LAW AND POLICE—THE LATE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES AT WEST HAM.

§ COLONEL MAKINS

said, he would not detain the House many minutes; but 308 the Motion to which he desired to call attention had been so long on the Paper that he proposed to take this opportunity of calling attention to it. The question was one of a local character; but it had caused a great deal of feeling in the part of the country which he represented. Rather more than a year ago, a young girl named Eliza Carter disappeared from West Ham under somewhat extraordinary circumstances. She was a child of 15 years of age, and she left home for the purpose of visiting a sister, and never returned. He wished to give every credit to the police authorities for the exertions they had made to discover the child, although, hitherto, those exertions had been entirely without success. A reward at first of£5,and then of£25,was offered, and since then it had been raised to£50;but all to no purpose. This was, of course, a very alarming occurrence in the East of London; but within a year a second disappearance of a similar kind had occurred. Another child about the same age had disappeared in the same mysterious manner. Every possible effort had been made to discover the whereabouts of these children—their bodies had never been found—nothing had ever been seen or heard of them by those conducting the inquiries. These two occurrences had caused a wide-spread feeling of alarm in West Ham and the Eastern part of London; and that alarm had been heightened, for not only had these disappearances taken place, but also a considerable amount of insecurity had existed for a long time amongst the young people of the neighbourhood, especially amongst the young females of that part of London. There was a large open space at West Ham purchased by the City, and kept as a park for the recreation of the inhabitants, and it was near this open space that these occurrences had taken place. He thought that probably the main cause of this state of things was the inefficiency of the police—he did not mean the inefficiency of the police who were on duty in that part of London, but their inefficiency so far as regarded numbers. They were not sufficient in number for the protection of the largely increased and increasing population. The population of West Ham in 1871 was 63,000, and the police force was 99. In 1881, the population had increased to 127,000, 309 but the police force had only increased to 162. He did not wish to trouble the House at that time of night by going into particulars of many of the occurrences which had caused the alarm to which he had referred; but he believed the Home Secretary was fully aware that there had been a considerable amount of almost consternation caused by the insecurity of the streets in and about that part of the Metropolis. He (Colonel Makins) wished to tender to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the thanks of the inhabitants for the way in which the police had endeavoured to assist those who had unfortunately suffered from this insecurity; and, no doubt, it was only necessary for attention to be called to the fact in order to have the matter still further looked into. He would simply, therefore, take this opportunity of moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice, for the purpose of enabling the right hon. and learned Gentleman to deal with the matter. The Resolution was— That, as the population of West Ham and the adjacent parishes has been and is rapidly increasing, it is desirable that the police force should also be increased, so as to maintain its relative proportion to the population. He bad letters from people of West Ham detailing assaults, alarms to servants—young girls and others—but, as he had said, at that late hour he would not trouble the House by going into them. He would leave the matter, with confidence, in the hands of the Home Secretary; and he would only say that the reason he had so long delayed bringing the question forward was, because, on the one or two occasions on which he had had the opportunity, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not been present, and he (Colonel Makins) had not thought it right or desirable to trouble the House with the subject in the absence of that Member of the Government.

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I am much obliged to the hon. and gallant Member for having called attention to this subject; but these questions on Supply are very uncertain, and frequently come on without our being prepared for them. I have a box containing documents and references in regard to this subject; but as I was not aware that the question was likely to come on tonight, I did not take the precaution to provide myself with it. However, these matters are not controversial, and it is not necessary that I should enter into minute details upon them. Of course, in dealing with such a vast population as that of London, we experience an immense difficulty in apportioning the police—unless we were to increase the numbers to an extent that would be burdensome to the population, we should experience great difficulty in apportioning the police exactly to meet the requirements of all districts. There are I some districts that require a larger proportion of police than anyone would, at first sight, calculate that the Metropolis needs. There are parts that are comparatively thinly populated in the outskirts of the police district, and these require a larger number of police than do the other parts of the town. All these things are matters of great difficulty. As the hon. and gallant Member will easily understand, the character of the population has a great deal to do with the question. Some districts are more disturbed than others, and a district may be more disturbed at one time than at another, consequently there will I always be places and times in which the number of police will appear inadequate; and it is almost impossible always to reach the exact proportion in order to meet the wants of a district. The circumstances to which the hon. and gallant Member has referred are matters well deserving of attention, and I have already called the attention of the police to them. The hon. and gallant Member may rest assured that his Motion will not be without fruit; therefore, I hope he will not think it necessary to go on with it further. I can promise him that it shall receive the careful attention of the Government.

LAW AND POLICE—THE LATE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES AT WEST HAM.—RESOLUTION.