Check for a Million

Not police batons but a flimsy slip of paper was what put an end to this year's great hunger march of Britain's unemployed. Fortnight ago after ineffectual rioting in Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square. "Wal" Hannington. the tousle-haired young "Field Marshal" of the hunger marchers, was arrested and jailed (TIME, Nov. 7). It had been reported that the hunger marchers, who had sloshed their way to London from all quarters of Britain, had prepared for this eventuality by appointing a succession of subsidiary commanders to take charge in turn as the leaders were seized (a scheme used by Mahatma Gandhi). The subsidiary commander next in line seemed to be one Sidney Job Elias (who sent an incriminating letter from Moscow some months ago), who was promptly arrested in turn for inciting "Wal" Hannington.

Three times mobs rioted. Each riot was broken up without a shot being fired by the police, who were backed up by the high pressure hose-lines of the London Fire Brigade. Most important possession of the hunger marchers was a great bundle of papers, a petition containing more than one million signatures protesting against dole cuts and against the "means test" by which an applicant must prove himself a pauper before he gets the dole. This petition they intended to present to Parliament. The House of Commons could scarcely ignore the signature of one million citizens.

The hunger marchers forgot about the British detectives who were assigned to follow their movements. Before their third riot a group of marchers rushed to the mud-colored Charing Cross railway station and checked their petition in the common parcel room. Detectives followed, promptly removed the document and its accompanying bundles of signatures. When the hunger marchers returned later with their precious parcel check, the Associated Press reported that "they seemed angry."

Back to Scotland, Wales and the Shires dribbled the discouraged Hunger Army last week. Luckiest was the contingent from Brighton who rode back in style in an upholstered char-`a-banc. Four British railroads agreed to transport the rest of the hunger marchers at a flat rate of 1d for three miles, compared with the normal third-class rate of 1 1/2d. Hunger marchers begged their rail fare from good natured Londoners. London policemen who had thwacked pates were promised an extra day off duty. Home Secretary Sir John Gilmour announced that 32 policemen and 93 civilians had been injured in the week's rioting. The unemployed of London found the demonstration not entirely useless. Hundreds of them picked hats, caps and still serviceable umbrellas from the debris of the riots.

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