Chapter 33: The Arthur Hastings Principle

Chapter 33 The Arthur Hastings Principle
In the middle of the horse field of Sir Peel’s suburban mansion, surrounded by green trees and through the grass of blooming flowers, a figure as fast as lightning could be vaguely seen.

Sir Peel waved the whip in his hand and skillfully drove the valuable English thoroughbred horse under his crotch over one obstacle after another, while the equestrian in charge of training him was holding a pocket watch and respectfully guarding the time at the finish line.

In a few short breaths, Sir Peel finished the final sprint, and he let out a long breath, turning his head to ask the equestrian.

“Any improvement this time?”

The equestrian smiled and nodded, “As an equestrian, as much as it pains me to say this, I must be honest and say that you are indeed very talented. Your time was 2 minutes and 52 seconds, which is very close to the level of a skilled rider.

If you were placed in the Middle Ages, you would have been able to take a few knight escorts with you by now to help our great King Henry V in his battle against the French.”

Sir Peel didn’t take the equestrian’s compliments to heart, and joked, “I’m more interested in charging against the Whigs and those extremists of my own party right now than I am in going to fight the French.”

The equestrian asked cautiously, “Is it because of the Catholic Emancipation Act? I heard that the former Supreme Court Justice, Earl Eldon, launched a harsh criticism within the Tory party against the Duke of Wellington and you for letting the bill pass, and threatened to take the portion of MPs who supported him with him out of the Tory party.”

Sir Peel rolled over and dismounted, “That old codger, it’s almost as if he’s living in the Middle Ages, if we go by his views, not only should the Emancipation Bill not have been passed, but all the Irish working in London must be driven back home to their homes, so that they can continue to go back to scavenging in the mud.

He doesn’t realize that times have changed, and the ‘Clare Affair’ is a perfect example of how times have changed.

If we don’t give Ireland the Catholic Emancipation Act then no Tory will ever win an election in Southern Ireland from now on.

The Irish would rather vote for Catholics who are ineligible to be elected than take the vote thank you money we offer of up to fifty pounds per vote.

The formation of organizations such as the Catholic Association of Ireland also proclaims the urgency of the emancipation question, and if the vote is not successfully passed this time, civil war will break out one hundred per cent.

No one in Great Britain understands better than we do the immense danger of civil war, after fifty years of civil war between the two parties and hundreds of thousands of deaths over a Bill of Rights.

It is a tradition in Great Britain to solve internal problems by negotiation, and it is important to put as little of the problem as possible into force.

The Duke of Wellington and I are supporters of this view, and we are of course responsible to our supporters, but until then we are even more responsible for the future of our country.

And the extremists, they only know how to look at what’s in their hands.

There are those who fear that letting Catholics into Parliament will threaten their position as MPs.

The diocesan archbishops in the House of Lords, on the other hand, are sticking to their old ‘Anglicanism is England, and England is Anglicanism’ mantra.

They feared that if they started this, Protestant converts would be divided among the Catholics, and that in the near future England’s bishops and senior priests would be reappointed by the Pope.

As for the King, that greedy, vain and inferior fellow, he was the supreme head of the Anglican Church, and he was not willing to let into Parliament Catholics who did not recognize him as the supreme leader of the faith.

It was well, however, that the Duke of Wellington at last resisted all pressure, and he overwhelmed the King with his brilliant warlike exploits and his appalling prestige.

Alas ……

In case you didn’t know, on the day of the vote in the House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington sat in the voting chamber of the House of Lords with a cane, and he watched one by one as each nobleman who passed by voted in favor of the motion.

Truth be told, there have only been two people in Great Britain in recent decades with enough prestige and ability to make this happen.

One was still alive and one was dead.

The one who is alive is Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington.

The one who is dead is Horatio Nelson, the soul of the Royal Navy.

It’s a pity, willing to sacrifice for the country, yet there are people who not only don’t buy it, but instead take this opportunity to plan to start a general resignation party, throw themselves into the arms of the Whigs, and force the Duke of Wellington to step down.

You should have read about it in the newspaper as well, right? They even went so far as to blow up the issue of election bribery as well as local decaying constituencies this time, just to flush out Wellington’s cabinet.

They were blaming the government for internal corruption and telling the groupie Protestant public that it was because the government had taken money from the Irish and was being manipulated by the Catholics and Roman Church forces that the Emancipation Bill was allowed to pass.

Wow, jeez!

I just can’t believe it!
The sons of bitches!

These extremists should hold up a mirror and take a good look at themselves!
Who exactly were the original party’s favorite recipients of bribes to do people’s jobs for them?
The most corrupt parts of the Tory party are the ones that are missing now!

Now they’re doing this sort of thing and promoting this sort of argument, they’re only going to end up hurting themselves, the cunts!”

The ever-so-mannered Sir Peel actually exploded, which left the Equestrian at a loss for words for a moment.

Just when he was feeling embarrassed, he suddenly saw a servant with an envelope in his hand running towards the stable. The servant came to Sir Peel out of breath and reported, “Sir, here is a letter sent to you from Scotland Yard. Also, both the Duke of Wellington, the Prime Minister, and the Marquis of Anglesey, the Secretary of State for Ireland, have arrived in response to your invitation, and they are waiting for you in the parlor with tea.”

“A letter from Scotland Yard? What’s so thick?” Sir Pierre took a deep breath to adjust his emotions, then took off his gloves and rushed to the servant, “Go and tell them both that I’ll be here as soon as I’ve changed my clothes.”

At that, he opened the envelope while walking towards the mansion.

Just after opening the envelope, Sir Pierre was able to see what was inside.

A Response to the Call for Proposals for the Revision of the Greater London Police Department’s House Rules initiated by Sir Peele

“So this is it.”

Just as he was about to put the thing away first, suddenly his remaining light glanced at the epigraph’s inscription – Arthur Hastings.

“Sergeant Arthur?” Sir Peel came to be interested.

He opened the epistle and began to read it.

Originally, he only intended to give it a cursory glance, but as soon as his eyes fell on the contents, he couldn’t move away.

In the letter, the initial version of the internal affairs regulations were described in detail with additions and revisions, and at the end of each reasonable or unreasonable regulation, the reasons and case studies that occurred during the implementation of policing were attached.

In order to prevent Sir Pierre from reading fatigue or disliking the length of the letter, Arthur also thoughtfully summarized all of his suggestions into nine concise principles of policing.

(1) The basic mission of the police is to prevent crime and disorder, not to suppress crime and disorder by violent means and severe legal penalties.

(2) The ability of the police to fulfill their duties depends on public support for police action.

(3) If the law-abiding public voluntarily cooperates with the police, the police must ensure and preserve the public’s honor and dignity.

(4) The degree to which the police receive the cooperation of the public is inversely proportional to the amount of force and coercion required to achieve police objectives.

(5) Police officers seek and win the respect and affection of the public, not by appealing to public opinion, but by enforcing the law impartially over a long period of time. They win public favor by their willingness to offer personal service and friendship to all members of the community regardless of race or social status, by courtesy and good temper, and by a spirit of justice in which they are willing to make personal sacrifices in order to defend and protect the lives of the public.

(6) The use of force by the police must be in accordance with the relevant provisions of the law and must be used only when reminders, exhortations, warnings, etc., are ineffective.

(7) The police should always maintain good relations with the public and respect the historical tradition that “the police is the public and the public is the police”. The police come from the public and go to the public; the police are only a member of the public and must wholeheartedly fulfill their duty to ensure the interests of every member of the public.

(8) The police should always act to fulfill its functions and never usurp the power of judgment by taking individual or collective vengeance or by arbitrarily judging crimes and punishing criminals.

(9) Police performance should be assessed on the basis of the reduction in the crime rate and the reduction in social disorder, not on the basis of the number of visible actions taken by the police to deal with crime.

Sir Peel looked on and stopped even in his walk.

Until an authoritative voice rang in his ears.

“Robert, didn’t you say you’d gone to change? Why are you still here?”

Sir Pierre raised his head, and it was his old friend, the Duke of Wellington, who spoke.

He was impatiently waiting, so he simply ran out to take a look, not realizing that he happened to bump into Sir Peel at the door.

The Duke of Wellington pointed at the letter in his hand and asked, “What is this?”

“You mean this?” Sir Peel glanced at the title of the nine principles, “The upcoming Nine Principles of Police Handling at Scotland Yard, but the description is too official and I don’t like it much.”

Wellington asked, “So what do you usually call him?”

“How about calling it The Arthur Hastings Principles, it’s simple and straightforward and fits the original intent.”

“Arthur Hastings?” The Duke of Wellington thought for a moment, “You mean the young Scotland Yard officer who was in the papers?”

Sir Peel smiled back, “Mr. Duke, in light of the current urgent campaign to repeal the Catholic Emancipation Act, I believe it is necessary for us to remove public hostility to the Act by establishing a non-Patriarchal leader with a sufficiently positive and glowing image in the community.

It seems to me that Inspector Arthur Hastings, who is young and possesses sufficient ability, is a rather good choice.”

(End of chapter)