SYDNEY'S SINISTER EXPERIENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17099, 23 February 1916, Page 6

SYDNEY'S SINISTER EXPERIENCE.

RIOTS AND BLOODSHED. / THOUSANDS OF TROOPS OUT OF HAND [From Our Correspondent.]

SYDNEY. February 13. ' Australia made acquaintance with Anarchy on Monday, and found it a very unpleasant animal. No doubt the cable service has already given readers of the "Lyttelton Times'' a general outline of what happened when the big camps at Liverpool and Casula, assisted by timid and flabbergasted commanding officers and the fatheadedness of a lunatic railway service, emptied the greater part of themselves into the city. Rut some of the details of; what occurred during that, strenuous day and night of great adventure may be worth recounting, for -it is all an amazing story. WHOLESALE LOOTING.

pool Street, Castlereagh Street. Marke* Street and Pitt Street,' there were squads of police, mounted troopers, military pickets and rioters armed -with blue metal and bottles. Window, breaking was continuous, collisions between police and the, soldiers frequent—wild fights with batons, and bottles, from which the police would emerge with a prisoner or two, and at the end of which insensible figures would be removed from the roadway to a hospital. Sometimes' a dozen troopers would half clear a street and then metal would fill the air and more fighting follow.

BATTLE NEAR THE RAILWAY STATION. - As the hours passed groups of. man were headed off to the railway and sent back to camp. Towards midnight this part of the city was like a bear garden and the uproar culminated in a very serious conflict. A' number of rioters gathered in the lavatories on the south-eastern end of the assembly platform and commenced abusing a military picket and seeing a fire hose lundy turned on the water. The jet struck the picket with terrible force, knocking two of the men down. In the uproar one of the rioters produced an automatic pistol and fired, wounding a constable. It was then that the picket opened fire in return, and when the smoke cleared one soldier,' said to be a rioter, was picked up dead and eight severely wounded. This triigic happening had a sobering effect and tlis riot was gradually subdued. Early in the morning about five hundred deseiters who had slept in the adjoining parks, apparently, were clamouring at the railway station for a train to tako them to the camp. Nearly all of them were drunk, capering absurdly about, jostling civilians and shouting threats of vengeance on the world in general. A train was put on and the men taken away.

The writer of this letter was introduced to the disturbance by a sound suggesting that all the football barrackers who ever lived had suddenly lifted up their voices in one tremendous, shout of wrath. Apprehending that a member of the Ministry might have appeared in public, he rushed to the window and along the street below saw, advancing, the head of a khaki column, marching in fours behind a corporal, a regimental flag, the Australian ensign and the banner of the Reds borne aloft by'the leading file. The windows looking out on to the street were crowded with women and girls waving good-bye -for it looked as if a great body or men were on the way to a transport. The girls didn't notice the red flag, nor see a placard held aloft announcing ••Wo Won't Drill." The footpaths were alive with people. Tramcars went bv packed with soldiers shouting and cheering. Meanwhile the column marched steadily on,, roaring popular songs, buglers blaring oh their instruments, ringing great dinner belle, ana here and there broken into a disorganised rabble playing football with kero> sen© tins, dancing" ridiculous tangoes, and pelting one another with fruit. Two or tnree girls', fashionably dressed and drunk, were hanging on soldiers arms, painfully trying to keep up with the march on high-heeled shoes. Across the road from the writer's point of viewis a fish shop. A body of men surged into the premises and the stock disappeared like leaves before a gale- A fruit shop further down- was stripped to bare v boards in a twinkling. And thus they went down George Streetthere wore about, 1500 men in this column—and sweeping round' Circular Quay started off up Pitt Street, commandeering beer and food from hotels and shops as they went, and becoming more rowdy and reckless and inflamed with drink as each block was passed. People sitting in cabs and motor-cars and carts were dragged out and, soldiers taking their places, ordered the driers on, usually to the next hotel A score or two of men would lurch into a bar shouting " Drinks for all hands, 1 " and threatening to pull the premises dpwn unless the attendants were in a hurry to produce the goods. Of course, they were served with great alacrity without questions relating to money. Vehicles containing eatables and drinkables were relieved of their freight, hawkers' barrows overturned, ancrChinamen carrying baskets of goods up-ended into the gutters. And the staggered police'constable stood mutely on his beat, helpless and futile. But he took a hand later on, generally with a baton in it, for the march of this particular column was only the first part of the proceedings, in the city at any rate. THE BEGINNING OF THINGS. When the men at Casula Camp marched over to Liverpool in the morning and announced that they were on strike, and the Liverpool men available walked off they were all orderly enough. Prompt and tactful handling of them then could have averted all that followed, but neither promptness nor tactfulness was there, "nor ever has been. It was at the township of Liverpool that the men commenced to get clean out of hand. There are two hotels there and a few shops. Entering the hotels the men first demanded liquor, and then promptly took charge. The bars were swept clean. Then the cellars were torn open and the stocks hauled up into the roadway —hogsheads'' of beer, casks .of _ whisky, rum and brandy, cases of liquid of all kinds. crowds of frantic men were soon fighting like animals. They rushed the kitchens and dining rooms. Captured pots and saucepans and jugs, and bore them out to be filled with grog. Others, madder than the rest tore down mirrors inside, wrenched mantelpieces down and pulled fire grates out of their settings, smashed furniture to splinters and crockery to smithereens—and when they left two hotels which looked as if they had suffered bombardment, and shops that had been turned inside out, were in the tracks of the tornado. And then the most astounding thing of all happened. Trains from Liverpool 'to Svdney are frequent. Marching over to the station these mobs of demented men crowded into trains —and the Bailway Department carried them into Sydney, knowing that they would not pay their fares, knowing they were now a drunken mutinous rabble, and discharged them on the platforms of the central station—five thousand of them. In retrospect the thing seems incredible, but there it is. There was no one in the service with wit cnouch to sever the red-tane of a time schedule; no officer at the camp with brains enough to even use the telephone. This demented, reckless mob was launched into Sydney without warning or attempt to isolate any of the number except those who were too drunk in the road at Liverpool to crawl to the railway station.

THE FAILURE OF THE CAMPS. In recent months the " Lyttelton Times" has frequently published, references to the management of the mi.'itary camps near Sydney, and people who have read these will perhaps not have been surprised to hear that discipline had broken down. But that it should have collapsed so completely was hardly anticipated. The management of these camps has been deplor< ably inept all through—the administration hopelessly futile. Mr Justice Rich found it to be so months ago. Geneital M'Cay, "the Inspector-Gene-ral, made the same discovery a week or two ago. There has been- neither training nor discipline. Proximity to the city has, in the absence of capacity in administration, and on account of lax control, been a factor of grievous demoralisation, and publio feeling ha? teen consistently shocked by the daily presence in Sydney of troops, of dishevelled, drunken soldiers, lurching about the footpaths from early morn* ing until late at night, and in and out of frowsy-looking hotels. If to this monstrous inefficiency of the command there be added the blighting influence of a wooden-headed censorship which ignorantly throttles the newspapers, it will be seen that the camps might easily become breeding places-of anarchy. That is what they have proved to be. Of course there are the usual rigmaroles forthcoming about this influence and that from the Minister of Defence and military officers. These mean nothing. They are' mere words to shield the people who use them. The inescapable truth i£ that so far as the big camps in New South 'Wales are concerned the country has not had the men to direct them. They have been grotesque from the beginning and the riot of Monday is the direct outcome of political and depart-, mental inefficiency. Something had to buist. It burst on Monday.

iIIOM PILLAGE TO RIOT. Under the influence of liquor and general recklessness, the column spoken of earlier in this letter and other groups of men drifted off into smaller bands towards evening in the city, generally being in mobs of a hundred or two. Their conduct was simply awful. Until the hotels were closed by order of the Magistrates at seven o'clock, licensed houses were the storm centres. When the supply of free grog was cut off the men perambulated about, followed by crowds of citizens,' many of whom cheered and encouraged them and reinforced by shoals of degraded women. By dark the city was practically in a state of siege. Hundreds of police were hurried into the metropolitan area, military pickets were at strategical points, with fixed bayonets and rifles loaded with ball cartridge. From the railway station through the Haymarket down to King Street and along Liver-