Changes

The Police [[Royal Commission-followup|Commission]] has decided to work in the dark. Publicity does not suit it. The members have tried the experiment of allowing the public to know the facts on which they based their conclusions, and the result is so unsatisfactory that now the public is to have the conclusions only. The facts are to be kept in the background as fas as possible. The witnesses are to be examined in private, and then when the report is published, no one will know whether it is contrary to evidence or otherwise. Very likely the commissioners regard this last movement as clever, but possibly ''cunning" would be the better word to use, and cunning usually defeats itself. Such is likely to be the result on the present occasion. A report dealing with one if the most important departments of the state must rest on one of two foundations. It must be based either on evidence which will speak for itself, or on the confidence felt in the judgment and the good faith of the members of the commission. But the evidence we are not to have, and the confidence felt in the ability and the fairness of the members of the Police Commission - speaking of them as a whole and in their corporate capacity - must now be of the smallest degree.