WE STILL ARE LOYAL UNIONISTS.

[The Queensland colonial Government of the time was anti-unionism and all for the rich and powerful.]

We still are loyal unionists,

Resolved to win this fight,

Despite the hybrid Government

Arrayed in all their might,

With laws framed in a barb'rous age,

The souls of men to crush,

Who dared to ask for justice,

As we now do in the bush.

Though they arrest our delegates

And load their limbs with chains,

We're all prepared to follow

Whilst one unionist remains,

Their dungeons have no terrors,

Of their guns we're not afraid,

And we'll yet show our rulers

Of what metal we are made.

Though with Nordenfeldts and Gatlings,

At the pastoralist's behest,

They bring forth the skuiking blackleg

'Gainst the free men of the West.

The blackleg is a failure,

Whilst the country's debts increase,

Ere long those bumptious gentry

Will be glad to sue for peace.

Let the Government remember

We are men, not eringing slaves,

That before we'll cede our rights as men,

We'll sink in free men's graves,

And let money-grabbing vampires

Estimate the future loss

Through the struggle they themselves have forced

Beneath the Southern Cross.

                                                                     T. D. O'Conner

Brisbane May 30, 1891.