STRIKE IN FRANCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9156, 1 August 1908, Page 5

STRIKE IN FRANCE.

MONSTER DEMONSTRATION

STRIKERS DISPERSED BY CAVALRY.

Received July 31, 11.30 p.m. PARIS. July 31

Owing to allegations that the authorities had treated the strikers at the sandpits at Draveil and Vigneaux harshly, the workmen in the building and allied trades in Paris struck for a day andorganised a monster demonstration, proceeding to Vigneaux. The chief organiser, named Greffuelhes, a leading offiicial of the General Confederation of Labour, had issued a manifesto frankly describing the demonstration as a preparatory skirmish in the coming war between the worker and the parasite—meaning the capitalist. Anticipating an anarchical outbreak the authorities sent t%vo cavalry divisions to assist the gendarmerie and police in the Vigneaux district.

Four thousand Parisian strikers trudged thither, and after speeches had been delivered a large group preceded by a red flag started towards Meiun, the capital of the department of Seine-et-Marne, on the Seine, 28 miles from Paris. They came)in contact with a detachment of cavilrv, greeting them with cries "Down with the Army." Stones were thrown, and sticks brandished to frighten the horses. After a fruitless parley, following on pistol shots from the rioters, the soldiers struck the strikers with the flat of their sabrts, dispersing them.

A SERIOUS CONFLICT.

TROOPS FIRE ON STRIKERS

SEVERAL KILLED. Received August 1, 12.22 a.m. PARIS, July 31. Simultaneously another body of troops prevented the strikers from using a barricade. Dragoons and Cuirassiers pursued the > strikers, and dismounting foucht their way up the railway embankment. A hand-to-hand encounter ensued at an impro vised barricade of trucks. A serious conflict occurred later in the main street at Villeneuve Saint Georges. A barricade consisting of timber and chains was thrown across the street by the strikers, and shots fired by them from behind it. Shots were also fired from the ■windows, and the roofs of houses, while showers of stones and bottles were hurled at the soldiers. The Prefect of the Department telegraphed for reinforcements, declarir.g that the strikers were masters of the situation. After vain apjieals to the rioters and firing four times in the air the troops fired a volley, which wounded several and killed tw'o. Three of those wounded subsequently succumbed. About 2'J were injured in the sabre charges. A bullet grazed a general'?) foot, and another hit a colonel in the shoulder. The stones and shots hurt 20 soldiers. M. Clemenceau has announced that a judicial inquiry will be held into the conduct of those guiilty of rebellion against the forces of the State and the instigatora.