Evening Post. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1934. A TRIUMPH OF ORDER

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 49, 27 February 1934, Page 8

Evening Post. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1934. A TRIUMPH OF ORDER

The conclusion of the march- of unemployed upon London, and its climax at the "Congress of Action" and at the eight-platform demonstration in Hyde Park were the subject yesterday of long and excellent reports both by wireless and by cable, and they fully deserved the honour. While the first note, sounded by the cabled report forecast, "an even greater fiasco' than was the case last year"— a chronological error, since the previous hunger march was in October, 1932—the Official Wireless very pro,perly emphasised the fact that the progress of the marchers through the country had been.orderly. In the orderliness of their march, ft any rate, those distressed and embittered men had accomplished something better than a fiasco. They had made a solid contribution to a feature of the whole proceedings in which the nation may take a legitimate pride. Another interesting accompaniment of the march is noted by both reports. Throughout their journey the marchers had received hospitality from "churches, municipalities, and philanthropic organisations," and both the prominence given:to the churches in this report and the(significance of its omission of labour organisations from the list are confirmed by an incident recorded in the other. "Marchers on reaching Willesden denounced ,the Socialist Borough Council and the Labour Party, declaring that but for the churches they would have had no place to sleep."

In refusing , a request from the organisers for an interview with ihei object evidently of protesting against the Unemployment Bill, the Prime Minister, said' that -'the deputation cbuld do no service to the unemployed, and thatl"the Communist purposes of these marches are common knowledge." It is not often since the great schism in August, 1931 v that the party which Mr. Mac Donald had hitherto led has been able to agree with him, but here is one of those rare occasions. The day (Sunday) began, we are toldj witb-a resumption of the Congress of Action, Mr, McGovern, M.P., securing the adoption of a resolution demanding tho removal of the-Labour Party's*ban on the congress march..1 The audiencd! frantically cheered Messrs. Pollitt and Mann,who had been arrested on charges of making seditious statements and who had been bailed out. / - ~ If Mr. McGovern had represented an Irish instead of a Scotch constituency the'delightful futility of his demand for theremoval of a ban on a march which had been already completed, would have been- more appropriate, but their eagerness to get a knock, at the Labour Party left tho delegates* in no mood to stick at trifles. The chairman's appeal to .them "to keep their, heads".came too late. , I

There was a - touch of humour too in their refusal to receive Mr. Mac Donald's letter refusing to receive a deputation, but • they were in deadly earnest when it came to the frantic cheering of Messrs. Pollitt and Mann, who, \p their long >and consistently Red records added the brand-new attraction of having been arrested on charges still pending of using seditious language. Those cheers were surely enough to justify the Labour . Party -in " sharing Mr. Mac Donald's view of the Communist inspiration of the movement, and in refusing ' it' its official' sanction accordingly. Yet the congress leaders were ,not entirely without discretion. They may have joined in the Communist cheers at their business meeting, but they drew the line r at including such firebrands as Messrs. Mann and Pollitt among the hundred speakers in Hyde Park The admission of Mr Hannington to the platform was enough to prevent this surprising moderation from being misunderstood. He advocated "a mass strike ■ movement throughout the country, with the objective of establishing a Socialist Republic." A demonstration which found room for such thoroughgoing gospel as that i could not reasonably be condemned ,=is unduly pink.

But despite all the wild talk, despite the display of the Bolshevik Sickle and Hammer, and the singing of "The Internationale," there appears to have been nothing revolutionary or illegitimate about the terms of the resolution. All the, speakers are said to have demanded i "the withdrawal of the Unemploy-j ment Bill, the abolition of the means I test, and anation-ivide programme of' employment at trade union rates," and apparently the resolution itself went no, further. But, as of the march on London, and so of the . march through its streets and of the battlefield in Hyde Park the outstanding characteristic evidently was th^ selfimposed orderliness of the marchers themselves and the friendly cooperation of others. On the way to London churches, municipalities, and philanthropic societies, regardless of politics, lent a helping hand. In the London streets and in Hyde Park the police, with equal disregard of politics and with equal' friendliness, made, their supreme and brilliantly, efficient contribution, with the result that an occasion which in most other countries would in times like 'these have inflamed social and political

antagonisms, and perhaps have provoked, a dangerous breach of the I peace, served but to emphasise the tolerance, the common sense, the stability, and the essential oneness of Great Britain. But without the spirit of order in the men thertfselves and their partisans so happy a result would of course have been impossible.

The atmosphere of the culminating scene is admirably presented in the Press Association's report:

The general impression left by the Hyde Park demonstration of hungermarchers, delegates to the Congress of Action, and sympathisers was that it was a truly British display of protest restrained by the. self •discipline, of the participants and good-tempered and never obtrusivo police control. Fogs in the suburbs, and a continuous drizzle in the West^End, damped tho preliminary enthusiasm, but tho completeness of the organisation for handling both moving and stationary crowds appealed to French journalistic eye-witnesses, who compared the foresight: with the lack of it preceding tho Paris riots.

It is perfectly clear that under Lord Trenchard the direction of the London police is showing no fallingoff from its extraordinarily high standard, and the rank and file have again displayed those unique qualities which we have learnt to expect of them. The closeness with which the force has conformed to the ideal which was laid down by one of its original Commissioners, more than a hundred years ago, .is indeed astonishing.

He (i.e., the constable), wrote Richard Mayne, must remember that there is no qualification more indispensable to a police officer than a perfect command of temper, • never suffering himself to bo moved in tho slightest degree by any language or threats that may be used: if he do his duty in a quiet and ■• determined mannev, such conduct will probably induce wolldisposod 'bystnnders to assist him should ho require it.

And the, reference in the cabled report to the envious admiration of French journalists who were present makes it opportune to quote the opinion expressed by one of their predecessors fifty years ago. M. Philippe Daryl, who at that time was the London correspondent of the Paris "Temps," wrote as follows in his "Public Life in England" (1884):

Both these forces are carefully selected from amongst the best conducted of tho old soldiers. They are put through a particular course of drill, and instructed to show themselves on every occasion as patient, as quiet, as obliging,, as they are b'rnve. Everyone regards them not as political agents or as instruments of force, but as simple guardians of the peace, and if necessary, of public liberty. ,A woman, an old man, isolated in the. street, will never hesitate to address the constable on duty and ask his arm to assist them to penetrato tho file of carriages, being sure that their request will bo always courteously acceded to. So tho London policeman, far from being regarded with aversion or "distrust, as is too! often the case with ' his congeners, enjoys real popularity. . • By the patience .and the courtesy which Mayne had enjoined, 'the London policeman had won in 1884 "a real popularity" which astonished Monsieur Daryl; and "the good-tem-pered and never obtrusive police control" . reported yesterday shows that the tradition still stands.