GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE WITH THE POLICE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 949, 4 June 1881, Page 2

GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE WITH THE POLICE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I see by the Weekly News of the 21st May inference is made to the late visit of the Police Inspector of the district, being for the purpose of pursuing certain investigations with regard to the forgery case. But although that was months ago, nothing further seems to have been done. 1 should have thought the duty of police when once they report a crime and the person suspected (and that was done more than a year ago) would have been to follow the matter up vigorously until the criminal was detected and punished. But in the present case the police are a mere nonentity. A crime is committed almost before their eyes, they report it, and then they fall asleep. It is a disgrace to the Force that such should be the case unless indeed it is as the Weekly News puts it that secret influences combine to shelter the crime, in which case, the matter becomes even more serious, and is of such grave importance that the whole sub ject demands a searching investigation. Any interference with the police in the execution of their duty is so foreign to English custom and becomes so continental in aspect, that we may pereaps soon find ourselves subjected to a secret system of police espionage by the Government, which would be quite as tolarable as interference of the nature under ' notice.

Do you not think Sir that the police should as elsewhere be allowed to pursue their duty (as it seems to them) without any interference ?—I am &c., Justice.