A MAGNIFICENT DEMONSTRATION.

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 17, 18 November 1913, Page 4

A MAGNIFICENT DEMONSTRATION.

It is usless to attempt to convey, in cold type, any idea of the splendid demonstration of Solidarity and strike enthusiasm • which took place on Sunday in Auckland. The Unions ag9i.ll lined up in procession, each carrying a device or banner. They started away from the Trades Hall, marched up Hobson Street, along Karangahape Road, turned into Ponsonby Road, and on from thence past the Three Lamps and down College Hill to Victoria Park.

All along the route the procession was repeatedly cheered by the people lining the pavement. The girls of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers provoked a running cheer as they came into view.

As the very long procession entered the park, a great, prolonged cheer greeted them from the large crowd already assembled there. A kind of tableau was arranged, in which each Union marched up to the grand stand, cheer after cheer breaking out. Standing on the fringe of the enormous crowd concentrating in front of the stand we were nonplussed for a moment as to the cause of a tumultuous outbreak, which lasted three minutes —it was the newspaper boys inarching past the stand. It occurred to us that if the deaf fining noise did not stop it would require no capitalist dynamite plant to bring down the huge gasometer nearby.

Various speakers addressed the meeting from different stands, including a farmer “ special,” who stated that they had been brought to town under false pretences, and that many were returning home to their farms. In spite of the rain the whole affair w'as a nasty slap in the face for Eat,” and a very material answer to the rumours appearing as 44 news ”in the daily papers. There must have been 7,000 in the procession and nearly 20,000 in the park.