ORATORS IN HYDE PARK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23340, 4 November 1937, Page 20

ORATORS IN HYDE PARK

SCOTLAND YARD'S HIGH PRAISE Those orators who take their stand in Hyde Park of an evening and exhort London crowds with fiery phrases to attack the Government, uphold the Government, destroy the social system, preserve the social system, or take up any of the score of "isms" peddled at this " pavement parliament," may take a deep bow. One and all. they have just been highly praised by Scotland Yard. "The increased number of meetings and demonstrations in Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square," writes Air Vicemarshal Sir Philip Game, commissioner of Metropolitan Police, in his latest report, " was no doubt largely due to international events, particularly the wars in Abyssinia and Spain, and during a short period, to the unemployed march to London early in November. ' But these meetings were in every case orderly, and the conduct of the unemployed marchers beyond reproach." The significance of this statement Is underlined by the fact that when writing it the police chief of London was commenting on the fact that .last year street meetings elsewhere in the city were on the increase, and caused the police much more trouble than usual. "A considerable strain." the report declares, "was put upon police resources to the detriment of their other work, especially during the latter half of the year, by a very marked increase in the number of public meetings in the street and the size of the audiences attracted." The commissioner's report goes on to state that the anti-Semitic policy of certain Fascist organisations has caused violence in the East End. Police action, it is reported, has resulted in the diminishing of grosser forms of "Jew-baiting," but affairs are still bad enough in some districts to cause considerable trouble to the police and place a strain upon their resources. The Hyde Park demonstrations are different. There may be riots elsewhere, but what is the secret of the Park that a Communist, a Conservative, a Christian, a Mohammedan, and numerous undenominational and nonparty agitators can stand in a row and 'harangue roughly the same audience without causing a disturbance of the peace?