TENSE MOMENTS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 63, 8 December 1930, Page 12

TENSE MOMENTS

Disorderly Unemployed POLICE IN SCUFFLE Scene in Christchurch Dominion Special Service. Clu’istchurch, December 6. A disorderly scene developed in Cathedral Square this morning when the police ordered a meeting of unemployed to be broken up. There was a struggle between two or tliree constables and a leader of the unemployed who persisted in attempting to address a gathering of three or four hundred. “Go for them,” shouted one of the crowd, and over half a dozen constables had to use force to keep the men back. The unemployed, denied the opportunity of finishing their meeting in Cathedral Square, marched to Victoria Square, where nearly twenty constables and detectives ranged themselves in the crowd of over two hundred. In the scuffle in Cathedral Square the large banner bearing the words “Fools starve; men fight; work or wages,” appeared to be in danger of being torn beyond repair. The first signs of a scuffle came when a sergeant of police interrupted one of the speakers. The sergeant, after requesting him not to allow any more speakers there, seized him by the clothes and told him to “Get out of it.’’ That was after the man had apparently refused to obey the sergeant. Others joined in the altercation and there were a few lense moments during which a voice from the rear was heard to shout: “Go for them.” There seemed every probability that a section of the crowd would roughly handle a knot of constables as they were thrust to and fro by the pressure of the excited throng. One of the constables pushed his way out of the knot of bluecoated men and thrust several of the crowd back. The rest of the police were heckled by the leaders of the unemployed and others who pressed round the crowd left Cathedral Square to hold its meeting in Victoria Square. There the gathering was orderly. ________