ANOTHER POLICE CIRCULAR.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 24, 12 October 1883, Page 27

ANOTHER POLICE CIRCULAR.

THE Kildare Observe)' of August 4, gives the following rough draft of a police circular which it is alleged Mr. H. A. Blake, R.M., has issued :—: — Having regard to the present state of your county, I think it advisable that the system of patrolling hitherto established shall be modified, which, while doubling the supervision of the sub-district, will enable the men to acquire a more complete local knowledge. I have to request that you will call your officers together and arrange with them a change of duty on the following principles : —Between sunrise and sunset men not engaged on special duty shall perform at least four or five hours' beat duty daily. They will proceed on this duty singly and with batons. The beats are to be settled by the sub-inspectors in consultation with their constables, the hours being arranged from week to week. The men will proceed from left to right, and will not necessarily confine themselves to the high road, nor mil they be prevented from entering houses if necessary ; but every incident of the journey must be noted by the sub-constable on his return in a separate diary called the Patrol Note Book, to be kept at the station for that purpose. The constable or acting-constable will not go on beat duty ; he will daily inspect cne or more beats, going from right to left. Men going on beat duty are to note as early as possible all persons met by them, stating time and place. These notes will be made in the Patrol Note Book in the handwriting of the man on that duty. Such notes may be of great me hereafter as a corroboration of possible evidence in case of outrage. I have raadethis change with the concurrence of the Inspector-General. details of th^Bystem must b 3 worked out by you and the oific«irs, upon whose cordial co-operation I count with confidence. (The Nation, August 11.) Mr. H. A. Blake's latest police circular, which will be found in another page, suggests many considerations ; but probably the fact that such a code of instructions is thought necessary by an agent of the British Government in this country in the eigbty-thhd year of the Union, constitutes the most striking and instructive consideration of all. The belief on which the circular is obviously based — a circular which is practically equivalent to an order that no person in the counties of Kildare, Carlow, Queen's County, and King's Oounty shall go outside his own house without a passport from Mr. Blake — is that the people of that whole district are thoroughly criminal and disaffected. Now, supposing that the belief is well founded, what greater proof can be afforded of the utter failure of English rule in Ireland? When the Government of any civilised country confess by their acts that they can preserve the peace of that country only by practices utterly abhorrent to all notions of political freedom, and calculated in themselves to foster and create disturbance and crime, they are assuredly judged and condemned

oat of their own mouths. Nor do the English fail to apply this doctrine in the case of other governments. It is only when they are themselves the incriminated part that they decline to recognise its truth, and then they think, or pretead to think, that the world does not note their inconsistency ! At the meeting of Athy Guardians on Wednesday — John Wm. Dunne, J.P., in the cbair — Mr. Richard Lalor drew attention to the recently published police circular, and proposed the following resolution :—: — " Resolved — That we, the guardians of the Athy Union, as representatives of the people, express our unqualified condemnation of the recent police circular purporting to emanate from Mr. H. A. Blake, special resident magistrate. We regard it as an insult to the people of Kildare, Queen's County, King's County, and Carlow, and degrading on those who are to be the agents in carrying out the directions it contained ; and we call upon the Government to insist; on the absolute withdrawal of this latest development of contemptible despotism." Mr. Orford seconded the resolution. Mr. Young, J.P., said he did not know anything about the circular. The police regulations were independent of the magistrates. The resolution was passed nem con.