Thirteen Minutes of the Warwick Egg National Incident, Glory
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Thirteen Minutes of National Glory The Warwick Egg Incident, 1917 by D. ]. Murphy, Dip. Phys. Ed., A. Ed., B.A., Ph.D. * Warwick is situated on the southern Darling Downs 250 who adopted a very partisan and pro-conscription stand during the kilometres by rail from Brisbane. It was one of the centres that War, seemed to develop an obsession about political opponents of produced the 'Darling Downs bunch' in Queensland politics. This Irish stock. Munro-Ferguson wrote to the British Colonial Secretary, was a group of liberals, associated with Samuel Griffith 1, who Bonar Law, in March 1917 : later were to be part of the lib-lab coalition formed in 1903 between The Irish Roman Catholics are particularly strong in New Sir Arthur Morgan 2 and William Browne 3, leader of the Labor South Wales and Queensland, the government of the latter Party. In the more fluid political environment before World War state being in their hands. 9 I, Warwick had numbered among its parliamentary representatives T. ]. Byrnes 4, a Premier and Attorney-General and Thomas Munro-Ferguson and Hughes collaborated more closely than O'Sullivan 5 also an Attorney-General. It was a place of some possibly any other Governor General and Prime Minister. From local importance in southern Queensland, with a higher percentage Munro-Ferguson's correspondence to Hughes, to the British of Irish Catholics among its surrounding farmers, and in its government and to the King, it is clear that he regarded Irish townspeople, than the State average and was one of the major Catholics as being not only disloyal to the Empire, but also sub stations on the Brisbane to Sydney railway line via Wallangarra. versive to Australia's support for the War. Even an Edwardian man Here the steam engines stopped to take on water while the of property, like Bishop James Duhig, 10 who supported conscrip passengers refreshed themselves at the bar or tea rooms or simply tion, was linked by Munro-Ferguson with the arch-fiend Mannix got out to stretch their legs. and with T. ]. Ryan, who had been the only Premier to oppose conscription in 1916. In May 1917, before the federal election, On Thursday, 29 November 1917, the mail train to Sydney Munro-Ferguson wrote that Duhig was 'undoubtedly on the same steamed in to Warwick at 2.59 p.m. It was scheduled to leave at mission' as Mannix and both 'have allies in the Queensland Govern 3.09 p.m. There was a large crowd waiting at the station since the ment especially in the person of the Premier Mr. Ryan.' 11 train contained the Australian Prime Minister and leader of the Nationalist Party, William Morris Hughes 6. He was returning to The political gulf between Ryan and Hughes that had formed Sydney for the final days of the second conscription referendum after the 1916 conscription referendum and the consequent split campaign and his supporters at Warwick had erected a dais on the in the Labor Party widened through 1917. Whether the issue was edge of the platform so that he could address the crowd on con sugar, meat, strikes or coastal shipping, the calm Ryan was well scription, while the engine was taking on water. When the train able to match the wily Hughes. It was becoming evident towards pulled out at 3.12 p.m., three minutes late, Warwick had be::ome the end of 1917 that Ryan was emerging as a political figure of the town of national consequence. To the supporters of con national significance and perhaps as the only politician capable of scription it had shown itself to be a centre of subversion, a hot bed standing up to the authoritarian Hughes. However, though he had of Sinn Fein and a lawless town where the Police condoned physical emerged as one of Australia's most skilled constitutional barristers, attacks on the Prime Minister and were undoubtedly acting on the and, was one of the most fervent supporters of Australia's prosecu instruction of that rebellious Queensland Labor Premier Thomas tion of the war in 1917, Ryan's political opponents painted him as Joseph Ryan 7, leader of the anti-conscriptionists and known to be a a Sinn Feiner, bent on destroying the Australian system of govern friend of the anti-British Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel ment and reducing Australia's capacity to supply reinforcements Mannix. 8 for the A.I.F. 12 Warwick deserved none of this blame. To appreciate how it On 7 November 1917, after a lengthy cabinet meeting, acquired these thirteen minutes of national glory one must go back Hughes announced that there would be a second referendum on to Australia's participation in the first World War and the two conscription. In the opinion of both Ryan and Donald McKinnon, referenda on conscription that divided Australia during the War a Nationalist member of the Victorian parliament who was then the and for a generation after. Australia had entered the first World Director General of Recruiting, a second referendum with its War filled with patriotism for the British Empire. There was also consequent splitting of the nation was likely to reduce still further a strong feeling that Australin's own pro'Le-::tion c1e')endd on con the level of recruiting. Hughes was determined that on this tinued loyalty to Britain and the Empire and on the provision of occasion the referendum would succeed. Electoral rolls were troops to ensure that Britain would remain under some debt closed on 10 November and naturalised British subjects, who had should war occur in the south Pacific. The long c::\sun1ty lists been born in an enemy country, or persons whose father had been resulting from the campaigns at Gallipoli and on the:: \Y!estern born in an enemy country, Yvere disqualified from voting. 20,000 Front, combined with the realisation that the war could drag on voters were disfranchised in Queensbnc!. In addition a partisan, for years, despite the theories of the generals, combined to sour draconian system of newspaper censorship was introduced which the enthusiasm of August 1914. This was to be exa::erb:.1td in was so bad as to be criticised by th~ heavily pro-conscription April 1916, when the centuries-old feeling of repression in Ireland Brisbane Courier and was to prevent the Labor evening paper in boiled over once again as the Sinn Feiners in Dublin rose in Brisbane, The Daily Standard, from reprinting material that had rebellion. For the following two and a half years of the war the already appeared in its rival The Telegraph. problems of Ireland and England were to bedevil Australian social and political life. The anti-conscription campaign opened in Brisbane on 19 November with Ryan as the principal speaker. However when After the defeat of the first conscription referendum in 1916, the report of his speech appeared in the Brisbane Courier and Hughes had written to the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, Daily Mail on the following morning and in the Daily Standard asking him to settle the Irish problem quickly as this was essential and the Telegraph on the following afternoon, the Censors had cut to any improvement in recruiting in Australia. Throughout 1917, from the speech Ryan's analysis of the recruitment figures to make Hughes and the Governor General, Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson, it appear as though he was supporting conscription. On learning * Lecturer in History, University of Queensland. Queensland Heritage Page Fifteen of the Censor's action, Ryan issued a press statement indicating that decidely disloyal to the Empire. It is a weakness of Ernest Scott's his speech had been censored in the interests of the conscriptionists. official history of Australia during the war that he accepted the The Censors refused to allow this statement to be published in the report in the Melbourne Argus as being correct and followed it press. In order to have the uncensored analysis of recruiting figures very closely in describing the incident. 22 Using the Police records, published, the Parliamentary Labor Party decided that Ryan should sworn statements of those closest to the Prime Minister and the repeat his speech in Parliament where it would be published in local newspaper descriptions, one can piece together a more Hansard. 13 There were to be 10,000 copies of this special Hansard accurate account of what occurred. 23 produced for free distribution through the State. However the first batch was confiscated at the Brisbane General Post Office and a Following the tumult in Brisbane, Senior-Sergeant Kenny, in special conference of Ryan, the Speaker W. McCormack, 14 the charge of the police at Warwick, had applied for extra police for Deputy Premier, E. G. Theodore, 15 and the Government Printer Hughes' short visit and had eight men including himself at the was hastily convened to consider the problem. station when the Prime Minister arrived at 2.59 p.m. A large crowd, which included railwaymen working on the maintenance of At this stage Hughes was leaving Sydney for Brisbane where the line and carrying hammers and spanners, normal working tools, he was to address a conscription meeting on 26 November. He was had gathered about a small dais erected off the station platform, informed of the special Hansard by the Queensland Censor. Despite from which Hughes would speak. As he approached the dais two the order to cease printing the Hansard, the Government Printer, eggs were thrown from the crowd, one of which dislodged the under Ryan's authority, went ahead. After addressing his conscrip Prime Minister's hat.