FASCIST ACTIVITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22324, 26 July 1934, Page 12

FASCIST ACTIVITY

FLOOD OF PRESS COMMENT THE "RED" PLOT MANY CHARGES OF BRUTALITY. • (From Our Own :Cobbespondent.) • LONDON, June 12. A great deal of. controversy has followed the Fascist meeting at Olympia last'week. The Government attitude was 'expressed by Sir John Gilmour . (Home '.Secretary) when he said that the preservation of law and order was the duty of the Government and the police, and ■ttey would, not tolerate the usurpation of : tfiat function by any private organisation, whatever their aims might be. "First of all> it must be definitely acknowledged by anyone who attended the .meeting at Olympia that had the Black Shirts not taken on themselves the preservation of order by physical means pandemonium would have developed and resulted in danger .to those who were present for. a peaceful purpose. ■>•' The controversy has centred round the methods of physical violence applied to interrupters by the stewards. Dr. H. R. L. Sheppard, previously the vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, who lias great .intluene'e with a large body of the public, is one of the critics. .

"Like all others present," he said, "1 witnessed the ejection of interrupters. This was' clone with great violence; but I" am not concerned'.to make any charge with reference to anything that occurred inside the hall. I confine myself to one of the incidents I witnessed when I got into a corridor leading to the exit. . A young man who had been ejected was showing signs of the way in which he had been handled. I was horrified at the monstrously cruel, treatment to which he Was now subjected by the Fascists in charge of him. He was bleeding on the face and was gasping for breath. He was being chased down the corridor by a horde of Black Shirts. Some collared him by the legs, others by the arms, and, held in this way, he was beaten on the head by any Fascist who could get near him. There was, it must.be remembered, a large chowd of them." Mr Geoffrey Lloyd, Conservative M.P. and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mr Baldwin, said: " As a Unionist I am not very sym-pathetic-to Communists who try to break up meetings, but I am bound to say (hat I Was appalled by the brutal conduct, of the Fascists. ■ I am' sure a great many other people at the meeting shared my feelings, and there. seems little doubt that some of the later victims of the Black Shirt stewards were Conservatives endeavouring to make a protest at the unnecessary violence. I saw with my own eyes case after case of single interrupters being attacked by 10 to 20 FasAgain _ and again, as rive or six Fascists carried- out an iutcrruntor bv arms and legs, several other Black Shirts were hitting and kicking his helpless body." SIR 0. MOSLEY'S BROADCAST. In a broadcast address Sir Oswald Mosley replied to critics. He said they had definite proof of an organised attack on the meeting. "Inside the halt our Blackshirt stewards were in force to preserve order and to protect our audience from 'Red' violence. This proved very necessary indeed, for highly organised ■ groups of 'Reds' rose at regular intervals to shout down the speech.. Our opponents accused us of unnecessary brutality in throwing out the 'Reds.' "Such deliberate lies are spread by enemies who fear our advance, but cannot answer our case in fair debate. Not only were our male Blackshirts kicked and slushed with razors, but women were brutally assaulted. We captured from the 'Reds' a large collection of vile weapons, which included knuckle-dusters covered with spikes, stockings filled with broken glass, iron spikes, and bludgeons, and, of course, that favourite weapon of 'Red' hooligans, the razor. In not one single case have Blackshirts ever attacked their opponents' meetings." POLITICIANS' VIEWS. Many politicians expressed their views of the Fascists at the week-end. Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister (Secretary of State for the Colonies) said:— "I do not think you are in the least likely to be diverted by any circus of foreign origin or based on a foreign model. England has no liking and no need for dictatorships. Anyone in a free country is perfectly free to run a stunt or to' try to start a party, but it is equally the right of other citizens to claim that persons shall not be permitted to conduct these in a way which is calculated to imperil the maintenance of good order or to load to a breach of the peace. The maintenance of law and order is the function of the police, to be discharged— and it will be discharged, and ever, has been, ia this

country—impartially, . without fear or favour. They need no assistance, ana they will brook no interference in the discharge of that function;"

NO COMMUNISTS IN HOSPITAL. : Mr G. Ward Price, writing in the Sunday Dispatch/replies to the critics:"Let hard facts dispose of these hystericaland unfounded allegations," he says. ♦'Men kicked in the. stomach,, as de-; scribed, would have C: to be taken, tojhpspital. Not-.a-single- instance of such jn-, jury, to a Communist has .been reported.; The only cases in tiospital are two Blackshirts, one of them'. damaged, in the very way that it js ~asserted :the: Communists; were treated^—by heavy kicks .in ._• the; stomach—the, other'.savagely slashed by .'&■■ piece of glass used as a dagger. '_ "These two men.are in the West,London Hospital, which is the nearest, to Olympia, and the only one to which casualties were taken. Nine other Blackshirts are laid up in bed at their headquarters under medical treatment, some of them also suffering from kicks in, the stomach; or groin. . ~ " Several girl-Blackshirts appear in the list, one of them with a' cut close i to the eye which came within half an inch of blinding her. Among the badly injured men whom I saw' at Blackshirt headquarters yesterday was 4 .an orderly of the first-aid post. He was escorting an injured and bandaged comrade home, and was wearing a white armlet with the Red Cross on it. . Despite this, 20 or. 30 Communists set upon them in the street, knocking the orderly down and kicking him as he lay on the ground." ,'"'.' "The Conservative M.P.'s who haye rushed into print to condemn the Blackshirts for defending themselves against the organised outrages of Communist roughs like these have, allowed their hysterical ' emotion at; the sight of the vigorous handling of aggressive rowdies to get the better of their common sense. 1 myself was at the meeting, and I watched all the evictions that took place.. I .have seen many Communist demonstrations suppressed in the United States, France, Germany, and Italy, and I can only say that, had such a hooligan outburst as was staged at Olympia occurred m any of those countries, there would have been scores of Communists in hospital to-day, instead of none at all." NO. OTHER COURSE..

The Daily Mail, in its. leading article to-day, says: ~, ".The Reds in recent months have conducted a determined, campaign to silence Conservatives and friends of order, lkey organised the disgraceful riots which took place in March during the L.C.C. electiou, when there were no Blackshirts on the scene. They broke up Lord Reaverbrook's meeting at Camberwell with such savagery that a steward was seriously injured. "..',. :. ." - • "They have nothing to complain <» regarding" what happened to them at Olympia. Though certain of them brought razors into the meeting and used them, their casualties were trifling. pealed to violence, and they cannot affect indignation because force was used to resist them. There was no other course if free speech was to be maintained and the right of public meeting. The Red hooligans have-not the faintest claim to public sympathy." VILE WEAPONS. While the Daily Telegraph and the News-Chronicle open their columns to those who criticise the Blackshirts, the Morning Post, apart from. ..the . Lord Rothcrmore press, opens its columns to those who uphold Fauci fit methods. Examples of the latter type of letter may be quoted. , , ~ Mr S. M. Chapman writes: 'Air Baldwin's parliamentary secretary and other members of the Conservative Party have been voicing their sympathy with the unspeakable scoundrels who tried to break up Sir Oswald Mosley's meeting at Olympia. I do not know what their object caii be to try to bring discredit upon a band of splendid young men who did their duty with great restraint and discretion. In the opinion of myself and of many sitting by, these ruffians by no means got'what they deserved. What should be done with a brute who slashed a woman in the face with a razor? And how would you propose to deal with a disturber who, armed with a vile weapon, would use it upon you without the slightest hesitation? Had these stewards not acted in the prompt and effective way in which they did act, the hall would speedily have been in the hands of the ' Beds,' with what result T leave to the imagination." Violent resistance.

Another from a retired commander of the Royal Navy, is as follows:—"We were n party of five open-minded and peaceful citizens who had paid 1o hear what Sir Oswald Mosley had to say. From our excellent point of vantage in the stalls were were able Jo ase pretty

clearly what was going on. We. were impressed by .the admirable way in which the Blackshirt stewards dealt with the disturbances. In most .cases the -interrupters violently resisted perfectly -legitimate efforts to remove them; kicking put and striking: in. all-directions,; Arrests; carried out by anybody, police' of' otherwise, charged with > the maintenance of order- must of necessity be. ■ accompanied by force where. violent resistance is encountered. ~' The : freeborn I Britona who, formed :the bulk of-the audience,; having! paid for their seats, were entitled to the opportunity offered them of forming: their own - opinion. of the movement." il-;{v LOW'S' CARTOON. ';./ ■■'■■'',, On the platforms in Hyde Park on Sun-, day the Coihihuhist and Socialist speakers had a very great deal to say' about Sir Oswald Mosley-and his Blackshirts. More than .one of the, speakers maintained that if the.. Socialists and < Communists ..attempted to organise a uniformed army with armoured cars the Government would be quick to crush them. "The capitalist class," said one speaker, "while they openly condemn the Fascists, secretly uphold them, and it will be .the Fascists to whom they will appeal when their capitalist system is in danger," • Mr David Low, the Evening Standard cartoonist, expressed the same idea in his cartoon of yesterday. The Attorneygeneral and a party of police are seen running. The picture is entitled,'"A Slight Error," and an inscription r'-ads:— . "Keep calm, please, keep calm! .This scene shows the Attorney-general just after a" rumour reached him that the Communists had started a uniformed army, had bought some armoured cars and airplanes and had held a provocative mass meeting attended by unusual violence, ■ "But it was all right, really, because it was not the Communists after, all—only some other fellow." THE BLACK PLAGUE." Finally, according to the leader writer of the Daily Telegraph:— "This Black Plague is as much an infection,from abroad as the Red. Moreover, the virus of the one is almost indistinguishable from that of the. other, and the resultant disease runs for a time a similar course, which is equally fatal to liberty. Nothing is more true- than that Fascism actually begets tin; Communism which it is ostensibly designed to overthrow. At this moment Sir Oswald Mosley is easily the best recruit-ing-sergeant for the Communist Party among the Socialist rank and file who are being tempted to methods of violence. The weapons of extremism are all of the twoedged kind, and the supporters of constitutional government niust see that authority is armed with sufficient powers and support it in their use. Those who cherish the. decent British political tradition niust combine without thought of party to -fight the spirit of the n,ew violence from whichever side it comes."