FASCIST PARTY

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 13, 16 July 1934, Page 3

FASCIST PARTY

THE OLYMPIA' MELEE

SCENE OF BRUTALITY

EJECTION OP THE **REDS"

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, Juno 12.

A great deal of controversy has followed the Fascist meeting at Olympia last week. The Government attitude was expressed by Sir John Gilmour (Home .Secretary) when ho said that the preservation of law and order was the duty of the Government and the police, and they would not tolerato the usurpation of that function by any private organisation, whatever'their aims might be. .

First of all, it must be definitely acknowledged by anyone who attended the meeting at Olympia that had the Black Shirts not taken on themselves the preservation of order by • physical means pandemonium would have developed.and resulted in danger to those who were present for a peaceful purpose.

The controversy has centred round tho methods of physical violence applied to interrupters by the stewards. Dr. H. E. L. Sheppard, previously the vicar of St. Martin-in-t-he-Fields, who has great 'influence with a large body of the public, is one of the critics.

"Like all others present," lie said, "I witnessed the ejection o£ interrupters. This was done with great violence —but I am not concerned to make any. charge with reference to anything that occurred inside the hall. I confine myself. to one .of the incidents ,1 witnessed when I got in to a :corridor leading to the exit. A young-man, who had been ejected was showing signs of the way in which ho had been handled. I was horrified at the monstrously cruel treatment to which ho was now subjected by the- Fascists in charge of him. Ho was bleeding on the face, and was gasping for bTeath. He was being chased downtho' corridor by a horde of Black Shirts; -Some collared him by the legs, othelrs^by the arms, and, held in this-wayy'-bie was beaten on the head by any Fascist who could get near him. There was, it' must bo'remembered, a largo crowd of them."

APPALLED BY BRUTALITY. Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd, Conservative M.P. and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mr. Baldwin, said:l — ■

■" As .I..Unionist I;am-not very sympatllotic -to Communists 'who try to break up meetings* but I am bound to say that I was appalled by the brutal conduct of the.Fascists. I am sure a great many other people at the meeting shared my feelings, and there seems little doubt that some of the later victims of the Black Shirt stewards were Conservatives endeavouring to make a protest at the unnecessary violence. I saw with my own eyes case after case of single interrupters being attacked by ten to twenty Fascists. Again and again, as five or six fascists carried out an interrupler by arms and legs, several other Black Shirts, were hitting and kicking his'helpless body." \ In a broadcast address, Sir Oswald Jlosley replied- to critics. Ho said they had definite proof of an organised attack on the meeting. . "Inside the hall our Black Shirt stewards were in force to preserve order and to protect oui- audience from 'Red' violence. This proved very necessary indeed, for highly organised groups of 'Beds' rose at regular intervals to shout down the speech. Our opponents accused us of unnecessary brutality in throwing out the 'Beds.'

THE SPOILS OF WAR.

"Such deliberate lies are spread by

enemies who fear bur advance but feannot answer our case in fair debate. J^ot only were.our male Black Shirts kicked and slashed with razors, but

women were- brutally assaulted.

captured from the .'Reds' a. large collection of vile weapons, which included knuckle-dusters covered with spikes, stockings, filled with broken glass, iron spikes, and bludgeons, and, of course, that favourite weapon of •■'Red'^hooli.gans, the razor. In not one single case have- Black, Slrir.ts ever attacked their 'opponents. meetings." /, Many, politicians ; expressed tlieir views of the Fascists at the weekend. Sir PMlip Cunliffe-Listcr (Secretary

of State for the Colonies) said: —

"I do not think you are in tho least likely to be diverted, by any circus <of

foreign origin or based on a* foreign model. England: has no liking and no need for dictatorships. Anyone in a free country is perfectly free, to run a stunt or to try to start a,party, but it is equally the right of other citizens to claim that persons shall not'be permitted to conduct these in a way which is calculated to imperil the maintenance of good order o.r to lead to a breach of the peace. , The mainten-

ance of law and order is the function of-the police,--to-be-discharged—and it will'be. discharged, and ever has been

in. {his country—impartially, without fear or favour. ' They need, no assistance, and they will brook .no interference in the discharge of that function."' ■ , '

NO COMMUNISTS IN HOSPITAL.

Mr. Cr. Ward Price, writing in the ''Sunday Dispatch," replies to the critics:— •

"Let hard facts dispose of * these hysterical and-linfounded allegations," he.says. '...:.. ' . ■

/'Men kicked..in the stomach -would have to bo taken to hospital. Not a single instance of such injury to a Communist has been reported. Tho only cases in hospital arc two Black Shirts, one of them damaged ia the very way that it is asserted tho Coin-, munists were treated—by heavy kicks in the stomach—the other savagely slashed by a piece of glass used as a dagger. - "Several girl Black Shirts appear in the list, one of them with a cut close to the eye which came within half an inch of blinding . her. j" Among the badly injured men whom I saw at Black Shirt headquarters yesterday was an orderly of tho first-aid post. He was escorting an injured . and bandaged comrade home, and was wearing a white armlet yith the Red Cross on it. Despite this, twenty or thirty Communists set upon them in the street, knocking the orderly down and. kicking him' as he lay on the ground."-

The-"Daily Mail;" in • its leading article today, says:— . .

"The Beds in recent months havd conducted v determined campaign to silence Conservatives and i'fiends of order. They organised the disgraceful riots which • took place in March during the L.C.C.: election, when there, wore no Black Shirts, ou the scene. They broke up Lord Beaverbrook's mooting at Caniberwell with, such savagery that a steward was seriously injured. They havo nothing to- complain of regarding what happened to them at Olympia. Though certain, of them brought razors into th-e meeting arid used them, their casualties wero triflng. They appealed to violence, and they cannot affect indignation1 because' force was used to resist them."

LOWS CARTOON.

On the platforms in Hyde Park on Sunday the Communist and Socialist speakers had a very'great deal to say

about Sir Oswald .Mosley and his Black Shirts. More than one of the speakers maintained that if the Socialists anrl Communists attempted to organise, a uniformed army with .armoured cars

the Government would be quick to crush them.

"Tho capitalist class," said one ] speaker, "while they dpeuly condemn the Fascists, secretly uphold them, and it will be the Fascists to whom they will appeal when their capitalist system is in danger." Mr. David Low, the "Evening Standard" cartoonist, in a cartoon, showed the Attorney-General and a party of police running. The picture is entitled "A Slight Error," and an inscription roads: "Keep calm, please, keep calm!" Tho scene shows tho Attorney-General just after a-rumour reached him that the Communists had started a uni- | formed army, had bought armoured cars and aeroplanes,'and had held a provocative mass meeting attended by unusual violence.. "But it was all right, really, because it was not the Communists after all —only soino other fellows.".

According to the leader-writer of! the "Daily Telegraph," "this Black Plague is as much an infection from abroad as the Red. Moreover, tho virus of the ono is almost ■ indistinguishable from that"of the other, and the resultant disease runs for a time a similar course, which is equally fatal to liberty. Nothing is more true than that Fascism actually begets the Communism which it is ostensibly designed to overthrow; At this moment Sir Oswald Mosley is easily tho best recruiting-sergeant for the Communist Party ■ among the Solialist rank and file who are being tempted to methods of violence. The weapons, of extremism are all of the two-odged kind, and the supporters of constitutional government must see that authority is armed with sufficient powers and support it in their use. Those who cherish the decent British political tradition must combine without thought of party to fight the spirit of the new violence from whichever side it comes." ■ ■ .