MANUFACTURING SOCIALISTS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10032, 30 April 1910, Page 4

MANUFACTURING SOCIALISTS.

rTrom the British point of view the Berlin police seem to behave with astonishing lack of cummon-sense in dealing with Socialist demonstrations. Their tactics cause both amusement and indignation, and the sympathy of the non-Socialist public is almost entirely with the Socialists. All Berlin laughed at their discomfiture on March 6th. The Socialists gave out that they planned a great franchise demonstration at Treptow Park, on the outskirts of Berlin, and the Police President took the most elaborate precautions to prevent this being carried out The country for miles round was scoured for police and gendarmes. At an early hour on March 6th all the approaches to the park were barred by armed constables, and the park itself patrolled. The communications of the city | were disorganised, omnibuses being turned off accustomed routes, and I railway station exits in certain dir- ' ections barricaded. Whole districts | were turned into armed camps, and no admittance to them allowed. A large crowd tried to march into the 1 park, but was driven back by the police, several people being wounded in the collision. This, however, was but ? feint, which succeeded admirably. While the police were concentrating all their attention on the park, thousands of Socialists moved by various routes, on the Tiergarten, in the centre of the city. The organisation of the Socialists was wonderful, for though no public announcement had been made, all of them seemed to know just what to do. In the Tiergarten the demonstrators behaved themselves admirably. When a man stepped on the grass he was recalled by the nearest steward. A youth who threw a paper bag filled ' with sand at a policeman waa dragged aside by two stewards and thrasried. But the police, hurriedly summoned from other parts, must interfere, though there was not the least neces sity for them to do so. They drove their horses into the unolt'endiDg crowd, and lashed recklessly with their swords. Among the people injured in the senseless attack were women and children, and several fashionable promenaders, who had no connection at all with the Socialists. The "Tagebtetr," one of the ablest papers m Berlin, declared that whatever disturbance of the peace there was, was entirely due to the police Tactics such a3 these turn more peo pie to Socialism than a month of Sociaiist speeches.