Royal Commission report appendix 1 page 2
The Royal Commission Appendix 1
[[../../people/peL_M/montfortWPInsp.html|Insp William B. Montfort]] giving evidence
14 Do you consider your paid agent an officer of the police?— The officer of police must, of course, himself have an agent. People will not allow him to see them, or get into their secret.
15 That agent, in your view, ought to be a man in whom the officers have undoubted confidence?— Undoubtedly.
16 That is, not to employ the friends?— No. Then the system degenerates into a system of espionage, which means that the agent is paid for the information he has to give; and if he has none to give, he will manufacture some.
17 He should be a paid private detective?— He is paid in proportion to the amount of information he gives; and I think that is a mistake, because the probable result would be that he would invent tales.
18 And it has been done over and over again in that district?— That I cannot say. At any rate the system has that tendency. There is a downright premium given to lying.
19 Are the police stationed at Greta now quartered at the hotel?— Yes.
20 Do you consider it advisable that the police should be stationed there?— There is no other place for them to live, and I do not think they could be more harmlessly situated as regards the hotel, for it is a place where hardly any one goes to.
21 Do you advise that that system of quartering them at the Greta hotel should still obtain?— When you say system, I do not believe in it as a system; but as to stationing the police, or handling the police at the Greta hotel, that is an absolute necessity, for there is no other place to go to.
22 Would you recommend that a building should be provided at Greta for the police?— Not at present; because when a better state of things exists, which I hope for before long, I think it may be found necessary to reduce the number of stations. We may then perhaps have one that will command the whole of the Fifteen-mile Creek, and build a permanent station at a point near what is called the Heifer Station, about three miles lower down than Mason's. It is a place where the three roads meet—Greta, Benalla, and the one up the creek, and there is a crossing place there, going towards the Murray . We have land there reserved, ten acres on the creek, and then the road, and then beyond that again twenty-seven acres. That I recommended a few years ago; and I was on it a few days ago with Mounted constable Graham from Greta, and was able to command his knowledge and experience. He is an exceedingly intelligent man, on whose judgment I can put great reliance, and he quite agreed with me in all those proposals.
23 That commands the King and Murray rivers?— Yes; it is a most central position. But at present we can get quarters at Mason's for £52 a year.
24 At young Robert Mason's?— Yes. Then again another advantage is that we have the benefit of his knowledge of the country. He was born there.
25 Have all those alterations you have spoken of been carried out?— No. Mr. Chomley, the Acting Chief Commissioner, has the recommendations in his office.
26 Are there any other recommendations you could make beyond those?— Well, none that I have been able to mature properly, so as to be certain about them.
27 In consequence of the statements that have been made by some persons, you think that all the recommendations you have made, and others you may make as your judgment matures, should be carried out as speedily as possible?— Undoubtedly.
28 How was it that, on the prosecution of McIlroy and Quin there, they were not made amenable to some sort of justice to keep them quiet?— The case against McIlroy was not proved. The charge was that he had snapped a loaded gun at Quin, with intent to do him grievous bodily harm, and that was not proved to the satisfaction of the justices. It was sworn to right enough by Quin, but the justices did not believe him. There was subsequently a cross-summons taken out by McIlroy against Quin for some alleged insulting language made use of by him at Mrs. Dobson's public-house. It is usual in the bush to have cross-charges made. I suggested to the bench that they should postpone the hearing of the case against Quin for a week, but they decided that they would hear it to-morrow, the 10th. I did that because I considered that Quin was taken by surprise; that he, in ignorance, trusted to me to defend him, when I had no status in the Court to do anything of the kind, and I considered that it would be treating him with injustice not to let him have the option and opportunity of employing a solicitor.
29 You were prosecuting McIlroy?— Yes. I might say, in connection with this, that a great deal of the difficulty with these men would be got over if they felt they were treated with equal justice—that there was no “down” upon them. They are much more tractable if they feel that they are treated with equal justice. As to the refusal of land to suspected persons, I have sent a report to the Commissioner, in which I asked him to take measures so that the Crown Lands Department should act in concert with the police—to place me in the position that I can use the provisions of the Land Act as a lever to influence the applicants for land in the North-Eastern district, more specially for a radius of fifty miles all round, taking Benalla as the centre. I find, from conversation with some of those men, that if they recognized me—that is the head of the police force there—as the arbiter of their destinies, to a certain extent, with regard to the taking and selling of Crown lands—in other words, that it would depend on their good behaviour—by that a lever would be put in our hands which would have more potency than any army of police. The result, I think, would be that it would prevent them from harboring criminals, and would give them a direct incentive to place themselves on good terms with the police, and avoid doing anything that would alienate them from the police, whereas, at the present time, they have no such feeling. Their whole object is to obtain land, and if their individual interests depended upon their good behaviour among the population where they are, it would be half the battle towards making good citizens of them....(JJK)
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