*THE
WORKER*
BRISBANE
APRIL 13, 1895.
Open
Column.
For
the expression of social and economic opinions with which the
“Worker” does not necessarily hold itself in accord.
The
Political and Daily “Press Gang.”
Yes, the Conservative daily press, including the
Brisbane trinity press, has well earned the title of the press gang.
In its efforts to obtain conscripts for service to Imperialism,
Capitalism, and Commercial Feudalism, the press gang of our day does
not resort to bludgeon and physical force, but to systematic lying,
libelling, and misrepresentation. The premier past master in the
ingenious and scientific use of these means is “the leading
journal,” which has already opened the political campaign of the
year on those lines in its articles headed respectively: “A Most
Dangerous Secret Society,” “The New Man,” “The Government,”
and articles in attempted depreciation of Mr. Glassey's speech at
Lowood.
In vain do those articles assume the tone and role of
“the superior person,” in laboured quasi-contemptuous and
elephantine attempts to be sarcastic and facetious. Such attempts
will not have much influence upon public opinion or the ballot box
because the reasoning and conclusions based upon them are so
conspicuously fallacious.
There remains no doubt of the existence of “a secret
society of the most dangerous kind, ruinous to the bona fide
pastoralist, and a menace to liberty and the well-being of the
general community,” as affirmed by the A.W.U. the latter, however,
made a great mistake in affirming or implying – as the Courier
declares they did affirm or imply – that the members – or
“villains,” to use the Courier phrase – of this society
consist mainly or exclusively “ of the councils of the P.U. in the
several colonies.”
No; those councils may comprise members of it, but
membership of the society embraces a large section, and perhaps
majority, of employers, capitalists, and professional men, all
Imperialist and most Conservative politicians, including their organs
the press gang.
It is significant that, whether the P.U. is responsible
or not for the outrageous misconduct imparted to them, in the column
and a half article the only specious or tangible argument adduced in
disproof of the existence of the said “secret society” was the
impossibility of conceiving that such Conservative and pastoralist “
doves” as Messrs. Allan, Crombie, and Cameron, could be in any wise
identified with it. “Not even the Labour Party” could believe
that.
Perhaps not. Neither does that party believe that “three
swallows will make a summer.” Fortunately, however, the “secret”
of said society is now “an open secret,” and three of its main
objects are: (1) To keep wages down and if possible reduce them; (2)
to augment rather than diminish the unemployed, so as to maintain a
permanent needy or servile class; and (3) to continue kanaka and
other alien labour, and to resume European immigration as soon as
possible in furtherance of the other two objects.
The Courier seldom misses an opportunity of
publishing leaders in direct or indirect advocacy of those three
objects, barracking resumption of immigration of course as a means of
increasing production, inflating trade and commerce, and so
“benefiting the labouring classes.”
Truly the patriotism and public spirit of the press gang
order of politicians are quite on a par with the patriotism which
induced “the noble Brutus” to assassinate his friend Caesar.
The article under head of “The New Man” is a twin
attempt of “A Most Dangerous Secret Society” article to be a
sarcastic and facetious criticism of the labour leaders and party,
and the one is about equally as inconsequential and puerile as the
other. The public are about “full up” of such dialectic devices
to furbish up old humbugs under new masks; and the press gang will
have to invent a “new style” of ratiocination, or invective, to
impede the progress of the Labour Party.
Barcoo
TALLY-HO
An
A.W.U. for Brisbane.
Action of the District Council.
At the usual fortnightly meeting of the Brisbane
District Council of the A.L.F. it was unanimously decided to take
immediate steps to organise an Amalgamated Worker's Union, to include
all classes of labour not already organised. A committee was
appointed to draft provisional rules and to convene a meeting for
Thursday week, April 18, at the Trades Hall, Turbot-street, when all
interested in the movement are earnestly invited to attend. Intending
members will obtain all information on application to the secretary
Brisbane District Council, or the general secretary A.L.F.
Supreme
Court Asked For.
A deputation at Rockhampton made a request to the
electioneering Ministers that a branch of the Supreme Court might be
established in Rockhampton. Mr. Byrnes replied; “As things are at
present there is only one circuit in the central division. That is in
Rockhampton, and so far as I can see there can never be another. I
shall oppose circuits in the west of Queensland, because I am
perfectly certain that the juries that can be obtained there will not
be the proper jurors to try the cases they would get to try in the
western country. This is why I have always opposed the creation of a
circuit at Hughender.”
The Hon. Tommy Swellhead is very insulting to the people
of the West.
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