London on Monday began to dread a strike of its
Police. The Chief Commissioner has for some time past been negotiating with the Force about an increase of pay. The negotiation was con- ducted through a Committee of Delegates, and ended in a victory for the men, whose pay was raised about 20 per cent. Some one in authority, however, resented the action of the delegates, and their Secretary, Goodchild, was removed to Bromley, in Kent. He refused to go, and was dismissed, whereupon he telegraphed to the stations, and at Bow Street and two others the men on Saturday night refused to go on duty, alleging that if Goodchild were guilty, so were they. They ultimately obeyed orders, but the authorities prosecuted three of them, carefully picking out two men who had been delegates, and whose action they had condoned by negotiating with them, and finally suspended all the subordinates, 179 in number, and dismissed 69 of them. It is believed that the affair is at an end, but it is feared from the language employed by the men that confidence between them and their officers is at an end also.
