FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1, 6 May 1913, Page 5

FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

SUFFSACSTTES ACTIVE. POLICE AND MOB IN CONFLICT. rßy Electric Telegraph—Copyright] [United Press Association . London, May 5. Thirty thousand people attended the Trafalgar Square demonstration. Messrs. Keir Hardie, J. C. Wedgwood and J. Martin, members of the House of Commons, and Mrs Despard delivered speeches against the restriction of freedom of speech, owing to the prohibition of suffragette open-air meetings. The arrival of a trades procession, in which were a group of suffragettes carrying flags, started the trouble. The women attempted to mount the plinth of the Nelson column, but the police barred them. A couple of Socialists csayod to climb the plinth, but the police threw them down. Thereafter, for an hour, there were serious conflicts between ,the police and tho mob. A solid mass of men and women hurled itself against the constables surrounding the column. Mr Keir Hardie urged them to disperse. There was much screaming from women wedged in the struggling mass. The police showed the greatest forbearance, but were compelled to hit out in self-defence. Some were badly handled by the fighting hooligan element. A squad of mounted police cleared the Square, Seven men were 'arrested. AN ANTAGONISTIC CROWD. London, May 5. Tim crowd broke np a suffragette meeting at Hyde Park. Mr Lansbury’s daughter and another were arrested. “A REIGN OF TERROR.” CONSPIRATORS AT THE COURT. (Received 9.10 a.m.) London, May 5. The suffragist conspiracy case has been resumed. Mr Bodkin, for the prosecution, described Mrs Drummond as a violent and unscrupulous woman, an said that Kennedy made inflamatory speeches, while Clayton, 1 an anal; ist, in return for payment, prostituted his knowledge of science to the furtherance of crime, producing what their newspapers miscalled ‘‘a reign of terror.” Documents showed that a man named Buckner, of Hqinburg, wrote to Miss Kerr, one of the defendants, telling her how to terrorise 'audiences with powder,' causing violent sneezing and severe irritation of the skin. THE FRANCHISE BILL. ... , ~. r -_x_2. ’ ■■ 6 ' rrr; (Received 10 a.m.) London, May 5. Mr W. H. Dickinson, Liberal member for St. Pancras North, moved the second reading of the Bill. Ho ■said it was a gross injustice to withhold the vote simply owing to the criminal act of a few. The Bill should he passed, but inoperative until a referendum of women showed that they desired the vote.