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Once during certain strike riots in the North of England, Norbery journeyed to the scene of trouble to preach passive measures and the Anarchist principles to the rioters. He was dragged from his platform by the police and badly hustled and knocked about.
He, too, was a man who fitted his life to his ideas, who lived in ideas, whose whole being centred round his ideas. He was a religious fanatic whose course had deviated into strange paths. Norbery was a pale, anxious-looking Lancashire man, with weak, restless eyes and a resolute mouth, who did not lack a certain dignity of bearing.
We argued and adduced reasons in support of our views, and Norbery argued and adduced counter-reasons in support of his views, but neither the one nor the other of us was ever in the least affected by his opponent's eloquence, and at the end of the discussion we were all, if anything, more staunchly persuaded of the sense and justice of our own case than at the start.
Both the organisationists and the individualists united in abusing and despising the Christian Norbery, but no amount of insults or invective ruffled his temper or aroused his wrath. "When you preach force or use force," he said to his opponents, "you imitate the very methods used by Governments. You will never attain universal peace and brotherhood by such means.
Nearly an hour passed before a file could be procured and the chain severed, and by that time Norbery had ample opportunity to finish his discourse, and was conveyed to the police station in a fainting and exhausted condition.
Armitage and I engaged in endless discussions with Norbery on the question of violence, maintaining on our side that violence could only be overcome by violence, and that, however peaceful our ultimate aims might be, force must inevitably be used towards their attainment.
But Norbery was determined on having his say; he procured a chain and padlock, chained himself to a lamppost, threw away the key, and resumed the interrupted course of his harangue. A large crowd gathered round the persistent orator, attracted partly by his eloquence and partly by the novelty of his situation.
As Anarchists we have no right to use other than passive resistance, for by using coercion we are defeating our own ends and justifying the actions of our persecutors." The more indignant his Anarchist opponents became in the course of debate, the calmer and more complacent grew Norbery. "Abuse me," he would say, "insult me, use violence towards me, if you will; I shall turn the other cheek."
The police hurried to the scene and tried to drag him down; his coat and shirt, torn to shreds, remained in their hands, while the semi-naked Anarchist preached away to the constantly increasing crowd. The officers of the law foamed with rage, and threatened and pommelled the enchained and defenceless Norbery. Norbery grew more eloquent and more argumentative under this treatment.
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