MASS INTIMIDATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19416, 26 August 1926, Page 9

MASS INTIMIDATION.

MINERS' NEW TACTICS,

CLASH WITH THE POLICE. STICKS AND BATONS USED. WORK NOT PERMITTED. NOTTINGHAM PITS IDLE, By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received 9.5 p.m.) A. and N.Z.-Router. LONDON. Aug. 05. There was a serious clash between the police and striking miners yesterday at the Clipstone colliery near Mansfield, Notts. A crowd armed with sticks gathered on tlie road along which the miners who have resumed work had to pass. A body of police " demanded the surrender of the sticks and a scuffle ensued. Several strikers were injured by blows from police batons. In another place in the same district "two policemen, who were assisting a man to pass through the ranks of a hostile crowd, were knocked down and beaten. Three miners were arrested near Chesterfield 'where a motor-bus containing some police was stoned. *, / Methods to Prevent Work. Hundreds of policemen are now patrolling the road which leads to the Mansfield pits. The latter have been deserted by almost all the men who had gone back-to work at the week-end. The miners' officials :n the Midlothian district deny that there has been any breakaway on the part of the strikers. Other reports state that generally speaking tho iiumber of miners who are working again continues to increase, but there has been a decreaso in the Mansfield district, where picketing and intimidation are reported to have been most actively carried out. Large numbers of police had to be drafted into the district to protect the men who are willing to work, but acts of open violence have been few. Men's Leaders to Confer. Official? of the Miners' Federation, including tho president; Mr. Herbert Smith, and the general secretary, Mr. A. J. Cook, have returned to London to attend a meeting to which Mr. Cook referred mysteriously during his recent campaign in the JVlidlands. . The official Labour paper, the Daily Herald, says certain developments will follow the meeting, but their nature has not " been disclosed. • The Morning Post admits that Mr. Cook has won the clay at Mansfield. It attributes this to mass intimidation which, it gays, the Government should fiud means of preventing.

The number of registered unemployed $ persons in Britain : s now 1,530,500 exclu--3 sive of miners. This is 282,000 more than v' were registered at this date last year.