THE POLICE STRIKE

Timaru Herald, Volume CVIII, Issue 16887, 7 August 1919, Page 7

THE POLICE STRIKE

ALL LEAVE CANCELLED. LOOKING FOR SUPPORT. By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Cable Assn. LONDON, August 3. Sir Neville Macready has cancelled all police leave. It is believed that some who are absent under the guise- of leave are actively encouraging a strike. The cancellation will compel them to demonstrate their real feelings. Th Birmingham situation is. serious. Four hundred out of 1200 police are involved. The organisers declare that the tramway workers and fire brigade have promised their support. CHAOS IN BIRMINGHAM AND LIVERPOOL. The looting of Liverpool shops was renewed on Saturday night and Sunday. Despite soldiers being drawm up in the streets, jewellers, grocery, clothing and bookshops again' suffered. The looters carried the spoils to their homes in neighbouring streets and returned for more. They raided a sugar factory and also beer bottling works. Women and-boys laden with bottles of beer paraded the streets, drinking. Others rolled barrels of beer into the road, where crowds with glasses, cups and jugs gathered round, dancing and drinking. They ran away when the troops arrived, but returned, and chaffed the soldiers.

The rioters smashed the windows of musio warehouses, dragged pianos on to the pavement and played for the dancers. :

Many looters were arrested,

CROWDS ATTACK SOLDIERS

LONDON, August 4. Insurances against fire loss' by social disorders are being effected at os per cent in Liverpool. Most of the city is now well protect 7 ed, but the scenes of anarphy in the centre beggar description. St. George's Hall and Square have been converted into a great laager, in which hundreds of steel-helmeted soldiers are stationed.

Debris and loot litter the streets. People push handcarts around collecting clothes and boots. Children sit on the footpaths trying on boots, contemptuously throwing away misfits. Baton charges have been the order of the day, the police belabouring the looters, but have been unable to stem the 1 tide.

In the earlier melee a vollev was fired. Soldiers in a lorry caught the looters of a wineshop redhanded and arrested them, and were returning with their prisoners when crowds attacked the lorry. The troops fired over the crowd's heads. One man who was trying to seize a soldier's rifle, was shot in the abdomen.

The damage caused bv the rioters in Birkenhead is estimated at £40,000.

CROWD SHOWS UGLY SPIRIT.

_ A rioter, who was wounded in- the Liverpool riots, died. The damage done in Liverpool at the week-end is estimated at a quarter or' a million. The crowd l showed the ugliest spirit, . viciously wrecking statues, gutting shops, and savagely attacking the "special" police who fought gamely until their prisoners were lodged inside a ring of soldiers. The crowd frequently stampeced in an unreasoning panic, and many were trampled and badly hurt. When a hundred regular police charged, the mob fled terror-stricken to the side streets, where they smashed lamps to enable them to carry on a guerilla warfare in the darkness. Gradually the combination of police and soldiers mastered the situation.

A strike of traniwaymen and 'bus drivers adds to the city's paralysis.

SYMPATHETIC STRIKE

Six hundred members of the Nine Elms branch of the Locomotive Engineers' and Firemen's Union have' struck in sympathy with the police, resulting in the restriction of the London-South-western railway service. A warship and two destroyers have arrived in the Mersey to protect the docks. ' MANCHESTER POLICE LOYAL. Received 11.10 p.m.. August 6th.' LONDON, July 5. A mass meeting of Manchester police decided not to strike. In the House of Commons Mr Eonar Law said the Government had decided to resist direct actionists to the utmost.