AN INTERCOLONIAL POLICE DIFFICULTY.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 331, 5 July 1875, Page 3

AN INTERCOLONIAL POLICE DIFFICULTY.

The Argus says ; —The police forces of Victoria and the Province of Wellington, N.Z., are at war, and if the consequences of the quarrel are not likely to be very serious, a good deal of bitterness has already found its way into the correspondence. The Acting Chief Secretary heads the tight on behalf of the Victorian force, and the Superintendent of Wellington conducts the battlefor his own men. It will thus be seen that some of the highest powers in the two colonies are involved in the war. It began by an application to the Victorian police by the Wellington force for payment cf a reward—or rather two rewarc s—for the apprehension of Drummond, the absconding manager of a branch of the Melbourne and Suburban Bank, and the recovery of moneys he was supposed to have in his possession. The terms of the reward were £SO by the Government for the apprehension of Drummond, and 10 per cent by the London Guarantee Society for any sums recovered that might go in reduction of any claim upon them by the bank. But that condition of the second reward was not communicated in the first instance to the Wellington police, and if it had, would probably not have been understood. They simply read in the information furnished to them that £SO and 10 per cent of any moneys recovered were offered for the capture of the offender. They cleverly picked up Drummond in Welling-

ton on his way to San Francisco; they detained him until an officer was sent down to convey him to Victoria ; and they re«overed |over £470 in gold in his possession or paid to the agents of the Californian steamers for passage fares of Drummond and ihe person who accompanied him in his flight. The Vic 01 ian police piornplly enough transmittal the portion of the rew/rJ offered by the Government to the Superintendent of Wellington for distribution to the officers entitled to receive it. But the amount of the percentage— £47 10s—the Superintendent has not been able to recover fiom the Acting Chief Secretary. The Victorian police deny their responsibility for the amount, as they did not guarantee it, but simply announced it as offered. The guarantee society refuse to pay on the ground that, having compromised matters with the bank, the money recovered did not really go in mitigation of their loss. The police of Wellington assert that they have no concern with the relations of the police of Victoria and the society referred to —that they are not interested in any compromise that the society and the bank may have arrived at—they look simply to the Victorian force to keep faith with them in the matter of a reward offered for t 'certain services which they rendered. But the inspector of the police of Wellington in his last letter to the Superintendent, and by the latter forwarded to the Victorian Government, writes very strongly on this breach of faith, as he regards it, and asserts that it is not the first occasion on which the Wellington force has been treated in a similar way. He instances the case of a person named Cullamore, a publican of Ballarat, who was “ wanted” in Victoria, and was picked up by the Wellington police, when a similar difficulty about the reward occurred. He goes further, and asserts that the Wellington police have in fact been systematically treated unfairly by the Victorian force, while he expresses a fear that an illfeeling may arise which would nob further the interests of justice. The West Coast of New Zealand is a favorite resort of strangers from the other colonies who do not desire their departure from Victoria to be particulaily remarked, and Wellington has proved a trap for not a few of these persons during the last ftw years. The Acting Chief Secretary deprecates the expression of any such fear, and complains of the tone of the inspector's communication to the Superintendent.