HOBSON STREET EPISODE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 277, 20 November 1913, Page 6

HOBSON STREET EPISODE.

"SPECIAL?" USE THEIR BATONS. As the result of an episode -which occurred in the vicinity of the Trades Hall yesterday afternoon there was a conflict ibetwen mounted special constables and a crowd which had congregated there, with the result that the specials drew their batons. In the melee which ensued three men were batoned and a woman was knocked-down. The Trades Hall is naturally the headquarters of the strikers, who congregate there to keep in touch with their officials, and to wait their turn to hold their various union meetings as the meeting rooms become available. By arrangement -with the authorities the trustees of the Trades Hall had under - ! taken to preserve order, and had been ;ac Hired that there would be no Tinneces- : u.mV display of constabulary force which, the union officials pointed out, would have the effect of irritating the waiting ftrikers.

Owing, however, it i≤ said, to tbe overkeenness shown by pickets near the Trades Hall the evening before, when a driver who resented their attentions slashed two of them -with his -whip, a party of mounted specials patrolled m the vicinity of the hall ail day. Daring j the afternoon an attempt was made to i keep everybody moving, an undertaking i ■which requires trained tact and 'which | culminated in a general feeling of irrita- j ■tion on the part of those who were the i objects of official attention. The trustees of the hall and the union and strike officials summoned all strikers to withdraw to the various meeting rooms of the hall and to the yard at the 'back. Curious spectators had, however, been attracted to the vicinity, and with others who were probably strikers congregated in small groups at various points along both sidee of the road between St. Matthew's corner and Cook Street. Civilians, who stopped curiously for a few momenta to see what was going on were "moved along" in a mariner which surprised them. In one of the sorties against a group at the Cook Street corner a woman was knocked down, and a man who was slow to join the scampering individuals of the scattered group -was struck on the ! head with a baton. Two others were subsequently struck by batons, and the crowd hooted angrily while union officials I strove to quell the rising temper of the : crowd. One trustee telephoned for reguI lar police to come to take charge, and I the passage of the fire motor on a false I alarm turn out from -the station in Pitt ; Street caused a fortunate diversion. The crowd relieved its feeling* by cheering the firemen, and the return jmrmer, a few minutes later, again took attention from the grievance that seemed likely to get beyond restraint. When the '> i o'clock crowds began to go Homewards Iby way of Hobson Street there were two hundred mounted specials marshalled at various points in the Trades Hall block, but the regular police had by this time arrived and were easily able to preserve order. Later in the evening the mounted specials were ■withdrawn, leav- | ing only two troops posted well away J from the groups at the Trades Hall, and j the ordinary activities connected -with ! meetings, etc., proceeded without further incident. I During the episode "which -was marked jfcv the use of batons, three men in the (.crowd ran to the store at the Cook i Street corner, and, arming themselves j with long-handled garden implements, stood there "on guard" in what would have been, in other circumstances, a somewhat melodramatic manner.