In Bad Company, and other stories - Rolf Boldrewood

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      'The President and Acting Secretary.'

      'Sydney, 6th July 1890.

      'The Acting Secretary.

      'Sir—With regard to your letter as to the discharge of a fireman from the steamer Corinna, the captain informs me that the chief steward had nothing whatever to do with the discharge. The fireman made no complaint about his food. He was discharged in the Company's interests, but there is no objection to his joining any other of the Company's vessels. The captain also was not aware that he was a delegate, and had nothing to do with his discharge. It seems strange that men should leave the Company without explanation, while the Company is denied the same right.—I remain, etc.'

      Now, what in the world had the colliers of Newcastle, N.S.W., to do with the injustice or otherwise meted out to the fireman through that powerful and distinguished official, the ship's cook, or even by the chief steward? Such would be the common-sense view of any ordinary person, especially if he had been reared in the belief that 'mind your own business' was a maxim of weight and authority, verified by the lore of ages. Not so thought the leaders of the mining community. A fatal fascination appeared to have actuated one and all under the influence of a false and specious principle.

      No sooner had the steamer arrived at the Agricultural Association's wharf desiring a cargo of coal than the miners 'came out' of the Sea Pit, at that time in full work. Then the Northern Colliery owners, justly indignant at this breach of agreement, stopped work at all the pits under their control. Fourteen days' notice should have been given by the miners, on the terms of their agreement.

      There was no grievance between master and man, and yet at the bidding of an outside person the miners abandoned their work without notice.

      The Unionist shearers, at the instigation of their dictator, hasted to join the revolt. They commenced to formulate an agreement imposing higher pay, shorter hours, the supervision of sheds by workmen appointed by themselves, the deposition of the rule of the employer over his own work, as to his own property, in his own woolshed.

      Then the employers, up to that time slow to move and more or less disunited, saw that the time had come for them to combine against the tyranny of a communistic organisation. The Shearers' Union, however, as represented by their president, thought it improper of other people to form Unions. They began to threaten as follows:—

      'Should the employers maintain their present attitude, the trades' organisation will be compelled to use every means to win their cause, methods which at present they have avoided.

      'For instance, they could call out all the shearers (sic), and at one blow cause widespread disaster. [This they did later on, including those who, in reliance on their promises, were shearing under Union Rules.] The effects of such a step would be to paralyse the whole industry of the colony. In Victoria, shearing is only just commencing. In New South Wales it is barely half over. At the Labour Conference in Sydney it was decided that the Western miners be called out next day. This meant cutting off the sole remaining coal supply of the colony. Decided also that all the shearers, rouseabouts, and carriers be called out. Instructions sent accordingly.

      'In New South Wales alone this will affect 22,000 shearers, 15,000 rouseabouts, 10,000 carriers also, together with all affiliated trades, such as butchers, bakers, grocers, and compositors. Whether the railway men will be included cannot be now ascertained.'

      As a sample of the class of arguments used to set class against class, and to inflame the minds of the bush labourers against their employers, the following circular, signed by the leaders, and privately distributed, may serve as a specimen. It was headed:—

      An Appeal to Station Labourers.

      'A shed labourer's lot is not a happy one. To work all hours and to endure all manner of privations. To work hard for a miserable starvation wage. A victim of capitalistic greed and tyranny. Suffering worse treatment than the negro slaves of the Southern States of America. The reason for this being that they have had no means of protection. Let them unite. Let them be men, free men, and have a voice in the settlement of the terms at which they shall sell their labour.

      'The rights of the labourers will then be recognised. Capital will no longer have Labour by the throat. The mighty heritage of a glorious independence is in their grasp.

      'Let them rise above the bondage of capital, and be a unit in that which will make one powerful whole—the General Woolshed Labourers' Union of Australia!'

      That this sort of language was calculated to arouse the passions and heighten the prejudices of uneducated men may well be conceded. The ludicrous comparison with the 'wrongs of slaves' in the Southern States of America might raise a smile, had not reports of outrages, unhappily but too well authenticated, followed this and similar proclamations.

      However, the Employers' Union and the Pastoral Association were not minded to submit tamely to the oppression of a 'jacquerie,' however arrogant, as the following extract from a metropolitan journal, under date 22nd September 1890, will show:—

      'In Sydney that picturesque procession of lorries, loaded with non-Union wool, and driven by leading merchants and squatters, will once more betake itself through the streets, and may be the signal of actual civil war. These waggons, with their unaccustomed drivers, embody in a dramatic shape that aspect of the strike in which the Unionists have morally the weakest case. The shearers have undertaken to make Unionism compulsory at one stroke, in every woolshed in Australia, by the tyrannical process of forbidding every bale of wool shorn by non-Unionists to reach a market. Why must merchants and squatters, at the risk of their lives, drive these particular bales of wool to the wharf? We frankly hope that the wool "boycott" will break down hopelessly, ignobly. All reasonable men are against this fatal blunder of the Unionists.'

      Commencing in 1890 among men 'who go down to the sea in ships,' the revolt against employment and authority spread among 'all sorts and conditions of men' dwelling in the continent of Australia. All trades and occupations by which the muscle-workers of the land, falsely assumed to be the only labourers worthy of the name of 'working-men,' were attempted to be captured and absorbed. To account for the readiness with which the new gospel of labour was accepted, it must be borne in mind that many of the better-educated labourers and mechanics had been for years supplied by their leaders with so-called socialistic literature. They had in a sense sat at the feet of apostles of the school of Henry George and Mr. Bellamy.

      The former was convinced that all the 'riddles of the painful earth' might be solved by the taxation and gradual confiscation of land; this plausible-appearing policy would remove all the oppressions and exactions under which the excellent of the earth had so long groaned. Mr. Bellamy's method of procuring universal happiness, solvency, and contentment was simple and comprehensive. Every adult was to be compelled to labour for four hours of the day—no one to be permitted to work for more than this very reasonable, recreational period. Every one to be pensioned when he or she reached the age of sixty.

      By this happy apportionment of the primeval curse, every one would be obliged to furnish a sufficient quantity of labour to provide for his own and other people's wants.

      No one would be expected to do a full day's work—always unpopular as a task, and suspected to be unwholesome.

      Dining and Music Halls, an artistic atmosphere, with all mental and physical luxuries, to be provided by the State, in exchange for Labour Coupons of specified value.

      It cannot be doubted that speculative theories of this nature, proposals for minimising labour and dividing the wealth, accumulated by the industry and thrift of ages, among individuals who had neither worked nor saved for its maintenance, had a wide-reaching influence for evil among the members of the Labour Unions. Dazzled by alluring statements, they were ready to adopt the wildest enterprises, founded on delusive principles and untried experiments.

      Perhaps the most important of the Utopian projects, which at the close of the conflict found favour in the eyes of the Unionists, was that of a Communistic settlement in Paraguay, to which the leader, an Americanised North Briton, gave the name of New Australia. This was to be somewhat

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