Bystanders' Notebook August 17, 1895.

*THE WORKER*

BRISBANE, AUGUST 17, 1895.

Bystanders' Notebook.

Not Wanted.

Turn where we will we find that those in employment just manage to make ends meet, and have to be very careful, by look, work, and deed, to give no offence to their masters, lest they be cast out to join the unfortunate thousands, the les miserables of all countries, whose outlawry from all the beauties and refinements of our civilisation (the only thing that distinguishes us from the savage) will one day weld them into a universal Brotherhood of Despair. Without going to Europe with its millions of this class who rise every morning without knowing where their first meal is coming from, or to America where the tramp is quite a national character, right here in Australia we have an unemployed class whose numbers are added to year by year, thousands of good men-good in every sense of the word, strong, intelligent, useful citizens who are doomed to lonely, miserable lives, without pleasure and without hope, simply because they are not wanted. Ten years ago the presence of the unemployed would be questioned, but to-day no one would deny their existence, or dare taunt them as loafers.

D.L.

N.B. Nothing much has changed!

The Worker

* * *

The Real Issue.

I often dwell on the hard lot of the bushmen of Australia, the swagmen, the roaming unemployed scattered over this vast continent, whose existence cries shame to the incapacity of our legislators to provide for the wants of the people. Without votes to have a say in the making of the laws which they are expected to obey, without hope of ever partaking of the joys and refinements of civilisation, why should they look on in dumb silence at the great banquet of life, with all the yearnings of humanity gnawing at their heart and not demand a seat at the table? It is more than human to thus suffer without protesting against it. Would that the line of demarcation was more clearly drawn, that wage-earners would more clearly understand that there are only two parties in the State; that side issues like Protection and Freetrade, Federation and Republicanism, have nothing to do with the battle that is being fought; that the real issue lies between Capitalism and Labour. Labour ever striving to shift the burden from its back so that it may stand erect and boldly claim a fair share of the fruits of its toil. Capitalism ready to redden the sea with blood and desolate the land in order to get more power, with its hand ever on Labour's throat and trampling all that is human under foot. This is the real issue, and look to it brother toilers that you be not led by bribe and cajolery to take sides with the enemy; that industrially and politically you will be true unionists, and never be recant enough to blackleg on those whose victories you share in and whose downfall will be yours also.

D.L.

* * *

The Cackle Shop.

When Labour asks for relief what pessimistic cries are raised by the privileged class: Trade will suffer; Self-reliance extirpated; grandmotherly legislation, &c., &c., is dinned into the ears of everyone. And yet those who so endeavour to postpone Labour reforms beyond all other persons in the community are ever making application to Parliament when they want anything. Look through the Statute Books of Queensland and you will find that nearly all the laws that have been enacted since the foundation of the colony have been made more for the protection of the few than the many. Selfishness appears to have been the motive that has caused the whole machinery of Government to be set in motion, whilst there does not appear one solitary law that guarantees the independence of the toilers from the enslaving clutches of Capitalism. Parliament, the great cackle shop, will pass reforms for workmen when workmen make up their minds and show by their earnestness that they mean to have them, but not before.

CRUSADER.

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The Right Sort of a Girl.

Wellington (N.Z.) has recently supplied a romantic incident in the fact of a young Italian woman having been found masquerading in boy's clothes, and working as a common labourer in the brickyard of Messrs. P. Hutson and Co. She was employed in the yard for about a week and Mr. Hutson says he would not wish for a better or more exemplary worker. She owes her her discovery to being recognised by a friend, and she was afterwards sought out by the officers of the Pauline Home, where she is now staying until employment better suited to her sex can be found for her. It is stated, as a reason for her conduct, that some time ago she went through the form of marriage with a man who is afterwards appears was already married and the father of a family. She left him, and, finding it difficult to get work as a woman, adopted male attire, in which she worked at Wanganui as a driver and at Palmerston North as a carrier of parcels.