WAR-TIME TRAITORS

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 June 1937, Page 9

WAR-TIME TRAITORS

EX-SOLDIERS OPPOSE AMNESTY [BY CABLE —PBESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.] (Recd. June 24, 2 p.m.). BRUSSELS, June 23. Maintaining the resentment against the amnesty legislation, 20,000 former soldiers providing themselves with food and bedding marched to the capital in order to protest. They assembled at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, broke a police cordon, and advanced upon the Houses of Parliament, though the latter were not sitting, and Premier Van Zeeland is in America. Mounted and foot police charged and arrested many and injured others. Firemen dispersed the crowds with hoses. The delegation then demanded an audience -with King Leopold, to urge a withdrawal of the amnesty, the resignation of the Government, and the dissolution of Parliament. Disorders continued and severe street fighting necessitated further police charges, in order to disperse the demonstrators in iront of Government buildings and the Royal Palace. Troops have now been dispatched to the scene of the disturbances. LATER. Calmer counsels prevailing, the delegation seated itself on the pavement, to await the return of King Leopold from the country. He eventually promised its members that he would do everything it was possible for a constitutional monarch to do.

An incident in the demonstration was 100 ex-servicemen lying down on the footpath, in parallel lines that extended across the road from the Palace gates to the Park entrance, blocking all traffic.