Letters to Editor April 27, 1895.

*THE WORKER*

BRISBANE, APRIL 27, 1895.

Mail Bag.

WANTED – (to prepare way for Socialism in our Time):

One Adult One Vote.

Land Tax.

State Bank.

Shops and Factories Act.

Eight hours day where practicable.

Referendum and Initiative.

Taxation of every person according to ability to pay.

The State to find work for unemployed.

The State to fix a minimum wage.

Free Railways. Free administration of Justice.

The WORKER does not hold itself responsible the opinions of its correspondents.

H.B.- Writing you.

O.- Thanks. See reply to P.

T.C.- Story returned as unsuitable.

G.W.D.- Not of sufficient public interest.

C.K.- have sent your letter to the secretary of the Longreach Branch.

J.P. Woods – Yes; six copies are sent weekly to Mr. J. M'Loughlin, Week's camp, Boatman.

Suinex. - I. A. distinguished Prussian general whose bravery and boldness procured him the name of “Marshall Forward.” 2 The Prussian Army.

P. - Have some mercy on a man's eyes. Your small hand writing, crammed and jammed into a quarter the necessary space makes one's forehead dizzy.

ED. WORKER – During the Barcaldine Downs shearing a very much talked about big gun shearer had to leave owing to sickness in his family, but prior to doing so he wrote to his brother-in-law asking him to come and take his stand. How customs alter! - TREE.

ED. WORKER – Mr. Groom, M.L.A., is a great advocate for land settlement. But how is it that Mr. Groom, although he has a large family, never makes any attempt to settle any of his sons on the soil? Does he mean in his advocacy of land settlement that other people shall settle on the land and do the hard graft, leaving the easy billets for him and his family? If so, why not say so? - M.I., Toowoomba.

ED. WORKER – A shearer at ---------- shed suffering from chronic rheumatism was compelled to relinquish work. His comrades did not (as in union sheds) raise voluntarily a subscription to enable the sufferer to seek medical advice, so he had to raffle his watch and chain, the proceed's bringing the miserable sum of £5. As he had no shearing money to draw out of a fortnight's painful work, I leave your readers to guess what the feelings of the poor fellow are when he reflects on the past and present conditions. Moral; When principle dies in a man it drags generosity and humanity into the same grave. - WILL-O'-THE-WISP, Boatman.

ED. WORKER – The little excitement occasioned by the late visit of the Governor has now subsided and matters have again reached their normal state. The Governor was met at Barcaldine by seven J.P.s, two publicans, and five other residents, representing the squatting community, besides the usual quantity of the general inhabitants who usually attend the arrival and departure of trains. The Governor was escorted to the squatters' hotel, and “the health of the Ministry” indulged in. The Postmaster General was approached on the matter of re-establishing a mail service between this town and Blackall, such service costing about £80. Mr. Thynne said the Postal Department was compelled to retrench in many localities, but if the contractor's estimate was given him he would consider the matter. - B12, Barcaldine.

ED. WORKER – There was never a period in the history of Queensland when efficient organisation was more needful among the workers than it is at the present time. The intellectual Ingorsoll says; “How is it the few enslave the many? How is it that the nobility live on the labour of the peasants? The answer is in one word, 'Organisation.' The organised few triumph over the unorganised many. The few hold the sword and the purse. The unorganised are overcome in detail, terrorised, brutalised, robbed, conquered.” Truer words were never uttered, as the Queensland workers know to their sorrow. In the face of what the workers have suffered, and are suffering, would it not be to their interest to sink all petty differences and become efficiently organised so that at the proper time they could use with effect the few political privileges they possess? T.B., Toowoomba.

A Bushman's Home.

ED. WORKER – In the light of political economy, charity or money assistance to the hard up is a mistake, although from a moral point of view it is right and an expression of the good impulse. A bushman's home is required – an institution where all are welcome to the opportunity to earn a living. “He that shall not work neither shall he eat” - bar sickness. Boss-ship and discipline, cleanliness and sobriety, to be enforced under pain of being hunted. Of course the Home would have to get legal standing or State recognition at least, if not State funds, to start it, although there may be a way to start independent of State funds. But the almost impossibility of getting the rank and file to follow the ideal above outlined, proves that there will never be any solving of the unemployed trouble, until every one in the State is employed by the State. Again, employment by the State will do away to a great extent with the ill feelings and various frictions that lead to the disorganisation of voluntary co-operative communities. Give the workers a certainty of education, food and clothes, then true civilisation will begin. Therefore, I am, yours – A STATE SOCIALIST.