§ MR. M'LARENasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether ho has made any inquiry into the proceedings of the Metropolitan police, who at an early hour in the morning of Sunday week, in order to arrest some alleged gamblers belonging to a club called "The European Club" in Tottenham Court Road, and acting apparently on mere suspicion, forcibly 942 broke into the neighbouring premises of "The Social Democratic Club;" whether the following passage from The Times newspaper correctly represents what occurred:—
The officers tried the door, and finding it locked burst it open and entered. The mob meanwhile smashed the windows, and, while the officers were pursuing their search in the uppermost rooms, helped themselves to all the contents of the bar beneath. Cigars, liquor, coats, and other property were carried off in the confusion. The police found a crowd of men upstairs all highly indignant at their club being stormed in this fashion. It is needless to say their search was not facilitated. The Social Democrats protested and obstructed. The police, with their staves in their hands, made short work of all who stood in their way, and the end of a formidable disturbance was that about fifty or sixty men, mostly foreign internationalists, were marched off to the police station, some of them battered and bleeding in a very shocking manner. The officers had also been roughly handled, and were venting their maledictions on the 'Nihilists,' as they termed those of their prisoners who had been most intractable. About breakfast time all but six or seven of the prisoners had been let off, after the surgeon had seen to the wounds of the most injured;whether "The Social Democratic Club" is a lawful association; if the above report is substantially correct, whether the police had any legal warrant or justification for entering that club, or arresting and beating its members; and, if he proposes to take any action in regard to the case?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, that, according to the reports he had received, the paragraphs cited did not give an accurate account of what occurred. The case had been adjourned in order that cross-summonses might be taken out against the police; and, therefore, both sides would be fully heard.