THE DEBATE ON TRAFALGAR SQUARE.
SIRCHARLES RUSSELL took such very narrow ground on Thursday night in asking for an inquiry concerning the right of meeting in the Metropolis, that he must have greatly embarrassed Mr. Bradlaugh, who was obviously con- vinced that Sir Charles Russell had not taken a nearly strong enough view of the rights ignored and taken away by the Government, and who nevertheless evidently felt some doubt whether he could persuade the House to follow him where it was clear that Sir Charles Russell was not prepared to go. In fact, Sir Charles Russell will be regarded by the agitators who insist on the right of meeting in Trafalgar Square, as having virtually given up their case. He admitted in the most explicit language that the particular assembly suppressed was unlawful, therein following the jury who tried Mr. Cunninghame Graham and Mr. Burns. He did not even maintain that there was at any time any positive right of meeting in Trafalgar Square, though he appears to hold that a meeting held there, even if it were effected by trespass and against the will of those who have the power to grant permission, would not be technically an " unlawful assembly." He maintained only that the First Commissioner of Police had no power to prohibit all meetings in Trafalgar Square without further notice, though he had a right to prohibit the particular meeting concerning which there has been so much controversy, and which the jury declared to be an unlawful assembly. As we understand Sir Charles
Russell's exposition of the law, it amounts to this,— that when the Executive have information either that a particular meeting is called for an unlawful object, or that, being called for a lawful object, it is calculated to inspire the minds of persons of average courage living in the neighbourhood with fear, the Government may properly prohibit it ; but he maintains that they have no right to prohibit any meetings, irrespective of their special object and character, for an indefinite time. And he specially accuses them of illegality in justifying Sir Charles Warren's order that, until further notice be given, no meetings can be allowed in Trafalgar Square. That is putting the case on the narrowest possible ground, for if it is within the knowledge of the Government that persons of an average amount of courage living in the neigh- bourhood of Trafalgar Square have been inspired with great fear by the series of meetings which took place there, and that they felt this fear as to any particular meeting such as that of November 13th, it is quite clear that that knowledge would hold good for other meetings besides the one specially pro- hibited, and would hold good, at all events, till a sufficient time had elapsed to restore those persons to their usual con- fidence in the orderliness of the public. So far as we can see, the very reason which made the particular assembly of November 13th unlawful, made any public meeting likely to be held in Trafalgar Square for the purposes of any sort of agitation equally unlawful, at least until the fears which had been inspired by the disorderly language of the agitators of the autumn had died away. It is almost childish to main- tain that the Executive Government could have knowledge sufficient to render any one assembly of this kind unlawful, and yet not knowledge sufficient to render all assemblies held under similar circumstances for some time to come equally unlawful.
Now, Mr. Matthews showed conclusively, and with even a great superabundance of evidence, that this dread was inspired in the minds of all sorts of people living round Trafalgar Square by the meetings of the unemployed held there in the autumn, and that it was a kind of fear which rendered the holding of any large public assembly there very dangerous to the interests of the residents. The shopkeepers in the neighbourhood represented to the Home Secretary that they felt their property quite unsafe. The Lord Mayor and Alderman Knight received visits of a very threatening character, in one of which black and red flags and caps of liberty were used. Threats were uttered that the Queen should be approached, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury should be made to disgorge some of his income. A visit to West- minster Abbey paid by one mob, resulted in desecrations of the building. The Board of Works were threatened that if they did not give work to the unemployed, they should be compelled to do so by an invasion of the unemployed in their thousands. Some of the Oxford Street tradesmen, who were so alarmed that they begged that their names should not appear, implored protection from the Home Office. The diamond-merchants round Trafalgar Square declared that they no longer regarded their houses as safe against the mob, and stated that their lady-customers were kept away by fear of riot. The Royal College of Physicians complained of the difficulty of access to their institution owing to the disorderly crowds. A deputation of bankers, hotel-keepers, and mer- chants told the Home Secretary that the meetings in Trafalgar Square were very injuriously affecting the trade of London. And some thousands of ratepayers in the neighbourhood of the Strand made representations of the same kind. Now, as Mr. Matthews maintains that there is not, and never was, any legal right to meet in Trafalgar Square, that it was in practice only not wrong so long as the Government permitted it, there seemed to be a positive duty laid upon the Government to refuse the use of it when the meet- ings were causing so much anxiety and leading to so much loss ; and if so, what would have been the sense of prohibiting one such meeting and not prohibiting more ? It was not any one in- dividual assembly that the neighbourhood feared, but the mere coming together of large numbers at a time and under circum- stances when the coming together of large numbers was sure to lead to violent language, and might at any moment lead to riots such as those of 1886. Whether Mr. Matthews is accurate in saying that the right to regulate processions in the London thoroughfares must involve the right to suppress them altogether under circumstances when they cannot be held at all consistently with the tranquillity and confidence of the residents in the neighbourhood,—whether this assertion of his be good law or not, we cannot profess to say ; but it is certainly good sense, and we should think good law also. Mr. Matthews showed that the police themselves were utterly worn out by the
effort to keep these meetings well in hand ; that the spirit of the force was getting angry ; and that if the meetings had been allowed to go on, the First Commissioner could not have answered for that temperate and self-restrained conduct which has distinguished the English police force for a great number of years. It had practically become necessary to relieve the police from the onerous and difficult duty of watching the crowds in Trafalgar Square, and not only watching them, but following them when they dispersed, to see that they did not break out as the mob broke out in 1886 ; and this was a duty which could only be performed by stopping the meetings then, and showing that the order to stop them would be strictly enforced. Thus, one and the same duty was imposed on the Government, first by the rapidly spreading alarm among the residents in the neighbourhood of Trafalgar Square, and next by the exhausting duties imposed on the police force by the assemblage day after day of a crowd of very doubtful characters in a place where,—according to the firm belief of the Government, at least,—no right of public meeting exists. For our own part, we think that if any charge can be brought against the Government, it would be that they delayed the final order to stop these meetings too long, not that they issued it too soon. And in that view we have no doubt that the House of Commons will, by the time this journal is in our readers hands, have shown that it agrees. Sir Charles Russell's attitude was far too cautious and technical to carry much weight with a practical assembly judging the conduct of a Government in a difficult practical emergency ; and a course which Sir Charles Russell hardly dared to condemn, Mr. Brad- laugh and the still more vehement assailants of the Govern- ment who go beyond Mr. Bradlaugh, will find that they con- demn in vain. London must be protected not only from pillage, but from the fear of pillage. And the action of the Government, though it was firm enough when it was at last taken, was certainly not taken with sufficient promptitude.
Previous page
