In Bad Company and other stories. Rolf Boldrewood
of breeding up an army of enemies to Capital and to the settled order of the Government.
And now the long-threatened result had come to pass – a revolt against order and good government, a deliberate attempt to subvert the Constitution under the specious guise of federated labour. It had commenced with a quarrel between the cook's mate of a coasting steamer and the so-called 'delegate' of the crew, spreading with portentous rapidity, like the bush-fires of the land, until it enveloped the stock-riders of the Paroo and the teamsters of 'the Gulf.' It menaced life and property. It attempted to plunge cities into darkness by 'calling out' the gas-stokers. It essayed to paralyse commerce by intimidating the carriers, whom it forbade to convey the wool – the staple Australian export – to the wharves, by restraining the wharf labourers from loading the vessels.
But, in these two instances, the common-sense of the city populations came to the rescue. The young men of the learned professions, of the upper classes – in the true sense of the word – came out to play a man's part in the interests of law and order. They manned the gas-works, and, amid furnace-heat and grime, provided the necessary labour, all unused as they were to toil under such conditions. The cities were not wrapped in darkness, and the streets were not made ready for the spoil by the burglar, the garrotter, and the thief. A line of wool teams was driven down the principal street of Sydney by barristers and bankers, by clerks and merchants, chiefly young men, high-couraged and athletic. But on the foremost waggon, high-seated behind his four-horse team, which he tooled with practised ease, might be recognised the leonine visage and abundant beard of Winston Darling, the Explorer, the Pioneer Squatter, the well-known Pastoral Leader and Ruler of the Waste.
The streets were crowded with yelling, blaspheming, riotous Unionists, with difficulty kept within bounds by a strong body of police.
Stones were thrown, and foul epithets freely used. But though one youthful driver had his head cut open, no further damage was done. And the wool was safely conveyed to the wharves and shipped in spite of the threatening demeanour of the assembled thousands.
These amateurs, native-born Australian gentlefolk, worked for weeks, from six to six, in many instances galling the hands, which were wholly unused to such rude treatment. But they kept at it till the stubborn conflict subsided, and not till then did they fall out of the ranks of the 'muscle-workers,' who in this and other instances have arrogated to themselves the title of the only workers in this complex and many-sided body politic.
This demonstration was chiefly confined to the seaports. When, however, the Ministry was sufficiently strong to call out the Volunteer regiments, their disciplined action gained control of the disorderly mobs, and order was regained, without discouraging delay.
But in the bush, far from help, police or military protection, matters were far otherwise. Lonely stations were terrorised. Large camps of armed and apparently desperate men were formed, who intimidated those non-Union shearers and bush labourers who neither conformed to their rules nor submitted to their dictation.
They were in many cases captured, so to speak, assaulted, maltreated, and illegally restrained from following their lawful occupation. The carriers' horses or bullocks were driven away or slaughtered, their waggons, in some instances, burned.
These outrages were directed against men and their employers who had dared to be independent, to exercise the right of free Britons to manage their own affairs and their own property.
It may easily be imagined how bodies of two or three hundred men, well armed and mounted, could terrorise a thinly-populated country. Specific acts of incendiarism and other offences against property were frequent. Woolsheds were burned with their contents, sometimes to the value of thousands of pounds; fences were cut and demolished; bridges and telegraph lines destroyed; in short, no lawless action which could result in expense and loss to the pastoralist, or those of the labourers who defied the New Tyranny, was omitted.
CHAPTER IV
Some explanation of the Great Australian Strike of 1890, which lasted in more or less virulence and intensity until 1895, producing widespread damage and ruinous loss, may not here be out of place.
This important industrial conflict exhibited the nearest approach to civil war which Australia has known. It originated, as did certain historical revolutions and mutinies, from an occurrence ludicrously insignificant compared with the magnitude of the results and the widespread disasters involved.
A fireman was discharged by the captain of a coasting steamer belonging to the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company, whereupon the Seamen's Union took up the matter, the man being their 'delegate,' and demanded his reinstatement.
He had been 'victimised,' they asserted, by the chief steward, who must be dismissed or the fireman reinstated. The Cooks' and Stewards' Union, in the interests of the chief steward, held an inquiry, in conjunction with the Seamen's Union, to which the fireman belonged. The result failed to substantiate any charge against the chief steward. But the Seamen's Union decided to hold the captain responsible, threatening to take the crew out of the ship. No inquiry was asked of the owners.
About a month after the threat the crew gave notice, and were paid off. The captain had received the following letter: —
'Seamen's Union Office,
Sydney, July 1890.
'Captain – , Steamer – .
'Dear Sir – We are instructed by the members of the above Society to state that we intend to have our delegate – reinstated on board. If he is not reinstated by the return of the ship to Sydney, the crew will be given twenty-four hours' notice.
'We intend to protect our members from being victimised (sic) by chief stewards and others, and intend at all hazards to have him reinstated. – I remain, yours truly,
'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