The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-20 00:00:00

The Hyde-park Meeting and the Police.

The following correspondence between Sir R.
Mayne and Mr. Edmond Beales has been sent to us
for publication :
" The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
encloses for the information of Mr. Edmond Beales
a copy of the public notice that the meeting an-
nounced to be held in llyde-park on the evening of
Monday next, July 23, cannot be permitted. As
Mr. Beales's name is mentioned in the printed bills
calling the Meeting, the Commissioner of Police
trusts that Mr. Beales will exert his influence to
prevent any attempt to hold this meeting.
" July 18, 1866."
" To SIR RICHARD MAYNE, THE COMMISSIONER OF
POLICE IN THE METROPOLIS.

" Sir,—l beg to acknowledge the receipt this
morning of a letter from you, of yesterday's date,
enclosing a copy of the police notice issued by you
as Commissioner of Police, to the effect that the
meeting announced to be held in Hyde-park on the
evening of Monday next cannot be permitted, and
trusting that I will exert my influence to prevent
any attempt to hold the meeting. I thank you for
your courtesy in sending me such communication,
but I am unable at present to recognise your power
or right to issue any such notice, or to take upon
yourself to declare that the meeting cannot be per-
mitted. I must withhold that recognition until you
show me under what statute or law, or principle of
law, you are acting ; for I am at present ignorant
of any law or statute empowering or authorising you
thus to attempt to prohibit the people from exercis-
ing one of their most important and most constitu-
tional rights. Neither can I admit the validity of
the reasons assigned by you for the assumption of
so large, and, I must be allowed to add, so dan-
gerous and unconstitutional a power. Your first
reason is, that such a meeting, being inconsistent
with the purposes for which the park is thrown open
to and used by the public, is illegal,' I cannot ad-
mit that it is for you, as Commissioner of Po-
lice, to determine what is, and what is not
illegal. What law, or what statute, declares such a
meeting, when held in the park, to be illegal ? Sup-
posing the inconsistency to which you refer to exist,
and I am not aware that it does, how can that incon-
sistency amount to illegality ? The people should
be shown what law they are breaking before they are
thus accused of acting illegally. The park is either
the property of the nation, as there are strong rea-
sons for contending it is, under the transactions
which have taken place between the Crown and the
people, through Parliament, respecting it ; or it is
still Crown property, though kept up and maintained
out of the public purse. If the former be the fact,
where is your authority for excluding the public from
their own property ? If the latter be the case, then
show me that you are acting under the express
authority of the Crown, as claiming to be the exclu-
sive owner of the park, and as a loyal subject, while
regretting that in such a case the Crown should not
be at one with the people, I should be ready to yield
obedience. Your other reason is, ' that such a meet-
ing is calculated to lead to riotous and disorderly
conduct, and to endanger the public peace.' This is
a mere assumption, and might be made to apply to
and public meeting—even to:meetings held at elec-
tions for members of Parliament, and perhaps more
appropriately, for it is wholly at variance with the
objects, wishes, and intentions of those convening
and proposing to take part in this meeting. They
will be perfectly willing that you should interpose,
and even, with their aid, to stop any conduct riotous
or disorderly, or endangering the public peace. They
contemplate no such conduct. The people have
been somewhat contemptuously denied the elective
franchise, and have been taunted with not caring for
it. They seek, in consequence, to exercise, peace-
ably and constitutionally, their right of meeting in
public, to show that they do care for the franchise,
and thus refute the aspersions cast upon them.
It appears to me that the proceedings of those
who shall attempt to interfere with and prohibit
such a meeting, instead of protecting its exercise
and seeing that it is unaccompanied with riotous
or (disorderly conduct, as you are empowered to do
under the Police Acts, will be the proceedings
really calculated to lead to such conduct and
to endanger the public peace. I positively and em-
phatically repudiate this charge as most odious and
unjustifiable, as regards the objects of this meeting
and the characters of our fellow-countrymen having
the conduct of it. As at present advised, and until
I am furnished with your authority for issuing this
notice and interfering with this meeting, if I use
any influence, which I do not promise to do, to
prevent its being held, or to induce its being held
in some other spot, I shall do so only in order that
the people may avoid doing anything which can in the

least degree tend to throw a shadow over the justice
of their cause, or provoke collision with the police

orce, however unadvisedly or unconstitutionally
hat force may be called into operation, but without

for one moment admitting your right or power to

interfere, or in any way waiving the right of the
people to hold such a meeting. Before concluding,
I must observe that if it be true that you have, as
I am informed, actually caused the notices of the

meeting to be obliterated or posted over with your

notices, you appear to me in so doing to have acted

very unjustifiably and injuriously to the property
of other persons, and, at all events, not in the most

dignified way in such a matter and under such cir-
cumstances..—l am, sir, yours respectfully,
" EDMOND BEALES.
"4, Stone-buildings, Lincoln's-inn, July 19."

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SIR,— I beg to inform you that no alteration has
taken place in our programme with regard to the
meeting on Monday next in Hyde-park. Trusting
you will give the widest publicity to the above
statement,—l remain, sir, your very obedient
servant,

GEORGE HOWELL, Secretary.
8, Adelphi-terrace, W.C., July 19.