CLASHES IN BELGIUM OVER ROYALTY ISSUE

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 July 1950, Page 5

CLASHES IN BELGIUM OVER ROYALTY ISSUE

BRUSSELS, July 27 (Rec. 1 p.m.). —One person was killed and 70 injured tonight outside the Royal Palace at Laeken when gendarmes broke up a march of thousands of anti-Leopold -demonstrators, led by the Socialist former Prime Minister, M. Paul Henri Spaak. The one'death occurred when the demonstrators overturned a busload of Leopold supporters arriving from Ghent. Most of the people injured were gashed with stones and shattered glass. Eight gendarmes were among the injured. Eighteen people were taken to hospital. M. Spaak. after making an antiLeopold speech, left the Chamber of Deputies at the head of thousands of demonstrators, who walked three miles with him to the Palace. Between 2000 and 3000 people were massed on the green in front of the Palace when gendarmes, some on horseback, others on foot, with drawn sabres, advanced to meet them. Some of the demonstrators started to throw stones, but quickly dispersed when their leaders faltered and broke. The dispersal of the demonstrators was almost complete when the arrival from Ghent of about 150 cars and buses with supporters of King Leopold provided another clash. About a thousand gendarmes, on ioot and horseback, chased the antiLeopoldists among the trees outside the Palace railings. All who resisted were arrested and removed in police vans. '

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