LIE-DOWN STRIKE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 March 1939, Page 9

LIE-DOWN STRIKE

♦ —— SCENES IN THE WEST END. LONDON UNEMPLOYED. Society women in furs and men in evening dress became involved in a melee in the lounge of Grosvenor House, London, one evening recently, when 50 unemployed of both sexes staged a sudden lie-down strike. About 50 others made a similar demonstration at the Savoy Hotel and Savoy Theatre. Shortly after 600 guests had arrived for the annual banquet of the Allied Brewery Traders’ Association, attended by Sir John Anderson, the demonstration displaying pesters and shouting: “We Want Anderson,” stormed the doors of the hotel and proceeded to lie down in the foyer. Linking arms as they lay on the carpet, they shouted at the top of their voices for Sir John until Scotland Yard squad cars arrived. The manager offered them a meal, but they chanted: “All we want is air raid precautions work.” Women among the demonstrators lay down on the pavement screaming: “Our men and children will be slaughtered in the next war.”