The Daily News SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1907. THE POLICE AND THE PEOPLE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVIII, Issue 81918, 2 March 1907, Page 2

The Daily News SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1907. THE POLICE AND THE PEOPLE.

The position of a constable in the police ,I'orce is not mi exalted 0110. Uespite the fact, however, lh.it the constable is nm tin: King of JO :glaud, or oven the Coveinor of New Zealand', ho has power* that make liim a person to be reckoned with. This is, in a degree, as it should be. A constable may be a discreet man with good bruins (and (here are many in the force) but there is no particular compulsion in I regard to the po-session of brans by u policeman. Jle lias a verv large number of rules set out for his guidance, but in the mutter of gathering evidence he appears to have a pretty tree band. We do not suggest: that a policeman coerces auv person from whom lie is gathering knowledge prior I to the hearing of a case in any court but we do suggest that in miiiiler.oss cases the police, suggest what is not lu the deponent's mind and are able in t.'ourt to produce titer own ideas un the subject as being the idea of .mother party. Nobody need give any information to a police ollieer, any more than need a person pav a lawyer's fee when the lawyer is dunning for somebody else's money. The person who pours out his soul to a policeman, or n person to whom a policeman pours out iiis soul with the intern tion of producing what lie pours as being the bona-lido deposition of the examined person, is a very foolish person. It should he remembered tha'j no law has ever yet been made giving the constable any authority to constitute himself a court of enquiry, liecent eases in various parts of the colony in which it has been most apparent that police officers have "prmed' witnesses in important actions is oui reason for the warning that no persor should be bluffed into telling a poiici. man anything of a damning character to any person who has not appeared in a court of law. There is a good deal of this smartness in the force, and it is time judges and magistrate's referred to the unfairness of such proceedings more often.