The Beating of the Drums

*THE WORKER* 
Brisbane, February 21, 1891

The Wellington (N.Z.) Times says very rightly :- “ If a few unruly unionists outstep the bounds of propriety the whole organisation is pounced on and decried as a menace to society, while the tyrannical acts and powers of capitalists and the existing laws are allowed to go on without even a passing condemnation; it is when this is done by the very victims of these acts, powers and laws, that insulted justice covers its hollow eyes and weeps tears of blood.”

At the half-yearly meeting of the Q.S.U. held in July last a letter was read from the Warrego District Employers Association, Charleville, asking delegates from the union to attend their meeting. In reply it was resolved:-

That the secretary write the association to the effect that this committee has no power to make arrangements nor to appoint delegates to attend the meeting as requested, but delegates from the Employers' Association will be received by the Shearers' Union at the time of the annual meeting in December next.

This resolution was published all over the colony but no employer attended the December meeting as invited. Yet the Q.S.U. is accused of trying to settle everything without regard to the position of the squatter.

The first of a series of meetings convened by the Brisbane District, A.L.F., for the purpose of telling the public the truth about the bush trouble was held on Friday last, a meeting called during the previous week having been prevented by heavy rain.

The Queensland pastoralists have obtained the loan of a large body of police who have been placed entirely under their control. Freedom of contract, free labourers, free police. What next ?

On the 10^th instant the largest meeting ever held in the Rockhampton School of Arts enthusiastically passed the following resolutions:-

That in view of the fact that the Queensland Pastoralists' Association refuses to submit the present dispute to a conference having power to deal with the whole question at issue, this meeting protests against the threatened invasion of foreign labour while thousands of workers here are idle, whose appeal for a reasonable settlement of the dispute has been refused, as the introduction of such foreign labour at the present time is calculated to provoke a serious breach of the public peace.

That this meeting further protests against the handing over of the control of the police to the Pastoralists' Association as a gross violation of the impartiality of British law and calls upon the Government to rescind the order already given and to abstain in future from all such open and unblushing partiality. Also that copies of this and of the preceding resolution be forwarded to Premier of the colony and the M.M.L.A. for the district.

An amendment to the first motion - “ That the pastoralists of Queensland are perfectly justified in the action they are taking” - only secured seven votes.