STRIKE RIOTS AT HOME.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3298, 17 August 1911, Page 5

STRIKE RIOTS AT HOME.

BAYONET CHARGES IN THE DARK

“MANCHESTER NEARLY STARVING.”

SOLDIERS FIRE OVER RIOTERS’ HEADS.

[UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. LONDON, August 15. After midnight the mob looted shops in Christian street district. The infantry fired several volleys over the heads of the rioters, and then made bayonet charges up dark courts, whence they were assailed by stones and bottles. There were many casualties. Two soldiers were grievously wounded. Fortysix arrests were made. There are signs of the Glasgow strike fizzling out. Eighty men have been arrested for rioting. The Corporation Committee, after a lively meeting, resolved to leave the settlement in the hands of the tramway managers. A mass meeting of strikers received the decision with hostility and will seek the Board of Tral© arbitration A conference took place between Mr Asquith and Mr Buxton at Downing street to-day. Those present included Mr Lloyd Gorge, the Attorney-General and Mr Askwith; also large employers of the chief trades) with leading representatives of Labor, including Messrs Burt and Bowerman, members of the House of Commns. It was afterwards announced that a conference for Thursday had been arranged by the Board of Trade with reprsentatives of men employed in the various branches of rail wav work. Work has been resumed at Paddington . The Port of London Authority offers to reinstate strikers on probation. Train services at Crewe, Leicester and other centres have been curtailed. Many transport workers at Birmingham have struck. Others who have struck include porters in the goods departments at Chester, Sheffield, Rotherham, Warrington and Bristolshunters and dock workers at Avonmouth: earmen at Bath and Bristol ;the majority of the engine-drivers at Stockport, and 1200 North British plate-layers and surfacemen in the West ot Scotland. The tramway strike at Glasgow has collapsed. Many of the strikers are not being reinstated. Five hundred raihvaymen at the docks at Manchester, with the Great Northern "oodsmen and the Great Northern and Midland vanmen, have struck. A local merchant declares that Manchester is within three days of starvation.

AT LIVERPOOL,

SERIOUS FAMINE THREATENED-

RAILWAYMEN GO OUT. The Millers’ Association at Liverpool declare that a. serious bread famine is threatened at Liverpool and BirkenMr Winston Churchill, in the House of Commons stated that the in London had improved, ana all sections of dock workers were returning. He believed the transport workers realised the advantages already secured, and the folly of jeopardising them. The soldiers at Liverpool had simply fired individual shots at houses from vhich missiles were thrown. At Liverpool 3000 strikers attacked < prison van, convoyed by one hundred Hussars, who fired on the ciotvd and used their sabres. One man was Killed, and twenty wounded. The amalgamated railway servants have declared a general strike. The Lime street railway station, t-ne scene of the rioting in Liverpool, lies in the heart of the city, and it is the depot, for the London and North-Western Railway Company’s main service to London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Ulasgod etc. In front of the station, in a large open space, stands St. George s Hall, the finest architectural feature ot Liverpool, and behind it are public gardens. The Islington road district lies about a quarter of a mile north-east of the Lime Street station.

RAILWAY WORKERS’ ULTIMATUM.

ALL TRAFFIC DISLOGATED.

STRIKE CAUSING ACUTE DISTRESS

(Received August 16. 11.40 p.m.) LONDON, August 16. A joint congress of the railway servants, locomotive engineers, firemen, signalmen, pointsmen, and general workers’ unions met at Liverpool and considered the position. It vas unanimously decided to give the railway companies twenty-four hours to negotiate for a settlement, otherwise there would be a general strike on Thursday morning. The congress also passed resolutions condemning the companies’ method of working the conciliation scheme, the action qf the police and the employment of military at Liverpool. _ , . A general strike would involve three hundred and sixty thousand men. _ The passenger services are becoming dislocated, and all .goods 'traffic is at a standstill. „ , . , , A mob at Sheffield, from being turbulent, went on to actual rioting. A provision cart was upset, and there, was some sto-ne-throwing. Twenty-five thousand men are idle at Manchester. The police are escorting cotton from the docks to the mills unmolested. The strike is causing great distress, and the position at Bermondsey is acute Relief rations are being distributed.

DESPERATE STREET FIGHTING. TWO WORKERS SHOT DEAD. FIERCE ATTACK ON PRISON VANS (Received August . 16, 10.50- p.m.) LONDON, August 16. ; Business has been partly resumed at Tooley Street. Butter is very firm, and Australian is quoted nominally at an advance of two to four shillings, but accurate quotations are impossible until the conditions are normal. A police report states that yesterday’s riot was purely an attack on the

police in the district where disorder is chronic and which is liable to outbursts in times of abnormal excitement. Five prison vans conveying the sentenced rioters, and escorted by a detachment of Hussars and Scots Greys, were traversing Vauxhall Road, which is inhabited by seamen and dockers, when their progress was barred by an excited mob. Bricks and stones were hurled at the convoy from side streets and from the house-tops. Many of the soldiers wero struck and six were unseated. The crowd was so menacing that the convov fired six shots, and a man named Prendergast—a carter —was shot dead, while Sutcliffe, a carter, died later. Three others suffering from. bullet wounds, were taken to the hospital. The Warwickshires and Mounted Police hurried to Vauxhall Road, but meanwhile the vans had reached the prison. The arrival of the infantry was the signal for desperate street fighting, lasting an hour, the rioters facing the batons with coolness and courage. The police were badly mauled. EPER PRESS ASSOCIATION.} WELLINGTON, Aug. 16. (Speaking at the annual meeting of the Wellington Meat Export Company, Mr. W. G. Foster, managing director, referred to the disastrous state of labor in the Old Country. He did not think that that was a good time to deal with the subject, but he assured shareholders that the company’s interests were so covered that they had at present nothing to fear. If however, 'the strikes were prolonged, then there might be a danger of very bad markets.