UNEXAMPLED VIOLENCE WITNESSED IN SYDNEY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 1

UNEXAMPLED VIOLENCE WITNESSED IN SYDNEY .

Police Force Doubled in City Area Following serious Rioting.

(United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received June 20, 10.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, June 20. Yesterday will be remembered in Sydney as a day of unexampled violence. Following an anti-eviction riot at Newtown there was a mild demonstration in Railway Square, where shop windows were broken. Even the “ Labour Daily ” newspaper office suffered. Altogether twenty-two arrests were made and six others are in hospital.

For the first time since the 1927-28 razor war, police in the metropolitan area have been doubled. Disgraceful scenes were witnessed at the Orange relief depot, when a crowd of 500 men and women rushed the building and helped themselves to a great quantity of food and clothing, which was intended for distribution among the poor and needy. At the end of the raid there was not an article left. One woman was knocked down and trampled on and pandemonium reigned while the unruly crowd escaped with armfuls of goods.

N.S.W. POLICE FIRE UPON COMMUNISTS.

ANTI-EVICTIONISTS ARE ONCE AGAIN ROUTED. (United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) SYDNEY, June 19. Another sensational clash between anti-evictionists and police took place at noon to-day, at the suburb of Newtown. The police on this occasisn made greater use of their revolvers and fired fifteen shots before raiding a semi-detached two-storeyed house. As a result of the conflict fourteen anti-evictionists and eight police were injured and a spectator, a man about forty years of age, dropped dead with excitement while watching the battle. Leading Communists were again associated with the affair. Many of their members addressed the crowd prior to the police raid and urged workers to fall in behind them and fight the police, who regarded the challenge as open defiance of the law.

With surprising suddenness the police arrived in a motor-bus. Their arrival was heralded by shouts and volleys of stones. A number of men on the upstairs balcony maintained a fusilade, the inspector of police commanded his men to draw their revolvers and fire. Immediately there was a succession of shots and the defenders

of the balcony disappeared inside. The police then battered down the doors being met by a shower of stones and half bricks. The wonder was that they escaped with their lives. The battle inside raged for twenty minutes, everything breakable being reduced to ruins. Huge stones came hurling down the stairs, missing the policemen by inches. A thin cordon of police kept order outside the house but the men were constantly ducking to avoid flying stones. The hooting of the onlookers was never allowed to subside.

The police eventually emerged with a number of bedraggled bloodstained defenders, handcuffed together, who were marched to the waiting police waggon. They received medical treatment at the gaol hospital before being locked up and charged. The injured police were treated at the police hospital. The police must have dealt mom severely with anti-evictionists to-day than they did on Wednesday, as four of them are suffering from concussion and extensive cuts, probably caused by batons. The shots fired by the police were aimed more to frighten than to injure, the bullets shattering the woodwork of the balcony. One man was shot in the arm. Eighteen arrests were made. The injuries suffered by the police are mostly superficial. One has a fractured hand. Mr Lamaro, the Attorney-General, has announced that the Government is introducing legislation to protect tenants against eviction in certain instances which, it is hoped, will minimise the eviction disturbances.