The Globe. SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1879.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1529, 11 January 1879, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1879.

From the many instances of departmental blundering which have signalized the reign of the present Ministry, may fairly bo singled out their extraordinary manipulation of police matters. Wo have had something to say on the subject upon one or two occasions, and so havo various other journals not compelled by the exigency of circumstances either to palliate Ministerial shortcomings, or if they find it utterly impossible to find words with which to defend the acts of the Cabinet, to remain silent. And it would seem that, as time wears on and the gentleman at the head of the Police Department in the colony, Colonel Whitmore, dived deeper and deeper into the official intricacies of his self-imposed duties, a greater muddle was visible in the management of what is admittedly one of the most important branches of the Civil Service. In various parts of the colony, good and trusty police officers are gradually dropping out of the ranks: favouritism and rcdtapo havo their sway, and what is tantamount to a spirit of disorganisation is making itself palpably felt everywhere. We were suddenly told the other day that it was Colonel Whitmore’s intention to partially disunite the detective branch of the police from tho department and to place it under a different head, with regulations dissimilar from those which control tho force generally. Wo have reason to believe that this statement is based upon fact, and that new regulations, to giro effect to the change, are beiug at the present moment drafted by tho Undersecretary, Colonel Reader, supervised by his gallant chief, Colonel Whitmore. This will certainly prove an innovation, and wo take it for granted that tho idea was first conceived by tho Colonial Secretary at tho time certain painful disclosures lately came to light in the Wellington Police Court, which made it apparent that tho local police wore all at sixes and sevens, and that, through the utter state of demoralisation prevailing there, public interests were greatly suffering. We refer, of course, to the notorious case of Detective Farrell, between whom and the local Police-Inspector wordy wars and serious conflictions of authority were the rule, and by which tho work of the Magistrate’s Court was at times obstructed. It was then that this Detective Farrell was convicted, by public opinion and by the Resident Magistrate’s ruling as well, of dereliction

of duty -when arresting, on two separate occasions, well-known respectable people, against whom no information had been laid and no warrant issued. Previous to this, a sufficient strain of truth had been established in Mr. G. E. Barton’s charges against the Wellington police to induce the Government to remove the Inspector in charge from Wellington. Detective Farrell, we find, has also been transferred to some ether locality. And while these serious instances of disorganisation—not to use another word —were absolutely recorded before the very noses of the authorities, all the punishment or blame which was meted out to those men was to transfer them to loss important posts, where, on a similar rate of pay, they would have considerably less to do. It was but a few days ago that before a Licensing Bench in the same provincial district, the inspector in charge was bold enough to warn the Court, whom ho had for some time past endeavoured to coerce into adopting his own views of things in general, that “he would make them responsible” for the manner in which they were dealing with a certain case. Not many miles from where this wonderful display of police ferocity was witnessed, the “Wanganui Herald” states that a single combat of a severely pugnacious character took place, in the broad light of day and in a public street, between a police-sergeant and a constable whose ideas of officialism happened to be at variance. Whether a promiscuous battering of one another’s uniform satisfactorily settled the point of departmental etiquette at issue, is not stated. Hero in Canterbury, it has long been a matter of notoriety that great dissatisfaction, amounting almost to disaffection, is permeating the rank and file of our police. Scarcely half a dozen of the old, trained men arc now on the roll. The majority of the police are ignorant and raw, generally unacquainted with the more routine of their duties, and, not unfroquently, it takes all the time of the sergeants to look after them. Wo believe that at the present moment there are a not inconsiderable number of charges preferred by policemen against one another either waiting investigation or being enquired into. How things are being allowed to drift in the department, may bo instanced by the following case, which was especially brought before our notice a few days ago. A man had gone into a well-known shop in High street to have his hair cut. The operation performed, he insolently declined to pay for it, and swaggoringly walked away. The shopkeeper, seeing a policeman near, naturally appealed to the representative of law and order. Abuse of an unqualified kind was the only answer which he received, and when asked for his name, the policeman jeeringly declined to furnish it. A complaint in the usual form was subsequently lodged by the shopkeeper against the officer, but to no practical, or, wo are assured, to no possible purpose whatever. Several other cases of a, somewhat similar nature, showing in what happy-go-lucky style our police management is conducted, could be easily adduced. We are blessed, certainly, with high-class police officials, in the shape of a Superintendent in charge who exists somewhere in the city although never seen, and of Inspectors and other dignitaries, whose work appears to be mainly that of attending the Law Courts. It is also generally understood by the initiated that there is. located in Dunedin, a Commissioner, Mr Weldon, who has solo control of the Middle Island. But, practically, for all purposes of discipline oven, the police is entirely in the hands of Colonel Whitmore at Yf oiling, ton, who, by the use of telegraphic appliaucos of a naturally complicated nature, amuses himself by pulling every possible police string throughout the colony. Not a constable can be enrolled, dismissed, or dopartmcntally dealt with in truth, without the Colonial Secretary having previously boea mado nwarq of tho

facts, and been given time to ponder well over the matter. The supervision of 1 lie so-called Dunedin Commissioner is but a myth, a pleasurable fiction of the pipe clay and boot-aud-saddlo pattern, invented for certain enigmatical purposes of which the two Wellington colonels, Messrs Whitmore and Reader alone have the key. In the meanwhile, as wo said before, everything is permitted to drift. All that the police, from high to low, appear to feel much concern about, is the the welcome advent of their monthly payday. Redtapo and official circumlocution of the semi-military type have hold of them hard and fast, Colonel Whitmore evidently playing with police matters as he did with the harbour defence question.