bo enforced, let it be by clean and j wholesome methods, and not by utilising a body of men m an underhand manner which brings them into contempt. If certain inclinations, which are not a crime against persons and property but are indulged m by at least a half of the population, must be suppressed by law, that law should be equitable, and should be enforced m a manner which would inspire respect. If the coffers of the State must be replenished, it- should be done m a way which debars any suggestion of persecution; neither should there be any shadow of suspicion that the insti*uments of the law are out to swell the revenue literally by "hook or crook." To-day it looks as though New Zealand is becoming one of the most lawridden countries m the world and that a race of hypocrites is being incubated to please the whim of a minority of ranting cranks.