HYDE PARK

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 96, 20 October 1934, Page 10

HYDE PARK

A WONDER TO NATIONS

REDS VERSUS THE BLACKS

BRITISH LAW AND ORDER

(By Nelle M. Scanlau.)

LONDON, September 11,

Tho Battle of Hyde Park between tho Mosley Fascists and tho Socialist Beds on Sunday, was won by tho police.

Sir Oswald Moslcy liad planned a dcmonstratiou and meeting in Hyde Park for Sunday afternoon. He had rounded up his Black Shirt boys, the English Fascists to something over 2000. There had been much talking and writing about this great show of Fascist Faith. But it annoyed the Socialists, who planned a counter-demonstration. It was suggested that the police, whose permission must be obtained before such an organised meeting can take place, might have told to the Socialists that they could have the Park on some other day. That is not the English way of dealing with hot-heads, boiling for a chance to demonstrate. It might leave a smouldering sense of grievance among tho Beds. Better to let them all have their say at once. Open-air talking is a safe vent for political passions, at least, in' England. Stealing tho microphone is a new means of propaganda, and it sprang to fame in this campaign. During a pause in a concert in the Queen's Hall, one of tho famous Proms, with Sir Henry Wood conducting, a voice shouted near the microphone: "Join the anti-Fascist demonstration on Sunday." To the audience in the hall, and to the listeners on tho wireless, tho words were not clear, but they were no less surprised to hear such an interlude in the middle of a concert.' At other places, at odd hours, the same brief message was broadcast. One night, in the ballroom of a big hotel in Park Lane, two welldressed young dancers strolled up near the band, lingered casually, and then, when the music stopped, the young man shouted, his message" over tho microphone that carried tho dance band over the air. Tho 8.8.C. had issued a warning to all outside broadcasts, such, as hotels, to guard their microphones. And tho 8.8.C. had taken very drastic precautions in protecting Broadcast House, with heavily-barred windows and a guard stationed at doors. SIX THOUSAND POLICE. However, tho great'day arrived, a fine, autumn day, and the drift towards Hyde Park was phenomenal. Everyone who could, wanted to see tho show. All the available police, about 6000 of them, wore drafted to Hydo Park, and the special constables, that voluntary body of civilians, who arc called upon to act in emergencies, and relievo tho police, took over traffic control. It was a good-humoured crowd that watched the Beds arrive, determined to silence Sir Oswald Mosley with their booing and jeering. The police kept the Beds together, and the crowd listened to their speakers, just as they listen to any of that variety of strange oratory that is one of the peculiar attractions of Hyde Park. But when the word 'went round that the Mosley Black Shirts were maching for the park, over 2000 of them, mostly young, very trim and smart in their foreignlooking uniform, the crowd deserted the. Socialists, and the speakers wore left. They surged towards the band of Fascists, but the police were ready for them. Foot and mounted police, they made a solid wall, dividing the rival parties. The crowd was not permitted to crowd unto tho feet of Sir Oswald, because the polico wall kept an open space in front of his rostrum, across which the Beds heckled and jeered. A WASTE OF OEATORY. Sir Oswald spoke. His mouth moved, his arms gesticulated, but no one could hear a word. His voice was drowned by tho chorus of his rivals, and the droning of tho uutogiro overhead. The police now patrol tho air, and hovering low in this strange aeroplane, with its beating arms like a windmill, tho aerial police observe, and direct tho movements of their comrades on the ground. If trouble starts at any point, they can spot it. How many thousand people were in Hydo Park no one can say, but it was a record crowd. A few noisy demonstrators were arrested, about eighteen of them, mostly for throwing things at Mosley or abusing the police for holding them back. A number fainted in the crush, and other minor injuries resulted from pushing. Onco a fence collapsed. If you have seen angry crowds in other countries; if you have seen the mob hysteria spread, and get out of control, you understand how amazed strangers are to sco this spectacle in Hyde Park, where opposing political parties, the extremes of Left and Bight, are permitted to demonstrate and counter-demonstrate at the samo time, and yet no riot occurs. Will Bogers, the American humorist, was one of the amazed spectators in Hyde Park, and his comment reveals the attitude towards such demonstrations that you find prevailing elsewhere. He said afterwards: — ALL LONDON LAUGHING. "I saw something which could not have happened in any other country in the world, because there just would not have been enough freedom. We have nothing like it in U.S.A." He was so impressed that he cabled American newspapers' about it. "The English are the smartest white, people there are; they'll never nave . Communism, Fascism, Hitlerism, or nudism' in' this country. ' They have a' park here— Hyde Park, which was just built for peoplo that are 'agin' something. Yesterday I was there when it had the biggest crowd that has ever'been there. The- Black Shirts were holding their meeting. Two hundred yards away, the Communists were holding theirs, and in between was all of London laughing at both of them. When it was over, everybody went homo satisfied. They'd had their laugh and they had had their say, for after all, people are not as much for their cause as they are for talking about their cause, and these English have certainly solved the talking problem.", It was a fairly accurate summingup. In any other country you could have been sure of a clash, and that sort of thing has a way of spreading and involving people who had come only to have a look. Well, they had their look, and their laugh. What Sir Oswald Mosley said, no one knows. He had led his little army on to the fieldThey moved with military precision, and were no rabble, looking for blood. The Beds, who wear no special uniform, save a red tie, perhaps, were not drilled to march and move like the Black Shirt boys. But to them the black shirt is like a red rag to a bull. -GOVERNMENT UNPEETUEBED. Meanwhile, tho Government, which may bo said to occupy a middle position'between theso two • political extremes, goes on its way unperturbed There has been an outcry to prohibit the provocative -wearing of ' political uniforms; to suppress and control their activities. But the Government is probably giving them both enough rope to hang themselves, and while they are attacking each other, they are leaving tho Government alone.

Youth is impatient; it wants to get