BEGINNING OF TROUBLE

Evening Star, Issue 21099, 11 May 1932, Page 12

BEGINNING OF TROUBLE

DESERTED STREETS INSPIRE NOTION ONLY TWENTY-FIVE IN MAIN PARTY Wide, defenceless, and half-deserted, Lambton quay offered an invitation which the minority could hardly resist. The speeches were listened to with growing impatience as the cry “ Up the town! Up the town!” became more insistent. At 5.50 p.m. irresponsibles began to move. Twenty or more of the boldest of them were in the van, and the crowd turned on its heel to flow slowly after them. It was a strange advance, undetermined at first, but it breasted the quay and led straight to trouble. The bystanders were anxious and dismayed.^ The first incident was the upsetting of a Hindu’s fruit barrow that stood in the quay on the western side near the Bowen Building. Part of the main wrecking party, which consisted all through of about twenty or twenty-five men, some young and mostly well dressed, advanced on the barrow and tipped it over. The fruit tumbled to the pavement and the road, and it was picked up in handfuls for use as missiles. Men fell on !t like a pack of wolves. From the fruit barrow possibly came the small length of four-by-two that broke the first window, that of a leather and bag shop. The tinkle of glass acted like magic. A moment later a lemonade bottle was hurled at another window, and the orgy of window-breaking began. Missiles and weapons for the work came to light very quickly. The smashing party was small and mobile. The police had been left behind at Parliament gates, where there was still something of a crowd remaining, and it was the absence of the police in the initial stages that enabled the wreckers to progress so rapidly. Crashes, the sound of splintering plate glass, and the noise of windows falling to pieces were more frequent in the lower part of Lambton quay than anywhere else on the journey, but while this was going on a crowd of men surrounded an. empty motor car standing at the kerb outside the Occidental Hotel. They heaved at it and turned it over on its side, where it remained between the kerb and the eastern set of tramlines.

Another car stood a few yards away. It, too, was turned over, this time with a bump that must have damaged it. Car windows were broken also at this early stage of the proceedings, although attention was paid later only to shop windows.

Occupants of premises, guests at hotels, and chance arrivals in the city who had come by side streets watched from the flank. It was an extraordinary scene.

At about this point a second fruit barrow had provided further ammunition. On the other side of the road from the barrow and a little ahead of it was Kirkcaldie and Stains’s drapery establishment with its long line of large plate glass windows reaching the length of the block. The wreckers were suddenly aware of it. They abandoned the side they had so far principally damaged and rushed across the road to Kirkcaldie’s. Nino or ten of tho

immense windows were broken in quick succession The D.I.C. came next, but although it afforded equal opportunities, only three or four of its windows were broken. ARRIVAL OF THE POLICE TWENTY-OHE ARRESTS When the crowd was at Grey street, not far past the D.1.C., tho police •arrived in twos at the double. They ran on ahead armed with batons looking for the malefactors. Suddenly a handful of them darted back. There was a scuffle and a man was batoned and overcome in the centre of the quay. Grey street was tho scene of tho first real clash, but the police meant business, and tliey had little work to do. A well-known woman Communist figured in the scene. Two men who were knocked down in a rush lay in the centre of the road opposite Whitcombe and Tombs. Further police arrived from time to time, but they met with no active resistance. At tho Willis street intersection a largo number of special constables marched into position and blocked the road, standing in linos across the width of Willis street. DAMAGE IN WILLIS STREET. The crowd could no longer move forward as it had, but meanwhile the wreckers had been well ahead and wore doing their work in Willis street itself. Shopkeepers and business people knew of their approach only a minute or two beforehand. Some began to remove their stocks from the windows. Tho offices of the ‘ Evening Post ’ were passed by. One of the wreckers thought better of it, however, and returned. He lifted up the wall bill board and hurled it at the large front window, but his aim was not good, and the window was undamaged. A neighbouring butcher’s shop was badly damaged, and considerably despoiled. Opposite it a pawnbroker’s windows were also smashed, and a large amount of stock was taken. Aided by special constables, who appeared in large numbers at various points, tho police had control of the situation as soon as they were properly on the job. There were a number of street -arrests, and the wreckers were checked completely at tho intersection of Maimers street and Cuba street. The window damage was worst in the lower half of Lambton quay. Looting, which might have been extensive, occurred very little, and that for the most part seemed to be in Willis street. The rush from Parliament Grounds to Cuba street was one in which the damage eased off progressively. The wreckers were attempting to go as far as possible before they were checked. Scant attention was paid to Manners street, although a tailor’s shop was rather severely damaged. SITUATION UNDER CONTROL.

At 7 o’clock, rather more than an hour after the first fruit barrow had been upset, the main streets were beemptied. Stocks were being removed from shop windows, protections were being put up, and there was the sound of hammering here and there inside business premises. The police and large numbers ot special constables were at their posts, and only the damage and aftermath of excitement remained. Tho arrests already reported total twenty-one.