PROCESSIONS; OF UNEMPLOYED.

Evening Star, Issue 18136, 28 November 1922, Page 7

PROCESSIONS; OF UNEMPLOYED.

50 THE IDITOB. Sir, —1 sympathise with newspaper ediiors and the public generally in regard la I he misleading nature of the news sent out by cable, but even the most unsophisticated would .pause before _ taking for granted the news contained in these inspired cables. It has been a common occurrence lor the military to be called out la fire on hungry multitudes, or at least, in place of providing work or food, to send an army of policemen provided with lioa-vy truncheons to the needy worlcora. Take ” Pelciiuo,” of which you speak so airily. Professor Thorold Rogers (‘Six Centuries of Work and Wages,’ p. 507) says; “The complaints of hungry workmen were met by the Petcrloo “ massacre.” The centenary number of the ‘ Manchester Guardian,’ published on May 5, .1931, reproduces the scene. Trie ‘ Manchester Guardian ’ is published within walking distance of St. Peter s Fields (now the silo of tho luxetrade Hall), it represents, moreover, the most fair-minded .British journalists, and is respected throughout the world. 11 bo picture to which .1 refer does not quite tally i with the account in your sub-leader of | Friday last. The banners displayed bear the mottoes “Annual Parliaments;’ “Women ‘Suffrage,” ■“’Vote for Hunt, “Trade Unions.” Another unarmed crowd, met in Glasgow | after the armistice. With reference* to this gathering let me quote from the Zurich report of the International Congress of Women (p. 127); “The people were unarmed and quite orderly, liho police made a baton charge, injuring about a hundred men and women. The militai,, 1 mid tanks were called out, mid for days the city was like an armed camp.” It would bo interesting reading if the cables relating to this incident were reprinted. Evidently the Glasgow workers have not forgotten it. Mr J. T. Walton Newbold, the well-'known writer on economic subject, has been elected for the Motherwell Division of Glasgow. He is one of those awful Communists who think that ail able-bodied people should have “work or bread.” At one time we should have called these methods of dealing willi the workers “ Russian 'methods,” and in the days of Tsardcmi the description would have been a cori'cct one. Witness flic- bring op an unarmed /crowd on wind has passed info iiistory as “ Bloody Sunday. Such things have also occurred in America. Are wo going to make it possible to call them British? 1 fear, however, they do not belong .specifically to any nation or any age. They are part and parcel of every effete system which tries to prolong its existence beyond (lie period of its usefulness. —I am, etc., November 27. Mart M Capthv. (There wns nothing “airy” in onr mention of “ Peterloo.”' Our reference to it followed the account of an historian whom our correspondent will be unlikely to .decry —'Mrs J. R. Green, in her continuation of her husband's history. Massacre ” was the name popularly given to (lie outrage, in which one perron, according to her account, and eleven (as we have since noted), according to other authorities. were killed. That such violence lias been rare in British countries is sufficiently indicated by the fact that “ Peter* loo" "is still remembered as a. name of reproach and shame after a hundred years. The Russians who remember “ Bloody Sunday ” still must keep a, careful inventory of horrors, though that happened a comparatively few years ago.—Ed. E.S.] SEAMEN AS SANTA CLAUS. TO THE EDITOR Sir, —A - great deal has been written in regard to the inconvenience tho general public has been put to by the seamen's mutually-arranged holiday—call it not a strike!---but there is one section of the community which owes them a deep debt of gratitude. I refer to the wives and

chfldwm of the unemployed. Prior to this mutually-arranged holiday Die outlook for a happy Christmas was a very remote one, but, thanks to the action of the seamen, a brighter day has dawned ini many homes, for the breadwinner has found a new. vocation open to him, and will ho able to ea.ni enough to pay off some of his debts and brighten hht homo at tho festive season. The seamen, out of the high wages they have been getting, 1 will have doubtless saved enough to ensure that their own families will not want, so “everything in the garden is lovely,” and our seafaring friend haa tho joy of knowing that he is taking the part of Santa Claus. November 28-