HC Deb 28 February 1898 vol 54 cc138-9
COLONEL SIR HOWARD VINCENT (Sheffield Central)

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, under what circumstances permission was given to a so-called Spanish Atrocities Committee to hold a meeting in Trafalgar Square on Sunday afternoon, the 22nd August, 1897, in which recently-deported Spanish and other foreign anarchists took a prominent part, and if the Committee or the anarchists were required to recoup the ratepayers of London the cost of the police, deprived of their Sunday rest and prevented from attending Divine service, in order to protect them?

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,) Lancashire, Blackpool, N.

Notice was sent to the police by the Secretary of the Committee in accordance with the Regulations of the Office of Works; and the conditions imposed by the Regulations being complied with, the meeting was allowed in the ordinary course. There is no power to require the cost of the police employed to be repaid by the Committee.