DISCONTENT IN SOUTH OF FRANCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8471, 24 June 1907, Page 5

DISCONTENT IN SOUTH OF FRANCE.

FURTHER RIOTING

PARIS, June 21. Further rioting occurred at Narbonne yesterday. The population, using revolvers, attacked the police at the station. The soldiers, on emerging, were compelled to fire, killing four men and wounding eleven. A large body of rioteis at Perpignan set fire to the Prefecture in four places. The fires were extinguished. The Wine-growers' Committee urge the populace to remain quiet, and have appealed to the authorities to withdraw the cavalry, unless there are further disturbances, and leave the infantry to maintain order. M. Clemenceau stated, this evening, that since one o'clock in the afternoon he nad been unable to com-, municate with the Narbonne authorities. According to the newspaper Intransigeant, in the first conflict at Narbonne, when the crowd attacked the door of the Sub-Prefecture and the gendarmes in the courtyard drove them off with a volley, the crowd discovered that only blank cartridge had been used. They renewed the struggle, and were subjected" to another volley, this time with ball cartridge. Shortly afterwards the crowd was charged on the Boulevard Gambetta by a patrol of Cuirassiers.

SOLDIERS JOINING THE RIOTERS. LONDON.. A telegram received through Reuter's Agency states that three hundred infantry left the bairacks at Agde.in the Herault, marched to Beziers, a distance of' thirteen miles, and joined the rioters. The colonel of the 139 th Regiment, disgusted with the slaughter at Narbonne, tore up his cap before his men and then resigned. PARIS, June 21. The mob at Perpignan attacked the Prefecture with paving-stones, set fire jto the coachhouse, and flung the furniture into the flames. Filially the people were dispersed by the gendarmes. Received June 23, 4.19 p.m. PARIS, June 22. M. Albert has been arrested. , One hundred thousand peasants attended the funeral of one of the leaders, who had been shot at Narbonne. Further details of the mutinous outbreak at Agde show that the mutineers numbered 607. They first plundered a' magazine and afterwards asked to be allowed to return free from disciplinary measures. M. Clemenceau, the Premier, refused to negotiate with the rebellious soldiers, who thereupon declined to surrender. These .men had at the outset of the wine trouble been withdrawn from Beziers because of their sympathy with the wine-growers. Upon learning of the outbreak General Laucroissade, the officer commanding Beziers, tried to turn the mutineers back peaceably, but declined to take the responsibility of ordering his own men to attack them. Speaking in the Chamber of Deputies, M. Clemenceau heartily endorsed General Laucroissade's decision. He announced that General Bailloud went unaccompanied and induced the mutineers to return to the barracks. A great uproar prevailed among the Deputies for some hours, and the Chamber was a regular pandemonium. A vote of confidence in the Government was finally carried by 327 votes to 223.