"STRATFORD EVENING POST" WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1928. POLICE METHODS.

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 61, 23 May 1928, Page 4

"STRATFORD EVENING POST" WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1928. POLICE METHODS.

The charge s levelled against Scotland Yard are of interest not only t t> the people of England, but also to those in all parts of the British Empire. The Britisher is proud ot British justice, and a'l that it stands fo|r, and when police methods are called into question, it is only natural that a disturbed feeling should arise for the reasonable iibeity of the subject is not a tiling to be lightly thrown asido. Therefore it is to bej hoped the inquiry promised! by the Home Office will be a conv prehengive one, and that no attempt will b e made to gloss over anything in the interests of officialdom. Many years! ago what was "known ag the Cass case showed the danger of any individual being arrested withouf any foundation for trie charge, and more recently a prominent ex-official was charged on grounds similar to those in the case of Sir Leo (Tinozza Money, and was convicted, although there was a good deal of doubt in the public mind as to the lightness of the decision. It happened that in Sir Leo Chiozza Money and 1 Miss. Savage the police had to deial with people of means mid influence, who were able to disprove the charge. There i s a strong suspicion that had they been poor and obscure they would have bejen convicted. It is this that has stirred the public of Great Britain. There is a general feeling that the freedom of citizens i s involved in this matter. Apparently anybody sitting quietly on a chair. in Hyde Park couid he similarly charged, and there is a growing suspicion that a number of cases may have been brought, and convictions secured in which the evi-de-nic© was not one whit stranger than that produced in the case of Miss Savage. But quite apari from the case itself, there is the further matr of Miss Savage having been taken to Scotland Ya,rd in a motor car and thore subjected to a rigid police examination for something like five hours. It is said that the Scotland Yard offiaials have denied some of Miss Savage's statements confirming this interview. But the tact that she was so taken to the Yard, anc detained there for several Jiouirs, soems to bo admitted, and this raises the whole question of the methods of the police in dealing wjth witnesses. These methods may lie countenanced in other countries, but they are contrary to the British sense of freejdom and justice, and nothing but the fullest investigation, and, if the) charges are proved, only the severest punishment of the officials concerned, will satisfy the British public.