RAMSAY MacDONALD

Grey River Argus, 9 March 1928, Page 6

RAMSAY MacDONALD

Needs Police Protection

AGAINST MINERS. The “Worker’ Life” (London, England) in its issue of December 23, carried a very illuminating report of a meeting which Ramsay Macdonald addressed in Porth under the protection of 200 policemen. The following is the account of this meeting which shows what the class-conscious rank and file think of the Right Wing class-collaboration ists.

Porth, Rhondda. —Two hundred police were drafted into Porth on Saturday to protect Ramsay Macdonald from the' hostile reception which the unemployed workers were preparing for him. When it became apparent in the afternoon that the demonstration against Macdonald would be really formidable, police came streaming in. Workers from both valleys took part in the demonstration. Twenty thousand leaflets were distributed, and there were great poster parades all through the day. The posters contained these slogans: “Sacco and Vanzetti Die for Workers. Macdonald Dines with Executioners.” “Macdonald’s Policy is the Same Policy that Starves the Children in the Miners’ Lock-out!” “Save the Labour Party! Down with Macdonald ism! ”

Unemployed miners and their wives thronged the roadways approaching the meeting. As soon as it became obvious that Macdonald would receive a hostile reception, the police pressed back the people, dividing them up into the smallest sections possible. The meeting itself was a ticket one—at 2/-; 1/-; and 6d. Before the meeting tickets were sold indiscriminately, but for some strange reason, all the little shopkeepers and bank clerks, who had bought ,1/- tickets, were seen busily exchanging their 1/- tickets for 2/ones.

When the doors were opened, only two-shilling tickets holders were allowed in.

Each person was carefully scrutinized before entering, and if he was not sufficiently respectable in the eyes of the stewards, he was not admitted. Many active Labour men were denied admission.

Angry scones took place at the doorways, and the stewards were compelled to refund the price of the tickets. When Macdonald was due, the unemployed repeatedly tried to get to the roadway, and only the huge police force kept them back.

Macdonald arrived silently in the shadows cast by the Glenmorgan Constabulary. He addressed the select audience of bank and colliery managers and shopkeepers for half an hour in silence. Tie departed again, surrounded by blue-coated guards. In spite of all these precautions, a number of genuine workers got into the meeting, and while waiting for Macdonald to arrive one of them heckled the chairman. The stewards and half a dozen police promptly silenced him.

When Macdonald came he said he would only talk for a short while, so as to allow good time for questions. On this promise he was heard without interruption.

He spoke for only half an hour, and then went off, brazenly flouting his promise to answer questions. It is interesting to note that Macdonald did not speak in the great Miners’ Hall; the Right Wing preferred to use the small chapel. After the meeting the unemployed surged into the N.U.W.CM. rooms, singing the “Red Flag.” The police attempted to interfere, but without success. Far from strengthening the reactionaries in the Rhondda Labour Party, Macdonald’s visit has exposed them as nothing before has done. The Right Wing has lost its last shred of prestige. Macdonald’s reputation is now confined solely to the local capitalists—and even they are contemptuous. And the Daily Herald, which published such a lying account of the meeting, stinks in the nostrils of the Rhondda workers.