ENFORCING THE REPARATIONS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 10449, 5 April 1923, Page 3

ENFORCING THE REPARATIONS.

CALAMITY IN ESSEN. LONDON, April 2. ; Tho Dusseldorf correspondent of the Daily Express states that Sunday’s Easter calm was broken by a grievous calamity in Essen. The French sent a handful of soldiers with a machine gun to requisition a motor' car at the Krupp works. As they entered, sirens' sounded, and 50,000 workers began to pour out of the works. One workman, seeing danger, stood out conspicuously, and begged his fellows to keep quiet.-. Tho Frenbh soldiers, being ignorant, of the German language, mistook the work-: man’s intention, and fired the machine gun, using a whole belt,;.into the crowd.

A few yards distant the spokesman fell, shot through the head, and the bullets made a lane of dead, and wounded in the crowd. Whatmight have been a vastly worse catastrophe, was just avoided. Among those present was Monsignor Testa, special Emissary of the Pope. So overcome was he, that ho fell on his knees and stayed a long time praying for the souls of the dead. Several of the wounded are likely to die, as most of the -wounds are in the head and upper part of the body, suggesting that the soldiers meant to fire above the heads of the crowd. ' It is a miracle that a vast riot was avoided, but ambulances .quickly carried off the dead, wrapped in white cloths, and when a French tank appeared an hour and a half later, moat of the crowd obeyed the urgent summons to go quietly to their homes.

The town is now full of heavily armed troops, though many are mere boys. There is little fear of a further outbreak: but the German feeling is savage. The latest advices from Essen state that the casualties at Krupps were 10 killed. Four directors of Krupps were arrested and charged with sounding the. factory siren's with, the express intention of provoking a,conflict between -the workers and : -tie soldiers.