INCITING PRUSSIAN SOCIALISTS

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 78, 4 April 1910, Page 7

INCITING PRUSSIAN SOCIALISTS

AN EDITOR SENTENCED. By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. BERLIN, 2nd April. Richard Barth, editor of the tiocialist newspaper Vorwarts, has been sentenced to a month's imprisonment in Berlin for inciting tho Socialists to disobey the police, who had refused to allow an open-air demonstration. The Socialist demonstrations arranged for 17th February, in connection with the Prussian Franchise Bill, did not pass off quietly, though elaborate precautions had (says the St. James's Budget) been taken in the capita? and elsewhere to deal with any outbreak, or even with the slightest deviation from the lines of peaceable and orderly demonstration. As night fell the turbulent element in the Berlin crowds asserted itself, and serious riots took place in Friedrichstrasse, in the centre of the city, on the banks of the Spree, in the north, and in the suburb of Rixdorf, sharp street fighting being witnessed in all three places. One police officer was dangerously injured by stone-throwing ? and 14 policemen and over 90 Socialists were injured. Many arrests were made, and the police were everywhere successful, bieaking up the mobs with their swords. Tho injured men had only themselves to blame, for during the night the Chief of Police caused large placards to be prominently posted throughout Berlin to the following effect : — "Proclamation : A claim is put forward to the right to demonstrate in the streets. Tho streets exist solely for traffic, and weapone will be used in case of any resistance to the authorities. I warn ci(rious spectators. (Signed) President of Police yon Jagow." When the Socialists left their homes to go to the meetings this suggestive warning met them at every corner. Similar proclamations were posted in other great cities, where demonstrations had been arranged, Dr. Delbruck, the Minister of the Interior, having sent specific orders to the local authorities tnroughout the country to suppress any outbreak with a firm hand. Precautions were also taken to protect the Kaiser's palace in the centre of Berlin. Tho palace is situated on the little island formed by the diverging branches of the River Spree.' All tho bridges were held by the police, and then moro lines of police wore placed round tho walls of tho building, whilst thfr. courtyards were occupied by cavalry and infantry. Soldiers were also concealed in the courtyards of the palaces of the Crown Prince t and all the other Princes of the Imperial Family, in the Chancellor's garden, and at all the Ministries and in the Imperial Bank. In Greater Berlin there were 43 mass meetings, and these were* supplemented by imposing public dmonstrations in all the other great ceutres of population in Prussia. Throughout the country the meetings were timed to begin at twelve noon and to terminate punctually at two o'clock, when an identical resolution, condemning tho Prussian Franchise Reform Bill as dangerously reactionary and wholly undesirable, was put simultaneously to the assembled audiences, and everywhere carried with enthusiasm and acclamation. The demonstrations were impressive in a twofold sense. On the one side was tho overwhelming array of armed police. The capital was transformed into an armed camp ; there was an absoluto determination to crush revolt, should such be attempted against the Kaiser's disciplined legions. On the other hand, there were upwards of a quarter of a million of citizens (for those attending the meetings were afterwards reinforced by the thousands waiting outside), undeterred by menaces or coercion, silent and passive, but I with a grim resolution to make their j voices heard in the nation's counsels. j