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How Labour Governs

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How Labour Governs How Labour Governs Vere Gordon Childe How Labour Governs Table of Contents How Labour Governs...............................................................................................................................................1 Vere Gordon Childe.......................................................................................................................................1 INTRODUCTION. THE BACKGROUND..................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1. ORIGIN AND GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE POLITICAL LABOUR MOVEMENT................................................................................................................................................7 CHAPTER II. THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF CAUCUS CONTROL............................................12 CHAPTER III. THE CONTROL OF THE POLITICIANS BY THE MOVEMENT.................................16 CHAPTER IV. THE POSITION OF THE INDUSTRIALISTS IN THE POLITICAL LABOUR MOVEMENT..............................................................................................................................................31 CHAPTER V. HETEROGENEITY OF THE ELEMENTS WITHIN THE LABOUR PARTY................40 CHAPTER VI. THE INDUSTRIAL LABOUR MOVEMENT..................................................................45 CHAPTER VII. THE CO−ORDINATION OF UNION FORCES BY FEDERATIONS..........................51 CHAPTER VIII. THE GROWTH OF THE REACTION AGAINST POLITICALISM............................57 CHAPTER IX. THE AMALGAMATION MOVEMENT..........................................................................62 CHAPTER X. THE WORK OF THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD IN AUSTRALIA..............................................................................................................................................73 CHAPTER XI. THE ONE BIG UNION.....................................................................................................85 CHAPTER XII. THE O.B.U. AND THE A.W.U........................................................................................95 i How Labour Governs Vere Gordon Childe INTRODUCTION. THE BACKGROUND THE main theme of the present study will be the development of Labour organisation and policy during the current century; for it is in this period that the most characteristic phases of Australian Labour have manifested themselves. Moreover, the course of Australian economic and industrial growth down to the date of the Federation of the Colonies has been admirably and exhaustively described by Sir Timothy Coghlan and other writers. Nevertheless, in order to enable the reader to follow more readily the drama to be unfolded, it may be helpful to sketch very briefly the historical background. In the first place it must be remembered that Australia is a continent of 2,974,581 square miles in area −− slightly larger, therefore, than the U.S.A., and rather smaller than the Dominion of Canada. We often hear that this continent is empty. In fact, the total white population, as revealed by the 1921 census, is just under five and a half millions. But emptiness is not to be reckoned by the population per square mile, but by the number which the country is actually capable of supporting and, when this is taken into consideration, the disproportion between the immense acreage of Australian soil and her meagre population becomes less striking. In point of fact vast areas of Australian territory are quite unadapted for close settlement. Over huge tracts of the interior the rainfall is so exiguous and so uncertain that agriculture is out of the question. The only industry that such land could maintain is pasturage, and that only thinly at the rate of, say, one sheep to a hundred acres. No amount of settlers could increase materially the carrying capacity of these plains, since man cannot control the rainfall, and the natural configuration of the land precludes the possibility of irrigation. On the other hand, this appearance of emptiness is enhanced by the uneven distribution of the population and the immense concentration in a few bloated cities. The 900,000 inhabitants of Greater Sydney represent almost half the total population of a State covering 309,432 square miles. Outside the capital there are only five towns in the whole of N.S.W. with more than 10,000 inhabitants. South Australia is even larger, yet more than half of her 494,867 citizens are returned as residents of Adelaide. Similarly half the Victorians live in Melbourne. In these three States the capital cities dominate the whole political and economic life of the community; they are the termini of the principal railways, and practically the only ports for overseas shipping. Thus they have sucked in an undue proportion of the increase of the State's population, and continue to grow ever more unwieldy and bloated. Queensland is far more happily situated. She has achieved some degree of decentralisation, and possesses at least three independent ports, each connected with their own hinterlands by separate railway systems. While in N.S.W. all lines run to Sydney, Brisbane occupies no such exceptional position in the traffic of the northern State. In geographical structure and in climate Australia is a remarkable unity. A narrow but fertile and well−watered strip along the Pacific Coast is separated from the more characteristic plains and slopes of the west by a steep dividing range. running spine−like the whole length of the continent from north to south. West of the range the land slopes away very gradually to the great plains of the Murray−Darling basin, and as one proceeds westward the rainfall becomes ever smaller and less reliable, till beyond the Darling one reaches a comparative desert which extends nearly to the West Australian coast. In the far north the physiographical conformation of the land is somewhat different, and the rainfall also is more regular and bounteous. But for such details the reader is referred to the lucid descriptions published in the Commonwealth Year Book. But if Australia is a unity geographically, it is very far from being a unity politically. The early colonisation of the continent took place at a number of different spots on her immense coast line, and these settlements were granted independent status and self−governing constitutions by the Imperial Government at different times and under varying conditions. It has thus come about that Australia is divided up into six States, very largely independent How Labour Governs 1 How Labour Governs one of the other, whose boundaries, save in the case of Tasmania, do not correspond to any essential physiographic or economic divisions, but are largely arbitrary or even fortuitous. Each of these States has a Governor and Bicameral Legislature of its own. Till 1901 they were as independent of one another as of Canada or Cape Colony. At the beginning of the century these six colonies federated, and a seventh legislature and vice−regal court were superimposed on those already existing. The Commonwealth was given strictly limited powers to deal with so−called national questions−−defence, foreign affairs, inter−state and overseas commerce, currency, postage and the like−−closely defined in a written constitution which could only be altered by a referendum of the whole people carried by a majority of the voters and in a majority of the States. The State Parliaments still retain complete autonomy in respect of education, railways and industrial matters. The last point is important. It has meant that each State has its own peculiar set of industrial laws and its own system of settling industrial disputes or fixing prices, and consequently that the unions and Labour Parties in each have had to retain a large degree of local autonomy to enable them to utilise and comply with the different codes ruling from State to State. Coming now closer to our subject it must be insisted that Australia is still, economically speaking, a land of primary producers exporting their surplus of raw materials in return for the manufactured products of the older countries. The importance of this point must not be overlooked. Prior to 1901 Australia was dependent upon imports for the majority of the articles necessary to the life of her inhabitants and to the development of her natural resources. Iron, for instance, could not be produced, and steel has only been turned out since the opening of the Newcastle Works in 1915. That has been changed since Federation, largely under the influence of a protective tariff; while the war, by restricting the possibility of importing goods, greatly accelerated the expansion of Australian manufacture. Nevertheless, though no longer totally at the mercy of foreign manufacturers for the essentials of civilised life, and thus more nearly able to take her place as an equal in the markets of the world, Australia's economy is still essentially that of a country exporting raw materials, and no change in this position is to be expected in the near future at all events. Wool is her staple source of wealth, and though the time may come when Australia may be able to supply her own local market with woollen textiles −− at present the local mills could barely supply a third of the home demand −− it is not likely that she will be able to compete with other countries as an exporter of woollen goods. Accordingly it is safe to point to primary production as the main source of her national income. In the primary industries the pastoral is immensely the most important.
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