22 JUNE 1929, Page 42

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It may not be a bad thing to mix a little salutary criticism with the encomiums showered on the Metropolitan Police on the occasion of their centenary. But we feel that in Police and Public (S. Fowler Wright, 2s.) the author rather over- states his case. In the first place the unsavoury episodes which made it desirable in the public interest to appoint a Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure were nevertheless hardly such as to suggest a " widespread feeling of distrust, fear and hostility." Those features of police procedure which he rightly condemns are : (1) the tendency to usurp the pre- rogative of the magistrate—at the Inquiry it was frankly avowed that the police nowadays proceed more frequently by summons and less by warrant : the use of the term " police courts " is in itself significant ; (2) the professional attitude- " official rather than social "—which governs the preparation of a case and dictates the " mechanical precision " which Mr. Lees-Smith exposed in his minority report on the Savidge inquiry. After the recent Report we ought to hear no more of the " voluntary " statement that is in reality an examination by question and answer. Finally, we cordially support his indictment of the bad traditions in newspaper work which still cause so much space to be devoted to crime and police court news. The public as well as the police may well be adjured to raise its standards.