INDIAN AFFAIRS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3776, 8 October 1907, Page 4

INDIAN AFFAIRS.

Calcutta, October 5. A meeting demanding selfgovernment by force in Calcutta was dispersed by the police. Street rioting followed. Showers of stones were thrown and shops looted. The disturbance lasted many hours. Mob was eventually diepersed by six divisions of police. Forty police were injured. The meeting was held in Bladon Square and was organised by sympathisers with the recently punished students. Subsequently students and hooligans gathered on the roofs of houses in Northern Calcutta and pelted the trams and passers with brickbats. Europeans were singled out for attack. Bengal newspapers blame the police, alleging that the situation was created in order to throw discredit on Keir Hardie. Melbourne, October 5. In the Senate Mr Dobson denounced the mischievous, unpatriotic and the traitorous speeches of Kier Hardie in India, and declared he deserved hanging. Eondon, October 5. The latest information is that the Calcutta native press greatly exaggerated the riots. The Tribune, commenting on this, says that possibly this may further impress upon Mr Keir Hardie the lesson which he has doubtless begun to learn, that it is exceedingly unwise to give the press any dangerous material which it can exaggerate. The Daily Telegraph says that Mr Hardie meditates a short stay in India before proceeding to play the angelic firebrand in Australia. His early departure m:u relieve the Indian Government 0; the* necessity of deporting him.