HC Deb 16 November 1888 vol 330 cc1394-5
MR. SYDNEY BUXTON (Tower Hamlets, Poplar)

asked, Whether the Home Secretary had yet received any further information from Mr. Lushington, one of the Metropolitan police magistrates, on the subject of the recent dispersal of a meeting on Clerkenwell Green?

THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS) (Birmingham, E.)

, in reply, said, he had received a Report from Mr. Lushington stating that there was no evidence at all before him of there having been any attempt on the part of the police to disperse the people at the Clerkenwell meeting. He could not fix the precise spot in Farringdon Street where the people first began to interfere with a post-office van, threatening the driver, and finally attempting to overturn the vehicle. A man seized the reins, and a policeman having come to the assistance of the driver, the man assaulted the policeman. A cry was raised that the mounted police were riding down the people, and some stones were thrown by the crowd. The witnesses cited for the defence had proved nothing like a dispersal of the crowd by the police. What one of the witnesses had alleged was that the police had "broken the crowd into small knots."

MR. SYDNEY BUXTON

Do I understand the assertion to be that there was no attempt to disperse the meeting at Clerkenwell?

MR. MATTHEWS

Yes; that is the distinct effect of the letter.

MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM (Lanark, N.W.)

Are there not two instances of dispersal—the one at the meeting at Clerkenwell Green and the other in connection with the post-office van?

MR. BRADLAUGH (Northampton)

Has the right hon. Gentleman asked the officer in charge of the police to make a Report on the subject?

MR. MATTHEWS

On two occasions I have communicated to the House the substance of Reports from the police.

MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM

Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my Question about Mr. Lushington's remark, made for some purpose I suppose, that "The police had done no more than their duty?"

MR. MATTHEWS

I did not read that part of the letter— I said that if the mounted police had prevented an accumulation of the crowd at a disorderly point, they did no more than their duty. I did not say that they had been breaking up the crowd into small knots in the sense used in the House of Commons.