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15. To refer to one or two of the more considerable faults into which Mr. Deane's inexperience has led him, and which the Commission entertain the hope will be rectified, they may mention what seems to them, even from Mr. Deane's own evidence, a too paramount attention on the part of the superior officers of the force to mere office work, to the exclusion of practical police duties. An error of this kind must obviously interfere with the well-being of any corps requiring continuous supervision in its details, and prevent the acquisition of that practical working knowledge which is essential to administrative success.
16. The Commission think that the efforts made by Mr. Deane to invest the force with a semi-military character have been to a considerable extent misdirected. To draw a hard and fast line between such parades, drills, and other semi-military exercises as are essential to enable men to act in concert upon an emergency, and to make them smart and well set up, and that excess of drilling which has a tendency towards a useless military display, is of course impossible. In places such as Singapore, where the Police are likely to be called upon at any moment to repress dangerous tumults and clan riots which take place on a large scale, a military organisation for the corps is beyond doubt highly useful. In Hongkong, on the other hand, the general Chinese community has proved itself for many years to be peaceful and orderly to a remarkable degree, while the thieves and rogues who infest the Colony require, for their repression and detection, vigilance and forethought rather than a display of military training.
17. While, however, the evidence pointed too strongly to be passed over to the conclusions mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, there is equally unanimous testimony that it would be inadvisable for the Commission to recommend any change in the office. For instance, the Honourable J. G. Austin says (p. 50):
"I think it is a pity the appointment was made, but I doubt if a change would be for the better. There is no doubt that Mr. Deane is an active and energetic officer. He is a young and active man, and has had great experience. We must have some knowledge of Chinese character, and a new man would have to acquire all that he knows."
The Honourable Charles May, whose experience in Police matters is undoubted, says (p. 92):
"I know pretty well the sort of man who would be sent out from home to take charge of the Police here. I don't think you would get a superior officer from England to take charge of the Police more successfully than Mr. Deane probably will."
18. In concluding their remarks on Mr. Deane, the Commission must in justice to him record the fact that weighty testimony, from which they see no reason to differ, has been laid before them showing that he is a zealous and painstaking officer in those duties to which he has more prominently directed his attention. He has acquired considerable local knowledge and has effected some important reforms in many branches of the force. They have pleasure in acknowledging the frankness and straightforwardness with which Mr. Deane gave his evidence on all topics on which he was examined.
19. Turning to Mr. Rice, the Assistant Superintendent, the Commission see reason to doubt whether any circumstances connected with his appointment here from another Colony justified a departure from the general principle that promotion should be kept as far as possible within the force.
20. The Commission have every reason to believe that, as a general body, the Inspectors are now active, trustworthy, and respectable. In confirmation of this opinion, they call attention to the remarks of the Honourable C. May, and Messrs. Deane and Douglas (pp. 95, 34, 66) which it is not necessary to quote in extenso.
21. With reference to the European petty officers and constables other than those recently recruited in the United Kingdom, the Commission cannot do better than give the following remarks of Mr. Deane (pp. 13, 14):
"The European portion of the Police is necessarily recruited in the Colony. We have hitherto been compelled to take this course. There are about eighty in the force exclusive of officers. They have consisted of discharged soldiers (who as a rule take to drinking very quickly) and men from merchant ships, including stewards, who have been discharged or have got their discharge to join the Police. These men are dismissed at about fifty per cent. per annum, generally for drunkenness, but also from ill-health, and climatic diseases. Four months ago there were only three Europeans besides myself who had been five years in the service. I should say that the average stay in the Police is about fifteen months, just about the time in which a man can learn his duties. Many men are dismissed at the end of a fortnight or a month for unfitness or drunkenness. Fifteen months is a fair average stay for a man who remains over a month.
"Men are occasionally met with who come here from other police forces in search of employment. As a general rule these men do not answer. The men enlist for five years, but the force is composed of men whose service does not generally exceed a year and a few months. I occasionally get intelligent men. Perhaps five per cent. could fit themselves to be Sergeants or Inspectors, but as a body they are very much below the English standard. Soldiers form very bad policemen, their newly-acquired independence of action compared with military discipline leads them away at once. The duties our European constables are fitted to perform are, keeping boats in order, steering them, &c., and bringing drunken men up to the station. They are useless for the detection of crime, and, under any circumstances, the time they stay in the force is too short to allow of their being made otherwise. They go away to sea again, or get away in ships, and never return."
Comment on so unsatisfactory a state of things is needless. The plan of recruiting described above seems to have been followed from the earliest days of the Colony. Its only possible justification can have been a want of funds for the introduction of a more wholesome and judicious system.
22. The subject of the Sikhs and other East Indians who compose the bulk of the force has given rise to much conflicting testimony, and to a divergence of opinion among the members of the Commission.
The East Indian element seems to have been introduced into the Police, or rather, perhaps, increased to something like its present proportions under the following circumstances:-In January, 1862, to quote from a report of that date by the Honourable C. May, who was then Superintendent of the force, that body consisted of:
1st. White natives of Europe or America.
2nd. Christian natives of Goa, Macao, and other Spanish and Portuguese settlements.
3rd. Natives of India, mostly Mahommedan or Hindoo, intermixed with coloured men from British North America, the West Indian Colonies, and the United States, Maltese, Arabs, and Malays,
the whole truly being, as Mr. May remarks, "an incongruous mass."
It having been found that a detachment of H.M. 5th Bengal Native Infantry lent for police purposes had answered very well, Mr. May in the report alluded to recommended that the force should consist "entirely of Europeans, Christian natives of Goa, Macao, &c., and natives of India, if possible to be obtained from India."
This recommendation, so far as natives from India were concerned, was carried into effect, doubtless to the great amelioration of things as they then existed.
There must have been at that particular juncture paramount reasons for the employment of a force recruited from races other than Chinese, and under those circumstances the choice of nationalities was probably the best at the command of the Colony.
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