RACE RIOTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 August 1919, Page 12

RACE RIOTS.

RACIAL HIOT-S IN ENGLAND. London, Juno 13. The English newspapers are not at all enjoyable reading those days. Tlicy are, indeed, mainly a chronicle of trouble everywhere, with intimation of "more to follow and worse to come." One of the latest symptoms of the universal unrest is the recent outbreak in the Old Country of an active campaign against the 'colored person." In the past the Knglishinan has evinced, if not love for the black "man and brother," at least a benign tolerance, and in some sections of society it had been in times past quite fashionable to have a colored person included in the circle of more or less intimate friends. Recently, however, the proletariat here have shown a very distinct antagonism to the colored individual, black, brown, or yellow, and in Liverpool, Cardiff, Barry, 'and other seaports racial conflicts resulting in murder, arson, and minor outrages have kept the police busy. There has been some small trouble in the East End of London, but torn ( iared to the outbreaks in Liverpool and Cardiff the East End affairs pale into absolute insignificance. But. it is to be feared that the publicity given to the racial riots elsewhere will have the effect of stirring up London's evil passions in those quarters chiefly affected by "the nigger"—which is the general tern for all dusky skinned folk among the lower orders of the capital—and that these outbursts of anti-colored sentiment will become epidemic. The root of the trouble is that not only has a certain class of female in England been exhibiting a peculiar partiality for colored lovers during and since the war, hut that many of our demobilised soldiers have discovered since they shed their khaki that jobs they expected to find open for them to take up on 4 release are in possession of men of alien race who have slipped into them whilst Englishmen were serving their for an Englishman to find on liis return to his native place the girls he left behind him bestowing smiles and favors on interlopers of any breed, and it touches up a man's vanity with acid to discover that Mary, .fane, Susan Grace, or maybe Erm.vntrude, lias "no' time" for him, and is flaunting round with a "fuzzy to," an almond-eyed Celestial, or a nondescript from the West Indies or "somewhere cast o' Suei!." When he also discovers or even fancies that the colored person is keeping him out of a job in the country for which he has fought and possibly'bled, nnd for the preservation of which "he has suffered untold miseries abroad, it is quite easy to understand that he doesn't require a very great deal of incitement to indulge in outward and visible signs of resentment. And it is very clear that there are among us to-day scores of men whose business it is to apply the bellows to any smouldering fire of discontent they may discover in the world of workers, no matter from what cause arising.

The worst part about these racial riots at Liverpool and Cardiff—especially in the Welsh centre—is that the rioters seem to be quite unable to stick to what is presumably their primary object - namely, to "take it out of'' the colored interlopers and the girls who show them favors. They are not content with "bashing the niggers" or man-handling their female associates; they, as often as not, indulge in wilful damage to premises in which the objects of their wrath may reside or take refuge, and to adjacent houses or shops which have "nothing to do with the case," and in several instances the rioters have actually set lire to buildings on the strength of mere allegation that "niggers" were within. Tho colored persons, on their side, have shown a partiality for revolvers, knives, and razors, and their very indiscriminate use of these has resulted hi a large casualty list including several dead. At Cardiff yesterday two white men were killed with cold steel, and a score received stabs or razor slashes in one riot, and there were several minor fracas during the course of twenty-four hours. How many casualties there were among the colored men has not transpired, but no fatalities are reported. The whites did not use lethal weapons; sticks, stones fists, even frying pans, were used on their side of the argument, and some of the "niggers" undoubtedly received a very severe mauling, in spite of the efforts of the police to protect them from the fury of the mob, which was raised to white heat by tho colored men's use of steel and bullet.

Tll Liverpool matters assumed such a serious aspect that for their own protection colored people were seized by the police and interned in the Bridwell, penditig steps being taken for securing their deportation and repatriation at the earliest possible moment. The prompt action of the authorities, coupled with the belief that "the niggers" would soon be sent packing, seems to have prevented the recurrence of any grave rioting in this port, bat in the Cardiff area matters are still pretty serious, and minor outbreak's are occurring all over the country, chiefly in places whence men go down to the sea in ships.