CONSTABLES OR GENDARMES?
WHEN Lord Salisbury, in his speech made in the House of Lords on Monday, looked forward with approval to the time when the management of the police in England shall be in the hands of the central Govern- ment, and when the system of an Imperial gendarmerie which prevails in every other country shall be adopted here, we cannot help thinking that he was at the moment possessed neither with the true spirit of the Constitution nor with a sound instinct of Conservatism. As we under- stand the principles upon which our political institutions rest, the fulfilment of Lord Salisbury's wish would be extremely mischievous. To our thinking, it is essential that the responsibility for the maintenance of law and order which the State undoubtedly possesses in the last resort, shall be imposed by it upon those local bodies which are its agents of government, and not exercised outside and apart from them, except where they fail in doing their duty. Since, however, there seems growing up some feel- ing in the other direction, and since the importance of the subject is so very great, it may be allowable to take this opportunity of discussing the matter theoretically, and of attempting to state some of the abstract propositions upon which our contention rests.
Sir Robert Morier, in an extremely able pamphlet written by him some fifteen years ago for the Cobden Club, the reprint of which was last month reviewed in our columns, has pointed out that the true principle upon which government should be organised is that under which society is harnessed to do the work of the State. In other words, the State must not stand aloof from society as something separate and apart, but must delegate the carrying out of those duties which are entrusted to its care to a duly trained society. In nothing more than in the question of police is it necessary to insist that this principle shall be recognised. The maintenance of law and order, the preservation of the public peace, and the safeguarding of life and property, are essentially matters for the State. Indeed, they may be correctly said to con- stitute a first charge upon its action in regard to society. But if the State is to perform its duty in these respects with efficiency and success, it will not attempt to do so by setting up any institution for the maintenance of the public peace which shall stand apart from and outside society, but will rather train society to do the work itself, taking care, how- ever, that the functions thus imposed are properly dis- charged. In early English history, the development of this principle and its final triumph are to be traced with a beautiful exactness in the growth of the " King's peace," as contrasted with " the peace " of the minor powers existing within the State. At first, the " King's peace " only covered certain classes of men and certain places, like the Court and the great roads left by the Romans,—the King's highways. Gradually, however, its scope grew and grew, till at last no person and no place in the whole of England was left outside the King's peace. The power and right of the central authority to maintain law and order were recognised on every hand, and the preservation of the peace was admitted to be the first care and duty of the State. But because the preservation of peace had become recognised as the duty of the State, our early Kings and law-givers did not attempt to preserve it by any organisation outside and apart from society. Instead, they forced the duty upon society, and carried out the preservation of law and order by a system analogous to that of forced labour. To use again Sir Robert Morier's helpful phrase, they harnessed society to do the work of the State. Upon every parish was enforced the duty of appointing an officer to maintain order. But the parish constable,- though freely appointed by his fellow-parishioners, did not keep the peace of the village, but the King's peace. The whole of that voluntary system of police which existed from the Middle Ages till within the last sixty years, of which our system of special constables is now the only survival, was thus arranged in obedience to what we have described as the true principle to be followed in regard to police. In a word, " police " protection, though a matter of national concern, was provided by the localities, the State, however, holding the localities responsible for good manage- ment. The local body appointed, regulated, and arranged who was to keep order, but the order was determined by the State, which, instead of saying to the locality, Arrange matters as you like,' said, We require you to keep order in such-and-such a way, and we hold you responsible for so doing.' When the strain of modern life broke down the voluntary system, the plan adopted by Parliament was still strictly in accordance with this principle. The State still insisted that society should bear the burden of the preservation of order ; but while it declared that this or that borough or county should be responsible for the proper maintenance of law and order within its boundaries, it allowed the local body to raise a special force for the pur- poses of police. Hence, then, in England, while the State is responsible for law and order, the instruments it uses are the local bodies. In stating this proposition, however, it must never be forgotten that, since the ultimate responsi- bility for the peace rests with the State, with it rests also the right of determining whether the local bodies have properly performed their work, and if any of them are found imperfect instruments, of suspending their functions. The State holds them responsible for doing its work, and if that work is done badly, has a right to choose other agents. In this connection, then, it may conveniently be suggested that it would probably be wise to give the Executive Government a right, without applying to the Legislature, to intervene in any case where a local body had misused its powers, and to take whatever steps might be necessary to place the preservation of the -peace upon a proper footing. Such a right, of course, exists in Parliament, but it would be far better to recognise that action of this kind is properly administrative rather than legislative. The right to enforce the proper maintenance of the public peace thus clearly defined need not weaken the local sense of responsibility, and at the same time would dispel any possibility of danger arising from an abuse of the duties entrusted to the local bodies.
We have said this much to set forth our contention, and to show that, whether right or wrong, it is at any rate in accordance with the whole previous development of our institutions. We must now give our reasons for believing that the public peace is better kept when its preservation is delegated in strict trust to local bodies, than when kept in the hands of the central authority. To begin with, the respon- sibility which the maintenance of law and order within its boundaries forces upon a local body, does an immense deal to render that body worthy and efficient. Who can doubt that the very important functions in regard to law and order exercised by the Town Councils in cities like Liverpool and Manchester, have done a great deal to prevent those bodies from getting into the condition of the Metropolitan Board of Works ? Again, local responsibility for law and order in the first instance, secures the advantage of supervision and direction by men who really understand the local requirements. A central bureaucracy may doubtless be very highly organised and very intelligent, but it will never know the police require- ments of the borough of Little Peddlington as well as Little Peddlington's own Town Council. More important, how- ever, than all these considerations is the fact that the police, when locally managed, can be employed with far greater fearlessness, precision, and efficiency. It cannot be doubted that in the case of serious riot, the local police will act with a vigour and severity not to be expected from a gendarmerie. While the Captain of an Imperial police force would be awaiting instructions, and satisfying his superiors in London that it was really necessary to act with determination, and that mounted men, say, must be used to break up the crowds, the local Chief Constable—the very thing was done a year ago in one of the great towns—would have found out and engaged all the old cavalry soldiers in the borough, have turned them into mounted police, and have dispersed the mob. In case of town disorders—such, for instance, as those caused by strikes or by demonstrations of the unemployed—a great deal depends upon the attitude of the ordinary townspeople. If they sympathise with the rioters in resisting the police, matters at once become serious ; while if, on the other hand, they support the police, things are not likely to go very far wrong. Now, when the police arelocally maintained, the local sympathy is pretty sure to be with the police. The ordinary ratepayer realises that it is he who pays and finds the policemen, and when he sees them being knocked about by the mob and their uniforms torn, he naturally becomes indignant, and does what he can to help his own servants. If, however, the police, instead of being his servants—and servants, too, against whom he can complain if he has a grievance—are men controlled from a, distant London office from which he fancies no redress can ever be got, it is more than probable that his sympathies will tacitly be with the rioters, and against the constables. " Influential citizens," too, are far more likely to be discreet in their criticism of how the crowds are being dealt with, if they themselves will some day have to manage the police, than they are if they have nothing to do with the matter but to notice that there has been mismanagement. Again, if men feel that, whether they have a good or a bad police force depends not upon their own selections in securing a good Town Council, but merely upon the efficiency of certain officials on a central Board, it is not likely that a very healthy public tone will prevail. Men are far too much inclined by nature to let the work of the State be done for them, not through them, to make it wise to do away with the best means of all for bringing home to the individual citizen the responsibility which he ought to feel in regard to the society in which he lives.
We have looked as yet chiefly at the disadvantages which would come to the local bodies from the institution of a gen- darmerie in England. If we look at the matter from the point of view of the central authority of the State, the objections are, however, none the less grave. To begin with, by under- taking the management of the whole police force the central Executive may be made to incur an amount of odium which will reflect most disadvantageously on questions of high policy. We have seen how the case of Miss Cass affected for a time the position of the present Government. It would surely not be wise to multiply the chances of such occurrences a hundredfold ; yet this must be one of the results of an Imperial police. Perhaps, however, the last argument which we desire to put forward is the strongest of all. No organisations, military or civil, can be kept perpetu ally in a state of efficiency. All are sure, at some time or other, to go through a period in which, for some reason or other, their forces dwindle and a general decay sets in,—a decay often discovered only by some catastrophe. If, then, we set up an Imperial police force, we must contemplate the possibility of such internal decay taking place, and with it all the serious evils involved in the whole machinery for the maintenance of law and order being affected at once. If, however, we prevent the police from being centralised, and keep a hundred separate and independent police organisms, the danger does not exist. The Bristol or the Bradford police force may get into a bad way, but that is not a national disaster. If one, or even two, of the forces fall into decay, sixty or seventy others remain as efficient and as well organised as ever. If, then, we want our people trained to feel a proper sense of responsibility for govern- ment ; if we want the police handled without fear or hesita- tion, and so as to draw the sympathy of each locality towards law and order ; if we want to see the central Government saved from the odium of the petty scandals of administration which must from time to time arise ; if we wish to guard the police force of England from the danger of a simultaneous decay, we must maintain the ancient principle of the Constitution, and continue to impose upon each locality the duty of preserving the peace of the State.
In dealing with the police question, it is impossible to avoid the subject of London and to refrain from attempting to answer the question,—Should Loudon, too, manage its own police ? The answer that must be given is without doubt,—` London should not be allowed the control of her own police, and for these reasons : London is the capital, in London meets the Parliament of England, in London is centred the whole of our official system, and in London reside the Sovereign and the Ambassadors of foreign nations.' It is impossible, therefore, to treat London as if it were an ordinary town. In the place where Parliament sits, no power which could by any possibility be used to overawe its deliberations can be allowed to exist. The hands of a Minister responsible to Parliament are the only hands in which the control of the police force of the capital can be rightly placed. No doubt the fact that in the case of London this means that nearly five millions of the inhabitants of England are not to be entrusted with the responsibility which we believe to be so salutary, is deeply to be regretted. It is the greatest of pities that our capital is not, like that of the United States of America, placed in an unimportant city. Since, however, it is not, we can only deal with the situation as it exists, and Londoners may remember that, at any rate, they are not like the inhabitants of the City of Washington,—deprived. entirely, by reason of its being the capital, of all control over their city. London, in fact, must pay the price of being a capital, and must resign herself to the fact that, however democratic the representa- tives of the United Kingdon may become, they will never find it possible to allow an authority that might come into actual conflict with the sovereignty of Parliament, to exist in the city from which the government of the nation is directed. Parliament must be supreme, and to be supreme it must feel itself beyond the reach of all physical and external con- straint. This it could not do with an army of ten thousand policemen at its doors.
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