Mr. Matthews's reply was a very masterly one. He held
that Trafalgar Square is a freehold of the Crown held for public uses, but that those public uses are expressly subject to the regulation of the Commissioner of Police, and that that regula- tion must be taken to cover the power to forbid meetings there, if meetings there are likely to cause either obstruction to the traffic or general alarm in the neighbourhood. As we have explained elsewhere, he brought a great body of evidence to show that a very great and deep alarm had been excited in the neighbourhood before Sir Charles Warren took the step of prohibiting public meetings there for the present. And he declared Sir Charles Russell's motion to be in effect a vote of censure on the Government which he could only meet with a, direct negative. Mr. Bradlaugh, who had an amendment on the paper demanding a special inquiry into the circumstances of the meeting of November 13th, had only commenced his speech when the House adjourned. But his view appeared to be that the public have a positive right of meeting in Trafalgar Square, though nut of meeting there without regard to proper regulations for ensuring order. He continued his speech on Friday evening, after we had gone to press.
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