Fascist March Banned

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 236, 6 October 1936, Page 7

Fascist March Banned

Sir Oswald Mosley Angry

84 ARRESTS MADE

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.

LONDON, October 4.

Half an hour before tho time the Fascist march was due to start, trouble broke out in Royal Mint Street, where the Fascists were mustering. The police made a haton charge and cleared the street. A crowd of anti-Fascists thronged Royal Mint Street, booing and shouting and the polico charged, a number of men being left lying on the road, and nine were admitted to hospital.

Later the Police Commissioner banned the march.

Contingents arrived at Royal Mint Street from all parts of London. Communists were not allowed to approach the spot where the procession was being formed. The police held back great crowds of people who were singing, booing, and shouting. Communists and members of the Independent Labour Party had arranged a counter demonstration at Whitechapel, High Street, and Leman Street, where traffic was also held up in the meantime. The Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley arrived at Royal Mint Street and was informed that the procession and meeting had been banned by the police, who would only allow the march to Blackfriars. This announcement brought cries of dissension from the ranks of the Blackshirts. The procession marched to Elackfriars without incident.

Government Criticised.

‘‘This is tlio first time the Government has openly surrendered to the Red Terror,” declared Sir Oswald Mosloy in a statement. “Fascists have held countless successful meetings in East London. Socialists, Communists, aud Jews on this occasion havo openly organised so as to attack not only the meetings but to close tho streets by violence, and tho Government has taken no action against them. The necessity for Fascism could not bo more clearly proven. When a Government cannot govern, the nation soon sends for those who can.”

Why Procession Was Banned

EAST END MEETINGS.

LONDON, Oct. 4,

Both the Communists and the Fascists held meeting in tho East End to-night, which were strongly guarded by police. Tho arrests during tho day totalled 84, for obstruction and assault. Scotland Yard states that, largely owing to the fact that it was one of the finest days of the year, many people assembled, including women and children, when disorder broke out, and the Fascist procession was banned to prevent further breaches of the peace. A Communist Party statement says: “Mass action of the working people exposed the pro-Fascist attitude of the Home Office, and the police, who sought to the last moment to enable Sir Oswald Mosley to march, are responsible for the baton charges and arrests.”

Twenty Treated in Hospital

Received Monday, S.lO p.m. LONDON, Oct. 5,

The London hospital treated twenty people for bruises, including two girls who were trodden down, and two Fascists.

The polico made many baton charges. The most serious clash occurred in Cable street, where the crowd, thinking the Fascists would pass that way, took a lorry from a builder’s yard and ftarttd building a barricade. Tho police hero charged a dozen times and received a shower of bricks and stones.

Fascists and Communists Clash in Paris

1300 ARRESTS MADE-

PARIS, Oct. 4. Armed police and mounted Republican Guards, numbering 20,000, who established an impregnable barrier around the Parc des Princes, repelled over 15,000 members of the Social Party (led by the Fascist Colonel la Rocque) advancing to invade the park and surrounding streets to prevent a Communist meeting.

Many clashes resulted in 1300 arrests being made. The chief of the disturbances was in the neighbourhood of the Parc des Princes, where 3000 Communists established themselves in the early morning to prevent the seizure of the stadium by the Social Party. Police barricaded the area, and army reconnaissance aeroplanes watched tho crowds assembling, and by the use of wireless directed the police to danger points, where a dozen columns of the Social Party r\ ere advancing, necessitating numerous changes. Tho Social Party smashed windows aud overturned taxis. Light of tho police and 200 demonstrators were injured. The police in tho afternoon sufficiently dispersed the demonstrators to enable 40,000 Communists to assemble. The Communist meeting passed a resolution demanding that, in view of alleged Italian and German help to the insurgents, the ban on arms to Spain should be raised.