Riots in Belgium.

Manawatu Herald, 17 April 1902, Page 2

Riots in Belgium.

Four thousand strikers, near Charleroi, awaited a train bringing Flemish workers from the mines. Mounted troops cleared the street, and occupied the station to protect the Flemish. A riot followed, during which volleys were exchanged between the troops and the strikers, a girl being killed and many others wounded. A general strike of miners in the Charleroi district has been ordered to begin on Monday. Gendarmes frequently charged mobs in the Brussels streets on Saturday, using their swords and bayonets. Several persons were killed. The situation is very serious, though jUu Government is confident that it t« quell the distuttoes. .'.V' • -* Mf

After the open rapture in the Cham her of Deputies between the Clerical and Socialists Depaties, Van de Nevslde, the chief Socialist leader, was arrested by order of the Govern* meat, but was subsequently released. His followers were greatly incensed. The street fighting in Brussels during the evening was severe. The mobs used revolvers, iron bolts and glass bombs filled with corrosives. The gendarms used swords and rifles. At least three were killed and a hundred wounded. ■ A ghastly struggle took place for the body of a fatally wounded man, whose clothes were stripped off before the gendarmes were successful in their efforts to secure him. Later rioters made a determined, but fruitless, effort to secure the corpses of two rioters from St. Pierre Hospital, their object being to exhibit the bodies in order to inflame the populace. Troops threatened to fire on anyone opening windows in the city. Women were wounded during the disturbances. Rioting also occurred at Liege and La Lonviers. thousand ..Socialists and three thousand Liberals quietly demonstrated at Charleroi on Sunday in favour of universal suffrage. The Socialist leaders have published a violent appeal to the people to take universal sufiraga by storm if Parliament denies it. King Leopold is at Oatend.