"they surged wildly thorugh Willis Street, Lambton Quay and Manners Street..."
Wellington 10-11 May
The wellington Riot on the 10th of May 1932 started in a similar way to the Queen Street Riots and had similar impacts. A large group of 4000 unemployed and relief workers marched to the Parliament Buildings (as the Aucklanders had gone to the Town Hall) to make demands. To explosive nature of the crowd was much more than that of the people who showed up in Auckland that day, because they knew of the worst that could happen (the Queen Street riots), and most were in one way or another prepared for that reality. A group of representatives of the workers were ready and waiting to present a list of demands to the government and the Minister of Public Works, Gordon Coates, kept them waiting until after dark. Frustrations were mounting as they waited and the only response given was that Coates would only make a statement the next day.
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34 men were brought to court on different charges relating to violence in the Wellington Riots. The government did not want a repeat event.
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That was the only response which the tense protesters needed to “surge wildly through Willis Street, Lambton Quay, and Manners Street,” as Paul Moon puts it. Again, the riots happened in a similar way to the Dunedin and Auckland riots. Windows were smashed and there was widespread looting of goods. The difference between the Wellington and Auckland riots however was that they was much fewer people involved – it was only around a third of the numbers which were present in Auckland. This was largely due to the fact that Auckland had a much greater population that the capital did. In the end, as with Auckland, there were prosecutions and heavy sentences for the protestors the police managed to capture as well as broken glass strewn across the street and large amounts of stock looted. In some cases, shopkeepers were not prepared for this kind of damage or loss of goods and it ruined their financial status.
The following day, there was a peaceful protest of relief workers held on Cubs Street, but it ended brutally. 2000 unemployed were unable to get into a meeting at Trades Hall and so spilled into an empty section in the nearby Cuba Street. The relief workers had a meeting and police (reinforced by Specials), suddenly attacked the crowd with batons drawn, most probably thinking that this was the continual of the riot which took place the night before. Police hauled down a speaker and this incited the crowds to hurl bricks and stones. Reinforcements came on food and mounted on horses and in the dispersal of the crowd, many were battened and injured. Wellington citizens were infuriated and horrified at the situation and that night, more people gathered at the corners of Vivian and Manners streets. However, there was no further violence. Although the protestors maintained that the police were out of line in attacking them in such a manner, the police were cleared of having done anything wrong. “Communist agitators” and the “lawless minority” were the ones the press found to blame for the violence which occurred. The relief workers remained on strike until the 21st May. Even at the end of this period and after the demonstrations which took place, Coates did not ever reveal the decision which he made, if he made any, on the workers’ demands. |