*THE
WORKER*
Brisbane,
May 6, 1893
The Beginning but not the End.
Baptism
of Fire.
Labour
in politics in Queensland, the hotbed of corruption and slavery, is
for the first time in the midst of a general election. Sorties were
made by the Labour Party towards the close of the last parliament,
and it received its baptism of fire at three by-elections – in the
Barcoo, at Bulimba and at Bundaberg – and in two out of the three
skirmishes against the enemies of order, progress and justice Labour
came out on top.
FIVE
SHORT YEARS AGO.
In
1888, when Griffith and M'Ilwraith wrestled with each other for the
flesh-pots of money and power, and made sacred pledges which they
broke with the shamelessness of men lost to all sense of political
decency, Labour-in-Politics hadn't cut its umbilical cord. When these
political mountebanks tumbled over each other for the prizes of
office and the opportunity to advantage themselves and the concerns
in which they are interested, at the public expense, the Labour Party
in the Southern Hemisphere existed solely in the form of trade and
labour organisations, with no definite end in view and only a
nebulous notion of getting there. When the Liberal and National
claptrap of five years ago was flaunted in our faces the Labour Party
as an organised Political factor didn't exist; and
the workers – unionists and others – ranged themselves under the
banner of the boodlers and flew at each other's throats to – secure
victory for the enemies of the people. For the men who took oaths
that slavery would not be re-introduced; that retrenchment would be
made; that Land Grab railways wouldn't be sprung on the confiding
people; that Naval Tribute wouldn't be levied, and that our electoral
rights would be maintained. Thus the people fought against themselves
by taking sides between Tweedledum and Tweedledee – like soldiers
who shoot each other to the order of kings who look on while the
battle is raging, and grab the spoil at the end of the fight.
THE
LIGHT THAT DIDN'T FAIL.
But
the day of enlightenment came. The lessons of the maritime and bush
workers' strikes and the formation of a Coalition Government put an
end to all that. Then arose the sun of New Unionism, with its
brilliant rays lighting up the pathway to the Rights of Labour and a
higher social state for everyone in the community by means of the
ballot box. That conjunction of events brought everything sought by
the white workers of Queensland within the range of practical
politics; and although there then also arose the forces of
capitalism even unto the gatling guns of the Government, it
transformed in three short years an aimless body of workers into an
army of fiery political warriors, capable of marching to victory with
no more explosive missile than a vote.
TRAMPLED
ALL RIGHTS UNDER FOOT.
Seeing
the inevitability of this march along the line to freedom the
Griffilwraith Government sought to block it by trampling all rights
under foot. Wage workers were disfranchised wholesale. Plural voting
was hedged about with diabolical ingenuity. Standing orders were
passed to stifle outside criticism and the closure was introduced to
gag honest members within the walls of Parliament. No wonder then
with such machinery that loans were floated and paid for at usurious
interest to be lodged in a bank in which members of the Government
are or have been directors. That a Meat Works loan was effected on
security that wouldn't have satisfied on lunatic. That 1000 miles of
rabbit-proof fencing was ordered at the people's expense to be used
by the class to which M'Ilwraith belongs. That money would be voted
to Naval Tribute and denied to corporations for replacing bridges,
repairing roads or carrying out necessary public works. That kanaka
labour should be reintroduced and inspectors appointed and paid for
out of the public purse.
That
a meat expert would be appointed at 1000 pounds a year and an agent
for
the syndicates sent to England at 1400 pounds a year to do the
business of M'Ilwraith and his salary drawn from public funds. All
this, too, and more than can be enumerated, while its citizens are
unemployed, in receipt of pauper relief and a national beggary fund
is opened to save (save the mark!) the sufferers by the floods.
MISGOVERNMENT
FINED THE FIRST BATCH.
Seeing
that an end was about to be put to this rascality and order evolved
out of chaos, the man who is justly “scouted as a liar” fixed the
first batch of elections to further his own ends. The stupendous
legal land steal had to be perpetrated at all hazards. Consequently
all the constituencies that were fixed to be polled on Saturday,
April 29, it marked as certain prey for the syndicate cormorants
Seeking by that poor trick – the last resort of utterly discredited
ministers – to away electors in constituencies in succeeding
batches and delude them into the belief that the voice of the people
was expressed by plural voting and the operation of the Prevention of
Working Men from Voting Act.
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