OCCUPATION OF RUHR.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 671, 3 April 1923, Page 5

OCCUPATION OF RUHR.

“GRIEVOUS CALAMITY IN ESSEN.”

KRUPPS’ WORKERS KILLED.

By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. Received April 3, 9.15; a.m. LONDON, April 2

The Daily Express’s Dusselclorf correspondent states that Sunday’s Easter calm was broken by a grievous calamity in Essen. The French sent a handlul of soldiers with a machine gun to requisition a motor ear at Krupps’ ( works, and as they entered the sirens sounded and 50,000 workers began to pour, out el the works. One workman, seeing the danger, stood out conspicuously and begged his fellows to keep quiet, the French soldiers being ignorant ol the German language mistook the workman’s intention and lived the machine gun, using the whole belt, into the crowd a lew yards distant. The spokesman fell shot through the head, and the bullets made a lane ol dead and wounded in the crowd. What might have been a vastly worse catastrophe was just avoided. Two French engineers who met the maddened crowd were in danger ol being lynched, but they were rescued by lu'hpps’ lire brigade. Among those present was Consignor Testa, the special emissary of the Pope, and so overcome was he that he fell on his knees and stayed a long time praying fur the souls oi the dead. Several of the wounded are likely to die, as most of the wounds were in the head and upper part of the body, suggesting that the soldiers meant to lire above the heads of the crowd, ft is a miracle that a vast riot was avoided, but the ambulances quickly carried off the dead, wrapped in white cloths, and when a Freiich tank appealed an hour arid a half later most of the crowd obeyed an urgent summons to go quietly to their homes. The town is now full of heavilyarmed troops, though many of them are mere hoys. There is little fear of a further outbreak, but German feeling is savage.

Latest advices from Essen state that the casualties at Krupps’ wore ton killed. Pour directors of Krupps have been arrested charged with sounding the factory sirens with the express intention of provoking a conflict between the workers and soldiers.—A. and N.Z. cable.

FRENCH SOCIALISTS

OPPOSED TO RUHR POLICY

LONDON, April 2. Mr Wallhead, a member of the House of Commons, presiding at the annual conference of the Independent Labour Party, said if the Socialist and Labour Parties of liritain, France and Germany had the handling of die present international tangle, in Western Europe, they would speedily discover a way out.

Air Ramsay, McDonald and representatives of the French and German Socialist Parties, addressed a deiifoite stration at Queen’s Hall. Mr .McDonald said the foreign delegates’ presence symbolised the attitude ,of Labour, which demanded that peace be not enforced by bayonets, but sustained by the people’s moral aspirations. Politically and industrially, capitalism had failed. Almost every industry was seeking protection or a State guarantee or subsidy. M. Longuet said the French Socialist Labour Party was entirely opposed to M. Poincare’s policy in the Ruhr.—A. and N.Z. cable.

COMEDY AND TRAGEDY.

“HERO OF BUER.”

LONDON, March 15.

Comedy and tragedy intermingle in tho Ruhr. An amusing episode has followed upon the murder of a French officer, who was killed by a blacksmith, who struck him with his hammer at Buer.

Collections were made in many towns to reward tho “hero” of the incident, who, however, could not be found. A well-known beer hall in Munich was thrown into a state of excitement to-day by the arrival of an individual claiming to bo the blacksmith. Gifts of money, clothing, food and drink, were pressed on the visitor until, presumably overcome by tile latter, he was taken into custody by the police. Then it was disclosed that ho was an ingenious swindler from Trier, who conceived the get-rieh-quick idea- of posing as a popular hero. That the struggle between French military force and tho Gorman population’s passive resistance in the Ruhr is growing and not decreasing is the view of the 'Dortmund correspondent of the Times.

The middle-class citizens and shopkeepers of Essen, ho writes, are in a dilemma. If they refuse to sell to the French they face* five years’ imprisonment. If they do sell the national extremists, loyal workers and roughs smash their windows. Opinions are divided as to the course they should pursue, A new danger will he introduced if the French carry out their threat to load coal at tho pit-heads with Poles and German unemployed. It is feared that the miners will attack their fel-low-countrymen.