TOWNSVILLE RIOTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 July 1919, Page 5

TOWNSVILLE RIOTS.

1 -On CITY IN A STATE OF SIEGE. Letters received from Townsville with regard to the Htrike at Alligator Creek and Bobs River Meat Works indicate, according to a prominent business man of North Queensland, "a state of siege' of revolutionists." One correspondent, under date July 1, gives an accoiyit of the conditions prevailing there- He writeH (in the Sydney Daily Telegraph): "A mob of strikers forced entry and raided the establishment of Messrs Alfred Shaw, L,td., and Rooney's, Ltd., and stole a large quantity of rifles and ammunition, estimated roughly at about 150 rifles and 1500 rounds of ammunition. After having secured these, they assembled in groups and indulged in some promiscuous shooting. Fortunately nobody was struck, and owing to the small number of police in tho town it was impossible for authority to assert itself, so, beyond six or eight policemen coming out into the main street fully armed, so a.s to allow a couple of their comrades, who had taken shelter in one of the bank premises, to rejoin them and return to the barracks, the town was left at tho mercy of the mob. "During the afternoon Mr. Loe Brown, general manager of the American Meat Works, was in Smith's draper shop, when a mob of youths, estimated at about 100, forced their way into those premises and assaulted him with such terrible effect that his face was most severely injured, and he was lucky to escape with his life' Although he telephoned for police escort to his ear, so as to be able to cither make for home or go out to the Alligator Creek works, he was not able to get any, owin« to the fact that the mnb had determined to storm the police barracks, and on nccount of the very small number of police available they dared not take the risk of leaving the barracks, so the town and all the inhabitants were at the mercy of this rabble, which for the time were drunk with ideas of revolution. "During the afternoon several of the had element gave it out that they intended to wipe out the whole of the 'bosses* in the town, and this morning a proclamation appeared in the paper calling upon citizens to deliver up all arms and ammunition from within a registered twelve miles of the courthouse." After referring to the action taken to secure additional police protection, the writer concludes: "There is no doubt that Townsvillo is a hotbed of anarchy and revolution, and at the present moment there should bo hundreds of arrests for what has occurred. The police are absolutely powerless. Once this mob was infuriated anything at all might be done, as they are absolutely out' of the control of their leaders." In another letter, the Writer says that the leaders of tho union are imbued with the idea of establishing a sort of syndicalist republic in North Queensland, and adds: "The demand made by the union is that tho companies shall dismiss all men who remained loyal to them, or, in other words, conformed with the laws of tho State and tho award governing the i meat industry. The companies have made a most determined stand against this demand."