The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1881.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 3, Issue 658, 4 January 1881, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1881.

The other day wo stated that we understood it Lad been the practice of the police department t6 .station one man to every 750 of'the population. A''perusal, of..a .volume' of. statistics, which, has. subsequently' reached us shows .that this proportion is not quite accurate. In 1879 in the provincial districts of Otago, Canterbury,-Welling--ton, and Aucklaiid the ratio was one constable to each 1000 of the population. It is significant tlmt the proportion was the same in each of the large 1 provincial, districts' .as this,, indicates, that a fixed; rule has been.. adopted by." the department; and we can take it as a basis in estimating not .only .the past requirements'', of the colony, but- its. future needs. 'ln 1879 the number of ; police on active duty in'the colony was 514. This gives ah. average of one man to every 900 of the' population,, but there are certain disturbed districts lii ; the North Island where a larger-num-ber of men have to beWiationed'f so that we may regard the one-man to the thousand as the fair rate foi; the. more settled districts. What we would now desire to know would be what proportion of police the Government will for the future assign to the population. Our experience of both town and ' .district police in the past has been that, they have been rather over than under worked. looking at the fact, too, that bailiff's duties are now being placed oil their shoulders in addition. to ' their other work we are of the opinion that "they will not bear a greater-strain than that to which they are now subjected. If the old rate of one man to a thousand people is raised to one in 1100 there will be risk—if to one in 1200 there will, bo danger—if to one in 1300 instead of the economy sought to be obtained by the Government there will be absolute lossr-The public will be unprotected, rogues and vagabonds will flock tq this colony and concentrate in,.those.parts of it where the police are scarce and inefficient, and our. last state will be. worse than the first, We thoroughly sympathise with. the. work of reduction -in public expenditure undertaken by the present Government, and we have,not said a word against the Wairarapa, being cut down i" common with other.districts, If on the- present docasion we make it is on the ground that the interests of the colony as a -whole are bein<* ■ sacrifieed-by '-tire -changes - apparently being made, and that there'is-no real economy .in .them. The Wairarapa' district" cannot he efficiently protected wit.li less than five constables, and it is simply a blunder on the part of theGovernment to attempt to work it -with less, If the same blunder is being re.peated.il other, districts -of the colony Ministers will most assuredly have to reconsider the course they have taken.