Mr. FRED HALLasked the Home Secretary if his attention has been called to an assault in Gravel Lane, on 1st July, by a number of dock strike pickets on a labourer, partially blind, who had obtained a job after a long period of unemployment; if he can state whether there were any circumstances justifying this attack on a man working to keep his family from starvation; and if he will take steps to increase the police available in the district for the protection of men desiring to work?
§ Mr. McKENNANothing is known of any assault in Gravel Lane on 1st July. On the evening of the 3rd, however, a man complained to the police that he had been attacked by four men, whom he could not identify, struck on the eye and kicked. He was escorted on his way by police, and was ultimately treated at the London Hospital as an out-patient for contused eye and shock. Ample police arrangements are made in this neighbourhood, and assistance is promptly rendered whenever and wherever it is called for.