COLOUR BAN IN LONDON

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 855, 26 December 1929, Page 6

COLOUR BAN IN LONDON

RICH NEGRO’S ORDEAL VEHEMENT INDIGNATION Mr. Robert S. Abbott, the "wealthy negro newspaper proprietor, of Chicago, has sent a cablegram to Mr. James Marley, Labour M.P. for St. Pancras North, London, complaining that because of their colour his wife and he "were barred from entertainments on a British liner on their return journey from London. “My wife and I,” the cable reads, “were not only refused accommodation in the hotels in London, but were forced into the grill room on our return, October 12, on the liner, against our will. Here we were deprived of any and all music, and other entertainment, although we were first-class passengers.”

Mr. Marley, who recently read a letter at a meeting containing complaints by Paul Robeson, the negro singer, of his treatment at a West End hotel, said that on two occasions recently coloured men were requested to leave a London dance hall. “These men,” added Mr. Marley, “include a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Grenada, a post graduate of the London School of Tropical Medicine, and a member of the Middle Temple. They look upon the incident as a serious affront, and have written to Lord Passfield, Secretary for the Dominions.”

The proprietor of the dance hall made the following statement to a Press representative:— “I have lived abroad, and I know that a Zulu chief would resent a white man intruding in his kraal. For the same reason I resent the intrusion of a coloured man into my dance hall. “Our hall is for white people only, and we stand absolutely by our decision not to admit coloured people, no matter how eminent or distinguished they may be.” The question of the colour bar will be: raised in Parliament by Mr. Marley at the earliest opportunity. He has to support him a letter from Mr. Ramsay MacDonald regarding the hotel ban on Mr. Abbott. The Prime Minister wrote: —“It is a most disturbing affair, and is not in accordance with our British hotel practice. No department, however, is responsible for it, and I cannot think of any way in which the Government can intervene.” . Mr. Marley stated that the Society of Friends are to call a conference to set up a joint council, representative of coloured people and white sympathisers, to deal with the matter imperially.