the "strike troubles" last year (1894), the sheep were shorn by free labourers and some Unionists.
'They followed the example of Howe and others on the Barcoo run, and went to work in defiance of the Union mandate. This year many of the same men returned to the station to shear.
'The authorities had previous information that poisoning was likely to be resorted to on some stations. The Aramac and Mutta-burra police are at the station. No evidence was attainable against the authors of this cowardly crime, resulting in one murder at least, and the possible death of a score or more of their fellow-workmen. It is significant, however, as against the theory of accident, that the injured men, well-nigh sick unto death, were free shearers.
'It is notorious that elaborate preparations have been made for committing further outrages on property, and violence on persons. Hitherto the Government has erred on the side of insufficient precaution and protection to loyal subjects.
'Violence and intimidation, on the other hand, have been approved by the Labour Federations. A demand is made by them that employers should not be allowed the right to employ any but Union men, on Union terms. Such an edict is inadmissible in a free country. So Sir Samuel Griffith, C.J., of Queensland, stated the case.
'The Moreton Mounted Infantry left by the Wodonga for the seat of the disturbance. In consequence of further outrages by the so-called Labour organisations, one of which was the shooting of a team of working bullocks, eleven in number, belonging to a non-Union carrier, Colonel French has been sent to the north with a force of 130 men, having also a field-piece and a Gatling gun. The Union leaders had boasted of the wreck and ruin of squatting property which would follow the strike.'
In the second year of the revolt a special parade of the Queensland Mounted Infantry was ordered. They were ready to a man. In view of the outrages already committed, and the justifiable expectation of more to follow, military protection was manifestly needed. This drew forth a pathetic remonstrance from the 'General Secretary of the Australian Labour Federation.' He was virtuously indignant at the whole force of the Government being 'strained to subjugate the wage-earners of the central district, under the dictation of capitalistic organisations.' It was emphasised that 'the Australian Labour Federation's steady influence had always been used to substitute peaceful agitation and moderation for needless suspension of industry. The Government is urged to use its influence to induce organised capitalism to meet organised labour in the conference.'
The high official so addressed replied: 'The Government is merely endeavouring to maintain law and order; to punish disorder, violence, and crime. The existing state of matters is misrepresented by the Labour organs.'
As might have been expected, manslaughter and arson, if not murder and spoliation, did result from this and similar teachings. Some of these crimes were undetected, others were partially expiated by imprisonment; while in more instances the wire-pullers – the deliberate and wilful offenders against the law of the land – escaped punishment. But when the burning of the Dundonald took place, with the capture of free labourers by disguised men, the tardy action of the Executive was accelerated. That the apprehensions of the dwellers in the pastoral districts, and their appeals to the Government of the day in the first years of the strike, were not without foundation, an extract from a letter taken, among others, from the person of an arrested 'labour organiser,' affords convincing proof.
'Queensland Labour Union, Maranoa Branch,
'Roma, 10th March 1891.
'Dear George – It is a mistake collecting our men at the terminus of the railway. Better to split them up in bodies of a hundred and fifty each. One lot to stop at Clermont, another at Tambo; others at outside stations, such as Bowen Downs, Ayrshire Downs, Richmond Downs, Maneroo, West-lands, Northampton, and Malvern Hills. Say a hundred and fifty at Maranoa; same below St. George. Every station that a hundred and fifty men came to would demand police protection from the Government. Then, if you wanted to make a grand coup, send mounted messengers round and have all your forces concentrated, away from railways if possible, and force the running by putting a little more devil into the fight. They will have no railways to cart the Gatling guns and Nordenfeldts about. – Yours, etc.
Ned – .'
Such were the missives which passed between the 'labour organisers' and their 'brother officers.' Small wonder that the rank and file were stirred up to deeds of wrong and outrage, stopping short by accident, or almost miracle, of the 'red fool-fury of the Seine.' Imagine the anxiety and apprehension at the lonely station, miles way from help, with a hundred and fifty horsemen, armed and threatening, arriving perhaps at midnight – the terror of the women, the mingled wrath and despair of the men. And the temperate suggestion of the labour organiser to 'put a little more devil into the fight, to force the running!'
Doubtless it would, but not quite in the manner which this calculating criminal intended. Such a wave of righteous indignation would have been evoked from the ordinarily apathetic surface of Australian politics, that the culprits and their cowardly advisers would have been swept from the face of the earth.
If it be doubted for a moment whether the serious acts of violence and outrage alluded to were actually committed, or, as was unblushingly asserted by the so-called democratic organs, invented, exaggerated, or – most ludicrous attempt at deception of all – got up by capitalists and squatters for the purpose of throwing discredit upon Unionists, let a list of acts perpetrated in deliberate defiance of the law of the land be produced in evidence.
The Dagworth woolshed had seven armed men on watch, as the Unionists had threatened to burn it. Among them were the Messrs. Macpherson, owners of the station. When the bushranger Morgan was killed at Pechelbah, in their father's time, they hardly expected to have to defend Dagworth against a lawless band humorously describing themselves as Union Shearers.
In spite of their defensive operations, a ruffian crawled through and set fire to the valuable building, which was totally consumed.
They were armed, and shots were freely interchanged. One Unionist found dead was believed to be one of the attacking party.
The 'Shearers' War' languished for a time, but was still smouldering three years afterwards, as on the 4th of August 1894 the Cambridge Downs woolshed was burnt. This was a very expensive building, in keeping with the size and value of the station, where artesian bores had been put down, and artificial lakes filled from the subterranean water-flow. Money had been liberally, lavishly spent in these and other well-considered improvements, aids to the working of the great industrial enterprise evolved from the brain of one man, and having supported hundreds of labourers and artisans for years past. In the great solitudes where the emu and kangaroo or the roving cattle herds alone found sustenance, the blacksmith's forge now glowed, the carpenter's hammer rang, the ploughman walked afield beside his team, the 'lowing herd wound slowly o'er the lea,' recalling to many an exiled Briton his village home.
The 'big house,' the squire-proprietor's abode, rose, garden-and grove-encircled, amid the cottages and humbler homes which it protected – a mansion in close resemblance, allowing for altered conditions and more spacious surroundings, to homes of the Motherland, which all loved so well. At what cost of head and hand, of toil, and danger, and hardship, ay, even of blood, let the headstones in the little shaded graveyard tell! And now, when long years, the best years of early manhood, had been expended freely, ungrudgingly in the conflict with Nature, was the workman, the junior partner in the enterprise, well paid, well fed and housed during the doubtful campaign, the loss of which could smite to ruin the senior, to lay his rash destroying hand upon the beneficent structure he had helped to raise?
Pulling down in suicidal mania, at the bidding of a secret caucus, the industrial temple, which so surely would whelm him and his fellows in its ruins!
Ayrshire Downs
