Letters to Editor March 30, 1895.

*THE WORKER*

Brisbane, March 30, 1895.

Mail Bag.

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

One adult One Vote.

Land Tax.

Income 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 for the opinions of its correspondents.

Kasidy – Libellous.

T. L. - and Others – Next week.

H.F.H. and A.F. - Many thanks.

H.H. - Will carry out your suggestion.

R.T.B., C. And CONDAMINGA – Many thanks.

G.S.C. - Pamphlet received. Noticed later.

J.C.H., Muttaburra. - See issue of March 2.

A.Trap on Fire. - “Fear God and stick to the Truth. Circulation over 6000:” Ha, ha;

H.F.H. - Thanks for letter. Keep up a correspondence and oblige.

T.H. - Wish you luck. Have not published all rouse and oblige.

M.P., Dinmore, and Robert M., Bundamba – Would gladly insert, bus your letters are too lengthy.

A.G.M. - We have heard from other quarters the sectarian dodge is being worked for all it worth. The wire pullers may make a mistake.

STRAIGHT WIRE and R.J.C., Tambo – Received your letters. Cannot see that much good would be done by publication. Think you had better place the matter before the union committee at Longreach. Write to W. Kewley, secretary.

W.B., Augathella – If the negligence of the agister (for instance, leaving the gates open, or allowing the fences to remain in a defective condition) caused the horse to be stolen, he is liable, and it would be as well to sue him in a small debts court. But as an agister is only bound to take reasonable care of the horse entrusted to him, you will fail unless you can prove such negligence.

Ed. WORKER – The caretaker (Alien) of the Barcaldine town bore, under the control of the Divisional Board, wrote lately asking for an increase of wages from 20s. per week – a starvation wage paid him, although he works from 6 am. to 6 pm. daily. His request was indignantly refused. Not so the application of the clerk, who acts as secretary of other bodies. This gent's screw was at once raised from £70 to £100. - B. 12.

Ed. WORKER – For years past a certain individual, a bank manager and justice of the peace in Barcaldine, has on various occasions appeared in the witness box as a propounder of “law and order,” giving evidence against bushmen for drunkenness and minor offences occasioned by drink, or he has been instrumental in putting the police on to certain individuals when the preservers of the peace would in many instances take no notice. He fell in the other day over a prosecution in which he was Crown witness, the accused being discharged. - B12.

ED. WORKER – Having seen a paragraph in the WORKER dealing strongly with me as regards Wooroonga. There are always two sides to a question. The facts are as follows; I was asked in Mitchell by some of the shearers at Wooroonga to go out and cook there as the cook did not give general satisfaction. I went out and got on, but as far as waiting for a death is concerned I give the statement a flat denial, and I can prove my case by referring to any of the shearers who shore there. - H. SIMMONS, shearers' cook. Mitchell.

ED. WORKER – A few lines to let your readers know how we are doing out this way; Men are travelling in dozens; most of them are hard up and many of them sick from the effects of the hardships they suffered during the late rains. Work appears to be a thing of the past. Clonagh started shearing on March 18^th, and with Cambridge starting on April 1^st, matters should improve a little. It is to be hoped that all members will do their level best to strengthen our union, for if we once let it go down it is good-bye to anything like a fair wage or fair conditions for us. - TARPOT.

ED. WORKER – In your issue of the 2^nd March is a letter signed L. Gross, who says re sporting column, “Why open your columns for sporting reports, which spoil the dear little paper. Socialism has nothing to do with barbarous games, such as fighting matches, horse racing, &c.” Hear, hear, more power to him, for it pained me greatly to see the sporting column reopened. Are we civilised beings, or savages, or bulldogs, that we should help to perpetuate the brutal, morbid fancy for the prize ring, or the swindling parasites of the racecourse. I hold that the WORKER should have a higher ideal than spreading such news. There is plenty of educational work to be done, and little enough space to do it. Of course I readily admit that I am only one individual, and that if the majority of the workers desire the sporting news they must have it, but I hope the time is not far distant when they will see the error of their ways and cry. - HOLD, ENOUGH.

ED. WORKER – Another matter in connection with the Barcaldine Hospital upon which light should be thrown in the burial of the dead from that institution. There being only one firm in Barcaldine they have the monopoly of trade. The coffins are very roughly put together, and nailed, the ends, bottom and lid being in some instances made from packing cases and a coating of lampblack and oil or water rubbed in with a shoe brush covers the boards. I don't know whether the Hospital Committee have entered into any arrangement with the firm in question, or otherwise, for the manufacture of coffins from packing cases, but the fact remains that this has been done whether the hospital authorities are cognisant or otherwise. At all events the undertakers think it good enough.

For we'll rattle his bones over the sod,

He's but a pauper consigned to his God,

He might have worn broadcloth, he might have worn gold,

He might be a gentleman, his qualities are untold.

His career is ended in this world of strife,

Nothing to show he had a child or a wife.

He died in the hospital, in torment or groans,

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns.

                                                                                      B12

ED. WORKER – As there are reports floating around this district that I ratted at Westlands last shearing, I wish to emphatically deny the charge. I camped at Vindex washpool hut from the 20^th July until the 15^th of September. I then went to Westlands, arriving there eleven days after the call off. I took the last vacant stand there, and shore twelve days. I then cooked for the shearers from then until the cut out. I have letters in my possession which I wrote to Tom Pyne, Longreach, from Vindex during and after the strike which will prove that I never ratted. I cooked for the Westlands scabs at Vindex, and was willing to take my chance against any other cook on the ground. But as the shed was surrounded by police the other cooks and shearers were not allowed near the shed. So I could not give my brother cooks the show they were entitled to. I think it very mean and unfair for union men to spread scandalous lies around about a man who stood staunch to his union from the day he joined it. Mr. Jim Martin, (better known as “Shearblade”) will prove that. He met George Parker, Curley Williams, and myself on the Evesham road six days after the call on while he was travelling to Winton. - HARRY HARTLAND.

P.S. - I shore under the name of George Parker at Westlands.