Warfare waged between Capitalism and Labour was never so fierce.

*THE WORKER*

Brisbane October 27, 1894.

Unless Wise Counsels Prevail.

The continual warfare waged between Capitalism and Labour was never so fierce and widespread as now. Turn where we will, the two forces stand arrayed against each other.

I know something of the life led by the average bushman. His lot is anything but a perpetual picnic, and to think of the way they are treated by arrogant Pastoralists is galling in the extreme. I sometimes wonder why the world is so patient, why men tolerate such cant, why we piously hold up our hand in horror at some atrocity, and yet survey so calmly and suffer so quietly the injustice done and rights withheld so many of our fellows. The wrecking of trains is wrong, The burning of a shed is wrong. We know it. But what are all these and more compared to the firing of all that is worse in us by unjust oppression. Oppress men, and you kindle fires that make them devils. When all sense of Justice is denied to men, nothing is left but the spirit of revenge. So that by carrying measures with so high a hand squatters are themselves to blame for these outbreaks of violence over which the press grow hysterical. Treat men as men, and they act as such. Treat them as brutes who are not to be considered, be merciless to your slaves of circumstances, and they do so by you when the chance comes.

Ye who own the stations and all other means of existence, think you we are different in thought and feeling to what you and yours are, and yet you would have us bend the knee, and cap in hand, beg from you work at any terms. You tell us we are free to reject your agreement; so is the caged lion free to reject the food his keeper throws him. You rely upon the surplus labour to take our places. The Government will guard and protect hundreds who are neglected by them at all other times. The unemployed, the great army reserve with which Capitalism fights Labour, is now placed under police protection when the squatter wants him under police subjection when he don't.

When will the people wake, when will the nation rise, and say these things shall be no longer – that a small body of men shall have no more power to dictate to thousands. You who are in work think of your own insecurity, tour struggle just to live, and then picture to yourself the lives these men lead; their lonely lot, shut out from all the luxuries and refinements of civilisation, the best part of the year out of work, with the cold ground for their bed and the canopy of heaven their only roof, and then can you wonder at their discontent. Wise men have solved the riddle, and the lamp of Truth points the way we should go. But those who guide the nation's destiny, blinded by folly, heed not. Some day, unless wise counsels prevail, the upheaval will come.

D. I.