AUSTRALIAN NEWS. The Unemployed Fighting With the Police.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 194, 12 March 1887, Page 4 (Supplement)

AUSTRALIAN NEWS. The Unemployed Fighting With the Police.

Meetings of unemployed continue to be held in Sydney. At a meeting of the Cabinet the Government came to the conclusion that the practice of giving relief in the form at that time afforded to those who professed themselves unable to obtain employment elsewhere Bhould be discontinued as early aa possible, and that the best method of employing those who were willing to accept work would be by piecework in connection with the clearing and general improvement of land about to be disposed of by the Government. On Monday 520 men were sent to the Field of Mars, but a number declined the offers made to them, and are still in the metropolis. On Saturday no fewer than 1,040 relief tickets were doled out to the men. The tickets, or, more correctly speaking, orders upon certain storekeepers for relief in kind to the value of 6d were carefully checked, and from an equally careful observance of results it was thought to bo much more than probable that the privilege which they afforded was being grossly abueed. In other words, the authorities, although unable to trace any case directly home, found much reason for believing that a traffic was being carried on, and that the orders were being discounted under all sorts of schemes and excuses. In consequence of this, and of the men refusing to accept the work offered them, the tickets for rations were stopped. The crowd then sent a message as their final answer, viz., that they would aot accept piecework, nor any wage lees th*n 6s per day. In the absence of a rejoinder to this notification, and threats of violence (whether genuine or bombastic) having been ignored, a decision was come to to march four deep to Government House, thence to the Colonial Secretary's offices, and subsequently, via Bridge street, along the principal thoroughfares, with a view to making *'a house to house solicitation for bread," in order, as the spokesman put it, "to prove whether a wretched, incapable, ignorant, grasping Government would show to the world that New South Wales had degraded labour by offering any man less than 6s per day." A large corp3 of picked policemen, and cf detectives in plain clothes, had meanwh )» mingled with the mob, and upon the gates of Government House being reached the ringleaders found that they were closed and chained and also that hig Excellency the GoTernor wa i engaged at a Cabinet Council in the Colonial Secretary's office. # A turn was then made for those buildings, and a deputation sought admittance. This permission was necessarily refueed under the circumstances, and a show of force was adopted The moreprominentagitators were, however, confronted by the lospectorGeneral of Police, who explained how matters stood, and finally gave the order to clear the footpath, which caused the crowd to disappear w ith suggestive rapidity as the police proceeded to carry their orders into execution. A few blows were struck, and ona man's head was rather seriously lacerated, but as both aides acted with forbearance, extreme measures were averted. The unemployed, or the scattered remnant of their force which remained after the police edict had gone forth, then took to the middle of the street, and after having become rapidly smaller as the General Post Office was reached, the procession finally melted away, leaving the police masters of the "^uation. In the evening a crowd aaeem ttled, and a torchlight procession was deter mined upon ; but, by reason of stringent measures on the part of the police authorities, further disturbance was prevented. A second large batch of men were forwarded from Redfern Station to the Field of Mars by special train on Tuesday, ap, subsequent to the agitation just described, a considerable number of applicants altered their views, and set down their names as intend ing workers.