Defining Labor: a study of the political culture of the Victorian Labor Party, 1901-1921.

Liam Byrne

Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2016 Faculty of Arts The University of

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Abstract

Between 1901 and 1921 Victorian Labor played a crucial role in two episodes that defined the character of the . The first of these was the defeat of conscription, and subsequent party split, in 1916. The second was the acceptance by Labor of the socialisation objective in 1921. This thesis seeks to comprehend the dynamics that led to this contribution through analysis of its internal party life; Labor’s political culture. It does so by developing a unique analytical model to comprehend the party’s political culture that, it suggests, can be applied to similar parties of social-democracy/political labour elsewhere.

This model is based upon important critiques of the concept of the bourgeois public sphere, and seeks to repudiate the essentialism dominant in many accounts of Labor. It identifies a series of creative processes within the party and broader labour movement of both an ideological and structural nature, utilising the historical developments of this era to demonstrate their operations. In particular, it argues that political labour was defined by a creative contestation between different sections competing for its political leadership: moderates and socialists. This was a contestation conducted by intellectuals of the movement. Through a detailed reading of the texts of party life, and a focus on its centres of power in major party conferences, it has identified and , both later Labor Prime Ministers, as representative intellectuals engaged in this creative contest. Each developed knowledge and sought to implement movement policy as leaders of these sections, engaged in a creative contestation that helped generate Labor’s political culture. These sections developed a form of Labor knowledge that was further contested by Labor women activist-intellectuals, formulating their own demands, and fighting to develop their own political organisation.

The thesis charts Labor’s development from 1901 to demonstrate the relationship between these forces, and how the creative contestation between them fuelled Labor’s development, and the Victorian party’s contribution to the defining episodes in these years. Through this case study the thesis seeks to contribute to a broader discussion of political labour, and also to comment upon the contemporary crisis in parties of social democracy/labour.

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Declaration

1. That this thesis comprises only my work towards the PhD except where indicated. 2. Due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used. 3. The thesis is not more than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies, and appendices.

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Acknowledgements

I firstly wish to acknowledge the support of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the . I would particularly like to thank the professional staff at the School for the vital support they have provided over the years.

I also wish to acknowledge and thank the branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History and the Australian National University for the Eric Fry Scholarship in Labour History. I was awarded this scholarship in 2014, which allowed me to conduct research at the Noel Butlin Archives at the ANU, and at the National Library.

I wish to acknowledge the generosity of Carmel Benjamin and the Benjamin family, and their support for young scholars in writing Australian history. I was immensely grateful to be the inaugural recipient of the Dr. Rodney Lloyd Benjamin History Prize.

I believe it is important to acknowledge that I was only able to study at university, and undertake this PhD, due to the support of the through the HECS scheme at undergraduate level, and the Australian Postgraduate Award for the duration of this project. I am deeply thankful for this support.

I would like to thank the archives that I visited for their assistance, and the owners of the collections that gave me permission to conduct this research. I would particularly like to thank the University of Melbourne Archives. The support and kindness demonstrated there was second to none. I want to particularly thank Katie Wood for all her assistance.

I would like to thank University College for providing the warm community that I have been part of for the last two years.

I would like to note my immense gratitude to my fellow postgraduates. It has been a privilege to be part of the intellectual community they have provided, and I have learned an immense amount from them. But even more, I have benefitted immeasurably from their friendship, in so many different ways. I would particularly like to note my thanks to Alex Chorowicz, Dashiel Lawrence, Henry Reese, Xavier Ma, Shan Winsdscript, Jean McBain, Rhys Cooper, and, of course, Chloe Ward, Richard Young, and Emma Shortis. Not only could I not have done this without you – I would not have wanted to.

I also want to acknowledge the significant contribution made by Micheál Loughnane in helping to direct me to this path, and for teaching me the most important lesson of all: to never let my schooling get in the way of my education

Great thanks to Professor Stuart Macintyre for his generosity with his time and insights.

Immense gratitude is due to Dr. Jackie Dickenson, my associate supervisor. I was extremely lucky to have an associate supervisor who was so committed and willing to assist. I am very grateful for all her advice and constructive criticism.

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I was extraordinarily lucky to have Associate Professor Sean Scalmer as my supervisor, and greatest thanks belong to him. Sean’s guidance has been integral over the course of this project, and the Honours thesis that came before it. Sean has been extraordinarily generous with his time, insights, and has demonstrated tremendous patience in helping me to improve as a researcher and writer.

I wish to thank my family. Without their hard work and sacrifices over the course of many years I would not have had the opportunity to undertake this project. While I want to thank the entire Johnson clan for their love and support, I want to particularly thank my Mum and Dad, Nessie and Barry Byrne, for everything they have done for me.

But the biggest thanks go to my sister, Amy, for providing not just love and support, but also inspiration. I could not have done this without her.

Finally, I want to acknowledge two very important people who passed away during the writing of this PhD, my Aunty Betty Johnson, and my Uncle Jim Johnson. Both taught me fundamental lessons as to the importance of learning, arguing, laughing, and family. Both taught me the vital significance of having a Labor heart. It is with gratitude for this that I dedicate the thesis, and the work that went into it, to them.

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Contents

Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………………………vii

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………1

Chapter One: Labor’s political culture, theoretical approaches and methodologies…….. 16

Chapter Two: independent Labor and the socialist counterpublic, 1901 – 1906…………..52

Chapter Three: James Scullin, John Curtin, and the contest for Labor, 1906 – 1913………80

Chapter Four: the cost of war, 1914 – 1916……………………………………………………110

Chapter Five: conscription and the split, 1916 – 1917………………………………………..140

Chapter Six: the battle for socialisation, 1918-1921…………………………………………..173

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………..207

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………...218

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Abbreviations

All-Australian Congress – AATUC

Australasian Council of Trade Unions - ACTU

Australian Labor Party – ALP

Australian Peace Alliance - APA

Australian Worker - AW

Australian Workers Union – AWU

Evening Echo – EE

Global Financial Crisis - GFC

Independent Labour Party - ILP

Industrial Workers of the World – IWW

Labor Call - LC

Melbourne Trades Hall Council – THC

Member of Legislative Assembly – MLA.

Militant Propagandists of the Labor Movement - MPLM

New South Wales - NSW

One Big Union - OBU

Political Labor Council – PLC

Social Democratic Party of – SDP

German Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) – SPD

Timber Worker - TW

Timber Workers’ Union – TWU

Victorian Railways Union - VRU

Victorian Socialist Party/Socialist Party of Victoria - VSP

Women’s Organising Committee - WOC

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Introduction

The national platform of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) declares:

The world that our party’s founders knew is long gone, and the nation they built has changed beyond their grandest imagining. Yet we revere our Labor history, and their legacy.1

The Labor Party’s political identity is reliant upon a belief in its historical mission. In a political system that has been largely organised Labor contra mundum, allegiance to party history is a shibboleth through which the true believers can be identified. Labor’s claims on history is a salve following defeat, a weapon in times of challenge, and a guiding light in periods of success.2

But just what is it that defines this historical mission? What lessons does the past have for the contemporary challenges Labor faces as a party of progressive reform? Federal Labor’s most recent period in government between 2007 and 2013 produced some significant legislation, and a broadly social democratic response to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008. Yet this period is associated most with internal crises, defined by the leadership battles between Prime Ministers and . The popular image is of leadership coups orchestrated by the ‘’ of the union movement,3 and the cutting down of Prime Ministers through leaking, ill-timed resignations, and targeted polling.4 After six years in power the purpose of modern Labor remained unclear.

Labor’s search for definition is shared by social-democratic/labour parties internationally, seeking to respond to twenty-first century challenges. The relevance of such parties in an era of globalisation, widespread economic crisis, unprecedented technological change, and continuing decay in the political system is unclear, and contested. Contemporary performance is judged, inevitably, against historical legacies. Have these parties strayed from their roots? Does allegiance to the past disarm parties of change in these new circumstances? What is the relationship between the parliamentary sections of these parties, and the extra-parliamentary organisation? How should these parties relate to broader social movements, such as organised labour?

This crisis of definition is the result of long-term tendencies under ‘neoliberalism,’ exacerbated in the short-term by the GFC. Neoliberal orthodoxy has challenged the role of the state in economic affairs, eroded the position of organised labour, facilitated the

1 Australian Labor Party, “National Platform”, accessed 19 September 2016. https://cdn.australianlabor.com.au/documents/ALP_National_Platform.pdf. 2 Stuart Macintyre, “Who Are The True Believers?,” Labour History, no. 68 (1995): 155-167. 3 Paul Howes, Confessions of a Faceless Man: Inside Campaign 2010 (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2010). 4 Sarah Ferguson, The Killing Season Uncut (Carlton: Melbourne University Publishing, 2016).

1 introduction of new labour-saving technologies, and vastly accelerated the processes of globalisation.5 The political institutions that underpinned the Western post-war settlement have been hollowed out and widely discredited, leaving political managers ‘ruling the void.’6 Social democratic/labour parties in the developed world, often considered complicit with neoliberalism, have been marked by declining memberships, shrivelling community roots, and uncertain relationships with organised labour movements, themselves often in decline.

The German Social Democratic Party (SPD), once the heartland of international social democracy, relies on coalition with its erstwhile antagonists in the conservative Christian Democratic Union to influence national government. Its governing record in the 1990s and 2000s has led to challenge from Die Linke, a party that charges the SPD with abandoning its progressive past.7 In Spain, the traditional social democratic party, the Partido Socialista Obero Español’s presence in the national parliament has been halved under challenge from the radical Podemos party, itself emerging from progressive social movements and anti- austerity protest.8 In Greece the Panhellenic Socialist Movement claims less than five per cent of the parliamentary representation it had at the onset of the GFC. The crisis spurred the growth of the radical SYRIZA coalition that has successfully claimed government.9

In these countries, traditional bodies of social democracy have been challenged by left-wing formations outside party ranks. For British Labour, often compared to the ALP, the challenge has come from within. Organised around Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, left-wing activists have formed a permanent campaigning body, ‘Momentum’, to ‘democratise’ the party, and win it to a left-wing course. Corbyn’s renewal of socialist rhetoric and ‘traditional’ Labour policies has spurred significant amongst the parliamentary party, and in the right-wing think tank ‘Progress.’ Corbyn’s ascent has precipitated a questioning of the party’s policies, but also its structure and purpose.10 Corbyn’s strong grass roots support, but staunch opposition from parliamentarians, has provoked a deep questioning of the party’s programme, purpose, and the relationship between protest and power. Is the party a social movement with its parliamentary wing responsible to the broader membership, or a party of government, necessitating the protection of

5 , Globalization and Labour in the Twenty-First Century (: Taylor and Francis, 2016). 6 Peter Mair, Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy (London: Verso, 2013). 7 Hilde Coffé and Rebecca Plassa, “Party policy position of Die Linke: A continuation of the PDS?,” Party Politics 16, no. 6 (2010): 722-4; Oliver Nachtwey, “Market Social Democracy: The Transformation of the SPD up to 2007,” German Politics 22, no. 3 (2013): 235-252. 8 Luis Ramiro and Raul Gomez, “Radical-Left Populism during the Great Recession: Podemos and Its Competition with the Established Radical Left,” Political Studies (2016): 1-19. 9 Paris Aslandis and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, “Dealing with populists in government: the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition in Greece,” Democratization 23, no. 6 (2016): 1077-1091. 10 Steve Richards, “Leadership, Loyalty and the Rise of Jeremy Corbyn,” Political Quarterly 87, no. 1 (2016): 12-17.

2 parliamentarians’ representative function?11 This crisis has erupted from within a party that until recently seemed to have a settled and moderate character after years of government, and a self-conscious repudiation of previous radical claims, such as ‘Clause IV’, Labour’s socialist objective.

My thesis is a historical investigation, but it is one that seeks to illuminate the contemporary challenges faced by these parties by identifying the processes that defined party life in one case study, Victorian Labor, between 1901 and 1921. By identifying the creative processes that constructed party life in this period of crisis, change, and transformation, not only can we better understand the political culture of social-democratic/labour parties historically, but also chart the changes within them that have led to their contemporary state of crisis. Analysis of political culture illuminates the processes of ideological creation and power distribution that have given these parties a distinctive shape and purpose. Without a historicised understanding of such defining processes it is impossible to fully grasp the contemporary state of these parties; nor the potential for fundamental transformative change contained within.

This historical period was one of social and political transformation in which social- democratic/labour parties pursued the common project identified by Geoff Eley as ‘forging democracy.’12 Eley charted the process through which workers’ parties were formed across Europe, carrying ‘the main burden of democratic advocacy.’13 These parties represented the project of democratic transformation through the structures of the state, seeking to reform not just the political realm, but also to ‘extend democratic precepts to society at large, including the organization of the economy.’14 Donald Sassoon has similarly demonstrated the broadly comparable project of European workers’ parties, and their essential ideological unification under the banner of .15 Stefano Bartolini has considered the nature of the class cleavage in European politics, noting that the labour/capital divide was ‘mostly responsible for the similarity of "party landscapes" across Europe.’ The general presence of a dominant party of political labour, often with a communist challenger, was one of the most notable features of European politics.16 Each of the parties was, of course, distinctive. Each was shaped by its own particular national culture, personalities, geographies and economies, and a vast array of other factors. But the commonalties identified by these scholars are notable.

11 Meg Russell, “Corbyn as an Organisational Phenomenon,” Political Quarterly 87, no. 1 (2016): 20-22. 12 Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 13 Ibid., 5. 14 Ibid., 22. 15 Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century (London: IB Tauris Publishers, 1996), xxi, 5-6. 16 Stefano Bartolini, The Political Mobilization of the European Left, 1860-1980: The Class Cleavage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 10-11.

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I have focused on Victorian Labor as a case study to provide detailed analysis of the processes that constructed the political culture of one of particular note to understand these organisations, and their internal party-lives. Bartolini noted that large- scale comparative history often relies upon generalisation and operates without in-depth knowledge of each unit of study.17 This is not a comparative study. I have sought to use a detailed reading of one organisation against the background of the literature on international social democracy to overcome this potential limitation, demonstrating these processes in detail while contributing to a broader discussion on political culture in parties of this type. In this, I have been inspired by pioneering works of social history that have used the study of a specific locale to re-read, and re-develop, understandings of subaltern and working-class life and mobilisation.18 As with other studies of local and regional socialist and labour organisations, this thesis relates these specific developments to broader trends.19

The Victorian Labor party was a state party branch within the ALP, a federal organisation. Until 1917 the Victorian party was known as the Political Labor Council (PLC). Australian Labor has great significance in the global history of political labour. It was the first workers’ party in the world to govern, albeit briefly, in 1899 in the colony of . In 1904 it was the first to govern at a national level. Subsequently, it was the first workers’ party to capture majority government in 1910. It held executive office during World War One. It became the object of great interest from labour intellectuals elsewhere; Labor could test in practice what others could only theorise. Labor forged democracy not just as a mass movement, but as a well-crafted political machine capable of capturing state power.

The Victorian party played a notable role in two defining events in Labor’s development: the entrenching of trade union control over the party in its split of 1916, and the adoption of a socialisation objective in 1921. This was due in large part to its particular constellation of political forces, which make the state party a fecund site of analysis of political culture. The PLC contained a substantial section of moderates that articulated a far-reaching vision of change and that sought to use the machinery of the state to ameliorate exploitation, rather than overthrow social relations. This section was underpinned by the influential Australian Workers Union (AWU), the largest union in . James Scullin, who came to fame as

17 Ibid., 2. 18 Examples abound, but for two representative examples that were influential in their challenge to dominant orthodoxies within the field see: Joan Wallach Scott, The Glassworkers of Carmaux: French Craftsmen and Political Action in a Nineteenth Century City (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974); Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rethinking Working-Class History: Bengal 1890-1940 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989). 19 Examples include the collections: David James, Tony Jowitt, and Keith Laybourn, The Centennial History of the Independent Labour Party: A Collection of Essays (Halifax: Ryburn Publishing, 1992); Matthew Worley (ed.), Labour’s Grass Roots: Essays on the Activities of Local Labour Parties and Members, 1918-1945 (Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2005); Michael Hogan, Local Labor: A History of the Labor Party in Glebe 1891-2003 (Leichhardt: Federation Press, 2004).

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Prime Minister in 1929, was an intellectual and powerbroker of the Victorian AWU who articulated this vision of change, and was a figure of influence in the episodes mentioned above. Scullin and these moderates engaged in a creative contestation with a powerful grouping of Labor Socialists who initiated the national campaign against conscription in 1916, and proposed the party adopt a socialisation objective, culminating in its acceptance in 1921. The most prominent intellectual-powerbroker of this section was John Curtin, later Prime Minister from 1941-1945. In addition, Victoria had a notable feminist political culture. Within Labor, women activists consistently challenged male narratives and mobilised to forge their own organisational entity within the movement, and asserted their demands to achieve economic independence. Through charting the operations of these sections and their relationship to one another in detail I demonstrate the creative processes at the party’s heart through which its political culture was forged, and the significant contribution Victorian Labor made to these defining events.

Labor’s history.

In chapter one I outline an analytical model to comprehend Labor’s political culture based on a survey of global literature on culture and political labour. I do so with an awareness of the strong tradition of scholarship on the ALP and its many contributions to understandings of the party. This scholarship is heavily politicised, with two broad camps: Labor critics and supporters.

A notable early example of the latter was Australia’s Awakening (1909), by William Guthrie Spence. Spence was no critic of Labor. In 1909 he was simultaneously a Federal MP for the party, and the long-term president of the AWU. His was a heroic story of Labor’s founding by the union movement after defeat in the great strikes of the 1890s.20 Unsurprisingly, he posited the AWU to be ‘the first to introduce the idea of applying Trades Union methods to secure political and social reform.’21 Produced before the Labor split of 1916, he depicts labour’s industrial and political wings as working harmoniously in common cause. But what cause? Spence’s tome concludes with a chapter-length discussion of ‘Labor’s Objective.’ According to Spence, this was the protection of racial purity (‘[t]rue patriotism should be racial’), enlightenment through education, and a happy home life.22 Labor was ‘socialistic’, just as most Australians were, ‘unconsciously so,’ but that socialism was ill-defined, and moral in nature. Labor’s real work was conducted by ‘practical men’ who ‘put forward such proposals as will improve conditions.’23

20 William Guthrie Spence, Australia’s Awakening: Thirty Years in the Life of an Australian Agitator (: The Worker, 1909), 75, 143. 21 Ibid., 52. 22 Ibid., 377-8. 23 Ibid., 378.

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After the First World War a school critiquing Labor-in-politics arose from within the movement. The foundational work of this school, the ‘Old Left’ as it would come to be known, was Vere Gordon Childe’s pioneering survey How Labour Governs (1923).24 Trained in history, and later to be a famed archaeologist, Childe was an advisor to (NSW) Labor Premier . His perspective was one organic to the movement, but critical of its centres of power, particularly its parliamentary party and the AWU.25 Drawing on his personal experiences, Childe influenced a little-commented upon but dominant trend within Labor historiography: conflating the experience of the NSW party with that of the nation as a whole.

In Childe’s account, similarly to Spence, Labor arose after defeat in the great strikes led the unions to create a parliamentary wing to further their interests.26 Childe noted the tendency for Labor parliamentarians to be drawn away from the movement that had sponsored them into power, once inside the ‘middle-class atmosphere of Parliament.’27 His account centred on the unique extra-parliamentary machine that developed as a means to control the parliamentary wing.28 This gave rise to Labor’s ‘novel view of democracy’ in which MPs were considered to be delegates of the movement, rather than constituency representatives.29 Through controls such as a pledge of principles all MPs had to sign, an enforced amongst the party caucus, and the supremacy of union-dominated conference over policy, industrial labour sought to govern its creation. Labor MPs, particularly those in government, bridled under such restrictions and acted to assert their autonomy as members elected by the people. Childe charted these tensions, culminating in the split of 1916, and the assertion of control by the ‘Industrialist’ coalition of AWU-led unions.30 His core concern was how the working class was ‘betrayed’ by its parliamentary leaders, and how the unions determined to prevent them from doing so.31

The terms of this betrayal are slightly less clear. Childe promised to deliver a companion piece in which he would analyse, and presumably critique, Labor’s ideological approach.32 This, unfortunately, did not come to fruition. But he did leave an analytical outline developed further by others: a radical (or potentially radical)33 working class misled and/or

24 Vere Gordon Childe, How Labour Governs: A Study of Workers' Representation in Australia (Parkville: Melbourne University Press, [Second Edition] 1964). 25 Ibid., 171-181. 26 Ibid., 12-3. 27 Ibid., 31. 28 Ibid., 30-4. 29 Ibid., 15-8. 30 Ibid., 44-70. 31 Ibid., 52. 32 Ibid., 21; Terry Irving, “On the Work of Labour Governments: Vere Gordon Childe’s Plans for Volume Two of How Labour Governs,” in Childe and Australia: Archaeology, Politics and Ideas, eds. TH Irving and Peter Gathercole (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1995), 82-94. 33 Irving has challenged the idea that Childe considered the working class to be ‘intrinsically socialist’: Irving, “On the Work of Labour Governments”, 92.

6 betrayed by cynical parliamentarians who had been exposed to the conservatising influence of parliament, and compromised to maintain electoral alliances with non-proletarian social forces.34

Brian Fitzpatrick’s famed Short History of the Australian Labour Movement further developed this critical school.35 While offering a relatively generous assessment of Labor’s legislative achievements, the party remained for Fitzpatrick a conservative influence on the working class.36 He identified a ‘cleavage’ from the party’s birth between ‘workers who were concerned with bettering their material conditions,’ and who ‘sometimes were concerned with socialism as a means to that end,’ with politicians, ‘who accepted a duty of responsibility for maintaining the capitalist state.’37 Russel Ward’s celebrated text, The Australian Legend, further consolidated this narrative through its exploration of a socialistic cultural ethos shared by men in the bush and outback.38 Labor was only mentioned in passing, with Ward’s focus on the creation of Australia’s ‘national mystique.’39 But his portrayal of the matey-socialistic (and white-masculinist) culture of the working class reinforced the idea that socialism was a test that Labor failed.

Robin Gollan’s Radical and Working Class Politics (1960) depicted Labor as manipulating its connection to the union movement to actively prevent the development of working-class industrial militancy.40 The socialist ideal bound together disparate forces into a singular Labor organisation, but it was something that the leadership of the party had no intention or interest in implementing.41 Rather, electoral exigencies led these MPs to ‘progressively’ push the ‘ultimate aims of the movement’, namely socialism, into the background, focusing instead on the immediate electoral programme.42

The last significant ‘Old Left’ contribution was Ian Turner’s Industrial Labour and Politics (1965). Turner provided an in-depth study of the structures of Labor, and considered the party as a contested ground between its parliamentary and extra-parliamentary wings. Labor MPs, Turner argued, responded to national, or ‘community’ concerns in a manner that ‘blurred’ the more ‘straightforward class approach.’43 Labor’s moderate nature was set

34 Childe, How Labour Governs, 20, 71-81. 35 Brian Fitzpatrick, Short History of the Australian Labor Movement (South Melbourne: MacMillan, [Third Edition] 1968). 36 Ibid., 150-1; though he could be equally damning, attributing perceived Labor achievements to its Liberal rivals: 157-164. 37 Ibid., 176. 38 Russel Ward, The Australian Legend (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, [Second Edition] 1965). 39 Ibid., 1, 158. 40 Robin, Gollan, Radical and Working Class Politics: A Study of Eastern Australia, 1850-1910 (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1960), 150. 41 Ibid., 171-2. 42 Ibid., 147. 43 Ian Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics: The Dynamics of the Labour Movement in Eastern Australia 1900-1921 (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, [Second Edition] 1979), 20.

7 by its inclusion of non-proletarian elements, the pressure to appeal to wider constituencies to win votes, and its belief in parliamentary reform.44 Parliamentarians bristled against structures that prevented them from operating as ‘free agent[s]’.45 This led to tensions that erupted during the war as ‘trade unionists challenged politicians for control of the movement.’46 Labor was not a party of socialist change, and for this it stood condemned.

Turner’s work built a compelling case that placed structural tensions within the movement at the heart of Labor’s development. This has been an important influence on my thesis, as is demonstrated throughout the study. But it was also representative of deficiencies within the ‘Old Left.’ As Turner later identified, the influence of Stalinist- on this grouping led to a pre-determined schema of class struggle that set Labor up to fail.47 The party was approached as a ‘thing,’ summoned inexorably by the processes of class development to perform a conservative function. Concepts of contingency and the creative contestation between various forces seeking to win Labor to their project for change were largely absent.

In the 1970s the ‘’ emerged amongst younger scholars. This school rejected what it considered to be the ‘unsatisfactory theory of class’ and radical of the Old Left, integrating ideological critiques of Labor with analysis of its location within the total class relations of Australian capitalism.48 Its main medium was articles and chapters, rather than monographs.49 Humphrey McQueen’s incendiary critique of the Old Left, A New Britannia (1970), is one of the few book-length contributions, albeit one organised as a series of loosely-linked chapters.50 Ostensibly following from Gramsci, McQueen declared that Labor could only be understood in the context of the ‘total environment’ from which it emerged.51

McQueen’s deeply polemical account disputed that the 1890s was a time of class conflict, contending that there was in fact no clear working class in Australia until a later, unspecified stage.52 He depicted social relations as being fundamentally harmonious between the capitalist class and a conservative craft union movement representing non-proletarian labouring people.53 This was the reason for Labor’s reactionary brand of politics, consisting of , nationalism and militarism. The party never was, and never could be, a party for

44 Ibid., 20-1. 45 Ibid., 22. 46 Ibid., 113. 47 Ibid., xxiv-xxv. 48 Stuart Macintyre, “The making of the Australian working class: An historiographical survey,” Historical Studies 18, no. 71 (1978): 233-5. 49 Ibid. 50 Humphrey McQueen, A New Britannia: An argument concerning the social origins of Australian radicalism and nationalism (Ringwood: Penguin, 1970). 51 Ibid., 221. 52 Macintyre, “The making of the Australian working class,” 238. 53 McQueen, A New Britannia, 203-216.

8 socialism, but rather, represented the interests of ’a peculiarly Australian petit- bourgeoisie.’54

The second major New Left monograph, RW Connell and Terry Irving’s Class Structure in Australian History (1980), bookended the decade.55 Both had contributed to the New Left debates, Connell as a political sociologist, and Irving as a historian. Strongly eschewing Old Left determinism and influenced by EP Thompson and Gramsci,56 Connell and Irving argued that class was relational, the product of the exigencies of history, created and shaped by active human intervention.57 Political labour in this telling was the result of working-class mobilisation, the active engagement of the class in the struggle for power in society.58 Key to its development, and to the process of working-class mobilisation, was the leadership provided by intellectuals of the class.59 These intellectuals were formed in organisations directly connected to Labor, such as the party itself, the union movement, socialist organisations, the labour press and so forth.60 Labor was the product of working-class mobilisation, but also an agent of integration into the norms of capitalism. Intellectuals of labour, integrated into the system through interaction with the state, played an important though contradictory role in articulating grievances while blunting class conflict.61

This conceptualisation was one of fluidity and reflexivity, calling for detailed historical analysis of the exact processes of class mobilisation. The benefits of this understanding were demonstrated in Irving’s contribution to Bruce O’Meagher’s collection on The Socialist Objective (1983). In this piece, Irving unpicked the essentialist assumptions that had come to dominate discussions of the party, and, in particular, its relationship to socialism. In its place, he suggested a means to find the real-life people coming together to form combating sections of the movement within Labor history, including those who believed socialist transformation was possible.62 Irving sought to refute historical accounts that relied on essentialist assumptions, ossifying party development. This included the histories of the Old Left, but also the right-wing interpretations that had gained prominence since the mid- 1950s. This school considered Labor to be an innately moderate body and diminished the significance of socialism in its development.

54 Ibid., 236. 55 RW Connell and TH Irving, Class Structure in Australian History: Documents, Narrative and Argument (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1980). 56 Ibid., 9-10, 22-4. 57 Ibid., 1-2. 58 Ibid., 195-6. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid., 196-8. 61 Ibid., 198. 62 Terry Irving, “Socialism, working-class mobilisation and the origins of the Labor Party,” in The Socialist Objective: Labor & Socialism, ed. Bruce O’Meagher (Marrickville: Hale & Iremonger, 1983), 32- 43.

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An early example of this was LF ‘Fin’ Crisp’s study of Labor’s structures, The Australian Federal Labour Party: 1901-1950 (1955).63 Crisp was a political scientist who had been involved with the federal Department of Post-War Reconstruction during the Second World War. In his account Labor was ‘thoroughly constitutional and parliamentary in its approach to its aims.’64 These aims were the ‘essentially nationalisation of basic industries and utilities, and of two or three notorious monopolies,’ a project that was ‘little wide of the mainstream of Australian governmental tradition.’ This was a tradition born in the colonial era, where state intervention in the economy was normalised. Socialism featured in his account, but was extraneous to its primary development.65 DW Rawson’s survey from 1966 similarly went to pains to dispel the socialist chimera from party legend.66 DJ Murphy continued this analysis with his edited survey of state parties across the Federation, Labor in Politics. This collection was organised around the belief that Labor should be judged on its record of moderate reform, and ability to implement such change through achieving government.67 These parties, Murphy argued, did not seek socialism, but rather a ‘revolution in the social values of the colonies.’68

The most influential work in this tradition was Bede Nairn's history of Labor's foundation in New South Wales, Civilising Capitalism (1973).69 For Nairn, Labor was representative of the society from which it emerged, one in which social quietude had been only briefly disturbed by the strikes of the 1890s. Within this society, labour’s disposition was moderate, and the movement was content to improve its condition through parliamentary means rather than radical transformation.70 Socialism, in Nairn’s account, was ‘alienated’ from the temperament of the workers’ movement.71

He acknowledged the involvement of socialists in the party’s foundation, but their alienation from mainstream labour soon saw their exodus in the late 1890s.72 This was quite natural, in this telling, as they held little ‘faith in the working class as the basis of a radical mass party.’73 Nairn’s book was originally subtitled: The Labor Movement in New South Wales,

63 LF Crisp, The Australian Federal Labour Party: 1901-1950 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1955). 64 Ibid., 3. 65 Ibid., 275. 66 DW Rawson, Labor in Vain?: A Survey of the Australian Labor Party (Croydon: Longmans, 1966), 10, 61-76. 67 McQueen provided a noticeably muted chapter on the Victorian party: Humphrey McQueen, “Victoria,” in Labor in Politics: the state Labor parties in Australia 1880-1920, ed. DJ Murphy (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1975), 293-339. 68 DJ Murphy, “Introduction,” in Labor in Politics: the state Labor parties in Australia 1880-1920, ed. DJ Murphy (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1975), 5. 69 Bede Nairn, Civilising Capitalism: The Labor Movement in New South Wales 1870 -1900 (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1973). 70 Ibid., 6, 171. 71 Ibid., 166. 72 Ibid., 166-175. 73 Ibid., 160, 166-7.

10

1870-1900. At its reissue in 1989, however, this had changed to: The Beginnings of the Australian Labor Party. This was representative of an increasing focus on NSW as a signifier for Labor nationally.74 The overt dominance of NSW powerbrokers in the Federal Labor governments of Robert Hawke and (1983-1996), and debates over their relationship to Labor tradition, influenced this shift.75

This debate spurred two revisionist accounts that sought to demonstrate the relevance of socialism to Labor’s creation, while critiquing the party. The first of these was Verity Burgmann’s ‘In Our Time’ (1985), a study of socialism and Labor that objected to the narratives offered by Nairn and McQueen.76 Burgmann argued that both perspectives found common cause in denying socialism as a critical factor in Labor’s foundation.77 Crucially, aligning with Irving, she argued that socialism was as integral to Labor’s development as the contributions of the ‘MPs and their supporters in the AWU machine’ that ultimately ‘purge[d]’ radicals from the party. The defeat of socialists in Labor was the result of real-life historical factors, rather than an innate moderation embedded in the working class.78 Burgmann’s period of study was between 1885 and 1905, and her focus overwhelmingly on NSW, meaning the sustained period of socialist agitation after this point, and the contribution of Victorian Labor Socialists in particular, is not engaged with.79 For Burgmann, Labor’s character was fundamentally set by Federation – an argument this thesis will disprove.

Raymond Markey also repudiated the writing out of socialism in his history of the foundation of NSW Labor.80 He was, however, notably unimpressed with the socialists, who, in his telling, were middle-class intellectuals in alliance with the ‘Laborist’ leaders of the AWU. Together, he alleged, they squeezed genuine industrial politics – represented by the urban unions – out of the early party. This set in train a moderate project based on a ‘populist’ social base.81 His summation that the ‘nature of the ALP was largely determined in New South Wales in the 1890s’ is overly parochial, neglecting substantial periods of cultural creation in the century to come.82

The centenary of Labor’s foundation in 1991 was a period of commemoration, and celebration of the party’s achievements. In that year Graham Freudenberg, Labor Prime Minister ’s former speechwriter, produced an official history of the NSW

74 Macintyre, “Who Are The True Believers?,” 162. 75 Nick Dyrenfurth, “Labour and Politics,” Labour History, no. 100 (2011), 116-7. 76 Verity Burgmann, ‘In Our Time’: Socialism and the Rise of Labor, 1885-1905 (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1985), 15-18. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid., 3, 70. 79 Ibid., 35-104. 80 Raymond Markey, The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales 1880-1900 (Kensington: NSWU Press, 1988). 81 Ibid., 197-9. 82 Ibid., 2.

11 party.83 Closely following Nairn’s line of argument, and emphasising the actions of its parliamentary performers, the title of the piece revealed its emphasis: Cause for Power.84 Ross McMullin’s national history, , provided a more balanced study. As an official history the exploits of Labor’s famous personalities were its sine qua non, largely to the exclusion of the ‘labour movement as a whole.’ This served to reinforce the narrative that moderate reformers, rather than radicals, represented Labor’s true tradition.85

Once the commemorative wave receded, Frank Bongiorno addressed the lacuna of Victoria in Labor history in his The People’s Party (1996). Influenced by the linguistic turn in British social history, Bongiorno analysed Labor discourse, demonstrating the influence of radical populism and liberalism on the party, challenging the privileged place of class in understanding its outlook.86 In a study of complexity and insight, Bongiorno argued that Labor was not a settled ‘thing’, but rather a ‘process’ under constant construction, influenced by, and drawing upon, a range of ideas and rhetorics from these previous political traditions.87 Though less partisan in his approach, Bongiorno’s challenge to a class analysis of Labor, and incorporation of previous liberal traditions of reform into its narrative, indicates sympathy with the more congratulatory school of party history.

Nick Dyrenfurth also turned to discursive analysis in his Heroes & Villains (2011). In a work discussed in detail in chapter one, he considered the contribution of ‘creative intellectuals’ in forging Labor’s ‘cultural politics.’88 Dyrenfurth, who also worked as a political advisor to Labor leader , returned to a more overtly polemical mode. His somewhat sententious critique of socialists indicated a desire to strip bare party mythology through a unique analytical gaze. The ultimate result was a recapitulation of Nairn’s contention, that ‘Labor had civilised capitalism in the interests of working people.’89

The focus on moderate reform as the defining tradition of Labor was maintained in Paul Strangio’s authoritative account of Victorian Labor, Neither Power Nor Glory (2012). Strangio investigated why the state party lagged so far behind its counterparts in establishing a tradition of successful government. In detail, he demonstrated how a gerrymandered political system attenuated the potential moderating influence of executive power, enervating the capacity of the state parliamentary party to act as a counterweight to the

83 Graham Freudenberg, Cause For Power: The Official History of the New South Wales Branch of the Labor Party (Haymarket: Pluto Press, 1991). 84 For the debt to Nairn: Ibid., 4. 85 Ross McMullin, The Light on the Hill: The Australian Labor Party 1891-1991 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), ix. 86 Frank Bongiorno, The People’s Party: Victorian Labor and the Radical Tradition, 1875-1914 (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1996), 188-209. 87 Ibid., 9. 88 Nick Dyrenfurth, Heroes & Villains: The Rise and Fall of the Early Australian Labor Party (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011), 3. 89 Ibid., 234.

12 movement’s radicals. This gave rise to a distinctive left-wing culture in the state.90 It was only once it had ‘sloughed off its past,’ that Victorian Labor could become ‘a party of government.’91 The specifics of the argument made by Strangio are returned to in depth throughout this thesis.

Just as the political divide in Labor has been a creative force, so too has the disjunction between these historical schools. In this thesis, I seek to integrate insights from each, whilst distancing myself from the more partisan of their pronouncements. Labor’s tradition was one of both reform and radicalism. Operating within the party were moderates and socialists, and it was the interaction of each, rather than the absence of either, that shaped its political culture. I intend to follow Irving and Burgmann in repudiating the notion that Labor travelled a pre-determined path. I seek to extend Bongiorno’s important insight that Labor was never a ’thing’, but instead, the product of a series of processes. Throughout this thesis I illustrate that the course of these processes that defined the party’s political culture was set by the crises of the period, and the political intervention of the real-life individuals that carried Labor’s banner, and lived for and within the party at this time.

Scope and outline

The theoretical ambitions of the thesis are outlined in depth in chapter one. There, I develop an analytical model to comprehend Labor’s political culture, and suggest its broader applications. This model seeks to delineate and identify a series of processes that operated simultaneously within the party, through which its political culture was formed. Taking from Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, I argue that Labor can best be understood as the political expression of a proletarian public sphere. Within this sphere a moderate leadership operated, seeking to transform Australia, but within the bounds of existing class relations. I have classified this section as Labor Democrats, a term justified in the chapter. This leadership was engaged in a creative contestation with two subaltern counterpublics, a concept taken from Nancy Fraser. These were the counterpublics of socialists, and Labor women, both of which sought to win the party to their objectives. I demonstrate the significant sites of this contestation, focusing particularly on the importance of Labor conferences. I identify the key agents of the creative conflict as being movement intellectuals, demonstrating how figures such as Scullin and Curtin crafted knowledge, and used their position in the movement to implement this knowledge as policy. Finally, I indicate the global dimensions of Labor, and the necessity of understanding the transnational forces that shaped it. The methodology of this approach, and how it has

90 Paul Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory: 100 Years of Political Labor in Victoria, 1856-1956 (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2012), 78-9, 95-6, 108. 91 Ibid., ix.

13 allowed me to analyse sources in a unique manner in this thesis, is explained throughout this chapter.

From the second chapter onwards I develop the narrative of these years. This begins with the arrival of the British socialist in Australia. I chart the development of an independent Labor identity in Victoria at this time, and the growing tensions between moderates and socialists. I indicate how this led to the development of the socialist counterpublic, in the form of the Victorian Socialist Party (VSP). I consider the VSP’s growth and impact on the Victorian labour movement.

Chapter three details James Scullin’s rise to prominence as a leading intellectual of the Labor Democrats. It demonstrates the AWU’s growing influence over the party in the pre-war period. It goes on to explain how Labor women activists constructed a counterpublic of their own to prosecute their demands within the movement, and the resistance they encountered from male labour leaders. The chapter concludes by introducing John Curtin as a socialist intellectual and leader of the subaltern counterpublic as it transformed in this period, and indicating his key role in the debates over militarism and war.

Chapter four shows how Labor Democrats and Socialists responded to the war, and the manner in which each section was motivated by their pre-war concerns, and contested the meaning of the conflict for Australian Labor. They shared a concern that the working class would disproportionately suffer the conflict’s burdens. While articulating different strategies to respond to declining living standards, each was increasingly alienated from the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, which was believed to be acting against the interests of labour. The chapter then analyses the two counterpublics. It demonstrates how women activists responded to wartime conditions through engaging in activism intended to reconstruct an institutional presence in the movement. It considers how socialists that had previously been involved in the VSP formed a new, more informal, counterpublic within labour’s most powerful institutions.

Chapter five explores the defining events of 1916: the battle over conscription and Labor’s split. It reveals a hidden history of Victorian labour’s actions to initiate the national union campaign against conscription, and how its socialist left was responsible for this genesis. It then demonstrates the creative contest between Labor Democrats and socialists over the direction of the campaign, and how women activists contributed to the anti-compulsion movement, and established the basis for their own permanent organisation. The chapter argues that in the split of 1916 these sections were united in ousting what they considered to be a treacherous parliamentary leadership, the first of two defining episodes in which the party’s culture was recrafted.

Chapter six details the contest over Labor’s purpose from 1918 to 1921. Considering the radicalisation of this time, it analyses the Victorian debate over the One Big Union (OBU) scheme, and demonstrates how women activists utilised their success in the conscription

14 campaigns to develop their own representative bodies within the labour movement. It then considers in detail the debate over socialisation in 1921, and the influence of Victoria in this period. It argues that through accepting this motion, and adopting a particular interpretation of it, Labor set its ideological boundaries in a significant act of cultural creation.

Through this narrative I have two aims. I intend to outline Victorian Labor’s significant contribution to the defining events of these years, and to elucidate an analytical means to comprehend its political culture, and the processes that constructed its party life in action. In so doing I seek to contribute to the specific history of Australian Labor, and to the broader conversation about the dynamics of social-democracy/labour parties.

15

Chapter One: Labor’s political culture, theoretical approaches and methodologies

Throughout its existence the Australian Labor Party has been a site of contest, change, and creativity. Its history is one of transformation as well as continuity. Beneath its most visible representations – parliamentary leaders and factional warlords – the party has been sustained by a sprawling, messy, and contradictory machinery, deeply embedded in working-class communities. In this chapter I outline a unique analytical model to comprehend the political culture that has defined Labor’s internal life.

The processes that defined Labor operated also in social-democratic/labour parties elsewhere, such as the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and British Labour. Though each was marked by contextual specificities, unique personalities, and distinctive organisational quirks, processes contributory to the political cultures of each are broadly concomitant with those in other parties of political labour. The model I have developed to comprehend Labor, I suggest, is also of utility in understanding the political cultures of similar parties. These parties were self-consciously connected through the transnational network of labour, pursuing a similar project within their differing contexts: working class transformation of capitalist society through the state machinery. Within this transnational network, Australian Labor’s experience as the first workers’ party exposed to the pressures of government, grants it particular significance in developing an analytical model of political labour’s political culture.

Political labour and culture

This analytical model focuses on the complex array of factors that developed and sustained Labor’s political culture: the culture of the party itself, rather than its broader contribution to the working-class cultural realm. There is a rich literature on the contribution of social democracy to working-class culture. For all the many strengths of Labor’s historiography, its discussion of the relationship between culture, class, and political organisation is relatively underdeveloped when compared to the theoretical traditions concerning socialism and social democracy in Europe and the United States.1

1 Important examples include: Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism; Donald Sassoon, The Culture of the Europeans: From 1800 to the Present (London: HarperCollins, 2006), 607-615; Stefan Berger, Social Democracy and the Working Class in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany (Harlow: Pearson

16

The symbolic origins of the study of labour culture lie with the publication of EP Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class, in 1963.2 Thompson's pronouncement that the working class was ‘present at its own making’ initiated a rich debate concerning class culture, consciousness, agency, experience, and the relationship of these concepts to societal structures and institutions.3 In the debates that followed the definition of ‘culture’ remained elusive.4

The definitional quandary that arose was how to delineate between class ‘culture’ and other concepts often conflated with it such as consciousness, ideology, and tradition.5 Richard Johnson, cultural theorist, and significant contributor to these debates, provided an important definition of culture in a class context. He argued that it could best be understood as the common sense way of living actively adopted and adapted from the ideological realm to create accepted ‘principles of life.’6 The acceptance of such principles creates ‘attitudes and beliefs’ through which ‘ideological work or aspect[s] of hegemony’ are interpreted and translated.7 Culture is, in this telling, the ground preconditioned by this tradition of translation that ideology acts upon, a composite of these components in which the working class does not simply accept ideology from the bourgeois realm, but actively interprets it.8 This approach is not reductive, conflating culture with either ideology or consciousness. Instead it links both to the processes of cultural production.9 In Johnson’s definition, material structures are integral to the development of working-class culture, but this culture is not a passive product wholly formed by these structures, and uncritically accepted. Culture is, instead, the range of ideas and conceptions through which the class interprets its place in society, at once the product of material realities and the active process of translation. Through this relationship the working class instils its experiences with meaning.

Education, 2000); Guenther Roth, The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany: A Study in Working-Class Isolation and National Integration (Totowa: The Bedminster Press, 1963); Vernon L Lidtke, The Alternative Culture: Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); Bartolini, The Political Mobilization of the European Left; Kevin J Callahan, Demonstration Culture: European Socialism and the Second International, 1889-1914 (Kibworht: Troubador Publishing, 2010). 2 EP Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1964). 3 Ibid., 9; several contributions in the Histories of Labour collection provide valuable historiographical summations of the influence of such work in differing national contexts: Alan Campbell and John McIlroy, “Britain: The Twentieth Century,” 115-121; Elizabeth Faue, “The United States of America,” 170-5; Greg Patmore, “Australia,” 240-4; Rana P Behal, Chitra Joshi and Prabhu P Mohapatra, “India,” 296-301, in Histories of Labour: National and International Perspectives, eds. Joan Allen, Alan Campbell and John McIlroy (Pontypool: Merlin Press, 2010). 4 Richard Johnson, “Culture and the Historians,” 48-67, and “Three Problematics: elements of a theory of working-class culture,” 214-224, in Working-Class Culture:Studies in history and theory, eds. John Clarke, Chas Critcher and Richard Johnson (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1979); Grant Michelson, “Labour History and Culture: An Overview,” Labour History, no. 79 (2000), 4-7. 5 Michelson, “Labour History and Culture”, 4. 6 Johnson, “Three problematics”, 234. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., 201-3.

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This avoids the trap recognised by Thompson and Raymond Williams, who warned against cultural understandings that confine working-class agency within the bounds of impersonal and immovable social forces and institutions.10 Cultural practices and productions, Williams noted, ‘are not simply derived from an otherwise constituted social order but are themselves major elements in its constitution.’11 That is, culture is not merely a product of the class cleavage, but a vital means through which agency is cohered and mobilised to shape social relations. But equally, while the working class can exert agency through acts of negotiation, translation, and meaning construction, these processes occur within a context of social relations and power that conditions their transformative potential.12 The ability of the working class to engage in acts of cultural translation and creation is significant, but not boundless, limited by established social relations, and the mediations of these relations through the dominant culture. These restraints are significant factors in the shaping of working-class experience that discursive analyses that neglect such material realities have been liable to ignore.13

Political labour parties are integral actors in these processes of cultural creation. They have functioned as sites of cultural formation by providing arenas for debate and discussion through which the working class has consolidated its political identity. For many workers, supporting Labor has been an affirmation of political and social identity. Labor has also developed an internal political culture, through which the party formulated its sense of meaning and purpose, and has interpreted its place within Australian society. While the political culture of Labor and the broader culture of the working class should not be conflated, the party can be considered to have played an indispensable role in the creation and perpetuation of working-class culture.14

This cultural function has been debated within the historiography of European political labour – most significantly in regards to the German Social Democratic Party.15 These

10 Though with different emphases: Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, 189-195; EP Thompson, "Marxism and History," in The Essential E. P. Thompson, ed. Dorothy Thompson (New York: The New Press, 2001), 466-471; Raymond Williams, The Sociology of Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 12-3. 11 Williams, The Sociology of Culture, 13. 12 Ibid., 30. 13 Christopher Johnson, “Lifeworld, System, and Communicative Action: The Habermasian Alternative in Social History,” in Rethinking Labor History, ed. Lenard Berlanstein (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 65. 14 See the discussion of Nick Dyrenfurth’s work below. Berger made this point in reference to the SPD: Social Democracy and the Working Class in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany, 76. 15 Roth, The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany; Gerhard A Ritter, "Workers' Culture in Imperial Germany: Problems and Points of Departure for Research," Journal of Contemporary History 13, no. 2 (1978): 165-189; Lidtke, The Alternative Culture; Geoff Eley, "Intellectuals and the German Labor Movement," in Intellectuals and Public Life: Between Radicalism and Reform, eds. Stephen Leonard, Leon Fink, Donald Reid (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 74-96; Berger, Social Democracy and the Working Class in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany, 76-9; Mary Nolan, Social Democracy and

18 studies discuss in great depth the cultural arenas in which the party was active, providing detailed analyses of the various organisations, institutes, groups, clubs and societies with a social democratic connection operating in the cultural realm. They have demonstrated the important contribution these activities made to the cultural life of the labour movement through education, artistic creation, physical activity, and other means of development and expression otherwise largely denied to workers.

The most significant debate within this work concerns the political implications of these cultural activities: whether they operated to create an autonomous proletarian sphere, or integrated the class into bourgeois social norms. Donald Sassoon, for instance, strongly contended in his magisterial The Culture of the Europeans that the SPD’s operations in this realm functioned as ‘an instrument of the embourgeoisement of labour.’16 Despite its intentions to develop an ‘autonomous workers’ culture,’ the party’s activities did not, he argued, originate in a strictly defined and self-contained proletarian sphere.17 Rather, they derived from the dominant mores and tastes of the time, leading to a form of aspirational cultural consumption through which workers aimed to rise above their crude station. Social democracy’s cultural activities were, ultimately, integrative rather than contentious. Geoff Eley prosecuted a similar argument. The party’s intention, for Eley, was to ‘bring its working-class supporters “up” to the level of the educated middle class,’ a goal that ‘stymied’ its ability to offer a ‘counterhegemonic alternative.’18 In this view, the party encouraged a form of cultural aspirationalism, emulating rather than opposing societal norms.

Guenther Roth has argued to the contrary in his widely influential study The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany. To Roth, the SPD constructed a ‘large isolated subculture.’19 While conceding that this subculture was ultimately not able to supersede the powerful cultural constructions of the bourgeois order,20 he argued that it offered a distinct and different way of life to German workers to that provided by the Imperial regime.21 Vernon Lidtke similarly argued that the SPD’s construction of a cultural sphere starkly differentiated it from that of the German Reich. While this sphere was not typified by the radical opposition demanded by social democracy’s revolutionary detractors, when taken on its own terms, it was a powerful countersphere that existed in some antagonism to the established order, ‘creating a world of its own within the larger context of Imperial German

Society: Working-class radicalism in Düssledorf, 1890-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); HJ Schulz, German Socialist Literature 1869-1914: Predicaments of Criticism (Columbia: Camden House, 1993); Gary P Steenson, “Not One Man! Not One Penny!”: German Social Democracy, 1863 – 1914 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981), 142-153. 16 Sassoon, The Culture of the Europeans, 610. 17 Ibid. 609. 18 Eley, "Intellectuals and the German Labor Movement", 82. 19 Roth, The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany, 9-10. 20 Ibid., 211. 21 Ibid., 159.

19 society.’22 Lidtke made the important observation, shared later by Bongiorno and in this thesis, that social democracy should be considered as a ‘process’ as ‘it would be enormously misleading to imply that the world of the Social Democratic labor movement was a fixed entity or that it ever reached a static stage.’23

As Stefan Berger noted, social democratic culture developed in the context of established class relations and was inevitably impacted by them, and as a result operated in a seemingly contradictory manner.24 The SPD did not act as a passive conduit of a bourgeois cultural ethos directly from the dominant public sphere to the labour movement. Rather, it operated as a site of negotiation and translation, where these dominant ideas were recrafted, and infused with a ‘very different meaning in the socio-cultural milieu of the German labour movement.’25

Working-class culture did not constitute a distinct or autonomous sphere, separated from the cultural influences of bourgeois society, and its development often involved the politicisation and proletarianisation of already existing cultural forms and realities.26 This involved active re-interpretation of cultural messages to reflect aspects of working-class experience. Eric Hobsbawm noted the tendency for people who ‘live surrounded by a vast accumulation of past devices’ to ‘pick the most suitable of these, and to adapt them for their own (and novel) purposes.’27 Leon Fink similarly described how social movements in a state of contest with ‘hegemonic orders’ often ‘turn out to be tinkers’ seeking to recraft concepts and values inherited from the bourgeois sphere rather than to overhaul them completely.28 Working against the implicit assumptions in some of the literature that any coalescence with the bourgeois realm is indicative of a dilution of proletarian identity and power, Fink argued that the ‘engagement and even partial assimilation of the dominant culture by an opposition movement might be a sign of political strength rather than weakness.’29 A movement confident of its aims can utilise such methods to reinterpret knowledge to project its own meaning. Working-class audiences actively interpreted cultural material deriving from outside the movement, rather than passively imbibing its content. Historically this led to the recasting of certain cultural tropes and symbols, and their utilisation in spreading the movement's message.

22 Lidtke, The Alternative Culture, 4-9. 23 Ibid., 9. 24 Berger, Social Democracy and the Working Class in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany, 77-9. 25 Ibid., 79. 26 A process suggested by Leon Fink in the nineteenth century United States, as the Knights of Labor actively ‘contested the implications of the most basic American assumptions.’ Leon Fink, In Search of the Working Class: Essays in American Labor History and Political Culture (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 96. 27 EJ Hobsbawm, Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, [Third Edition] 1972), 371. 28 Fink, In Search of the Working Class, 104-5. 29 Ibid., 102.

20

Australian Labor’s cultural apparatuses were not of the size or influence of the SPD’s, reflected in the smaller dedicated literature on this theme. The most notable study of Labor’s contribution to the cultural creation of the Australian working class is Nick Dyrenfurth’s monograph, Heroes & Villains.30 His focus is on the ‘language and iconography’ developed by ‘creative intellectuals’ within the party, as they forged a distinctive Labor identity.31 Dyrenfurth identified an important aspect of party culture that indeed merits investigation. His methodological approach is, however, problematic, granting overwhelming creative power to certain intellectuals in generating Labor's distinctive discourse.32 While providing no exact definition of ‘creative intellectuals,’ in practice it is clear that he is referring to parliamentary leaders and the press propagandists.33 For Dyrenfurth, cultural creation was a one-sided interaction, where the structures of the party were derived from a cultural ethos developed by the creative intellectuals.34 The place of workers at the grassroots in forging this culture is unclear, but they were ascribed with minimal agency. It appears that the role of the working-class individual was to read, and uncritically at that.35

Dyrenfurth argued that ‘the sustained propagandist efforts of the labour movement press’ alongside ‘Labor’s emergence … explains the nature of the more homogenous working class that took shape during the 1890s.‘36 In reference to Thompson, he stated that ‘the Australian working class was present at its own making but it was made, in large part, by Labor and its unionist boosters.’37 He does claim a structural alibi. He explains that this ‘making would not have been possible without large-scale economic dislocation.’ But the schema seems clear: dislocation provided the opportunity, but it was those who stomped the stump and wrote the articles in labour newspapers that played the fundamentally creative role, forging the class and its organisations. This culture, he explains, formed by ‘its leading propagandists and fledgling politicians … found expression in the party’s novel, union- accented organisation inside and outside of parliament.’38 This takes a legitimate point − that labour movement culture was crucial to the processes through which a self-conscious Australian working-class emerged − to an illogical extreme. It stipulates that these certain intellectuals summoned the class into being, with little understanding of other sites and forms of cultural creation, and the complexities of their interactions with material forces.

30 Dyrenfurth, Heroes & Villains. 31 Ibid., 3, 69. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., 57. 35 For a discussion of working class reading practices that indicate this would not be the case see: Sean Scalmer, “A Model of Reading Practice in the Australian Labour Movement During the First Half of the 20th Century,” in Labour & Community: Proceedings of the Sixth National Conference of the ASSLH, eds. Robert Hood and Ray Markey (Wollongong: The Australian Society for the Study of Labour History Illaware Branch, 1999), 158-163. 36 Dyrenfurth, Heroes & Villains, 54. 37 Ibid., 54. 38 Ibid., 57.

21

Dyrenfurth’s presentation of cultural politics also provides a shallow conception of Labor and how it operated, neglecting the vital actions of the powerbrokers and activists beneath the surface, and the significance of movement structures in conditioning this culture. Undoubtedly the ideology of political representation formed by this cultural understanding was integral to the process of constituting a unique Labor identity and political structure. But this culture was itself formed by the practices brought to the party by the trade union movement, organisations formed as a result of the class relations of capitalist society in the late nineteenth century. The ethos of collectivism and solidarity forged through union involvement in industrial strife was the result of the practices developed on the shop floor and in the shearing sheds, not just in the editorial offices of the labour press. While Labor culture was a powerful ideological generator that helped shape the structures of the movement, these structural power blocs were in turn integral in crafting that culture. Understanding Labor’s political culture requires an appreciation of this subtle dialectic between the material-structural and the ideological-cultural; something the analytical model I propose provides.

A postscript is necessary to this historiographical assessment. The spectre invoked by this discussion of culture is that of the ‘linguistic turn;’ the famed destabilising of central organising categories of social and labour history that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s.39 Focused particularly amongst British social historians this interpretive school sought to use discursive analysis to break down schemas of class mobilisation, insisting on the existence of non-proletarian ideologies and emphasising the role of populist and non-class based organisational categories. This turn was not as overpowering in Australia as elsewhere, despite some brief advocacy for a move away from the structural to embrace purely the linguistic, Australian labour historians emphasised integrating the discursive with the material/structural.40 Subsequent to the ‘turn,’ scholars such as Geoff Eley and Keith Nield, Marc Steinberg, and Sean Scalmer, amongst others, have made a convincing case for integrating approaches rather than drawing strict dividing lines between the material- structural and ideological-cultural.41

39 Geoff Eley and Keith Nield, The Future of Class in History: What's Left of the Social? (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), 8-9, 44; Lenard Berlanstein, "Introduction," in Rethinking Labor History, ed. Lenard Berlanstein (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 3-6; Geoffrey Field, Michael Hanagan, "ILWCH: Forty Years On," International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 82, (2012): 8; Neville Kirk, "Taking Stock: Labor History during the Past Fifty Years," International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 82 (2012): 157. 40 Ann Curthoys, “Labour History and Cultural Studies”, Labour History, no. 67 (1994): 12-22; Sean Scalmer, “Experience and Discourse: A Map of Recent Theoretical Approaches to Labour and Social History,” Labour History, no. 70 (1996): 156-168. 41 Though, of course, with different emphases: Eley and Nield, The Future of Class in History, 178-201; Scalmer, “Experience and Discourse”, 156-168; Marc W Steinberg, Fighting Words: Working-Class Formation, Collective Action, and Discourse in Early Nineteenth-Century (Ithaca: Cornell

22

The intensity of these debates has receded in the twenty-first century. It is, I would suggest, the purview of new scholars to take a step back and wonder what all the fuss was about. Whatever the intellectual battle lines of the past, these insights can, I would suggest, be usefully integrated, the material and the discursive/ideological understood in relationship to one another, deepening the understanding of each. The utility of the model I propose for comprehending the broad spectrum of culture is inclusive, rather than restrictive, in this manner. Eley and Nield suggested that, if it was not possible to reach a synthesis between the emphases of social and cultural history, the possibility did at least exist for a ‘productive and continuing conversation.’42 In developing this model, I seek to contribute to these discussions.

The Proletarian Public Sphere and the Labor Democrats

The analytical model proposed here recognises Labor as the dominant political expression of the labour movement. The product of capitalist class relations, labour as a movement composed its own public that was simultaneously in a relationship of connection and antagonism to the broader public sphere. Internally, the movement was composed of sections that competed for its leadership, engaging as they did so in a creative contestation. To theorise this relationship I have integrated two critiques of Jürgen Habermas’ concept of the bourgeois public sphere. In this section I demonstrate the utility of Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge’s work on the ‘proletarian public sphere’ in analysing the labour public and its moderate leadership.

Habermas sought to chart the origins and growth the bourgeois public sphere; the distinct sites of information, debate, and exchange that existed between the established state and the developing market for commodity production from the eighteenth century onwards. In this sphere ‘private’ persons conglomerated as a public to engage the authorities ‘in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor.’43 This sphere was sustained in the coffee houses of commercial Britain and the pseudo-aristocratic salons of France, as a world of journalism and letters gradually came to perform a political function by expressing the perspective of these actors between the market and the state.44 Habermas provided a pioneering basis for the investigation of these realms of knowledge production and dissemination, but one that is not suitable, as he himself recognised, for other identities and social groups, such as that of the working class.

University Press, 1999); for an earlier contribution in this vein: Johnson, "Lifeworld, System, and Communicative Action”, 55-89. 42 Eley and Nield, The Future of Class in History, 12. 43 Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989), 27. 44 Ibid., 52-7, 73-4.

23

In their critique of Habermas, Negt and Kluge provided a means to understand the labour movement as specific forms of workers’ public: the proletarian public sphere. This sphere is given shape, in part, by its position within capitalist relations.45 It operates as a realm of identity and meaning construction, the ‘autonomous, collective organization of the experience specific to workers.’46 The proletarian sphere is conceived as operating on a series of different levels, with those Negt and Kluge consider to be its ‘more sophisticated and comprehensive forms’ exhibiting an overtly revolutionary consciousness.47 This expression of the sphere has the potential to be realised in times of fissure and systemic crisis.48 Negt and Kluge identify another section within the sphere, termed the ‘historically delimited form of a proletarian public sphere’ which mediates elements of capitalist logic deriving from the bourgeois public sphere.49 This they consider to act as a block on the full development of the sphere’s revolutionary potential, and they make particular reference to ‘typical forms of workers’ parties’ in fulfilling this role.50

Theirs is a highly critical understanding of the function of such parties, practically expressed in their lashing of the Second International.51 When stripped of these value judgements their work provides a useful frame to consider these parties as arising from the network of sites through which labour identity was developed and its experience institutionalised. These parties then acted as its primary political expression. Usually, before the communist challenge from 1917 onwards, they would be the only political vehicle for the movement to pursue its aims. Within the movement, both the parliamentary wing and amongst the unions, leaderships evincing a moderate perspective tended to dominate the sphere’s political trajectory. Their project was not based on the total repudiation of capitalist logic, as was that of the sphere’s more radical sections. The political leaders of the delimited sphere articulated a distinctively labour worldview, committed to transforming, rather than overthrowing, capitalism. In Australia, the labour movement as a whole can be considered a proletarian public, the ALP as its political expression, pursuing such a transformative project.

This project has often been identified as ‘labourism’ or ‘Laborism’, and ascribed as the essential nature of the ALP.52 Stuart Macintyre provided a particularly powerful definition of ‘Laborism’ that helps to conceptualise the politics of labour reform. Macintyre argued that

45 Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, Public Sphere and Experience: Toward an Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), xliii. 46 Ibid., 28. 47 Ibid., 31-2, 208. 48 Ibid., xliii. 49 Ibid., 31-2, 58-9. 50 Ibid., 6-7, 31-2, 58-63. Discussed in reference to parties of the Second International whose understanding of society as divided into two great ‘camps’, they argue, served to destroy genuine solidarity and unite workers ‘in a merely mechanical manner’, 206-7. 51 Ibid. 52 Terry Irving, “Labourism: A Political Genealogy,” Labour History, no. 66 (1994): 1-13.

24

‘Laborism’ was ‘based on the industrial and political practice of the trade unions,’ seeking to advance the position of the worker within the bounds of ‘both the economic relations of the capitalist mode of production and the legitimacy of the capitalist state.’53 Macintyre went on to add that the Laborist programme advocated a ‘masculine form of state intervention in a semi- mature capitalist economy.’54 This definition encapsulates core tenets of this reform-minded worldview within the party, based on a gendered understanding of labour as the movement of the wage-earning male whose relationship to production was in part mediated by state- based arbitration wage tribunals.55 Such politics underpinned the worldview of the leadership of the delimited proletarian sphere, in both its industrial and political wings.

In post-federation Victoria this political current was given practical and intellectual leadership by powerful figures associated with the AWU; the most notable being James Scullin who articulated its worldview as a parliamentarian, journalist/editor, and movement powerbroker. In the period of this study the AWU was Australia’s largest union.56 In 1914, it had a membership of 60,000: roughly one in every eight Australian unionists belonged to the AWU.57 Founded in 1894 as a result of a merger between the Amalgamated Shearers’ Union and the General Labourers’ Union, which organised pastoral workers such as shed hands, it swiftly extended its reach throughout Australia’s rural industrial sectors. This trend was aided by its ‘new union’ approach to general organising.58 Its size leant it stature and power in the industrial movement, and its commitment to political labour often saw the union come to dominate rural Labor branches.59 As is explained in chapter three, this, in combination with its formal affiliation, gave it a disproportionate influence in the party. In addition its control of three labour newspapers, the Sydney-based Australian Worker, the Worker in , and in Victoria the Evening Echo, gave the AWU an ideological reach no other single union could match.60

Through a close reading of the work of Scullin and his comrades I have identified the sophisticated worldview that underpinned their actions, and the strategy for change they developed based on utilising state agencies to advance working-class interests. The implication of ‘labourism’ is often that Labor moderates were short-sighted, and obsessed

53 Stuart Macintyre, "Early Socialism and Labor," Intervention, no. 8 (1977): 81-2. 54 Indentation in original. Stuart Macintyre, "The Short History of Social Democracy in Australia," Thesis Eleven, no. 15 (1986): 4. 55 Ibid., 4-5. 56 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 10. 57 Nick Dyrenfurth, “William Guthrie Spence: ‘Father’ of the Australian Workers Union,” in History of the AWU, WG Spence (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2013), xl. 58 Ibid., xxxvi; Mark Hearn and Harry Knowles, One Big Union: A History of the Australian Workers Union 1886-1994 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6; Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 10, 39. 59 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 10; Hearn and Knowles, One Big Union, 85-7; Dyrenfurth,”William Guthrie Spence”, xli. 60 Hearn and Knowles, One Big Union, 101-6.

25 with immediate practicality.61 Even discussions favourable to the AWU’s outlook tend to focus on the immediate economic demands it supported that helped constitute the ‘Australian settlement’ of tariffs, protectionism, and arbitration (though critical of its commitment to racial exclusion).62 This emphasis does not correspond with the breadth and detail of their vision for Australia and working-class transformation at this time.63

I take this section on its own terms and treat its vision for a with intellectual seriousness. In a time of democratic experimentation intellectuals and powerbrokers working from this perspective developed a unique Labor vision for democratic social change. As will be explained in chapter three, the intellectuals who formed this vision were ‘tinkers,’ as Fink would have it, actively adapting and integrating liberal policies and discourses into this specifically Labor worldview, an influence outlined by Bongiorno.64 To represent this wide-reaching understanding and positive approach in theorising strategies for social change I have termed the moderate leadership of the delimited sphere ‘Labor Democrats.’ This is not to discard previous sobriquets, such as ‘moderate,’ entirely. My intention is to introduce into the vocabulary of Labor studies a more positive designator for the substantial intellectual contribution and plans for reform that such thinkers proposed. Nor is this to imply that other forces in the labour movement – most notably socialists – were opposed to democracy. Rather, it is to indicate that this was a perspective of intellectual note and worth, and to define this force within the movement by the project it pursued.

Labor Democrats’ vision of Australia was egalitarian, though with significant qualifications. Through state-based measures the means to mediate class conflict would be implemented, making damaging and costly industrial action unnecessary. They desired a strong Commonwealth government empowered to enact nationalisation and protectionist policies. The enemy was not all employers, but those who took advantage of vulnerability, and profited from public industries, and monopolisation of land and resources. The Upper Houses of state parliaments were considered an undemocratic hindrance to change, and should be abolished. More fundamentally, the constitution of Australia was understood to have been negotiated by non-Labor forces, and was considered a barrier to implementing this vision. It was necessary, to these Labor Democrats, not just to win government, but to use executive power to propose referendums to appeal directly to the people to re-craft Federation. In this, they were attempting to find a means to achieve the democratic transformation that the international workers’ movement had pursued since the 1870s of

61 Markey, The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales 1880-1900, 3. 62 Hearn and Knowles, One Big Union, 12-4. 63 Mark Hearn, “’The Benefits of Industrial Organisation’? The Second Fisher Government and Fin de Siècle Modernity in Australia,” Labour History, no. 102 (2012): 37-54. 64 Fink explores the relationship between liberal discourse and the Knights of Labor; and the way in which the workers’ movement ‘attempted to sustain individualism in socially responsible forms’: Fink, In Search of the Working Class, 98, 89-119.

26 introducing the greatest possible amount of democracy into the political, but also economic, system: making democracy social.65 They sought to enhance the meaning of citizenship through utilising political power to enforce greater equitability and democracy in the economic realm.

This political approach was gendered and racialised. As is explained below, it was a masculinist understanding of politics. This perspective was very much associated with the project of constructing ‘white men’s countries’ in the English-speaking world, and as such was unwaveringly committed to racial exclusion.66 This worldview considered white men to be at the pinnacle of social development, and Australia to be conducting a democratic experiment befitting the white race. For all its otherwise progressive sentiment, it was a racist vision that perpetuated the oppressive inequities of its time. While studies have indicated that on the micro level the racist politics of White Australia often had a different lived reality than on the macro, non-White workers did not have a significant presence within the Victorian Labor Party.67

This delimited leadership occupied a powerful position within the union movement, represented by the AWU. It considered the ALP to be the political vehicle through which its project for change could be achieved. This section did not react kindly to those who they believed were trying to divert it from its purpose, or worse, take control of it from them. This was the case in 1916 when the Federal Labor Government led by William ‘Billy’ Hughes and his followers betrayed the vision of the Labor Democrats, and were duly dispensed with. But it was also true of another section in the movement, the Labor Socialists, who wished to transform the party to realise their own vision for social change.

The Socialist Counterpublic

To avoid the perils of essentialism in previous accounts of Labor I have sought to understand socialists and their project of transforming the ALP on their own terms. Conceptually, these socialists can be identified as operating within the proletarian sphere, engaged in a creative contest with Labor Democrats for its leadership. To conceptualise this relationship I have adapted Nancy Fraser’s work on subaltern counterpublics. In Justice Interruptus, Fraser critiqued Habermas' concept of the public sphere for excluding alternate publics. Fraser argued that a series of ‘subaltern counterpublics’ existed in competition with

65 Eley, Forging Democracy, 22. 66 Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the Question of Racial Equality (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2008). 67 Julia Martinez, “Questioning ‘White Australia’: Unionism and ‘Coloured’ Labour, 1911-37,” Labour History, no. 76 (1999): 1-19; Amanda Rasmussen, “The Rise of Labor: A Chinese Australian Participates in Bendigo Local Politics at a Formative Moment, 1904-1905,” in Chinese Australians: Politics, Engagement and Resistance, ed. Sophie Couchman and Kate Bagnall (Leiden: BRILL, 2015), 174- 202.

27 the bourgeois public sphere: counterpublics of women, national minorities, peasants, workers, and other marginalised identities.68 She defined these as:

parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter-discourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs.69

They are simultaneously sites of ‘withdrawal and regroupment,’ and ‘training grounds for agitational activities’ projected outwards towards other publics.70 While Fraser predominantly discussed identity-based counterpublics familiar to the contemporary world, this is a useful conceptual means to understand the socialists that operated within the proletarian sphere, and sought to win its leadership.71 This required the creation of socialist knowledge and its dissemination throughout the movement, work conducted by movement intellectuals.

Labor Socialists operated in this manner, organising within labour’s official structures, competing with the Labor Democrats for its leadership as they sought to win the ALP to socialism. Often, such socialists have been dismissed, or their influence downplayed.72 Focus has tended to concentrate on socialist organisations outside of Labor, such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).73 Such groupings, particularly those in NSW, tended to adopt a sectarian approach to the ALP that made them natural candidates for communist historians to select as forerunners of their own positions. In the period considered by this thesis, however, these more sectarian counterpublics tended to isolate themselves from the major forums of the movement. It was the Labor Socialists who had the most demonstrable impact on the direction of labour, and the political culture of the ALP.

68 Nancy Fraser, Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the 'Postsocialist' Condition (New York: Routledge, 1997), 75. 69 Ibid., 81. 70 Ibid., 82. 71 Frank Bongiorno suggests the concept is of use to understand ‘socialist and secularist’ counterpublics alongside the bourgeois sphere in his study of the Victorian poet Bernard O’Dowd, but does not develop this relationship in detail: “Bernard O’Dowd’s Socialism,” Labour History, no. 77 (1999): 97-8; Geoff Eley postulated a variety of alternate publics operate in relation to the bourgeois sphere, including a socialist public; though he refers more to a broadly defined socialism that does not identify an interaction between the broader proletarian sphere and subaltern counterpublics operating within it as I suggest here: “Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures,” in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 317; Francis Shor and Kathy Ferguson have used the concept of subaltern counterpublics and the proletarian sphere in a manner that conflates them in their studies of syndicalists and anarchists: Francis Shor, “Left Labor Agitators in the Pacific Rim of the Early Twentieth Century,” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 67, (2005): 150; Kathy Ferguson, “Anarchist Counterpublics,” New Political Science 32, no. 2, (2010): 193- 214. 72 For example Turner’s critical dismissal of the VSP and parliamentary socialism: Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 206. 73 A tendency initiated by Childe: How Labour Governs, 131-150, and followed by much of the Old Left.

28

Australian socialists have frequently been depicted as alien to the naturally moderate temperament of the workers’ movement. Stuart Macintyre provided the most compelling portrait of Labor Socialists of such a hue. He argued that their creed derived from a social force outside of the working class, ‘most usually among the clerical salariat and petty bourgeoisie.’ The socialism of these non-proletarian classes was evolutionary, conditioned by an emphasis on state intervention that, ultimately, desired to stop well short of class conflict, in favour of a ‘peaceful solution to the problems which give it rise.’74

Victorian Labor Socialists defied this categorisation. Formulating a singular definition of socialism is a difficult proposition, particularly due to the preponderance of socialist rhetoric in the early twentieth century.75 Pre-communist was an eclectic mixture of thought, individual personalities, and action. To give substance to the term ‘socialism’ it is necessary to trace the ideology and the political approach it inspired to the exact context in which it operated.76 Terry Irving has noted the problematic usage of the term in Labor historiography. Socialism has tended to be deployed to denote only those traditions considered as ‘revolutionary, scientific, anti-bourgeois and anti-liberal,’ effectively side-lining alternate socialist traditions in the co-operative movement and elsewhere.77 The tendency sectionalises the term. At times, as with Childe and Turner, only those people and organisations favoured by the author earn socialist credentials.

A more expansive understanding of socialism considers it a living philosophy, engaged with and shaped by a broad array of characters and parties. RN Berki’s influential study identified socialism not as ‘a single thing, but a range, an area, an open texture, a self- contradiction.’78 Conceptualising it in this manner allows the forces of socialism to be appreciated on their own terms, in their full plurality and diversity, rather than by lines strictly drawn according to retrospective criteria. As such, to understand the impact of socialism on Labor it is necessary to trace in detail the specific individuals involved, and the processes they pursued. To understand the construction of political labour, it is particularly important to include those socialists who considered such parties an arena for their own activities, as well as those who eschewed such bodies in order to construct a pure, revolutionary vessel.

Labor Socialists were particularly prominent and significant in Victoria. In 1906 Tom Mann, the famous British socialist, founded the VSP, seeking to transform Labor into a socialist organisation. This project was influenced by the ideas of European social democracy, and the Second International, and resembles the strategy of the Independent Labour Party in Britain. Mann’s VSP had members from a range of different social classes, but the core

74 Macintyre, "Early Socialism and Labor", 81-2. 75 Ian Tregenza, "Are We 'All Socialists Now'? New Liberalism, State Socialim and the Australian Settlement," Labour History, no. 102 (2012): 87. 76 Scalmer, "Experience and Discourse”, 163. 77 Irving, "Labourism", 8. 78 RN Berki, Socialism (London: JM Dent and Sons, 1975), 16.

29 leadership of the organisation, like Mann himself, were identifiably proletarian and active in the labour movement. They recognised that to realise their objective necessitated winning the leadership of the party away from its moderates, and they pursued this through the dissemination of socialist propaganda within the movement with the ultimate aim of convincing labour of its radical mission. The party did not constitute a social grouping alien to the labour movement preaching a doctrine of class harmony. In this, they contrasted significantly with the utopian socialists led by , or even the State Socialism that dominated NSW labour radicalism.79

The period between 1906 and 1908 was the VSP’s apotheosis. With two-thousand members and a vibrant public presence, it both cohered radical opinion and began the process of training future labour leaders in political activism and knowledge production. In 1908 the influence of syndicalist ideas that were hostile to the VSP’s relationship with the PLC tore at party cohesion, and a factional war erupted that saw large numbers of members leave the party. A large number of these maintained a socialist perspective within the structures of the labour movement.

From this point the formally cohered counterpublic of the VSP was replaced with a more diffuse network of socialist activists within the official structures of the movement that nonetheless maintained the VSP’s project of transforming Labor in a socialist direction. In this respect it came to resemble the operations of radicals in the SPD, functioning in concert but without a clearly delineated organisational presence. It was predominantly made up of figures who retained VSP membership, or who previously had been members, who between 1908 and 1914 had gained positions of prominence and power within Labor. VSP historian Geoffrey Hewitt has indicated, though not fully explored, the tendency for socialist party members to be drawn away from party life to involvement in the unions and Victorian Labor after the war. Hewitt is critical of this drift, arguing that these figures were absorbed into the broader labour movement, making little impact on its politics. The main significance for Hewitt is how this diminished the VSP’s party life, rather than how these figures shaped the ALP.80

As will be shown, these Labor Socialists made a significant contribution to the Labor Party. They played an integral role in initiating the campaign to defeat conscription in 1916, and for Labor to adopt a socialisation objective.81 Ian Turner provided the most effective narrative of these events, arguing that the VSP, alongside Sydney socialists, influenced both.82 But his treatment is noticeably brief, and uncertain about the precise nature of the VSP’s influence on these events. Though he noted socialists helped spur the conscription

79 Burgmann, 'In Our Time', 19-34, 57-62. 80 Geoffrey Hewitt "A History of the Victorian Socialist Party" (MA Thesis, La Trobe University, 1974), ix-x, 243-5. 81 Both of which Hewitt downplays: Ibid., ix. 82 Ian Turner, “Socialist Political Tactics, 1900-1920,” Bulletin of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, no. 2 (1962): 18, 24; Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 101, 219.

30 campaign, and put forward a proposal for a general strike, he does not draw out the political motivations behind these measures, nor identify their radical potentiality, as I do in chapter five.83 Turner argued that the socialist objective was partially inspired by ‘left-wing A.L.P. men (largely from Victoria, and either members of or influenced by the V.S.P.)’ but does not explain the nature of this influence, nor its ramifications for the movement.84 In fact, despite indicating their significance to these episodes, his sustained discussions of Labor Socialists tend to be dismissive of their actions. The VSP are labelled as ‘“centre” socialists’ committed to a ‘parliamentary illusion.’ Socialists in Labor occupy an uncertain place in his account, wedged between the scheming politicians that represent Labor’s true nature, and the radical groups outside of the party that are considered to embody labour’s radical temperament.85 My intention is to use this analytical model to chart in detail the personalities involved in this Labor Socialist grouping, their relationship to one another and the broader movement, and the extent of their impact. I take them and their political project on their own terms, to demonstrate the precise nature of their influence.

The utility of understanding these Labor Socialists as a subaltern counterpublic is further demonstrated by Strangio’s history of Victorian Labor. Strangio does indicate that prominent unionists such as Curtin and Hyett allowed the VSP to influence the ALP during the war.86 But as I demonstrate, by this point the halcyon days of the VSP had long passed. The centre of socialist activity was not the VSP, but the active network of radicals operating on the THC and in the PLC. Some were VSP members. Curtin for instance, retained his VSP membership, though his focus had shifted away from the socialist party towards the institutions of the union movement.87 Others, most notably the THC Secretary EJ Holloway, had left the VSP many years prior, yet retained a socialist outlook. Others, such as Jack Cosgrave of the Cycle Trades Union, were not recorded as VSP members at all.88 These powerbrokers cohered at the THC and in the PLC, not the VSP’s party halls. They inherited the VSP’s project in important ways, but largely operated independently of it. The designation of socialist counterpublic is capable of recognising the operations of both variants: the organisationally bounded grouping of 1906-1908, and the more diffuse network that later became the centre of socialist operations.

These socialists did not espouse the insurrectionary Bolshevism that would be in vogue after 1917. But they were no less radical for this. Labor Socialism was influenced strongly by Second International thought, particularly by the far-left of European social democracy. It

83 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 101. 84 Ibid., 219. As I demonstrate in Chapter Six, they were not all men. 85 Ibid., 206. 86 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 112-3. 87 See note 80 and 81. Ross likely embellishes Curtin’s distance from the party when he states: ‘He was also so involved in the affairs of the Union that he could neither physically nor psychologically sustain his confidence in the hope that out of the war would come the new social order that Marxism had prophesised.’ Lloyd Ross, John Curtin: A Biography (South Melbourne: MacMillan, 1977), 46. 88 Although Cosgrave had previously been secretary of the small ’ League.

31 sought a complete transformation of the economic relations in Australian society, and articulated a form of internationalism that rejected militarism and war, laying the basis for their prominent role in the campaigns against conscription in 1916 and 1917. These socialist leaders were prepared to take radical action when necessary, and advocated for the use of the general strike. But they did not want labour to pursue industrial action in a haphazard and unorganised manner. Whereas the IWW consciously desired to transform all industrial action into a general rebellion of labour and repudiated parliamentary action, the socialist counterpublic believed in careful planning of co-ordinated action. This was represented by their unsuccessful attempt to win support for a general strike against conscription in 1916, and also by their successful agitation for Labor to adopt a socialist objective. The culmination of this agitation in 1921, as chapter six explores, saw these socialists achieve an ambiguous victory.

This analytical model enables the narrative of this transition to be charted throughout these years, emphasising the relationship that this counterpublic had to the broader proletarian public. This allows Labor Socialists to be recognised and understood on their own terms, and the dynamic of their relationship to the leadership of the delimited sphere conceptualised as a fundamentally creative one as they contested the movement’s direction with the Labor Democrats.

Gender and the Labor Women’s Counterpublic

This model understands that Labor’s political culture was gendered, with dominant societal assumptions about gender roles re-crafted within the labour movement.89 Both Labor Democrats and Socialists developed and articulated a worldview based on these assumptions about economic and social relations.90 Both agreed that the ‘worker’ was exploited under the present system, necessitating social change. They differed significantly on the cause of this, its extent, and its remedy. But within this framework they advocated for both immediate reforms to the benefit of the worker, and long-term structural changes to the benefit of the working class.

This was based on an innately gendered and racialised interpretation of social relations that identified white-male wage earners as the object and subject of the labour movement. Women workers were explicitly identified as such in the Labor press, at Labor meetings, and by their own organisations. Such discursive representations developed from the implicit assumptions of gender roles and waged work that privileged male experience. This attitude was not the product of labour thought alone, but it was maintained and perpetuated as a

89 Marilyn Lake, “Socialism and Manhood: The Case of William Lane,” Labour History, no. 50 (1986): 57; Marilyn Lake, Getting Equal: The history of Australian (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1999), 17-109. 90 Lake, “Socialism and Manhood”, 54-62.

32 major ideological assumption of a movement that considered its primary agents to be male, and whose main leaders and intellectuals were overwhelmingly white men.

This gendered worldview was symbolised in labour’s response to the famous Harvester judgement of 1907.91 In that case Justice Henry Bournes Higgins ruled there should be a ‘basic wage’ as a set standard for labour, based upon the requirements of a man to provide for his wife, and up to three dependants. This was a ruling that clearly defined waged work as the purview of the male, and the domestic sphere as that of women, diminishing women’s economic independence. This judgement was not the product of Labor. Despite his involvement in the Labor cabinet in 1904 Higgins was not a part of the labour movement, and spoke as a part of the Australian legal-industrial establishment, not the unions. But the movement enthusiastically received this ruling, and shared its dominant presumptions that a man should be paid a living wage for the upkeep of his family in his role as worker- provider. Labour elevated the ruling to principle. This entrenched and further perpetuated a wide range of gendered assumptions based on the so-called public/private divide. As Marilyn Lake has demonstrated, many women contested the restrictive nature of this ruling.92 This was further entrenched by Higgins’s decision in the 1912 Mildura Fruit Pickers case, that wage levels could be determined by whether men or women usually performed the work. Men would receive the family wage, whereas work predominantly performed by women would be judged against a single woman’s wage, further entrenching the gender delineation of the workforce. Women working in jobs usually performed by men could gain access to the male wage, but only as a measure to prevent women’s labour being used to undercut that of males at a lower rate of pay, rather than to encourage or bolster their equal pay rights.93

The movement’s fundamental assumptions normalised male labour, and exceptionalised women’s labour. A man‘s working life would be an elongated period, in which his professional role contributed to his social identity. For women, it was presumed to be a much briefer period – before marriage, perhaps, or in times of social crisis such as war. Beyond these limited parameters women’s labour was considered a threat. Such assumptions underpinned the division between public and private in the realm of politics and industrial organisation. In the unions, the ALP, and in the socialist groups, women performed the bulk of the organisational and ‘social’ work, while the vast majority of decision-making bodies were composed of male members and delegates. Labor women did defy this stereotype. Sara Lewis, for example, was secretary of the Female Hotel, Club and Restaurant Caterers Union, and served on Labor’s Central Executive, as an interstate

91 Penny Ryan and Tim Rowse, “Women, Arbitration and the Family,” Labour History, no. 29 (1975): 18-9. 92 Marilyn Lake, “The Independence of Women and the Brotherhood of Man: Debates in the Labour Movement over Equal Pay and Motherhood Endowment in the 1920s,” Labour History, no. 63 (1992), 4, 9. 93 Ibid., 9; Ryan and Rowse, “Women, Arbitration and the Family”, 18-9.

33 conference delegate, and representative of her union at the Melbourne Trades Hall Council (THC).94 Jean Daley was a union leader, frequent contributor to Labor Call, prominent activist against conscription, and the party’s Women’s Organiser. Muriel Heagney won election to numerous Victorian Labor conferences where she was a vocal participant, as well as being a popular speaker and activist for Labor, famously against conscription and for equal pay.95 Though in a minority, these activists subverted expectations and challenged dominant perceptions about the private/public demarcation in the movement. They established themselves as activists and movement intellectuals who shaped labour’s power relations, its ideology, and through this, its political culture. As Raelene Frances has demonstrated, women were often leaders at the grassroots of the movement, not just as office bearers, and established traditions of activism that shaped labour’s experience.96 They were not auxiliaries to history. Theirs is a vital part of the party’s story.

Joy Damousi noted in her 1994 study of women’s involvement in socialist parties that few ‘labour or feminist historians have theorised women’s participation in left-wing organisations.’97 This prompts the question of how best to understand the political agency of women activist-intellectuals, and how it affected the ALP. As Marilyn Lake noted, women in labour history have been both ‘an absence’ and a ‘problematic presence.’98 The long-term tendency to ignore women’s involvement in the labour movement has, largely, been overcome.99 But the challenge persists to analyse the actions and ideas of such women on their own terms, and avoiding the tendency to unthinkingly assimilate them into male narratives. Lake identified how women have been ‘incorporated and rendered similar to the male subjects’ in labour history, with the ‘threat of their difference – their different interests, subjectivities and ideas’ having been ‘defused by casting women in the role of supporters of

94 Melanie Raymond, “Sara Lewis: Trade Union Activist 1909-1918,” Lilith, no. 3 (1986): 45-60. 95 J Bremner, "Heagney, Muriel Agnes," Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 12 September 2016. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/heagney-muriel-agnes-6620. 96 Raelene Frances, “Authentic Leaders: Women and Leadership in Australian Unions before World War II,” Labour History, no. 104 (2013): 9-30. The forms of women’s leadership, and the conceptual understanding of that leadership, was the theme of Labour History 104: Jackie Dickenson, Patricia Grimshaw, and Sean Scalmer, “Labour Women’s Leadership: Concept and History,” Labour History, no. 104 (May 2013): 1-8. 97 Joy Damousi, Women Come Rally: Socialism, Communism and Gender in Australia 1890-1955 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994), 2. 98 Lake, “The Independence of Women and The Brotherhood of Man”, 1. 99 Jennifer Feeney and Judith Smart, “Jean Daley and May Brodney,” in Double Time: Women in Victoria – 150 Years, eds. Marilyn Lake and Farley Kelly (Ringwood: Penguin, 1985), 276-287; Raymond, “Sara Lewis”, 45-60; Zelda D’Aprano, : The Unions and the Fight for Equal Pay (North Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 2001); Cathy Brigden, “The Legacy of Separate Organizing: Women in the Council in the Interwar Years,” Labor Studies Journal 36, no. 2 (2011): 245-268; Melanie Nolan, “Sex or Class? The Politics of the Earliest Equal Pay Campaign in Victoria,” Labour History, no. 61 (1991): 103-116; Frances, “Authentic Leaders”, 9-30; Wendy Dick, “’Vigorous-Minded and Independent’: Ellen Mulcahy as a Labour Leader,” Labour History, no. 104 (2013): 31-48; Cathy Brigden, “’A Fine and Self-Reliant Group of Women’: Women’s Leadership in the Female Confectioner’s Union,” Labour History, no 104 (2013), 49-64.

34 the already established (masculine) labour project.’100 Lake challenges labour historians instead to evaluate the specific political ideas and understandings that women developed, and the activities they undertook that explicitly challenged male assumptions and shaped the movement.

The enduring need for such an approach is evident in Dyrenfurth’s account. Invoking Lake, Dyrenfurth stated, it ‘would be wrong … to simply add women to the mix: to declare that they too were there, alongside the men.’101 Dyrenfurth used this statement as an alibi for a study that only considers white men as agents of cultural creation. As this analytical model demonstrates, women were ‘there’ and active in shaping the movement. Their contribution can be charted, their objectives recognised. While his approach may be successful in capturing ‘the anxieties and ambitions of white men,’ as Lake has indicated, it does little else, and certainly does not engage with the aims and actions of labour women who actively contested male control of the movement and its direction.102 The challenge that Joan Scott long ago identified persists; how to use gender as not just a ‘useful’ but also a meaningful means to understand historical processes,103 and to comprehend the experiences and agency of women in their own terms, rather than awkwardly noting they were ‘there.’104 The fact that Dyrenfurth used this sentiment as a cover for silencing women demonstrates the enduring need for a means to recognise the ‘place for women in the narrative of class formation and in the theory of politics that narrative contains.’105

Understanding both the gendered nature of Labor ideology and political practices, and the agency of women activists, is integral to an analysis of the party’s political culture. I intend to generalise from the experiences of Labor women to propose a conceptual means to understand these actions as the operations of a subaltern counterpublic organising within, and projecting upon, the broader proletarian public sphere. As will be demonstrated, in the early years of the twentieth century efforts were made by a number of Labor women to construct a counterpublic within the official structures of the movement. Writing of far-left socialist parties Joy Damousi commented that women ’constructed avenues of empowerment and autonomy and in this way created a space within which they could negotiate power gender relations.’106 Within Labor itself this process took place amongst informal networks of women activists, but was represented also in repeated efforts to give this counterpublic an institutional form within the movement. Success varied, often contingent on the level of support or opposition offered by male labour leaders.

100 Lake, “The Independence of Women and The Brotherhood of Man”, 1-2. 101 Dyrenfurth, Heroes & Villains, 13-4. 102 Marilyn Lake, “Heroes & Villains: The Rise and Fall of the Early Australian Labor Party, Book Review,” Labour History, no. 102 (2012): 224. 103 Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 28-52. 104 Ibid., 71, 84. 105 Ibid., 71. 106 Damousi, Women Come Rally, 1.

35

After women’s enfranchisement and the establishment of conservative women’s organisations, as well as ’s feminist Women’s Political Association,107 Labor instituted its own Women’s Organising Committee (WOC) in 1909.108 This was a space for Labor women to organise, socialise, and conduct political education. It was not an autonomous body, but was subordinated to the authority of the Central Executive.109 Unsurprisingly, Labor women had a diversity of views on whether having a distinctive organisation was the best means to advance their demands. Some, such as Lewis, believed that a standing body would enable women to organise around issues specific to them, as Labor men did not appreciate such concerns. Others such as Amy Whitham, who convened the important conventions of women at this time, were adamantly opposed to any standing body beyond the branches, and any affiliates beyond the unions. Whitham believed that women could advance in the existing institutions of labour, and it was their responsibility as women activists to ensure they did so by recruiting as many women into the movement as possible.

These perspectives were contested over the years of the war and the post-war settlement, as will be examined in chapters four and five. Following the creation of the Labor Women’s Anti-Conscription Committee in 1916 and the central campaigning role of women in defeating conscription, a constitutionally-recognised standing body of Labor women was formed. Through such organisational efforts Labor women sought to articulate their demands as enfranchised citizens, and active participants in the movement of labour with their own specific interests and goals including a motherhood endowment, a childhood endowment, and .110 They were determined to use their political status to ‘secure the economic rights’ that would ensure their independence, and ‘thus win for women full citizenship.’111

The Maternity Allowance enacted by the Fisher Labor government in 1912 was a radical measure driven by enfranchised women that ‘undermined the traditional patriarchal power exercised by husbands in the family’ by extending state aid directly to women upon giving birth.112 After this achievement, equal pay became a particularly prominent demand raised in conventions of labour women aimed at attaining economic independence. These activists rejected the notion that women should organise outside of labour’s institutions, and sought

107 Lake discusses Goldstein’s organisation being set up with an explicit ‘non-party’ purpose hostile to ‘the masculinity and lack of individual conscience in established parties’ that Labor women’s organisations sought to challenge from within the movement: Lake, Getting Equal, 144-5. 108 The WOC worked parallel to the branches, a forerunner committee had been set up in 1903. Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 87. 109 Brigden has explored the difference between separate organising and autonomous organising: “The Legacy of Separate Organizing”, 248-254. 110 Lake, “The Independence of Women and the Brotherhood of Man”, 4. 111 Ibid., 3. 112 Marilyn Lake, “State Socialism for Australian Mothers: ’s Radical Maternalism in its International and Local Contexts,” Labour History, no. 102 (2012): 55.

36 to carve for themselves a specific place within it. Through their activities they forged a particular identity, crafted knowledge, and actively mobilised to impact broader publics – activities constituting a subaltern counterpublic as defined by Fraser. This was a distinctive counterpublic organised by and for Labor women. But it did overlap with the socialist counterpublic. The VSP was an important training-ground for women activist-intellectuals, and leading proponents of a women’s counterpublic were also leading lights of socialism in the state; Jean Daley, Sara Lewis, and Muriel Heagney.

The place of women within labour organising was a hotly contested issue, in Australia, but also internationally. This was particularly the case in the SPD, where until 1908 a ban on women’s political activity necessitated separate women’s organisations to circumvent the law.113 Beyond this, social democratic women maintained their distinct organisational forms, but within the party itself. Women activists were split between revolutionaries, identified with the famous leader Clara Zetkin, and more moderate positions.114 There were lively groups of labour women in Britain, who sought to affiliate to the Labour Party during its constitutional reorganisation in 1918, and who spent the early 1920s debating questions of organisation and the relationship between gender and class that Labor women in Victoria engaged in during the pre-war period.115 Whether by necessity or choice, the question of women’s organisation and its relationship to the broader movement was a vital one confronting these parties, just as it was in Australia.

While this may not hold for all Labor histories, previous accounts of the Victorian branch have explored in detail the position of women within the party and the movement. This has tended to focus on the exclusion of women from the political sphere of labour, with particular emphasis on the troubled position of the WOC. Both McQueen and Bongiorno argued that the uncertain placement of the WOC demonstrated that women were largely barred from political activity by Labor men. McQueen referenced the issue of separate women’s committees, noting that while such bodies did exist they were ‘a PLC front’ that ‘lacked any genuine power to alter the party ideologically.’116

Bongiorno raised similar issues with the lack of decision-making autonomy of the WOC, arguing that women’s suffrage led Labor to make a special pitch to women voters, without challenging the belief that ‘working-class men and women had a common interest in the improvement of male breadwinners’ employment prospects, wages and conditions.’117 The position of women was always a subordinate one, focusing on the domestic organisation of

113 Renate Pore, A Conflict of Interest: Women in German Social Democracy, 1919-1933 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1981), 15-20. 114 Ibid. 115 Pamela Graves, Labour Women: Women in Working-Class Politics 1918-1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 7-35. 116 McQueen, "Victoria," 319. 117 Bongiono, The People’s Party, 115.

37 the branches,118 with Labor men, ‘in alliance with some female activists’ blocking ‘every effort by Labor women to increase their autonomy within the party.’119

The impression these depictions give is of a cynical operation, in which leading male Laborites manipulated women to bolster the party’s vote. While these works have made an important contribution in placing institutionalised at the heart of party history, they have tended to obscure the meaningful actions of women themselves. They diminish the significance of bodies through which Labor women articulated their demands, and were able to organise activism. In his exploration of gender in the party, Paul Strangio recognised both the tendency for women’s activism to be focused around ‘social organising and fundraising,’ and the efforts of Labor women to transform the organisation.120

This thesis certainly does not deny sexism in the labour movement, nor challenge the basic understanding that the movement operated in a strongly patriarchal manner. Appeals to class solidarity were often a means to side-line, and sublimate, the interests of women in favour of ‘male domination.’121 But it does not assume that all women wanted to have a standing autonomous body, or that this is the only means through which to judge the success of women activists in shaping the party’s political culture. I do not begin with the assumption that Labor women such as Whitham were incorrect, in a movement based on solidarity, to oppose standing identity-based bodies. This was a point of genuine conviction. Similar hostility was expressed towards the VSP, and in 1916 Catholics drew ire for organising separately to influence the party. A number of Catholic activists were almost expelled from Labor – something none of the activist women involved in forging this counterpublic experienced.122 While the ultimate conclusion of this thesis is one favourable to those activists who sought to construct an organisationally distinctive counterpublic, it seeks to demonstrate the utility and impact of this approach, rather than assuming from the outset that this was necessarily the most effective manner to challenge male dominance.

Labor women did win a dedicated and recognised organisational entity in 1918. By this time women had clearly occupied a space within the public institutions of the movement through which they exerted their political voice on the questions most directly related to women, but on political issues more broadly as well. They were not only interested or engaged in ‘women’s issues.’ They were able transform Labor’s culture, though this was far from a complete success. Nonetheless this was an integral component to Labor’s story of these

118 Ibid., 130. 119 Ibid., 115. 120 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 88. 121 Lake, “The Independence of Women and the Brotherhood of Man”, 14. 122 Ellen Mulcahy was expelled from the party, but only after she had already resigned in opposition to both caucus control, and the perceived treatment of women as an ‘adjunct’ to labour men. This expulsion came after she ran as an independent candidate against William Maloney, the Labor member in Melbourne, hence breaking her party pledge. Dick, “’Vigorous-Minded and Independent’”, 35-6.

38 years, and the party and movement cannot be understood without it – even if women drew few cartoons for labour’s newspapers.

While this is integral to understanding Labor and its political culture, for much of this thesis, the debate over gendered organising was not the primary contest that defined the party’s political direction. As a result, the discussion in chapters two to four has a chronological demarcation that might appear to downplay the significance of women’s activism and ideological efforts. My intention is to demonstrate the consistent efforts to forge a women’s counterpublic in a concerted manner, and this requires the devotion of specific sections of the historical treatment to these matters. But the focused attention to women increases over the course of the thesis (especially after chapter four), reflecting the ways in which Labor women became more influential over time.

Creative contest and the structures of Labor

The contestation between these political forces within the proletarian public sphere was a creative one. As each sought to win the movement to its project these sections produced ideological statements, policy, and strategies for the movement to pursue. The creative contestation between Labor Democrats and Labor Socialists in particular was a formative and sustaining aspect of party life, providing dynamism to the organisation. At its core, this form of cultural creation was about movement power: who had it, in what form, and what they intended to use it for. This power was at times ideological, based on force of argument and persuasion. At other times it was bluntly structural, with the institutions of the movement used to impose a perspective. Both approaches were underpinned by the perennial concern of labour activists: how to get the numbers. That is, the persuasion and creation of majorities of support in the movement to pursue a particular direction.

This analytical model is premised on an understanding of such contest as being fundamentally creative, and not pre-determined. It does not consider the force that ultimately prevailed – the Labor Democrats – as the natural owner of party structures. The victory of the delimited proletarian sphere was contingent, and the process of contestation preceding it was vital in generating Labor’s culture. This contestation was of both a structural and ideological nature. Such processes of contestation are present in all mainstream organisations of political labour, although the exact forces tend to differ according to the particularities of the party and its development.

For instance, it has long been recognised that serious ideological differences existed within the parties of European social democracy, best represented in debates concerning reform, revolution, and the general strike.123 Protagonists such as Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky,

123 Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism, 14, 20; Berger, Social Democracy and the Working Class in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany, 84-5.

39 and Rosa Luxemburg, represented this, conducting a battle of ideas within the movement.124 This ideological dissonance was matched by a structural contest. Crucial to this contest in the SPD was the power accumulated by the ‘practical men’ of the trade union leadership, who grew in influence and stature within the party as the size and scale of the unions themselves expanded.125 Underneath the surface these union leaders played a decisive role in this contest. In the debate over the mass strike between the left and right, the union leaders were successful in scuttling any commitment to such a radical measure.126 Donald Sassoon notes an alliance between union leaders and Bernstein, as the unions were establishing themselves as ‘full equals of the party leaders,’ and mobilised against the party's left wing.127

In Australia, this contest was similarly conducted on both structural and ideological levels. Labor and union conferences were key sites of this contestation, in which ideas clashed, and power was negotiated. Methodologically, I use a close reading of such events to demonstrate the processes of contest and cultural creation in action, focusing particularly on the annual conferences of the PLC, the (theoretically) biennial conventions of the national ALP, and country-wide gatherings of the union movement that were convened at significant moments. Elongated reports of these meetings were published in the labour movement newspaper, the Labor Call, often over several editions. Alongside this I have detailed the meetings of the Melbourne THC, a key site of movement power in which the combined industrial movement of the state regularly deliberated on matters of note. Debates that took place at Labor’s conferences often originated at the THC. This reading is possible through consultation of the full minutes of the Council, alongside regular reports in the Labor Call. The fact that these meetings were reported weekly in the movement’s major newspaper further indicates their significance.

These gatherings are rich in historical detail. Close engagement with these sources demonstrates the alignment of political forces in the movement, the shifting alliances that made and broke motions, the techniques and rhetorics of its defining debates, and the actions of powerbroker-intellectuals as they sought to persuade foes and comrades within the ‘parliaments of labour.’ These conferences were sites and spaces with deep symbolic meaning, but also where power was practically allocated. Many took place within the Melbourne Trades Hall, a physical space that declared the presence of labour on the city’s

124 Eley, "Intellectuals and the German Labor Movement", 76. 125 Ibid; Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism, 18. 126 Michael Schneider, A Brief History of the German Trade Unions, Translated Barrie Selman (Bonn: JHW Dietz, 1991), 90-1; Callahan, Demonstration Culture, 26, 258-60; Berger, Social Democracy and the Working Class in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany, 85. 127 Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism, 18.

40 landscape, and provided a site for connection and networking amongst the movement that helped solidify Labor identity.128

Margaret Kohn has explored the significance of labour’s spaces in her studies of the Italian Chambers of Labor. In its gatherings located in labour sites the theoretical abstraction of the proletarian sphere can be identified in operation. Kohn remarked that Negt and Kluge’s conception of the proletarian sphere is ‘easily romanticized because it is an ideal rather than a recognizable place,’ a weakness she sought to overcome.129 Kohn’s study demonstrates the significance of ‘social and symbolic properties of space’ as resources for political mobilisation. She argued that political spaces have a specific power to ‘facilitate change by creating a distinctive place to develop new identities and practices.’130 Such spaces are vital sites to the coherence and generation of power outside of the dominant institutions and sites of politics in society.131 The generation of such power did not occur in a politically neutral manner and the ‘more public side’ occurred within spaces such as the Chambers of Labor, ‘where different social groups … and factions … fought for ideological and institutional leadership over the workers' movement.’132

Kevin Callahan similarly noted the important symbolic and governing functions of political labour's conferences in his study of the ‘demonstration culture’ of the Second International. In analysing the International’s culture Callahan explained that it was best understood ‘as a movement, not a rigid and fixed entity.’ The shared ‘practices, activities … ideals and expectations’ that unified this movement ‘had to be invented, articulated, experienced and re-enacted in order to remain viable.’133 A vast range of ritual and symbolism underpinned this constantly shifting culture and projected an image of power and effect.134 The symbolism of meeting, deliberating, negotiating, and ultimately passing resolutions were means to create vast ‘public spectacles’ to cohere the socialist constituency but also to display the power of the movement to the bourgeois public and to present itself ‘as a counter-order to the existing state.’135

Lewis Minkin’s study of British Labour’s political conferences has charted the negotiation and utilisation of power within the movement.136 These conferences operated as a site of conflict between the party’s left and right wings, a very real means through which the power

128 Cathy Brigden, “Creating Labour’s Space: The Case of the Melbourne Trades Hall,” Labour History, no. 89 (2005): 125-140. 129 Margaret Kohn, Radical Space: Building the House of the People (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 40. 130 Ibid., 4. 131 Ibid., 7. 132 Ibid., 42. 133 Callahan, Demonstration Culture, xv. 134 Ibid., xvii. 135 Ibid., 80, 112. 136 Lewis Minkin, The Labour Party Conference: A Study in the Politics of Intra-Party Democracy (London: Allen Lane, 1978).

41 blocs of the movement crafted policy, and charted the movement’s direction. While Minkin dealt less directly with cultural creation, he emphasised the significance of such meetings in the distribution of power in the labour movement, and as sites where the left/right contestation over meaning and purpose can be recognised.137

Methodologically, I follow these examples and use Labor’s conferences to ground the theoretical approach I have advocated to demonstrate the practical interactions between the competing sections operating within the proletarian sphere, and its contribution to the party’s political culture. These meetings were both sites of symbolism, and a very real centre of power in which the debates and discussions that shaped the movement took place. At Victorian Labor’s conferences, all sections of the party were represented: the state and federal parliamentary parties, the affiliated unions, and local party branches. Together, these delegates moved the motions, conducted the debates, and contested the votes that determined party policy, crafted its knowledge, and set the course for its development.

The Melbourne THC was the state’s peak industrial representative body. At its Council meetings around 130 delegates from affiliated unions regularly attended to debate the major industrial issues facing the movement. Often, they would deliberate on major political questions. It was a central institution for intra-movement governance, and of mediation between labour and the institutions of capital. In the coming pages I chart the shifting power-balance on the Council, and the implications of the Labor Socialists’ position of increasing dominance. The lack of a strong counterweight in the state parliamentary party increased the influence of the THC in the movement.138 The staunchest opponents of the THC’s increasingly left-wing direction came not from parliamentary ranks, but from Labor Democrats in the union movement spearheaded by the AWU.

The AWU was one union amongst many on the THC; it was outweighed from 1916 onwards by the growing left-wing presence of the counterpublic. As shall be shown from chapter two onwards, the AWU compensated for this through a disproportionate representation within the PLC. This often came to a head through the yearly conferences of the party, as left and right battled on conference floor over issues already debated at the THC.

There are significant methodological challenges to identifying the boundaries of the Labor Democrats and the Labor Socialists within these forums. The major records available are the minutes of the THC, and the reports of union and party conferences in the Labor Call. These materials provide the basis for a sustained reading of the ideological concurrences and power blocs within the movement, but substantial ellipses remain. This is the case with voting patterns. While debates were related, often in great detail, very few votes in any of these forums were named. This was likely due to space considerations, as conferences

137 Ibid., xiii-12. 138 And as Strangio notes, the influence of socialists within the party: Neither Power Nor Glory, 79.

42 usually involved in excess of one hundred delegates. During the war some debates took place entirely in camera – unrecorded – so as to avoid recriminations from authorities.

This has meant that while the two sections can be adumbrated, the precise numbers involved in each are impossible to determine. This is reinforced by these sections pre-dating the modern factional system, meaning membership lists and formal caucus minutes do not exist. To compensate for this, I have focused on the interventions of key individuals, total numbers in recorded votes alongside movers and seconders of motions, and the most obvious centres of power. This is why, for instance, the narrative on Labor Democrats focuses on the AWU. From 1905 the AWU purposefully sought to monopolise the leadership of the industrial and political wings of the movement, a project I explore in chapter three. The AWU was the most significant Labor Democratic power-bloc in the movement. The AWU was Victoria’s largest union, had a controlling stake in the Evening Echo newspaper, sponsored a number of prominent MPs into office, had its members in key positions in the party machinery, and its delegates were present at THC and Labor conferences in significant numbers. The more diffuse network of the Labor Socialists has necessitated a drawing of personal and political connections, developed most strongly in chapter five, where a greater appreciation of the voting patterns in Labor conferences throughout 1916 is analysed.

Labor women were often not present at Labor’s major conferences. Such exclusion was a motivating factor for their efforts to organise a counterpublic sphere. It is notable that the meetings of Labor women in response to this closely resembled the broader conferences of the movement, with the same use of delegated attendance systems, conference presidents, motions, and minutes, with reports being made available in the Labor Call. All have been drawn upon to demonstrate the core concerns of women activist-intellectuals in this period, and to assess the outcomes of their organisational efforts.

Labor intellectuals as agents of contest

Movement intellectuals were the agents of labour’s creative contestation. The most notable of these combined roles as cultural creators and power negotiators. Some intellectuals of the movement crafted knowledge without close connection to its major power blocs, but their influence is difficult to discern. My focus is on those that crafted knowledge and had the capacity, through their relationship to Labor’s major sections, to translate this knowledge into action. The analytical model I have developed has allowed me to assess the early political careers of John Curtin and James Scullin, both future Labor Prime Ministers, in a unique manner. Both operated at this time as intellectuals and powerbrokers. Each represented a different section of labour, Curtin the Labor Socialists, and Scullin the Labor Democrats. Here, I seek to outline how the dual function of such figures as knowledge

43 producers and power distributors can best be recognised, and the role of labour movement intellectual be understood.

The theoretical template for this analysis of labour intellectuals was set by Antonio Gramsci, who distinguished between ‘traditional’ and ‘organic intellectuals.’ Traditional intellectuals are those whose professional lives are structured around knowledge production, associated strongly with the academy and professional opinion makers. In Australia, few of these were associated with the labour movement. Organic intellectuals are knowledge producers that emerge from and remain embedded within a particular social class, articulating its political identity. These intellectuals strategise for the movement and transform rhetoric into action, operating as ‘active particip[ants] in practical life, as constructor, organiser, "permanent persuader" and not just simple orator.'139

Gramsci’s work was conditioned by his experience of the Italian revolutionary movement, and so its abstracted nature is not directly transferrable to other contexts.140 It does, however, provide a useful corrective to the Leninist paradigm common to many interpretations of proletarian knowledge that consider workers incapable of comprehending and articulating their own social position, and strategising for change. This is the perspective, for instance, of Negt and Kluge. They argued that reification prevents the working class from consciously realising its social position, leaving the movement reliant on the assistance of traditional intellectuals from outside the working class to erode false consciousness.141

Traditional intellectuals have, of course, contributed to labour movements; Karl Marx, occupied such a position.142 Traditional intellectuals in Europe and America have similarly aided the labour movement in its intellectual coherence and articulation.143 But to consider these intellectuals as the only ones capable of crafting knowledge and theorising the position of the working class, and its ultimate strategy for change, is to neglect the agency of labour movement thinkers originating from, and remaining within, the class. It can also produce a binary, where middle-class thinkers theorised on behalf of the movement, while the working-class activists grappled with more mundane questions of tactics and organisation.

The potential problem with such an approach is evident in Sassoon’s analysis of labour ideology. He argued that the diffusion of social democratic ideas in Europe was necessarily ‘amenable to simplification and diffusion’ by the ‘socialist activists who were the real NCOs of the movement.’144 To Sassoon, this was a result of other social democratic parties not

139 Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, eds. Quinton Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 10. 140 TJ Jackson Lears, “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities,” American Historical Review 90 (1985): 568; Terry Irving and Sean Scalmer, "Australian Labour Intellectuals: an Introduction," Labour History, no. 77 (1999): 3. 141 Negt and Kluge, Public Sphere and Experience, 6, 41, 201. 142 Michael Löwy, The Theory of Revolution in the Young Marx (Chicago: Haymarket, 2003). 143 Fink, In Search of the Working Class, 202-224. 144 Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism, 8.

44 benefitting from an intellectual leadership analogous to the SPD, leaving them to simply reproduce the main tenets of doctrines developed in Germany.145 As such, the main disputes in these parties tended to concern not matters of high theory, but rather ‘practical issues,’ particularly on questions such as whether or not they ‘should co-operate with non-socialist forces in order to extract reforms and concessions.’146

Sassoon’s argument denigrates the significant intellectual contribution that these working- class intellectuals made in translating socialist policy to new contexts, and developing strategies for social change that took into account the variety of domestic factors that posed significant challenges to labour’s advance. To consider such work as lacking in theoretical importance is, as Geoff Eley has warned, to create a false distinction between the ‘ideological’ and the ‘political,’ rather than seeing both as being interrelated.147 Sean Scalmer also cautioned against considering practicality, particularly of a self-proclaimed kind, as being a non-ideological, or non-theoretical signifier.148

Sassoon’s depiction of ideology emanating out from Germany also tends to presume that this knowledge was accepted and applied in a uniform manner. In reality, parties actively received this knowledge, translating and adapting it for their own purposes.149 These organisations also influenced the intellectual outlook of the SPD. Australian Labor, for instance, was of great interest for the SPD due to its experiences in government. This was something the German party could only theorise about, whereas Labor was able to experiment practically with executive power.150

This work of translation was conducted by organic intellectuals of the workers’ movement. As Geoff Eley's study of German socialism demonstrates, organic intellectuals were not just the SPD’s primary theoreticians, ‘or its communicators, such as the journalists and full-time speakers and agitators,’ but instead ‘all the officials, functionaries, and agitators that made the subculture tick, and indeed any self-educating, improving working person who found a home in the movement.’151 Intellectuals of the movement included the wide range of individuals who produced knowledge, and distributed power, shaping the political cultures of these parties in the process.

Irving and Scalmer critically developed Gramsci’s outline in the Australian context. They identified ‘movement intellectuals’ who ‘express[ed] the collective identity of a movement,’

145 Ibid., 11-3. 146 Ibid., 14. 147 Eley, "Intellectuals and the German Labor Movement", 80. 148 Sean Scalmer, “Being Practical in Early and Contemporary Labor Politics: A Labourist Critique,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 43, iss. 3 (1997): 301-2. 149 For translation in later movements: Sean Scalmer, “Translating Contention: Culture, History, and the Circulation of Collective Action,” Alternatives 25 (2000): 491-514. 150 Jurgen Tampke, “’Pace Setter or Quiet backwater?’: German Literature on Australia’s Labour Movement and Social Policies 1890-1914,” Labour History, no. 36 (1979): 3-17. 151 Eley, “Intellectuals and the German Labor Movement”, 81.

45 linking this to practical action.152 Labour intellectuals of this type are distinguishable in the movement by their role in producing ‘knowledge and manipulat[ing] symbols.’153 Their organic position allowed them to articulate the experience of the class, and develop its strategies from a position of knowledge, as they themselves shared this experience.

The contribution of such working-class intellectuals is traced throughout this thesis. Crucially, these figures were not polemicists or orators alone, but activists within the movement closely connected to, and articulating the vision of, its major power blocs. Within the conferences of labour it was their skills in developing policy, swaying others to its merits, and strategising its implementation, that defined the creative contestation that shaped Labor and its political culture. These intellectuals also developed knowledge in labour’s publications, its branch meetings, and educational spaces.

Through the creation of knowledge, these intellectuals exercised power within the movement. As Marc Steinberg noted, discourse operates as both a ‘mediator and source of power.’154 It mediates power through ‘facilitating the social action of control’ and acts as a source of power through its capacity to shape consciousness, and develop the means through which ‘the possibilities for action and change are culturally constituted.’ The generation of discourse, and in this case labour knowledge, can ‘make evaluative sense of a group’s world and help in the collective imagining of alternatives and the justification of a path to shared goals.’155 These intellectuals imagined such alternatives, and actively sought to convince the movement to pursue their realisation through intervention into the meetings and forums of the movement.

Methodologically, the operations of such intellectuals is explored through an in-depth reading of Labor’s conferences and major sites of power, as explained above, in conjunction with detailed engagement with the work of powerful individuals such as Curtin and Scullin in the labour press. By looking at these sources in an integrated and detailed manner, trends of thought developed by these thinkers can be identified, as can their translation into movement policy. A detailed reading of Curtin’s articles, for instance, finds that he not only criticised militarism, but did so on the basis of a sophisticated understanding of capitalist imperialism informed by influential European thinkers. By combining articles he wrote for labour newspapers such as the Socialist, the Timber Worker and the Labor Call, his intellectual project over the long term can be pieced together in a new and unique manner.156 The translation of this work into the active policy of the movement is explored in chapters four to six, and demonstrates the intellectual inspiration for the Labor Socialist strategy in these years. Scullin’s output in the AWU-controlled Evening Echo provides a similar insight into

152 Irving and Scalmer, “Australian Labour Intellectuals”, 6. 153 Ibid., 7. 154 Steinberg, Fighting Words, 14. 155 Ibid., 16. 156 Liam Byrne, “John Curtin: labour movement intellectual, 1906-1917,” History Australia 13, no. 2 (2016): 243-257.

46 the intellectual orientation of the Labor Democrats. As a result these papers have been consulted throughought this period, as well as the precursor publication to the Labor Call, the Tocsin.

Labor and the transnational network of labour

The ALP was the product of transnational, as well as national forces. This can be witnessed in its immediate context; post-Federation Australia was a within the British Empire. This linked the country to systems of thought and processes of movement that transgressed borders within the imperial bond. Imperial developments shaped the nation’s actions. The most striking example was Australia’s involvement as part of the Empire in World War One. Australia never declared war: as soon as Britain was involved, so was its dominion.

Labor was also self-consciously connected to a transnational network of labour organisations that stretched across the globe and exchanged ideas, tactics, and personnel. The party was aware that in taking office as the first workers’ governments in world history it was setting an example for parties of labour elsewhere.157 Labor Socialists sought to explicitly link the party to the international movement, at times through adopting its political positions and tactics, and at others through arguing for affiliation with the Second International.158

Studies of European social democracy have often adopted a comparative or transnational frame, a clearly appropriate scope for analysis of parties that conglomerated under the auspices of the International, behind the banner of ‘Workers of the World Unite.’159 This frame is less common in studies of Australian Labor; a body that obstinately refused to affiliate with the Second International. Neville Kirk has bucked this trend in his work on transnational connections between labour in Australia, Britain, and the United States,160 and his comparative study of British Labour’s and the ALP’s attitudes to British Empire. His approach unveils the ‘super-national processes’ and ‘extra-national connections’ that shaped these attitudes, to demonstrate the connections between them.161 Such an approach has great utility in understanding Labor’s development beyond its attitude to the Empire, and unveiling the manner in which the political cultures of parties of political labour were

157 Ross McMullin, So Monstrous A Travesty: and the world’s first national (Melbourne: Scribe Publications, 2004), 68. 158 J Curtin, “The Triennial Conference”, Labor Call (LC), 11 January 1912, 5. 159 Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism, 5-6; Berger, Social Democracy and the Working Class in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany, 10-12; Bartolini, The Political Mobilization of the European Left. 160 Neville Kirk, Comrades and Cousins: Globalization, Workers and Labour Movements in Britain, the USA and Australia from the 1880s to 1914 (London: The Merlin Press, 2003). 161 Neville Kirk, Labour and the Politics of Empire: Britain and Australia 1900 to the Present (: Manchester University Press, 2011), 14.

47 constructed through processes of exchange and interaction with one another in a transnational network of labour organisations, pursuing similar projects of social change.

The analytical model I propose similarly utilises a transnational frame to most effectively capture the variety of influences that shaped Labor’s political culture. This is inspired by the rich literature in social and labour histories that have demonstrated the utility of a transnational focus. Marcel van der Linden has been one of the most prominent advocates for this mode of analysis in his own historical work, as editor of the International Review of Social History, and as former director of research at the International Institute of Social History. Van der Linden argued for an approach that would ‘overtake’ the dominant historical framework that relies on the nation-state as its central organising unit, and place its ‘findings in a new globally oriented approach.’162 This approach seeks to overcome dichotomies that have defined studies of labour, such as that between free/unfree work or the formal/informal economy, demonstrating instead the fluidity of labouring existence that moves beyond and across these categories on a global scale.163 His focus is primarily the tracing of the processes that have culminated in the contemporary experience of globalisation, an approach that pushes beyond the boundaries of the developed world. He tends to fetishise the ‘new’ to the disparagement of older forms of organisation, such as established institutions of political labour. These he disregards as having belonged to a ‘specific historical period, namely between the 1880s and the 1930s,' with the implications being that their utility as frames of historical reference, and as vehicles for contemporary change, has passed.164 Other issues with his broad conceptual framework have been discussed elsewhere,165 but despite these problematics his powerful advocacy for an historical approach that looks for the factors that transgressed borders and boundaries is a useful one to reconsider the processes that shaped parties that have traditionally been considered as national units, such as Labor.

Michael Hanagan has further indicated the utility of this approach in tracking transnational processes across borders. Hanagan, a sometime van der Linden collaborator, argued:

Instead of seeing the globe as a world of separate but interrelated states, transnational labor history sees it as a world of interconnected processes. Transnational labor history follows

162 Marcel van der Linden, “The ‘Globalization’ of Labor and Working-Class History and its Consequences,” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 65 (2004): 140. 163 Ibid., 142. 164 Marcel van der Linden, “The Promise and Challenges of Global Labor History,” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 82 (2012): 72. 165 For a constructive critique of van der Linden’s contribution see: Dorothy Sue Cobble, “The Promise and Peril of the New Global Labor History,” International Labor and Working Class History, 82 (2012): 99-107.

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processes across borders, but it is not ‘borderless’ history; it investigates the character of borders and how processes are affected by border crossings.166

These processes include the migrations of communities, forces of industrialisation and deindustrialisation, changing forms and modes of labour, and class mobilisation. Political activists have often crossed borders, transferring political ideas and techniques from one national context to another, a process he designates as ‘multinational migration.’167 Hanagan uses the biographies of James Connolly and James Larkin, usually understood as quintessentially Irish rebels, as representative examples. Both men were born in Britain, travelled to the US were they engaged in sustained activism, and brought these experiences to Ireland, which became their primary site of action.168 Recent work has located the circulation of industrial agitators within the Pacific region and their impact on socialist politics in Australia, in a matter comparable with Hanagan's appraisal of Larkin and Connolly.169

Similarly, Australian Labor can only be understood in the context of the movement of people. The Australian working class itself was based on migration, as a constituent part of a colonial settler state located within the British Empire. Many of its leaders were migrants, who brought their legacies of political activism to the new setting. They drew upon the political debates and developments in their home countries to interpret and respond to quandaries in the Australian context.

This international influence in the creation of an Australian Labor tradition is demonstrated in the origins of the first three Labor Prime Ministers: Chris Watson was born in Chile (though he denied it), Andrew Fisher in Scotland, and William Hughes in London. Leading protagonists in this thesis represent these dynamics, most notably Tom Mann, a British radical strongly influenced by international socialist politics, and himself attempted founder of transnational union organisations.170 Mann brought this influence to Australia, and his own political outlook was transformed through his antipodean experience, creating a further legacy that he transported back to Britain. He was one who, as Eric Hobsbawm recognised, ‘permanently criss-crossed frontiers,’ spreading dissent and labour knowledge as he went. 171

As mentioned above, the ALP was the first workers’ party to govern, providing a positive example to the transnational network of labour. It did also, it is important to note, act at

166 Michael Hanagan, “An Agenda for Transnational Labor History,” International Review of Social History 49 (2004): 455-6. 167 Ibid., 458. 168 Ibid. 169 Shor, "Left Labor Agitators in the Pacific Rim of the Early Twentieth Century", 148-163. 170 Chushichi Tsuzuki, Tom Mann, 1856-1941: The Challenges of Labour (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 109-124; Joseph White, Tom Mann (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), 114-123. 171 Eric Hobsbawm, "Opening Address: Working-class internationalism," in Internationalism in the Labour Movement 1830-1940, eds. Frits van Holthoon and Marcel van der Linden (Leiden: EJ Brill, 1988), 9.

49 times as a reactionary influence. Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds’ Drawing the Global Colour Line is a pioneering work of transnational history that demonstrates the processes of engagement and exchange amongst the colonial settler states that established themselves as ‘white men’s countries.’ These nations were engaged in a transnational project of racial exclusion and white dominance.172 The ALP was an enthusiastic participant in this racist and racialised project, and has been identified by Johnathon Hyslop as a key inspiration for the creation of a racist white labourism within the British Empire through its advocacy of the White Australia policy.173

As this work has demonstrated, it is not just people that cross borders through the transnational process of migration, but so do ideas, experiences, and political traditions; all critical to the development of Labor’s political culture. Marcel van der Linden and Frits van Holthoon noted in their edited collection on labour internationalism that social-democratic history raises the question of ‘interdependence between national subcultures and international solidarity.’174 Or as Gramsci had earlier put it, ideology within the world system was translated, not simply accepted, when travelling from one national unit to another, while ‘impinging on the local interplay of combinations.’175

As will be seen throughout this thesis, both the Labor Democrats and the Labor Socialists drew on the international movement to develop a unique political perspective. These sections of the movement were self-aware that they operated within a global context of labour challenge to the status quo, and drew upon representative examples elsewhere to develop their own stratagems within the Australian context. They did so as part of a transnational conversation on political change, within which Australia was an avid participant, and influence.

Labor’s political culture

Above, I have outlined interlinked components of a single model to analyse the processes that constructed, and reconstructed, Labor’s political culture. I have suggested that this model has utility in understanding the political cultures of social-democratic/labour parties elsewhere in the world. Underlying this is the appreciation of Labor as a composite of interactive processes in constant creative tension with one another, rather than a singular and settled ‘thing.’

172 Lake and Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line, 137-165. 173 Johnathon Hyslop, “The Imperial Working Class Makes Itself ‘White’: White Labourism in Britain, Australia, and South Africa Before the First World War,” Journal of Historical Sociology 12, no. 4 (1999): 398-421. 174 Frits van Holthoon and Marcel van der Linden, "Introduction," in Internationalism in the Labour Movement 1830-1940, eds. Frits van Holthoon and Marcel van der Linden (Leiden: New York: Københaven: Köln: EJ Brill, 1988), xi. 175 Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, 182.

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Its conceptual framework has been adapted through a unique integration of two critiques of Habermas’ theorising of the bourgeois public sphere. It does so not to repudiate previous insights, but to integrate them to best understand the political culture of the party itself. It adopts the conceptual language of the delimited sphere and counterpublics not to discard previous analytical concepts such as ‘moderate’ and ‘socialist’, but to provide a new lens that allows for an integrative understanding of these forces operating within the labour realm in a relationship that was at once co-operative and antagonistic. This relationship, I argue, was a defining one for Labor, as the creative tensions between these sections generated knowledge. But these tensions were bounded by the commitment both the delimited leadership and the counterpublics had to the party as the political representative of the labour movement.

The impetus to develop such a model came from my detailed research on Victorian Labor’s operations in this period, alongside the national development of the ALP. I came to notice the workings of certain processes. When contextualised through comparative research on other parties of political labour and the extensive literature on their cultural operations, I increasingly yearned for a means to integrate the variety of insights as to how these parties forged an internal party culture, and the factors that influence this; but one that remained sensitive to the distinctive dynamics that shaped each specifically.

Any general model for understanding so comprehensive a phenomenon as political labour will inevitably expose itself to criticism for generalisation.176 I suggest that the processes identified here operated within parties more broadly than Victorian Labor. I do not argue they did so in the same way, with the same relative strengths and weaknesses, nor with the same result as in Victoria, and Australia. But the similarity in structure, ideology, and political projects between these organisations is too stark to ignore. My hope is that this model, drawn from empirical and detailed regional study, but influenced strongly by an international literature and an interest in comparative organisations, will enrich analysis of this component of party life.

But the utility of such a model, and these concepts, can only be proven through a detailed investigation of the historical events that it seeks to classify and understand; the events that led me to search for a means to comprehend the forces at play within a party that had too often been considered a settled entity. Above I have indicated the historical utility for this conceptual apparatus, an applicability I endeavour to demonstrate throughout the narrative of Victorian Labor from 1901 to 1921.

176 Bartolini, The Political Mobilization of the European Left, 2.

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Chapter Two: independent Labor and the socialist counterpublic, 1901-1906

In September 1902 the passenger steamer ‘Westralia’ rode the choppy waves of Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay. It was much anticipated. Several miles out from dock a small boat charged the waves. On board the diminutive vessel was a delegation from the fractious Victorian labour movement desperate to be first to receive one of the Westralia’s passengers, Tom Mann, the famed British labour leader who was touring the antipodes to investigate its social conditions.

Mann’s visit stretched into a seven year stay, a period in which he left an indelible mark on labour politics, particularly in Victoria. Between 1902 and 1905 he served as Victorian Labor’s highly successful, but controversial, official party organiser. He made his most significant contribution to Australian socialism in 1906 by founding the VSP, a body that operated as a counterpublic within the movement. Two young men were inspired by Mann, in different ways, to throw in their lot with political labour. An impressionable James Scullin was said to have committed himself to the party after seeing Mann expound Labor’s virtues on one of his tours of regional Victoria.1 In a more direct manner, John Curtin was converted to socialism by Mann, his political mentor within the VSP.2

Mann’s fame derived from his role as a leader of the 1889 strike on the London docks. Over August-September of that year stevedores across London initiated a strike against declining industrial conditions, excessive casualization, and falling rates of pay. Tens-of-thousands mobilised.3 This immense industrial battle drew solidarity from around the world, spreading the fame of its leaders such as Mann. Workers in the Australian colonies played a notable role in demonstrating solidarity, raising and donating thirty-thousand pounds as a sign of support.4 Mann’s prominence grew further after the strike through his involvement in a variety of efforts to form a political wing of the British labour movement. He could claim involvement in the leading organisations of the British socialist constellation: the Social Democratic Federation, the Fabians, and the Independent Labour Party.5 He was involved in the deliberations of the Second International, further spreading his notoriety. But it was his role in the dock strike that was remembered most clearly in Melbourne. This,

1 , JH Scullin: A Political Biography (Nedlands: University of Press, 1974), 7-8. 2 David Day, John Curtin: A Life (Sydney: HarperCollins, 1999), 67, 70-1. 3 Tsuzuki, Tom Mann, 53-70. 4 Mann recalled: 'What a godsend!': Tom Mann, Tom Mann's Memoirs (London: Macgibbon and Kee, 1967), 63. 5 White, Tom Mann, 83-123.

52 above all, was responsible for his enthusiastic reception. The labour newspaper, the Tocsin, commented that he was one of the great strike leaders ‘reverenced by Australian workers.’ To the movement, the Tocsin continued, Mann ‘should be of as much importance as a Melba to musicians.’6

Despite this initial generosity Mann was soon to discover that Victorian Labor’s chorus was not of one voice. Eagerness to receive him was driven by political motives; his welcoming party wanted to win his endorsement before their rivals could press their claims. For a state of disputation existed within the movement, as Mann soon discovered. Wisely, he declined to endorse the position of those who had charged the waves to greet him, considering ‘their methods somewhat unfair.’7 But he did not hesitate to utilise his fame and skills in the cause of the movement, later describing his first day in Melbourne in his Memoirs: ‘By noon the same day I was in consultation with the members of this body [the THC]. I addressed six meetings that afternoon and evening, and six more the next day.’8

Not all were impressed by Mann’s political intervention. Trouble boiled on Melbourne’s docks where the secretary of the Seaman’s Union, George Sangster, was running as an independent labour candidate following his expulsion from the Port Melbourne PLC branch after allegedly misappropriating funds.9 Mann was met with ‘yells’ and ‘boo-hoos’ during his speech after declaring himself supportive of the official-PLC candidate, Harry Beard. After seeking to calm the crowd, emphasising that ‘Labor must be united to achieve …’, Mann was interrupted mid-sentence by a voice from the assembled dockers declaring ‘Well, it’s disunited here!’10 It was a rude initiation in Victorian politics, amongst a party that was still struggling for definition. But the welcome for Mann was generally a warm and enthusiastic one from a movement that was seeking a unifying figure to help define its purpose and chart a course forward.

For Victorian Labor was drifting in 1902. After a series of false starts throughout the 1890s Federation had spurred the formation of the PLC as the expression of political labour in the state. But Labor’s position was uncertain. In a state traditionally dominated by liberal- protectionism, it was not yet clear to all why labour had struck out on its own. The party had not yet clarified its ultimate purpose. In New South Wales, by contrast, Labor had already spent a decade developing an identifiable political programme based upon specific governing policies.11 In Queensland, Labor had even had its first taste, albeit brief, of government.12 Mann’s arrival in Melbourne marked the beginning of the battle for Victorian

6 “Tom Mann in Melbourne”, Tocsin, 1 October 1902, 5. 7 Mann, Tom Mann's Memoirs, 142. 8 Ibid. 9 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 59. 10 “Tom Mann at Port Melbourne”, Age, 30 September 1902, 5. 11 Childe, How Labour Governs, 12-29. Nairn, Civilising Capitalism, 1-192. 12 DJ Murphy, “Queensland,” in Labor in Politics: the state Labor Parties in Australia 1880 -1920, ed. DJ Murphy (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1975), 164-165.

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Labor’s programme, and the staking of its claim to independence from its former liberal allies. He would prove himself an eager, and influential, combatant.

Socialism was integral to the process through which Labor defined its purpose. This chapter analyses the dual significance of socialism in these years, firstly as a means through which an independent identity for political labour was established, and secondly as a point of contention between the forces that dominated the party from this point: the Labor Democrats who provided the leadership of the delimited proletarian sphere, and the socialist counterpublic.

1901-1905: Tom Mann and the search for a Labor Party

Political labour’s stuttering existence in Victoria began with the election of artisan Charles Jardine Don in August 1859.13 Don’s tragic personal decline after his election helped dissuade the movement from sponsoring similar efforts, with, as Strangio explained, artisans in the state ‘content … to delegate their political representation to middle-class liberal reformers’ for most of the rest of the century.14

The issue that did most to bind labour to these liberal reformers was protectionism. Whereas in NSW a split between free-traders and protectionists was a point of tension within the nascent Labor Party, protectionism was an embedded orthodoxy for Victorian labour. Its central position in Victoria’s liberal tradition allowed for a long-standing alliance between labour and liberals, stretching back to the foundation of the Tariff Reform League in 1859. This liberal protectionist tradition believed in using the tariff to protect Victorian industries, safeguard wages, and create jobs to combat unemployment – aligning with labour’s demands.15 The high-point in co-operation between these forces was labour’s participation in Premier ’s National Reform and Protection League (NRPL), formed in 1877.16 The League was an ‘impressive electoral organization’ consisting of over one hundred branches.17 Berry’s premiership was popular amongst labour due to his support for protection, a land tax on large estates, and reform to the undemocratic Upper Chamber in the colonial parliament.18 Berry’s aspirations ran aground against conservative obstinacy, particularly in the Legislative Council. Stuart Macintyre has observed that Berry’s ultimate compromise with the Council ‘was effectively the end of a cycle of mobilization around an

13 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 22. Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 4-6. 14 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 6. 15 Stuart Macintyre, A Colonial Liberalism: The Lost World of Three Victorian Visionaries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 102-7. 16 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 23. Paul Strangio, “’an intensity of feeling such as I had never before witnessed’: Fusion in Victoria,” in Confusion: The Making of the Australian Two Party System, eds. Paul Strangio and Nick Dyrenfurth (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2009), 137. 17 Macintyre, A Colonial Liberalism, 159. 18 Ibid. Strangio, “’an intensity of feeling such as I had never before witnessed’”, 137.

54 advanced and comprehensive liberal programme.’19 Paul Strangio has argued that the failure of this confrontation lured Victorian liberals into greater co-operation with conservatives in the state, gradually sowing seeds of disenchantment amongst its labour supporters.20

Attempts to form a distinctive labour political representative body in the colony gained traction through the 1890s, prompted in part by developments in New South Wales and Queensland. Victorian efforts met with little success, with three attempts to establish an independent party between 1892 and 1901 all soon collapsing.21 Victorian union support for a distinctive labour organisation was less than wholehearted, with the labour movement’s reliance on liberalism in the state prompting comparison with political labour in Britain.22 There, strong liberal currents convinced many in the union movement that an independent labour voice was not necessary, and that working-class interests could be advanced through alliance with liberal political organisation. Socialists, such as those in the ILP, including Mann, were in the vanguard of attempts to break with this alliance and to assert labour’s independence.23

Indeed, the question of whether or not independent political organisation was necessary was a concern for labour movements across the globe. In those countries where labour did develop an independent party-political organisation an associated debate arose as to what the ultimate aim of such parties should be. Its key antagonists were moderate reformers on the one side, and socialists seeking a radical transformation of class relations on the other. In Germany, the ideological heart of the social democratic movement, this played out in the debate leading to the Erfurt programme, and its attempt to reconcile revolutionary and reform-minded tendencies.24 Victorian debate did not reach the heightened level of the German exchanges. But the discussions that took place there were similar in scope and content to those conducted elsewhere in the transnational network of labour.

Amongst those most committed to independent labour organisation in Victoria was the milieu of radicals and socialists grouped around the Tocsin. This weekly newspaper gradually came to be seen as the official organ of Victorian labour until 1906, when it was replaced by the Labor Call.25 The Tocsin group was a loose confederation of labour intellectuals and activists such as the poet Bernard O’Dowd and the soon to be notorious Labor MPs and Dr. William Maloney. The diversity of thought in this group

19 Macintyre, A Colonial Liberalism, 161. 20 Strangio, “’an intensity of feeling such as I had never before witnessed’”, 138. 21 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 34-43. Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 18-55. 22 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 32. 23 Andrew Thorpe, A History of the British Labour Party (Houndmills: Macmillan Press, 1997), 7, 15-31. 24 Roth, The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany, 187-8; Berger, Social Democracy and the Working Class in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany, 79. 25 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 141; Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 33.

55 was represented by the seventy-four eclectic planks in its platform.26 These planks encompassed socialism, labour reform, the ‘purification of sport,’ ‘bringing “the People Nearer to Art and Art Nearer to the People”’, and just about everything in between.27 Despite their intellectual diffuseness the grouping was united in the belief that labour should strike out from political reliance on liberalism, and develop its own parliamentary presence to advance movement interests.

Support for independent labour organisation grew after Federation. The depression of the 1890s and defeat in the great strikes of that decade weakened unions in the industrial field. Many unions, though far from all, came to see political action as a means to pursue their aims without incurring the cost of industrial battle, for which they were ill-prepared.28 In fits and starts, this continued in the first decade of Federation. A series of political realignments in the first decade of the new century facilitated division between labour and political liberalism. These culminated in the ‘Fusion’ of Liberals and Conservatives in the Commonwealth parliament in 1909. A notable influence on the growing divide was the removal of the protectionist issue from the state to the federal realm following 1901. This removed the primary basis of the labour-liberal alliance from Victorian politics.29 On a federal level, the passage of a tariff in 1908 removed the political heat from the issue, helping to facilitate the ‘Fusion’ of free trade and protectionist non-Labor parties. 30

Anxiety over the PLC’s entrance into Victoria’s political scene fuelled a right-wing backlash embodied by the premiership of William ‘Iceberg’ Irvine, whose tenure in office was defined by punitive measures against organised labour, particularly in response to the railway strike of 1903. Labor leaders came to believe that former liberal allies were not committed to opposing such measures, and the more conservative amongst them actually endorsed Irvine’s legislation. The Tocsin printed a list of state members and how they voted on Bills to penalise the railway strikers. Those who voted ‘all the time for coercion’ appeared ‘in black type,’ while those ‘piebald few’ that voted ‘on both sides are as their politics would denote, half black and half white.’ Only those who voted all the time against coercion, Labor members especially, appeared ‘in ordinary type.’31 The implication was clear: only Labor could be trusted by working-class voters, not prevaricating Liberals.32

26 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 43. 27 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 143. 28 Ibid., 64. 29 McQueen, “Victoria”, 309. 30 Even if it remained a point of internal wrangling between the Fusion parties: Sean Scalmer, “’for the sake of a straight out fight’: The Free Traders and the Puzzle of the Fusion,” in Confusion: The Making of the Australian Two Party System, eds. Paul Strangio and Nick Dyrenfurth (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2009), 51-5. 31 “Strike Suppression Bill”, Tocsin, 11 June 1903, 9. 32 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 67-8.

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A series of countervailing tendencies inhibited the PLC’s growth. The new party was organisationally weak. A further recession in 1902-3 enervated the unions, leading to a decline in affiliation to the party amidst a falling union membership. The total membership in the state did not recover until 1909.33 Ideologically, the organisation was diffuse and uncertain, without binding principles to unite supporters, and clearly differentiate it from political rivals. Important seats with a large working-class population initially returned liberal candidates in opposition to Labor standard bearers.34 In addition, the Victorian electoral system granted disproportionate representation to rural electorates where the movement and the party were particularly weak, restricting the PLC’s electoral reach.35

Analytically, this can be understood as a period of adjustment for the leadership of the proletarian sphere as it sought to adapt to the changing political realities of Federation Australia. The first task was to consolidate the political wing of the movement, the PLC, by developing party structures that would give life to the organisation on a permanent basis, not just in moments of intense electoral campaigning. Soon after his arrival in late September 1902, supporters of political labour in the state turned to Tom Mann to provide the organisational energy necessary to develop the PLC into a strong and independent party. In effect, he would be acting to strengthen the political expression of the proletarian sphere in the state.

Mann was the PLC’s organiser from 1902 until 1905. In this period his determined activism was a great asset to the party, while his unabashed socialism served as a point of controversy.36 This came to light after Mann had resigned as PLC organiser. After an article in used quotations from Mann on revolutionary socialism to discredit the party, PLC secretary Patrick Heagney wrote swiftly to clarify that Mann was no longer in the party’s employ, and ‘never advocated such doctrines in the name of the P.L.C.’ Labor, he continued, ‘indignantly repudiate[s] the imputation that there is the slightest ground for supposing that our members have any sympathy with such doctrine.’37

For most of his tenure as PLC organiser, however, Mann was commended by party leaders for his efforts, justifying his lofty reputation.38 He propagated the cause of Labor and, on occasion, of socialism, consistently and powerfully. At times he did so in circumstances of great hostility, and even potential danger, in country Victoria where organised labour was considered an unwelcome presence, and socialism a deadly enemy of enterprise.39 Mann’s success ensured the PLC was an increasingly viable political organisation, attracting union

33 Frank Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 69. 34 Ibid., 78. 35 McQueen, “Victoria”, 311. 36 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 73. 37 P Heagney, “The War of the Classes”, Tocsin, 21 December 1905, 2. 38 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 72. 39 Mann, Tom Mann's Memoirs, 143-4.

57 affiliation and promising further electoral success.40 This increased affiliation, however, tended to bolster the position of moderates within the party, strengthening the hand of the leadership of the delimited sphere.41

Alongside these organisational efforts was the growing belief that Labor needed to define its own specific purpose; to justify its separation from traditional liberal allies, and to consolidate electoral support. Mann was an important figure in propagandising in favour of an independent-Labor perspective, arguing that ‘Liberalism is as dead as Queen Anne, and there is no Liberal Party except in name.’ Mann, to the concern of party moderates, saw this as an opportunity for Labor to adopt a programme of radical transformation, as ‘nothing less than the application of Socialist principles, involving the co-operative ownership and control of all the agencies of production and distribution’ would suffice to ‘cure the evils arising out of the present capitalist system.’42

Party moderates concurred the time had come for Labor to assert its independence from on- again, off-again prime minister and the Liberal Party, and they sought a way to do so that avoided Mann’s socialist inflection. One Tocsin editorial on the relationship to liberalism commented that labour’s initial political efforts had ‘no idea in particular beyond putting working men into the House.’ While this was a positive achievement, such a state of affairs could not long persist, as ‘it did not stand in the nature of things that a Party could continue very long to exist even in the House … for such a purpose.’ Once labour had achieved parliamentary representation it was necessary to consider how best to represent ‘the actual interests of the workers.’ This would require, the editorial argued, ‘distinct party lines’ being ‘laid down.’43

Moderates in the union movement and parliamentary party generally concluded that Labor needed to clearly delineate itself from its former liberal allies to achieve its ends, but demonstrated less clarity as to precisely what these were. Tocsin demonstrated some of the uncertainties. The same editorial sought to articulate Labor’s purpose, proclaiming the workers’ ‘native right … to work for the supply of their wants,’ free of the inhibitions placed on them by ‘vested rights of middlemen denominated employers’ or the ‘unworkableness of a speculative commercial system of production and exchange.’ Its language and conclusions were indicative of the trend of appropriating liberal and populist rhetorics that Bongiorno has identified. The article, significantly, outlined social ills as originating in excesses of capitalism and the processes of exchange, rather than being the innate product of capitalism and the relations of production and waged labour itself. But even more significant is the ambiguity with which it treats the precise aim, and the nature of social transformation. This is generally true of the Labor farrago in the state from Federation until 1905, when the

40 A lack of support saw many of these branches soon fold: Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 72. 41 Ibid., 78. 42 Tom Mann “Liberalism is Dead”, Tocsin, 12 January 1905, 2. 43 “Labour and Liberalism”, Tocsin, 21 February 1901, 4.

58 party’s debates over its objective ensured there was greater definition provided as to its ultimate aim. Before that point, the tide generally turned in favour of Labor independence, but the ultimate purpose of that independence had not yet been defined. This could be seen at the PLC’s first major conference in 1902. While a series of motions on organisation and immediate policies were passed, most notably calling for compulsory arbitration in Victoria to settle industrial disputes, no discussion was recorded on the object and purpose of the party – what it was intending and hoping to achieve. This contrasts very strongly with the extended debates over the party’s objective at conferences from 1905.44 Labor’s self- definition at this point was framed by what it was not – conservative or liberal – rather than what it was, or what it hoped to be.

But this was not true of all within the movement, least of all Mann himself. In Victoria, socialism, like political labour, lagged behind its northern neighbours, but it was present. A succession of socialist groups in the 1890s and early 1900s failed to make a major impact on state politics. But certain figures of influence around the Tocsin group, and later the small Victorian Socialists League, were able to generate a level of socialist discourse and awareness in the movement.45 In Mann, these ideas found a prominent and forceful champion. Burgmann related that Mann’s arrival spurred the formation of the Social Democratic Party of Victoria (SDP).46 It would seem this group were behind the Victorian branches’ proposal in 1902 that the national party declare its objective to be the ‘gradual nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange.’47 This proposal was swiftly rebuffed by the national party, which preferred to limit its aim to the ‘Nationalisation of Monopolies.’48

While Mann was PLC organiser, the main challenge facing Labor was to establish the party as a viable entity that could survive beyond each electoral cycle, a task beyond those abortive party-projects of the 1890s. Socialists such as Mann were committed activists in this project. He was joined by other radicals such as Harry Scott Bennett, a state Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA).49 The PLC was ideologically uncertain. Socialists had gained some influence, as Mann and Bennett’s positions within the party attest, but the more the PLC developed a political identity independent of the Liberals, and gained electoral traction, the more moderates sought to distance themselves from the radical claims of socialists in the ranks.50 As Turner identified, the orientation towards winning government increasingly led

44 “Great Labour Conference at the Trades Hall”, Tocsin, 3 July 1902, 6. 45 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 136-145; Burgmann, ‘In Our Time’, 120-8. 46 Burgmann, ‘In Our Time’, 128. 47 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 145-7. 48 Unlike later conference the discussions that took place were not recorded in the official minutes. Australian Labor Party (ALP), Second Commonwealth Conference (Sydney: Worker, 1903), 2, 7. 49 Graeme Osborne, “Bennett, Henry Gilbert,” Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 1 September 2016. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bennett-henry-gilbert-5210. 50 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 136.

59 to the moderates distancing themselves from radical associations, particularly as their electoral fortunes began to improve. The short-lived Federal Labor government of Chris Watson in 1904 further bolstered the moderation of leading figures in the Victorian party.

A 1904 Tocsin editorial during the brief life of Watson’s ministry provides an indication of the perspective of these moderates. It argued that Labor was the only party capable of governing for the national, rather than sectional, interests, guided by the mantra ‘as administrators let none be for the Party, but all for the state.’ Labor policy operated to the benefit of the working class, Tocsin continued, but these policies were ‘calculated to promote the interests of the nation as a whole.’ The article assured its readers that Labor members did not ‘war against any individual nor do they attack any class. The rights of the capitalist are as sacred as those of the worker.’51

Mann and his comrades disagreed. They believed the PLC was drifting too far to the right. A renewed effort was required to instil socialist principles into the movement. Throughout 1905 Mann was preoccupied by this challenge: in effect, how to convert the primary political expression of the proletarian sphere to out and out socialism.

1905: a socialist objective.

Socialism in NSW and Victoria proceeded in two markedly distinct directions post- Federation. Whereas in NSW relations between the moderate leadership of the colonial party and its socialist sections had led to a split of its radical left in the late 1890s (though the more moderate socialist activists such as and future NSW premier remained), socialists continued to be an integral part of Labor organisation in the south.52 Victorian socialists grappled with the question of how best to operate in a mass party that was gaining electoral momentum on both a state and national level with a leadership increasingly resistant to radical claims.

Mann had to adapt to this new situation. He had come from the British political context where the major political expression of the delimited proletarian sphere, the Labour Party, was much weaker than in Australia. British Labour at this time was an affiliation-based party without individual membership, in which organisations that constituted subaltern counterpublics such as the ILP exerted an influence disproportionate to their numbers. The ILP used this position to try and win the labour movement to a socialist perspective.53 Victorian socialists under Mann’s leadership had a similar project. Mann did not want to

51 “The Political Situation”, Tocsin, 5 May 1904, 4-5. 52 Markey, The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales, 133-259; Burgmann, ‘In Our Time’, 35-90. 53 Henry Pelling and Alastair Reid, A Short History of the Labour Party (Houndmills: Macimillan, [Eleventh Edition] 1996), 9; Ralph Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism: a study in the politics of labour (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1964), 14-5; Perry Anderson, “Origins of the Present Crisis”, New Left Review, I/23 (1964): 44.

60 replace the PLC. He did not seek to construct an alternative party to engage in a battle for movement hegemony as socialists in NSW advocated, and as would be the starting point for later radical parties such as the of Australia. His adamant belief was that Labor could and should be captured for socialism. All his actions were aimed at achieving this goal.

In 1905 Mann was both Labor organiser and the leading light of the SDP, a socialist organisation that could claim only a modest presence in Victoria’s political scene.54 It was an important site for networking and developing the connections that Mann would soon use to forge the much more influential VSP. One of the most important connections in this period was between Mann and Bennett, who as a prominent socialist MP led the charge on the floor of the PLC’s 1905 conference to accept the socialist objective. Mann himself was not a delegate to this conference, most likely as his position as organiser created a potential conflict of interest over party policy, but he did speak and argue consistently for a socialist objective, and advocated for its acceptance behind the scenes.

Born in in 1877, Bennett became one of the state’s most prominent rationalists, republicans, and socialists. A founding member of no less than three socialist groups, and SDP secretary, he was a prominent member of the VSP. In 1904 the former draper’s assistant successfully won PLC pre-selection and election in Ballarat West, home at the time to a batch of Labor radicals. After just a single term he eschewed the parliamentary life for what he considered a more honest route to social transformation, declining to recontest the seat and returning to the ranks of socialist agitators with great distinction.55 He left Victoria for Sydney in 1907, soon after travelling to the United States. By the time he returned to Victoria in 1917 a new generation of socialist activists had come to the fore.

As a sitting member of parliament in 1905, Bennett initiated the contest over Victorian Labor’s purpose at the state conference, taking place at the Melbourne Trades Hall.56 In a moment of geographical symmetry he moved a motion seconded by the delegate from Ballarat East, a Mr. Turner, to insert the ‘Nationalisation of all the means of production, distribution, and exchange’ as a plank into the state platform.57 The motion, a rare example of socialist brevity, would grow to significance well beyond its word count. It was intended to clarify Labor’s purpose, and claim the party for the cause of radical socialist transformation. It was interpreted in this way by its advocates and opponents alike.

Immediately after Bennett put his motion an amendment was moved by the state member Henry Beard, seconded by Lilian Locke. Beard was a moderate member of the parliamentary caucus, representing the state constituency of Jika Jika. He had been the Labor-endorsed candidate in Port Melbourne that Mann had supported with such controversy in 1902. Locke

54 Burgmann, ‘In Our Time’, 128-135. 55 Osborne, “Bennett, Henry Gilbert”. 56 “The Parliament of Labour”, Tocsin, April 27 1905, 4. 57 Ibid., 4.

61 represented the Carlton branch of the PLC, and was soon to rise to greater prominence as its first women’s organiser, before departing for .

Their amendment, which the official minutes recorded as ‘rather out of the ordinary,’ called for:

the enactment of such legislation as will raise the conditions of the workers, and serve as successive steps towards the establishment of a collectivist state, by election to all public bodies of candidates pledged to the platform of this Council.58

While rhetorically radical, this amendment was understood to diminish the political purpose of Bennett’s motion, making the directive more abstract, and replacing the commitment to nationalising ‘production, distribution, and exchange,’ with a hazier vision of a ‘collectivist state.’ Debate commenced as to the soul of Labor and the purpose of the movement, but only ‘[a]fter the tea adjournment.’

Support for Bennett’s motion came predominantly from party branches, both in the city and the country. This represented the diffuse but growing radical sentiment that would crystallise into the VSP in 1906. Delegate Connell from Castlemaine defended Bennett, arguing that the current platform ‘would prove insufficient for the emancipation of the real producers.’ McCarthy from the Toorak branch adamantly supported the motion, arguing that ‘Socialism was going on all over the world, and was essentially a working class movement.’59 John McDougall of the Ararat branch made one of the most forthright interventions in favour of adopting the objective. McDougall was a local councillor and would be elected to represent Labor in the seat of Wannon the following year. In that campaign he would suffer from stage fright and be struck mute at a meeting of electors. Once in parliament his taciturn presence earned him the nickname of ‘the Silent Member.’60 Whatever his subsequent anxieties over public address, McDougall steeled himself in the presence of his comrades to argue for the motion, declaring that the party must ‘set high its ideals, and its course would be upward.’ If, on the other hand, it were to ‘lower its objective,’ then ‘retrogression must ensue.’61

McDougall represented those who thought there should not be a delineation between Labor’s ultimate principles and its immediate platform. One should be directly linked and informed by the other. A small number of delegates were motivated by an outright hostility to socialism. Maguire, representing North Melbourne, ‘did not hesitate to proclaim himself an anti-Socialist,’ and believed that it was the ‘steady growth of trade unionism’ that would

58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Terry King, “McDougall, John Keith,” Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 22 July 2016. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mcdougall-john-keith-7346. 61 “The Parliament of Labour", Tocsin, 27 April 1905, 5.

62 secure the greatest gains for labour, not ‘the advocacy of unrealised and unrealisable dreams.’

But overt anti-socialism was not the main form of opposition to the socialist plank. A more common basis for refuting the motion was the belief that the time was not yet ripe for socialism, and that it was unwise for the party to advance too far beyond an electorate lacking education in socialist ideals. Bromberg of the Agricultural Implement Makers’ Union represented this perspective. His argument is of particular note as this union would later be a powerful redoubt of socialism with VSP connections. At this early stage however Bromberg regretfully opposed the motion, as ‘it was not expedient to force the question;’ when the people were ready for such transformation, then ‘the change would be effected.’

The strongest section of opposition was located in the parliamentary parties. Notably, at the start of the conference a special motion had to be moved to allow the state and federal parties to have delegates to the conference at all. Labor at this stage was clearly still consolidating the relationship between the wings of the movement. At the conference, these four delegates proved a formidable opposition to the socialisation plank. This included the more conservative state MPs and Henry Elmslie, but also two federal MPs who tend to be identified as representing Victorian Labor’s left-wing culture, Frank Anstey, and Dr. William Maloney.

Anstey was a unique and controversial political figure. Born in England, he was a pre- teenage stowaway to Australia who for ten years sailed the Pacific while conducting a process of self-education, reading widely. A dedicated member of the Seaman’s Union, Anstey became an influential part of the Tocsin group in the 1890s, and an eccentric state member from 1902-1910, when he graduated to the Federal arena.62 His parliamentary career often saw him capture headlines in high-stakes showdowns with his conservative opponents, and at times, his own party leadership. He accrued a radical reputation that outstripped his actions at key moments, including in 1905 when he adamantly opposed Bennett’s motion on a relatively conservative basis.

Anstey argued that it was impossible for Labor to have a ‘plank so indefinite’ in its platform. He sought to draw the implications of the motion to their logical conclusion, highlighting immediate practical barriers that would block nationalisation. He particularly focused on the mining, agricultural, and horticultural industries, where work was reputedly individualised, asking ‘Was it proposed to “nationalise” the farmers plough? If not, where was the line to be drawn?’ Not content to suffer this barrage in silence, Bennett interjected, stating that ‘We Socialists know what we will nationalise, and where the line ought to be drawn.’ It is illustrative that Bennett did not include Anstey amongst the ‘We Socialists’ who would arbitrate on the matter. Whatever Anstey felt at such a jibe, it clearly did not unbalance him

62 Ian Turner, “Anstey, Francis George,” Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 1 September 2016. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/anstey-francis-george-frank-5038.

63 in full flight. He continued his attack, most notably arguing that ‘Socialism was not the objective of the party. The real objective was the well-being of the people.’63

Anstey’s attack was reinforced by his parliamentary colleague, Maloney. While lacking Anstey’s radical edge, the somewhat eccentric Member for Melbourne has nonetheless been considered a prominent representative of Victoria’s left-wing culture.64 Maloney similarly argued against the motion, as Labor was a party representative of Victorian democracy, and hence, should and ‘could only advance with public opinion.’ It was important for Labor to lead from the front, but ‘it should not be thrust so far in advance as to be practically out of sight.’ Transformation could be achieved only by degrees, and he condemned those acts ‘which amounted to expropriation, though called by the attractive name of “Restitution,” bore a striking resemblance to “Confiscation.”’65

State Labor leader George Prendergast maintained the parliamentary front, arguing that ‘[i]mproved conditions of Labour could only be obtained by energetic action, not by putting a few words in a platform.’ Elmslie declared himself a socialist, but queried the sense ‘in asking electors to vote a man into power for three years, solely because he approved a policy which might become possible in thirty years’ time.’ In direct contrast to the socialist argument these parliamentarians were eager to draw a strong distinction between the immediate, the practical, and the realistic, with the abstract nature of the socialist plank.66 This would be an argument drawn upon by moderates time and again in rebuttal of socialist claims. Labor’s business was to govern for the benefit of the workers in the immediate term, not to idly dream of happier futures.

This resistance was not enough. The socialisation objective was passed with a small amendment from Bromberg, who was successful in inserting the word ‘gradual’ into the motion. The nationalisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange became part of the PLC’s platform, but only briefly. Almost as soon as the motion was adopted two delegates moved to transfer the clause from the platform to the objective in the constitution.67 The ostensible socialist Edward J Russell moved the motion; Beard seconded it. Russell was elected to the Senate in 1906, and he was considered a rising star of the parliamentary caucus, serving as a minister without portfolio in the Fisher and Hughes governments. His association with the movement ended when he became the only Victorian member to follow Hughes out of the Labor caucus, earning him a reputation as one of the

63 “The Parliament of Labour”, Tocsin, 27 April 1905, 4. 64 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 39, 43. 65 “The Parliament of Labour”, Tocsin, 27 April 1905, 5. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid.

64

Rats of 1916.68 To what extent thoughts of a future political career influenced Russell’s decision to move this motion is unclear.

The motion removed the objective from the list of demands that Labor would take to the election, and rendered it a more abstract future aim. This procedural manoeuvre effectively negated the intention behind Bennett’s motion, which he had conceived as a means to transform Labor’s aim, and immediate practice. It is not clear if the left-wing delegates were aware that this would be the effect, as there was no discussion minuted following this motion, though it is recorded that it was carried. It is likely that at this point the socialists were not clear as to the implications of such a manoeuvre.

What can be said with some certainty is that a section of parliamentarians were the strongest opposition to the socialists, but this group was not strong enough in its own right to block the enthusiasm of radicals in the party, organised through the branches, led by Bennett and spurred behind the scenes by the organisation and arguments of Mann. Turner’s interpretation of the conservatising influence of national/community pressures on MPs, leading them to oppose more radical claims, is broadly applicable in this case. These MPs clearly considered the socialist plank as a potential threat to their electoral popularity.69 This interpretation does not hold for all MPs, however. After all, a sitting member moved the motion. But the general trend from the parliamentary party was opposition. The MPs were unable to contain these sentiments completely. In the short term, this required federal intervention. In the long term, it required a bloc that could bring structural power and a distinctive ideological outlook to the party to represent and articulate the moderate perspective, and provide leadership for the delimited proletarian sphere.

Emboldened by their success in Victoria the socialists sought to transform the party on a national scale, at the federal Labor conference that took place two months later at the Melbourne Trades Hall. The vexed question of the party objective dominated the assembly. Conference delegates engaged in a creative contest over the issue of Labor’s aim and purpose, a debate provoked by the proposed change to the objective. This contestation was heightened by Labor’s recent experience of federal government in 1904. The party was eager to recapture the treasury benches, and as the conference demonstrated, the parliamentary leadership were particularly eager to ensure that the meeting did not adopt any potentially embarrassing positions that could hinder it in government. Watson was a leading figure in the debate that was organised around three competing motions. The first was proposed by the NSW branch, with two additional motions, one put by Victoria and a second by Queensland. The Victorian motion was a recapitulation of Bennett’s from the state

68 Geoff Browne, “Russell, Edward John,” Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 22 July 2016. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/russell-edward-john-8300. 69 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 18-22.

65 conference, and Queensland’s position was purportedly influenced by Mann’s visit to the state.70

The NSW motion represented the perspective of the party’s moderate forces, the leadership of its proletarian public sphere. This included the parliamentary leadership, but also the powerful unions, particularly the AWU. Having previously triumphed over the forces of socialism in their own state, these moderates now sought to replicate this process federally. The Victorians under Bennett, and the Queenslanders, were eager to prevent them. The NSW motion had two components. The first proclaimed the ‘cultivation of an Australian sentiment based upon the maintenance of racial purity’ as Labor’s aim, and the second declared commitment to:

The securing of the full results of their industry to all producers by the collective ownership of monopolies and the extension of the industrial and economic functions of the State and Municipality.71

The difference between full nationalisation and the nationalisation of monopolies would become the significant difference for the socialists, the latter being considered too limited in its scope, and not targeting the entirety of the exploitative capitalist class.

Over several days leading figures of the national labour movement met with the official purpose of ‘giv[ing] effect to an excellent principle of organisation peculiar to the Australian Labour (sic) Party, by which the People are invited to mould the policy of their Parliamentary representatives.’72 In truth, they met to determine the fundamental character of the ALP: was it to be a party of reform or radical social transformation. Unlike the state conference, which was more easily accessible both in terms of geography and election to broader sections of the movement, the national conference was overwhelmingly dominated by state and federal parliamentarians.73 Of thirty-six delegates at the conference, twenty seven were MPs. Two Prime Ministers, one past and one future, Chris Watson and Andrew Fisher, were present to aid in crafting Labor’s objective. The preponderance of MPs at the gathering favoured its moderate forces, wishing to downplay party radicalism in a manner similar to their Victorian counterparts.

The terms of the moderate attack on the socialists was revealing. Donald McDonnell, a NSW MLA, denounced the Victorian proposal as the product of the ‘ideas of Continental Socialists.’74 The aspersion was that while the NSW motion provided the party with the objective most appropriate for the Australian sentiment, the Victorian proposal was the work of dark and insidious European ideologies. Considering the influence of European

70 Graeme Osborne, “Tom Mann: His Australasian Experience 1902-1910,” (PhD Thesis, Australian National University, 1972), 101-6. 71 ALP, Commonwealth Political Labour Conference 1905 (Brisbane: Worker, 1905), 10. 72 Ibid., 1. 73 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 48. 74 ALP, Commonwealth Political Labour Conference 1905, 13.

66 social democracy on the socialist forces congealing into the VSP at the time, despite McDonnell’s obvious intention to smear the proposal, this may not have been too far from the truth. Watson gave a more level-headed rebuttal, contending that their responsibility as ‘managers of the Labour movement’ was not the utopian search ‘for a seventh heaven’ but the achievement of what was practicable in the immediate future. The history of the labour movement in Australia, he argued, ‘had been not the attitude of “crying for the moon,” but to accept what was practical and immediate.’75

Watson’s hostility towards the celestial realms was matched by Bennett’s antagonism to focussing only on the immediate future. Labor could not, he argued, limit itself to an objective to which ‘even Mr. Deakin himself would subscribe.’ Whatever the organisational success in NSW and whatever the positives of the experience of government federally, what was vital for Bennett was not just the capturing of power, but what was done with it. The objective proposed by NSW, while radical to a degree, did not clearly differentiate the party from its erstwhile allies. He argued that it accommodated rather than challenged capitalism, compromising the interests of the working class. Secondly, Bennett objected to the notion of cultivating an ‘Australian sentiment’ as ‘[t]hey had enough of that in the Labour movement at the present time.’ Instead, he insisted, they should work towards ‘the cultivation of an international sentiment ─ to say that we were part and parcel of the world-wide Socialist movement.’76 In this, he was speaking against the deeply-entrenched movement orthodoxy.

This unabashedly socialist perspective was starkly at odds with the mood of NSW moderates – dangerously so in the eyes of some. Stirring as many of the speeches and declarations no doubt were, it was, as always, the numbers that ultimately decided the issue. The NSW objective was firmly adopted by 23 votes to 11, with the NSW, South Australian, most of the Tasmanian, and West Australian delegates bloc voting to ensure its success. Most of the Victorians voted with Bennett in opposition.77

This conference represented an important victory for the forces of moderate Labor at this early juncture. This success on a national level gave strength and succour to the moderate forces who had not managed to defeat the socialists outright in Victoria, but only to subvert their victory through adept utilisation of party procedures. This was not just a moral victory, but a substantive one, providing them with both a political argument and procedural means to dismiss the yearnings of the socialists in their ranks. But in Victoria it illustrated how far the delimited proletarian sphere still had to go in asserting control over its primary political expression. This did not mean Victoria was without influence. Not only did the party help spark the broader debate over socialism, its newly developed hostility towards electoral alliances with Liberal forces was brought to the fore at this conference. The Victorian party secretary, Patrick Heagney, moved a motion to ban electoral alliances that would grant

75 Ibid. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid., 14.

67 electoral immunity to liberal candidates. This motion, which passed with slight alteration, was a direct riposte to the federal leader, Watson, who had sought to engineer such a move.78

Socialism

The objective’s repudiation prompted Mann to rethink his strategy to promote socialism within the labour movement. He identified a lack of understanding as to the true meaning of socialism amongst the working class as an inhibitive factor. He believed greater education amongst the labour movement as to the content of the theory would enable him to convert its institutions to radical practice. He needed a new course of action, and he drew upon his political experiences in Britain, and of the Second International, to reconceptualise how socialist change could be achieved in the new political context.

His 1905 pamphlet Socialism was the product of this questioning; his developing thought can be tracked within its pages. In the text he sketched out the central tenets of Second International thought to educate an Australian audience. The piece developed a consistent critique of capitalist relations based on the socialist theory of exploitation. Inspired by Marx’s concept of ‘surplus value,’ Mann argued that capitalism was a system of innate inequality where the worker received less than the value of what they produced.79 Social democracy sought to negate this inequity through the transference ‘from present day private ownership to National Ownership of all those agencies of wealth production, necessary for the supply of life's necessaries for the whole people.’80 This would occur as part of the ‘historical development of humanity’ through the differing stages of economic progress familiar to every ‘student of Sociology.’81

The pamphlet was educative, but it was also a political intervention. He argued strongly that ‘continental socialism’ was of great relevance to Australian labour, and outlined the forward march of socialism and labour parties around the world. Mann’s staunch internationalism meant he was eager to prosecute an argument about solidarity with workers’ parties globally. But he was clearly considering how the operations of such parties might provide an example for socialists in Australia. This is particularly the case with his discussion of the ILP and the Social Democratic Federation in Britain. He was complimentary of their ‘educational work’ in developing socialist consciousness within the labour movement there, considering these as potential models as to how a socialist group could similarly operate within the Australian context.

78 Ibid., 19-20. 79 Tom Mann, Socialism (Melbourne: Tocsin, 1905), 10. 80 Ibid., 9. 81 Ibid., 31.

68

Mann’s biographer, Joseph White, described this moment as representing ‘his shift from labourism to independent socialism.’82 A close reading of the text demonstrates that this statement requires some qualification. The pamphlet indicates that at this stage Mann was clearly not advocating a split of socialists from Labor. Rather, he was addressing the fundamental problem of socialists who were stifled by conservative elements within the party: the creation of their own organisation within the institutions of the movement. In this, it represented the ideological blueprint of the VSP, a broad outline of the major political positions the party would adopt, and the theoretical bedrock upon which it would be grounded.

Mann situated Australian Labor amidst the growth of the workers’ movement across the globe. While he conceded that not all Labor representatives were socialist, the party was ‘Socialistic in trend.’83 In his depiction, the dividing line between the approach of Labor’s leadership and socialists such as himself was not as clear as it would later be. But his thinking had developed to the point where he was considering how an overtly socialist organisation could operate within the Australian movement to try and sway Labor to socialism; that is, how to organise a subaltern counterpublic within the broader proletarian sphere. He lamented that the movement’s ‘literary department is woefully deficient,’ and the dearth of labour-specific publications in Australia. Literature ‘of the right sort’ was required, he argued, to ensure that the workers would be ‘properly qualified to discern between the subtleties of political charlatans’ who would seek to ‘turn aside the movement from the straight path that leads to social ownership of the agencies of production.’84 It would be necessary, he explained, for the ‘Socialist Labor Party of Australia’ to be so ‘perfectly organised and thoroughly equipped that nothing should ever go by default.’85

The language is indicative. Mann was thinking about a socialist organisation that would conduct the pedagogical work necessary to convert the workers’ movement to socialism. He was drawing upon his understanding and knowledge of Second International parties, and the efforts of socialists within the labour movement in Britain. Crucially, this was an attempt to organise a socialist section within the labour movement and its key institutions to convert the movement to its creed. To win Labor to socialism would require a well-developed and energetic radical party that could more effectively perform these agitational and pedagogical activities than previous socialist organisations. Mann was determined to bring such a party into being. In 1905 he resigned as PLC organiser and began a Sunday evening lecture series in the Bijou theatre on social problems, from which grew the Social Questions Committee, an organisation dedicated to the investigation of the extent and causes of poverty in working-class neighbourhoods.86 The following year the Social Questions Committee would

82 White, Tom Mann, 134. 83 Mann, Socialism, 46. 84 Ibid. 51. 85 Ibid. 86 Mann, Tom Mann's Memoirs, 155-6.

69 reform under a new banner, a new name: the Socialist Party of Victoria, or as it would come to be known, the Victorian Socialist Party.

Understanding the Victorian Socialist Party

With the foundation of his party Mann made an enduring and significant contribution to Australian socialism. Within eighteen months of its foundation, the VSP claimed 2000 members, making it the largest pre-communist socialist organisation in Australia.87 Between 1906 and 1908 the VSP forged a socialist subculture within the state that spread radical ideas and strategies, and drew layers of working-class activists into political activity. A series of future labour notables would come to political consciousness in the VSP, and develop the agitational skills crucial to their careers. The most significant of these figures was John Curtin, but he was joined by future Victorian Premier John Cain; the controversial lawyer and MP ; movement powerbroker and cabinet minister EJ Holloway, and Frank Hyett, the secretary of the Victorian Railways Union and advocate of industrial unionism. In addition, a number of leading intellectuals, such as the poet Bernard O’Dowd, would be drawn to the VSP.88

The VSP rose swiftly, and its decline was just as sudden. This has posed a challenge in quantifying its exact influence in Victorian politics. In his survey of the Victorian party, Humphrey McQueen concluded that the VSP had a significant ‘ideological’ influence, but the precise nature of this influence remains unexplained.89 It is clear that the VSP shaped the Labor Party’s political approach in some way, but precisely in what manner, and how this came to be, is left unexplained. As is mentioned in chapter one, this is a trend shared by Turner. Despite noting that the party was ‘spectacularly successful,’ Verity Burgmann’s study of the relationship between Labor and socialism focuses predominantly on NSW and concludes in 1905, meaning that the VSP is not discussed in any detail.90 In The People’s Party, Bongiorno posits that socialism’s primary influence over Labor was between 1897 and 1905, sidelining the period of the party’s operation.91 In his account, the VSP’s legacy resides not with the actions of the organisation per se but with the Labor leaders who cut their political teeth in its ranks, its main relevance post-1905 was as foil to the moderate elements taking hold within the Labor.92

The most developed consideration of the VSP’s relationship to and impact upon Victorian Labor is Strangio’s Neither Power Nor Glory. Strangio depicts radicalism in the ranks as a key

87 Burgmann, ‘In Our Time’, 135. 88 Bongiorno, “Bernard O’Dowd’s Socialism”, 97-116. 89 McQueen, “Victoria”, 311-314. 90 Although she does discuss the SDP: Burgmann, ‘In Our Time’, 135. 91 Bongiorno, The People's Party, 136. 92 Ibid., 162.

70 factor in barring the PLC from greater electoral advances beyond its core constituencies.93 He identified the overlap in membership between the VSP and Labor at certain points, yet the overall discussion of socialist influence remains limited.94 His account of the left pivots on the actions of radical MPs such as Anstey, and ill-defined elements of the union movement, rather than on a cohered radical section associated with the VSP.95 Strangio tends to focus on the party’s community-building activities. He indicated that Curtin and Hyett represented its influence, but the exact nature of this, once again, remains unclear.

Elsewhere the VSP is considered predominantly through its cultural activities, understood less as a revolutionary project, and more as means to socialise and for self-improvement, a trend I have critiqued.96 The earliest accounts of these activities come from personal recollections provided by Bertha Walker and Edgar Ross. In her biography of her father and VSP member Percy Laidler, Walker discussed Mann’s efforts to ensure the VSP was a ‘family party’ in which ‘all were welcomed and there was something to cater’ for each member.97 Ross’ treatment follows these lines, but shifts impetus to his father and Mann’s successor as party secretary, Robert Ross. He considered the VSP to have ‘carried the stamp of my father’s personality,’ with its activities functioning ‘to make itself a socialist community in the terms of its prospectus.’98

This emphasis on the cultural activities of the party is repeated in Geoffrey Hewitt’s Master’s thesis, the only dedicated history of the party. Hewitt argued that these practices bound together the membership into a community, depicting the cultural exchanges of the party as a search for meaning, a replacement of the catechism of Christian churches with the socialist ethos.99 In his telling, ‘socialism became a substitute for Christianity.’100 The socialist community was constructed around the ‘profound belief in the morality of socialism as a system of ideas, and in the inevitability of a socialist system superseding capitalism.’101

While these accounts provide useful depictions of party life, their tendency is to diminish the political role of this cultural creation, and to present the VSP as a ‘community,’ rather than a substantive political body that operated with a specific purpose within the broader labour movement: winning its leadership as part of the struggle for socialism. This project underpinned its activities in its early years, and in many ways it was successful – if not on

93 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 78-9. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid., 118-125. 96 Liam Byrne, “Constructing a Socialist Community: The Victorian Socialist Party, Ritual, Pedagogy, and the Subaltern Counterpublic,” Labour History, no. 108 (2015): 103-121. 97 Bertha Walker, Solidarity Forever!: a part story of the life and times of Percy Laidler— the first quarter of a century (Melbourne: National Press, 1972), 30, 35-45. 98 Edgar Ross, These Things Shall Be!: Bob Ross, Socialist Pioneer — His Life and Times (West Ryde: Mulavon Publishing, 1988), 72-3. 99 Hewitt "A History of the Victorian Socialist Party", 121-9, 174. 100 Ibid., 125. 101 Ibid., 121.

71 the terms it initially set out. The VSP was a socialist counterpublic that developed a political tradition the Labor Socialists inherited. In this, the party made a distinctive political contribution of great value in understanding the transformation of Labor’s political culture.

The Victorian Socialist Party.

Berki’s insight that socialism was not a singular all-encompassing ideology, but rather a ‘range, an area, an open texture, a self-contradiction,’ is vital to comprehending the dynamics of pre-communist socialist parties.102 Radical organisations such as the VSP in this period often incorporated a wide array of perspectives. It would be misleading, however, to think that because of this toleration of opinion that the VSP did not have guiding political principles, and was simply a polite progressive debating society.103 While individuals from a wide intellectual spectrum joined the organisation, Mann and a circle of those most influenced by his politics provided its leadership and organisational impetus. Graeme Osborne has described this circle as a ‘group of economically and politically oriented socialists who were working class, young, and to a limited degree, Marxist.’104 It was from this section that young labour figures who would come to occupy a central place in the Victorian movement would emerge; Curtin, Hyett, and Holloway the most notable amongst them.

Contrary to Macintyre’s depiction of Labor socialism, these activists were not, and did not consider themselves, to be outside of the class and movement, but were self-conceptualised proletarian agitators.105 They were Labor and union members. They saw no contradiction in commitment to Labor and socialism; in their worldview, one was related to the other. Mann later reflected on how ‘men in the trade unions who were already declared Socialists joined. They helped to build up the movement, not in hostility to the Labour Party, but untrammelled by its restrictions.’106

The party’s initial focus was not electoral: it did not seek votes or construct electoral coalitions. It worked to educate the class in socialism, and to transform Labor into an explicitly socialist organisation. This required the development of a strategy for change, the articulation of a distinctive socialist discourse, and the active propagation of its ideas throughout the labour movement. These were the actions of a subaltern counterpublic as identified by Fraser; seeking to develop its own specific counter narrative and to project this out towards broader publics, in the VSP’s case: the proletarian public sphere.

102 Berki, Socialism, 16. 103 Day, John Curtin, 89. 104 Osborne, “Tom Mann”, 141. 105 Macintyre, "Early Socialism and Labor", 81-2. 106 Mann, Tom Mann's Memoirs, 157.

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Mann and his supporters drew upon the politics and strategies of the Second International and the transnational network of labour to develop the VSP’s worldview.107 This was a self- conscious act of theoretical engagement. Party speakers and articles frequently discussed socialism and social democracy in Europe and elsewhere. Mann himself drew upon his association with continental radicals to bolster his own credibility, speaking to an eager Victorian audience on “Prominent Socialists I have Known,” with a list of notables that included Engels, Jaurès, Millerand, Vaillant, Liebknecht, and Bebel, amongst others.108

The VSP’s self-conceptualised task was the construction of a socialist organisation – understood here as a subaltern counterpublic – within the official labour movement. Disappointment at Labor’s lack of socialist commitment translated into an attempt to transform, rather than to abandon it. Mann and other VSP leaders did not consider Labor an implacable enemy of the socialist cause, but rather a battlefield in which the soul of the workers’ movement would be determined. This position was explained in the first edition of the Socialist, where Tom Mann editorialised that ‘[b]eing Socialists we are therefore Labor men, but our labourism always includes Socialism.’ While identifying party members as ‘Labor men politically’ he argued the ‘necessity for all Labor men and women being straight- out Socialists.’ He explained that socialists would ‘use the best influence we can in getting the Labor movement to the straight-out openly-avowed Socialist track.’109 Labor’s current objective was not satisfactory as it promised merely the ‘patching up [of] the present system’ and ‘leaving the ownership of the raw material and the tools of production in the hands of the capitalist monopolists.’110 Hence, it was necessary to win the workers away from such ideas and towards allegiance to the socialist commonwealth.

This was not always well received. Though prepared to defend the PLC from the right wing, socialists frequently criticised Labor’s leaders and the direction they were leading the party. That they could do so from within the party and the movement’s major forums often provoked the chagrin of the leadership of the delimited proletarian sphere, who accused the VSP as being a serious electoral hindrance, responsible for the PLC’s inability to break out beyond inner-city electorates.111 Such concerns did not blunt socialist demands. For the VSP, the PLC’s primary responsibility was to fight for the workers’ interests, and for VSP members this meant socialism. It was of primary importance that the party should promote socialist principles no matter the electoral cost. It was argued in the Socialist that ‘the Labour

107 Sassoon sketches the broad political outlook of the Second International: One Hundred Years of Socialism, 5-6. 108 Socialist, 20 April 1906, 5. 109 “The New Party”, Socialist, 2 April 1906, 4. 110 "Liberalism. Labourism. Socialism", Socialist, 28 July 1906, 4. 111 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 76.

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(sic) Party should assuredly be something more than a mere voting machine,’112 though the VSP did support the PLC at the state election of 1906.113

The VSP sought to spread the socialist message throughout the working class, and swiftly developed an intellectual apparatus of some sophistication to do so. The party newspaper, the Socialist, was at the heart of these activities, providing ‘very high standards of journalism’ with a circulation of ‘many thousands.’114 The paper served as a tool of education and organisation, running numerous articles that translated socialist theory for a working-class audience, as well as frequent updates on party activities and campaigns.115 Regular activities tended to focus on educational and propaganda meetings, where leading party members would tour Melbourne’s working-class suburbs to speak on a range of socialist topics.116 One activist later recalled a weekend speaking calendar of ‘Smith Street, Collingwood … Commercial Road, Prahran, then the Market meeting in my own suburb’ on a Saturday, followed by a Sunday roster of ‘Nicholson Street, Footscray, and … the Town Pier, Port Melbourne,’ before assembling for further meetings at the Yarra.117 One issue of the Socialist reported the young John Curtin lecturing at the South Melbourne markets on the Saturday, and at the Port Melbourne Town Pier the next day.118

These efforts were not always well-received. At the end of 1906, in the suburb of Prahran local city officials banned socialists from taking the stump. The party organised a campaign of mass-defiance, including illegal public meetings leading to a number of arrests.119 These arrests were exploited by the party to demonstrate the alleged victimisation of socialists, such as Mann, and the party used the imprisonment of these members to further its propagandistic aims.120 Though their campaign ended in compromise, rather than victory, the mobilisation was a forceful declaration of the socialist intent on the Victorian political scene.121

112 Marxian. "The Labor Conference", Socialist, 6 April 1907, 5. 113 “STRIKE a BLOW for FREEDOM”, Socialist, 13 October 1906, 5. 114 Frank Farrell, International Socialism & Australian Labour: The Left in Australia 1919-1939 (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1981), 6. 115 Curtin’s discussion of the theories of ‘surplus value’ is one example of this translation: Jack Curtin, “Surplus Value”, Socialist, 5 January 1907, 2. 116 Outlined in the Socialists regular “Work of the Week” columns. 117 Alf Wilson, All for the Cause: Being the experience of a Socialist Propagandist. In the Tom Audley Collection, 84/117, 1984.0117 Unit 1, p.15, University of Melbourne Archives (UMA). 118 “Work of the Week”, Socialist, 15 June 1907, 3. 119 "Arrest and Imprisonment in Prahran", Socialist, 13 October 1906, 1; "The Fight for Free Speech Grows Hotter", Socialist, October 27 1906, 1. 120 Mann, Tom Mann's Memoirs, 168. 121 The party managed to find private grounds from which to continue its meetings in Prahran: Victorian Socialist Party Executive Committee 17 December 1906, Box 3804/1, State Library of Victoria (SLV).

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Important as these suburban meetings were for engaging the party membership, and disseminating the socialist perspective, the most prominent and important part of the organisation’s public activities were the regular Sunday lectures. Socialists would gather on Sunday mornings at the speakers’ corner on the banks of the Yarra River, a well-known spot for radicals and progressives to conduct lectures and engage with the public. Having the chance to represent the party at the Yarra was ‘the acme of a Socialist speaker’s ambition in those days.’122 Following this, members would make their way to either the Guild Hall or the Bijou Theatre, popular and large venues for public events in the heart of Melbourne. These lectures drew party members together and provided a means to educate the converted, and convince those outside the party’s ranks. The regular lectures were an integral part of Melbourne’s political life. An early edition of the Socialist proudly declared that the party held ‘A Propagandist Meeting Every Sunday Night in the Bijou Theatre,’ alongside a picture of the auditorium filled to the brim.123 Centre stage at these lectures was most often Mann himself, who spoke on a wide-range of issues week-by-week.124 But other notables also took the stage, with socialists and progressives from a variety of perspectives being drawn to the large and enthusiastic socialist audiences.125

The party sought to involve its membership in these agitational activities. As such, it expended a great deal of effort on promoting socialist education within the organisation. Education was not an end in itself. The point of socialist education was to strip bare the lies and mythologies spread by capitalism, and to instil systems of knowledge to inform the actions of socialist activist-intellectuals. This was an attempt to train and educate a generation of movement intellectuals who could articulate the experience of the working class and convincingly argue within the labour movement for socialism. A socialist, it was written in the party paper, ‘must be a thinker for others, a persuader of others,’ and this necessitated engrossment in a culture of education provided by the party in politics, philosophy, logic, and elocution.126

Political education most often took place in the ‘dark places’ of the basement of Zion Hall in Swanston Street, where the speakers’ and economics classes met.127 It was in such spaces that a generation of future labour leaders served their political apprenticeships. The Speakers’ Class developed basic skills in composition grammar and oration that many young socialists lacked, with their formal education ending in their early teens.128 Alongside these basic skills, the classes focused on how to communicate socialist ideas to persuade an

122 Wilson, All for the Cause, 15. 123 Socialist, 2 June 1906, 1. 124 Walker, Solidarity Forever, 40. 125 Ibid. 126 “Training for Socialism”, Socialist, 8 December 1906, 4. 127 “Work of the Socialist Party”, Socialist, 5 January, 1907, 4. 128 Curtin for instance entering the world of work at the age of fourteen, Day, John Curtin, 46-7.

75 audience. Lessons provided practice for speakers in ‘address[ing] imaginary open air crowd[s] under criticism as to matter and method.’129

These classes helped young socialists to develop the political skills required to be successful movement intellectuals, activist-agitators who could persuasively argue for a radical perspective to a variety of audiences. As in Britain, working-class autodidacts developed their knowledge ‘in the particular context of party training.’130 So it was that Curtin learnt his trade as an orator and writer in such forums.131 His first mention in a labour newspaper was in the pages of the Socialist, which printed a paper he had prepared for the ‘Speakers Class’, singling it out for ‘high praise.’132 Holloway also supplemented his learning in such places, and would later recall the comrades he first met there, including Curtin.133 These spaces were sites of education, and also connection, where a generation of labour activists would first establish political relationships that in many cases would last the rest of their careers. Holloway, for instance, would serve as a minister in Curtin’s wartime cabinet. Through such activities, the long-standing basis of a socialist subaltern counterpublic was formed.

These activities were geared towards forging a cadre of socialist agitators. Notably, it was not just men who were trained in agitation through the party’s educational and propagandistic activities. As Joy Damousi explained in her study of gender and socialist organisations, radical groupings tended to replicate the ‘”public”/”private” dichotomy that prevailed in society at large,’ while maintaining ‘the world of public politics’ as a ‘masculine one from which women were predominantly excluded.’134 This exclusion was not total, but the replication of masculinised understandings of political activity shaped women’s involvement in socialist organisations. Women were largely removed from public realm activism and played a disproportionate role in the ‘private’ – social organising and fundraising.135 As Fraser noted, it is often the case that a primary means for non-elite women to gain access to political public spheres has been through performing ‘supporting roles in male-dominated working-class protest activities.’136 In this regard, the party was similar to other organisations of its type.

For example, on May Day in 1907 the party marked the international day of working-class struggle with a series of processions and dances, despite the day’s weather being ‘very much

129 “The Speakers Class”, Socialist, 19 January 1907, 6. 130 Stuart Macintyre, A Proletarian Science: Marxism in Britain 1917-1933 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 72. 131 Day, John Curtin, 87. 132 J Curtin, “Speakers Class”, Socialist, 5 May 1906, 7. 133 EJ Holloway, From Labor Council to Privy Council, Personal Papers, MS 2098. Folder 1, p. 22-3, National Library of Australia (NLA). 134 Damousi, Women Come Rally, 34-5. 135 Ibid; Lake, "Socialism and Manhood", 54-62. 136 Fraser, Justice Interruptus, 74.

76 against processioning and out-door meetings.’ The festivities included the election of a ‘May Queen,’ a young woman member who was reported in the Socialist to look ‘exceedingly pretty’ in the robes prepared for her by ‘Miss Dora Seitz, the mistress of the robes.’ After marching from Elizabeth Street to the banks of the Yarra the younger socialist members commenced the ‘May Pole Dance as jollily as thought the sun had been beaming on us all,’ under the observance of a Mrs. Bredemeyer. It is noticeable that in thanking the organising committee for the day’s events the Socialist lists eight women and no men.137

What set the VSP apart was its self-conscious attempts to rectify the absence of women from the public arena – even if not managing to overcome this public/private distinction. Damousi has noted that the VSP was ‘unique among socialist groups in its attempts to integrate women into its organisation.’138 The party encouraged women to act as agitators within the socialist and labour movements – and leading activist women needed little encouragement. The VSP understood the oppression of women to be a product of capitalism, and considered it the responsibility of socialists to fight for equal rights for women. Mann outlined this perspective in Socialism, describing in great detail the socialist understanding of women’s oppression, rooted in a materialist analysis of the family throughout the evolution of human society. He argued that women’s subordinated status could be ended only through achieving economic equality between the sexes, based on equal pay for equal work. This, it was argued, would ensure independence for working- class women that would allow them to achieve their potential.139 Mann believed that women were agents of socialist transformation, and communicated such arguments through the Socialist, writing:

SOCIALISTS are freer than others from namby-pamby sentimentality respecting women. We subscribe neither to the frilled and furbelow'd dolls, nor endorse the idea that females should be perpetual slaves for males. As far as circumstances admit, we recognise and concede the full claims of the women to the same standard of political and social equality as men, and for the self-same reasons.140

This was not simple posturing, as the article goes on to explain: ‘in our propaganda work the women share the same as the men. They take their full share of rough and tumble work, and are called upon to discharge a full share of intellectual work.’141 While the fullness of this equality was overstated, the prominent role of women in the party and its political activities is notable. For instance the well-known militant Lizzie Ahern served as party Vice President for three terms between 1906 and 1908; the one term she missed, ‘Mrs.’ Bruce served. For the duration of the office-bearer position, with the exception of the first, brief term, a woman

137 “The May Day Demonstration”, Socialist, 11 May 1907, 5. 138 Damousi, Women Come Rally, 47. 139 Mann, Socialism, 36. 140 Tom Mann, "To Women Comrades", Socialist, 4 January 1908, 4. 141 Ibid.

77 was always one of the two-Vice Presidents.142 Lizzie Ahern earned this position in the hierarchy through her record as a respected agitator, orator, and socialist whose rebellious capacities served the movement to great renown in Victoria, but also in Broken Hill where she was a popular figure amongst unionists in the heart of the industrial battles that were constantly raging.143 Ahern was one of the socialists arrested in the free speech campaign.144 She also served on the first executive committee of the party which conducted its day-to-day governance, elected alongside three other women, who made up half its total number.145

Women were encouraged to be orators and agitators, and were among the best the party had to offer. The Socialist of April 1907, for one example, listed a number of women as major speakers on party platforms, with the report on the meeting in South Melbourne commenting:

Mrs Bruce, now that she is determined, is easily conquering that nervousness which previously prevented a splendid propagandist from taking the platform. The whole meeting was an inspiring one, the being sung with a verve that challenged the speeches.146

Reports of party meetings reveal that women composed a significant minority of speakers.147 Women spoke on party platforms, and wrote for its press. This included articles of theoretical and strategic import, as demonstrated by Elsie Mann's contribution on the subject of evolution or revolution in the first edition of the Socialist.148 Women socialist intellectuals wrote theoretical pieces, and calls to arms.149 The party put intellectual effort into discussing the causes of gender inequity, and the socialist response. For instance in 1906, amidst the free-speech campaign in Prahran, the party Executive Committee determined to organise women speakers to present meetings on topics such as ‘Socialism as it affected “Home Life”’ and ‘Prominent women in the socialist movement.’150

This had implications for Labor. Just as these male activist-intellectuals would come to operate within the broader proletarian sphere as members of the Labor socialist counterpublic, so too would socialist women become key activists. As will be explored in chapter three, socialist women were ardent supporters of women’s organisation within the labour movement. This was conceived of as a site for mobilisation to advance working-class

142 Hewitt "A History of the Victorian Socialist Party", 296. 143 Geoff Hewitt, “Ahern, Elizabeth,” Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 27 June 2013. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ahern-elizabeth-lizzie-4977. 144 Joy Damousi, “Socialist Women and Gendered Space: The Anti-Conscription and Anti-War Campaigns of 1914-1918,” Labour History, no. 60 (1991): 7. 145 Those elected were, Lizzie Ahern, Mrs. Bruce. Mrs. Henderson, Mrs. Warburton, A McDonell, E.J. Russell, C. Edwards, J. Wrout. Hewitt, “A History of the Victorian Socialist Party”, 299. 146 “The Movement”, Socialist, 6 April 1907, 2. 147 “Propaganda Meetings”, Socialist, 26 August 1906, 3; “The Movement”, Socialist, 6 April 1907, 2; “The Movement”, Socialist, 13 April 1907, 2; “The Movement”, Socialist, 15 June 1907, 3. 148 Elsie Mann, “Evolution or Revolution”, Socialist, 2 April 1906, 6. 149 Madge, "An Appeal to Women", Socialist, 5 October 1907, 5. 150 VSP Minutes, 22 October 1906, MS13110, SLV.

78 women’s position within Australian society, and to establish dedicated spaces to advance their interests and project their voices within the labour movement. That is, Labor women sought to create their own counterpublic, and socialist women with VSP connections would be prominent activists pursuing this aim. Analytically, this means that the socialist and women’s subaltern counterpublic can be considered to overlap to a certain extent, and these early VSP activities that treated women as serious political agents were an initial part of these processes, as will be explored in subsequent chapters.

The educational and agitational components of party culture were then, far reaching and vital in both creating a sense of commonality and community, as Hewitt recognised, and in training a generation of socialist militants, both men and women. Through the activities of the VSP a network - a series of associations and connections - was formed that continued beyond the bounds of the party community, and threaded through the labour movement as a whole. This process occurred largely as a result of the VSP’s fissures and loss of direct influence. The legacy of their culture was not lost when the party itself began to recede, but took on an existence beyond it. This culture infused the labour movement organisations to which it was carried by figures of the stature of Curtin, Hyett, Holloway, Ahern, Daley, and their comrades in the union rank and file, training they would not have received outside socialist ranks.

Each element of the party’s cultural activities as outlined here was vital in the creation of an oppositional identity, a counter-discourse, and a ground for political mobilisation, the key components of a subaltern counterpublic. Established under the auspices of the VSP, and later transmitted to become a vital component of Labor, these activities played a forging role in the political culture of working-class politics in the state. The story of this transmission is explored in subsequent chapters.

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Chapter Three: James Scullin, John Curtin, and the contest for Labor, 1906 – 1913

The PLC’s 1906 conference was a fraught affair. While the swift flourishing of the VSP might suggest a socialist ascendancy, conference proceedings at Melbourne’s Trades Hall demonstrated that the leadership of the delimited sphere had strengthened its position since the previous state conference. In April 1906 party moderates went on the offensive against the socialists. Emboldened by victory over the socialist objective at a national level, these moderates claimed solidarity now required repudiation of such radical claims. Theirs was both a moral and procedural argument concerning the state/federal relationship within the party; that it just so happened to be a stick with which the moderates could beat the socialists, so much the better for them.

The moderates were strengthened by the presence of the Australian Workers Union. The AWU had become pivotal to the party’s functioning since its affiliation in 1905.1 This was reflected in the Central Executive’s annual report, which acknowledged ‘the most encouraging results’ in country organisation for the party; largely the work of the AWU.2 The Central Executive’s report was submitted by its secretary, Patrick Heagney, himself an AWU member. He would later be replaced in that role by union comrade Arch Stewart, who was present at the 1906 conference as a representative of Ballarat, now dominated by the AWU. In addition, as an affiliated union, the AWU now had two official delegates to the conference, Edward Grayndler and Neil McKissock. Grayndler was secretary of the Victoria- Riverina branch, an immensely powerful operator who rose to the national secretaryship of Australia’s largest union. McKissock came to serve as an influential Victorian senator.

The first step in repudiating socialisation was a motion moved by Heagney to adopt the report of the interstate Labor conference, formally accepting its decisions, including its objective.3 In a well-timed coincidence, as soon as Heagney finished speaking, the Labor leader Watson entered ‘and was accorded an enthusiastic reception.’ His presence did not distract socialists from the implications of Heagney’s motion. One left-wing delegate moved that the Federal Labor pledge to nationalise monopolies should be replaced by the nationalisation of ‘the means of production, distribution, and exchange.’ Another, McDonnell, stated that he was tired of ‘these partial measures, which were mere imitations

1 It had contributed to political organisation in the countryside before formally affiliating: Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 86. 2 “The Parliament of Labour”, Tocsin, 19 April 1906, 2. 3 Ibid.

80 of Liberalism,’ and he desired to ‘work for straight-out Socialism.’ This was to no avail. Conformity with the national party was in the air and Heagney’s motion was adopted ‘in the interests of solidarity,’ as MP and future Federal Labor leader explained.4

Despite this, Labor’s relationship to socialism continued to dominate proceedings. The Toorak branch put forward a motion to rename the PLC ‘the Victorian Socialist Labour Party.’ This earned a swift rebuke from Carey of the AWU-dominated Ballarat branch who argued it was ‘absurd to talk of a “Socialist” Labour Party’, for they ‘were working for reforms, legislative and administrative,’ that would appeal ‘to tens of thousands who were not Socialists.’5 Another motion that sought to prevent ‘anti-Socialists’ from joining Labor was not voted on after one country delegate argued it would ‘mean ruin to country branches’ where ‘many anti-Socialists’ sustained party life.6

The definitive moment had yet to come. Bowers, representing the Carlton branch, moved to delete the ‘gradual nationalisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange’ from the state objective, and to replace it with the federal wording:

The securing of the full results of their industry to all producers by the collective ownership of monopolies, and the extension of the industrial and economic functions of the State and municipality.

The implication was initially lost on the socialist delegates; the motion was carried by vocal assent, not even requiring a formal vote. McCarthy from the Toorak branch rose a ‘few minutes later,’ stating that ‘he had been under a misapprehension.’ He did not realise that the ‘Conference had struck out of the State objective the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.’ This was not received with the understanding he might have hoped for. Several interjectors bragged: ‘And it didn’t take us long.’7

Growing in confidence, the moderates were not yet satisfied. A motion was put to ban simultaneous membership of the PLC and ‘any other political party.’ It was moved by the inner-city Fitzroy branch, in direct reference to a number of Labor members joining ‘a new organisation’, insisting on the preservation of ‘their rights as Labourites’ while failing ‘to discharge their duties.’ That this was not even a thinly veiled assault on the VSP was lost on no one. The mood of the moderates was perhaps best expressed by the delegate who interrupted a socialist speaking in their defence by simply shouting: ‘Let them go.’8 The socialists narrowly managed to avoid expulsion, but the underlying message was clear: they had been routed.

4 The vote numbers were not recorded. Ibid. 5 Ibid., 3. 6 Ibid., 4. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid.

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James Scullin and the Labor Democrats

Tension between socialists and moderates continued throughout 1907. As will be shown below, concomitant to the VSP’s growth was the gradual assertion by the AWU of its influence throughout party structures, leading to another clash over the party’s objective at the annual conference that year.9 The Central Executive was dominated by moderate figures such as Tudor, with a powerful bloc from the AWU consisting of Heagney, Grayndler, and McKissock. These moderates sought to entrench their gains from the year before with a motion to disallow any discussion on the state party’s objective. They argued that Labor MPs were already pledged to the platform as it existed, and hence no subsequent alteration would be able to bind their actions, rendering further change redundant. This would prevent any socialist manoeuvres during the conference that might upset the status-quo, as established in 1906.

It was a prudent approach. Harry Bennett was present alongside other socialist delegates such as Lizzie Ahern, and he insisted on discussing a socialist objective. While, he acknowledged, changing the state platform may put MPs in ‘an unpleasant position,’ this could be easily resolved if they ‘advanced with the party.’10 This time, the moderates were unable to get their way. The motion to prevent discussion was defeated thirty votes to forty- nine. Perhaps Bennett, Ahern and other socialists considered this a sign of growing support on their side. If so, they were mistaken; their subsequent motion to re-introduce the socialisation objective was defeated by almost the exact same margin, twenty-nine to forty- nine.11 It would appear that toleration for debate outstripped any appetite for a more radical programme.

Nonetheless, the acceptance of debate implied that the continuation of moderate control over party aims was far from guaranteed. The still-flimsy organisational structure of the PLC required a power-centre that could provide leadership. Until this point, the role had been occupied by those able to participate full-time in politics: the parliamentarians, and key party machinery operatives such as Heagney. From 1906, however, the AWU established itself as the dominant power within the Victorian delimited sphere. Leading figures from this union operated as key party organisers, and crafters of labour knowledge. As a unified bloc, it hegemonised the leadership of the party’s moderate section. Its movement intellectuals articulated a distinctive vision of democratic reform and social transformation in Australia on a specifically Labor basis. Whereas the Victorian moderates had previously been led by an eclectic grouping of individual MPs of diverging views such as Anstey, Maloney, and Prendergast, from this point the AWU provided a firm organisational and intellectual centre for this moderate sentiment, just as it had in other states.

9 “The Parliament of Labour”, LC, 4 April 1907. 10 Ibid., 2-3. 11 Ibid., 8.

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This significance of the AWU in bolstering the organisational presence of the PLC cannot be understated. Despite victory over the socialists in 1907, not all was well for the moderate leadership of the party. Heagney reported to the conference that the forces of Labor ‘have been, and still are, in a state of disorganisation.’ Electorally the party had reached a stand- still in the metropolis, with ‘such vital matters as the enrolment of electors having been almost wholly neglected.’12 Matters were not helped by the formation of the VSP. While the socialists remained committed to Labor, at that point, its members’ main organisational focus came to centre on the VSP rather than PLC branches.13 Heagney was pleased to note, however, the strong contrast in the country regions, now under the control of the AWU, where ‘the Labor Party is making great progress among the electors.’14 The AWU used its position as party organiser in rural Victoria to exert its influence on the PLC, and to provide a structural ballast for these moderate perspectives. It was the young James Scullin who was charged by the union with the responsibility of forging an effective party organisation outside of inner Melbourne.15

Scullin was born in 1876 in Trawalla, a small Victorian country town not far from Ballarat, where he would later come to political prominence. Educated at local state schools until the age of fourteen, he moved with his family to Ballarat where he worked in a number of jobs until finding employment stability as a grocer. Like many Labor activists at the time, Scullin was largely an autodidact, expanding his intellectual horizons through countless hours spent in the public library. His training in the art of public address came courtesy of the debating club of the Catholic Young Men's Society.16 Scullin was no rowdy larrikin. Abstemious, a non-smoker, his biographer related that he was ‘reserved when in the company of people he did not know well.’17

After joining the party around 1903, the first major step in Scullin’s political career came in 1906 when he challenged Alfred Deakin, the sitting Prime Minister, for his seat of Ballaarat. The challenge was more symbolic than practical, demonstrating the schism between Labor and its erstwhile ally. For Scullin, it was also a means to enhance his reputation in the movement. Though predictably losing the poll he proved himself an adept campaigner. His skills were seized upon by the AWU, which swiftly employed him as political organiser.

Headquartered in Ballarat where they wrenched control of both the local party and TLC, the AWU was given the task of running the party in rural areas, largely due to the PLC’s lack of resources.18 By 1909 Scullin had revived at least twelve country branches that had been

12 Ibid., 2. 13 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 85. 14 “The Parliament of Labour”, LC, 4 April 1907, 2. 15 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 86. 16 Robertson, JH Scullin, 1-18. 17 Ibid., 21. 18 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 86.

83 established by Mann, and formed thirty-nine new ones — a substantial and impressive increase in Labor organisation.19 In addition, the AWU controlled several of the rural union councils, such as Ballarat.20 This progression replicated the pattern of AWU development in other states, most notably NSW and Queensland. The Victorian union’s progress was slower than in the states to its north. It lagged in recovery from the decline experienced generally by the union movement in the mid to late 1890s. In 1895 alone the AWU’s membership fell from 17000 to 7000.21 This was the result of disorganisation following intense industrial battles in the early 1890s, exacerbated by periods of drought, compounded by staunch resistance from farmers to unionisation.22 Bongiorno has noted the character of Victorian pastoral work, particularly amongst shearers, where small-scale farmers would take on shearing work for part of the year. The seasonal nature of this work, and a desire not to provoke larger land-owners on whom they might depend for support for their own enterprises, reduced the incentive of many such workers to sign up to the union.23 To make matters worse, the branch secretary, David Temple, cut a despondent figure in the movement, and was removed in 1900 to make way for Grayndler, a more able and energetic organiser who injected new life into the union.24 The disappointing state of the PLC in its infancy likely led to prevarication in affiliation. Though delayed, the Victorian union followed the pattern of its interstate comrades, using its sway in rural areas to influence the PLC.25 The AWU's official delegation was bolstered by representatives of the Ballarat branches, and later MPs and important officials of the party machine, such as Heagney and Stewart.26

As a result, the AWU came to be the structural power behind the Labor Democratic perspective in Victoria. This was expressed at union party conferences, in the statements of AWU-connected MPs, and through the labour press – including its own newspapers, the Worker, Australian Worker, and Evening Echo.27 Their vision of government was strongly connected to what Childe recognised as Labor’s new understanding of democracy, where parliamentary representatives were conceptualised as delegates of the movement, leading to the creation of institutional restraints on their actions to ensure adherence to collective views: the pledge, caucus control, and the supremacy of conference in decision making.28 Labor Democrats were concerned with ensuring that those sent to parliament under

19 McQueen, “Victoria”, 316. 20 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 87 . 21 Hearn and Knowles, One Big Union, 83. 22 Ibid., 78-82. 23 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 84. 24 John Merritt, The Making of the AWU (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986), 287; Hearn and Knowles, One Big Union, 89. 25 Bongiorno, The People's Party, 87-9; Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 86-7; Hearn and Knowles, One Big Union, 110-6. 26 McQueen, “Victoria,” 315. 27 All forums explored below. 28 Childe, How Labour Governs, 15-21.

84 movement auspices acted in a principled manner that would advance working-class interests. They despised those MPs who had allegedly forgotten their labour loyalties once their seats had been won.

Donald MacDonnell, who preceded Grayndler as national secretary of the union, gave an indication of this attitude in his effusive praise of Watson’s brief tenure in power, and the Prime Minister’s perceived willingness to vacate the treasury benches rather than compromise on an issue that the union held dear: arbitration. MacDonnell argued in his 1905 AWU conference report that a ‘Labor Government, ready to vacate office the moment it is clear they cannot retain it without a sacrifice of principle, strengthens the Labor cause.’ He warned that this positive example demonstrated the need to take ‘the strictest care when we come to choose any person to do battle for Labor,’ to ensure they would be of similar character.29

Labor Democracy was the ideological counterpart to this theory of movement democracy.30 Movement representatives were to be controlled to ensure they would act in a manner befitting this consistent worldview, enacting the specific policies that would fulfil its promise. The delegates sent to parliament by these Labor Democrats were charged with increasing democratic control over society, including in the workplace. The expansion of arbitration was keenly sought as a means to govern class relations, and equalise the position of labour and capital. This was expressed by Grayndler, an ardent believer in arbitration, as secretary of the Victoria/Riverina AWU branch. Grayndler wrote in a report to the state conference that the ‘scene of battle has shifted. The carpets of the Law Courts have taken the place of our former battle ground.’ The task of the moment had, therefore, become ensuring the ‘political well-being’ of the class by returning Labor members to ‘take a hand in shaping those Acts of Parliament which bear directly on their interests.’31

Scullin was an important movement intellectual for these Labor Democratic ideas. He was bound politically and personally to the AWU leadership in Ballarat, having been mentored by Grayndler.32 Scullin articulated this worldview during his first campaign for parliament in 1906. It is from 1910, however, when he successfully took the seat of Corangamite in the federal election, that he can be seen most clearly to have articulated, and actively disseminated these ideas in a systematic way.

29 Australian Workers Union (AWU), Official Report of the Twentieth Annual Conference (Sydney: Worker Trades Union Printery, 1906), E154/17, p.26, Noel Butlin Archives (NBA). Similar sentiments had been expressed the previous year: Official Report of the Nineteenth Annual Conference (Sydney: Worker, 1905), E154/17, pp.13-4, NBA. 30 Childe, How Labour Governs, 15. 31 AWU Victoria-Riverina Branch. Annual Report and Balance Sheets for the Year ending May 31st, 1907 (Sydney: Worker Trades Union Printery, 1907), E154/55/4, p.2, NBA. 32 Robertson, JH Scullin, 13.

85

1910 was a crucial year for Federal Labor. Under the leadership of Andrew Fisher it was elected as the first majority Australian government.33 In addition, it held a crushing majority in the Senate. Scullin was part of this parliamentary caucus. Corangamite was a large, sprawling rural seat, the expanse of which he had often trekked to establish PLC branches. When he spoke he was not spruiking for an idealised future. He was grappling with the direct and immediate question of how Labor should, and could, transform Australia to the benefit of the working class through the governing institutions of the state.

At the opening of the parliament Scullin was entrusted to deliver the address-in-reply to the Governor General, a rare honour for such an inexperienced parliamentary orator that suggests his reputation had preceded him.34 In this speech Scullin outlined the Labor Democratic programme for government. It provides an insightful example of the theoretical outlook that underpinned this approach to political change, coming at an epochal moment in the party’s development.

The context of this moment adds significance to Scullin’s speech. In 1909 Australian politics experienced a substantial realignment when Alfred Deakin’s Liberal Party fused with ’s , and ’s conservative Protectionists.35 This ‘Fusion’ seemed to validate what many in the Labor Party had suspected of the Liberals: that they were servants of capital, and no friends to labour.36 Just as with political parties elsewhere, Labor developed its political programme in reference to a variety of influences and precedents. As Bongiorno has demonstrated, Labor, particularly in Victoria, inherited a variety of rhetorical tropes and policies from radical populism and political liberalism.37 Labor Democrats claimed the liberal legacy for Labor.38 They did so in a manner that reflected the party’s changed position: it no longer relied on, or desired, alliance with other political parties. It was determined, and able, to govern in its own right. This required a degree of compromise and alliance, appealing to electorates beyond the industrial working class. But this did not displace its commitment to collective change and amelioration of social conditions. Rather, the party’s appeals were based on the belief that a distinctively Labor Democracy in Australia could benefit all those who laboured. It was understood that

33 It actions and legacies have been assessed in a special edition of Labour History: Mark Hearn and Nick Dyrenfurth, “Reinterpreting the Second Fisher Government,” Labour History, no. 102 (2012): 1-9. 34 Robertson, JH Scullin, 20. 35 Paul Strangio, “Introduction: From Confusion to Stability,” in Confusion: The Making of the Australian Two-Party System, eds. Paul Strangio and Nick Dyrenfurth (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2009), 2. 36 Nick Dyrenfurth, “‘From a purely working class standpoint’: Labor’s Fusion Legacy,” in Confusion: The Making of the Australian Two-Party System, eds. Paul Strangio and Nick Dyrenfurth (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2009), 90-101. 37 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 5, 188-191. 38 There were significant differences, such as over the extent and purpose of state economic intervention: Hearn and Dyrenfurth, “Reinterpreting the Second Fisher Government”, 6.

86 this democratic arrangement could only be realised through a readjustment to the current form of the Federation.39

Scullin recognised the significance of the moment, the ‘first time in the history of our National Parliament that there has been in power a Labour (sic) Government supported by a working majority.’40 As such, it was an opportunity for the party to pursue substantial reform, unhindered by minority status. As Scullin explained, the intent was to do just that. He adumbrated a series of wide-reaching reforms that would, Scullin promised, ‘justify Federation.’41 This would be achieved through greater centralisation of power to enable the Commonwealth government to enact progressive reform, unhindered by the present constitutional restrictions.

Labor’s rivals had claimed since Federation that there would be ‘prosperity next year, or the year after,’ Scullin recalled. But these promises had failed to materialise. It was only Labor, he argued, that could deliver prosperity and ensure its equitable distribution. One key measure that Scullin advanced to achieve this was a land tax on large estates. Such a tax had previously been a key objective for Victorian liberals, and one which Scullin as a rural member was particularly keen to integrate into Labor’s programme for government.42 Scullin argued that too much land was locked up in unproductive systems of ownership which saw rich landholders, the erstwhile Squatters, deriving immense income from blocks that could be divided amongst smaller-leaseholders who could ‘put into use rich lands which are capable of maintaining hundreds of thousands of people, but which are now only sheep walks.’43 This tax would diminish the power and wealth of the established elite, benefitting the nation as a whole through increasing production. It would ensure ‘a more equitable system of taxation,’ through which national projects could be funded.44 Additionally, such a measure, he argued, would be good for the defence of the nation. Provision for defence was a costly business, and it was right and proper for the government to ‘call upon those large values which we add to the land for a great part of the cost of that defence, just as we shall call upon the manhood of Australia to take up arms to defend our hearths and homes.’45

The Labor Democrats wanted to see the national interest placed before those of the individual states, just as they believed sectional class interests should not override the national. In this vision, the industrious working class, white and male, best embodied national values through their contribution to society and the economy. Squatters and monopoly capitalists, the ‘combined forces of capital,’ damaged the nation through the

39 Recognised to an extent by Hearn, “’The Benefits of Industrial Organisation’?”, 37. 40 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (CPD), vol.55, 45 (1 July 1910), 41. 41 Ibid., 45. 42 Macintyre, A Colonial Liberalism, 159. 43 CPD, vol.55, 42 (1 July 1910). 44 Ibid., 45. 45 Ibid., 44.

87 pursuit of self-interest. A land tax would force them to contribute to national development. Scullin put particular emphasis on alleviating the debts of the states, a measure that would be conditional upon the states transferring the ability to borrow to the Federal government, ensuring there would be ‘only one borrower for the people.’46 A revenue increase would also help fund the , a state-owned bank that would compete with the private institutions to the benefit of workers, and strengthen central economic powers.47 These economic policies aimed at redrawing Federation, redistributing the financial powers of the states. This was both a philosophical and strategic orientation. The Labor Democrats were nation-builders, and sought to develop the ‘Australian sentiment’ adopted as party policy in 1905. This would require a strong national government with the greatest possible powers to act in the interest of all. Strategically, the conservative Upper Houses had a greater capacity to frustrate progressive reform than the wholly elected Federal Senate, which Labor controlled. Labor legislation had a greater chance to pass federally than on a state-by-state basis.

Increased revenue through a land tax was not just good economic policy, to Scullin, but positive social policy as well. He outlined the party’s ‘very humane proposals,’ in particular expanding the pension system to women from the age of sixty, and for ‘invalids.’ Women, he explained, should be able to receive pensions at an earlier age than men in recognition of their service ‘as good wives and good mothers … providing a valuable asset for this young country of Australia.’48 Though clearly replicating the gendered and highly paternalistic understanding of women’s role in society, it also represents the Labor belief in forging a legislative safety-net that would predominantly benefit working-class citizens – funded, no less, through taxation on the large estates of the squatters.

But the most far-reaching reform advanced by Scullin was the amendment of the Constitution, ‘one of the most important measures before the people of Australia at the present time.’49 There were a series of measures that required constitutional change before the Commonwealth government could be empowered to undertake them. The first of these was ‘new Protection,’ policies that were ‘not possible under our Constitution.’ New Protection was the use of government action to ensure that workers were paid decent wages from the profits protectionism accrued, proposals that had previously gained some liberal support, but was of greatest significance for the labour movement.50 Constitutional change was also required to empower the commonwealth to deal with ‘trusts and combines’ that were ‘eating into our commerce.’51 The government wanted the power to ‘control them, to acquire them, if necessary, or to compete against them. We say that private enterprise will

46 Ibid., 43. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid., 43. 49 Ibid. 50 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 104. 51 CPD, vol.55, 44, (1 July 1910).

88 have to justify itself.’52 Finally, he wanted an expansion of the arbitration system to give the Commonwealth government the power to send cases to the court. At that point, the Commonwealth could only act if an industrial dispute spread across state borders. Scullin argued it should be within the federal remit to deal with all ‘industrial disputes, no matter where or when they may occur.’53

Scullin was enunciating a unified and coherent vision of governance based on a particular theory of Labor democracy. It was egalitarian, national, and in many respects radical. Though largely unspoken, it was underpinned by commitment to White Australia. Its primary enemies were the entrenched economic interests inherited from the colonial system that maintained power through the conservative media and undemocratic upper houses. Federation, which had been cast in their image, was to be transformed to enable the realisation of this vision. Labor’s commitment to altering the Constitution has been recognised, but the full extent of this commitment as a means to fundamentally transform the state of democracy in Australia that is explored throughout this thesis, has not been fully acknowledged.54 Transforming the Constitution, and Federal relations, was not just a strategy, it was an integral part of the Labor Democratic worldview. Referendums would be the tool through which they would seek transformation, utilising popular appeal to empower the Commonwealth. Australian democracy was in advance of many other nations at this time.55 Labor Democrats sought to extend this even further, countering the power of the established elites and their ability to frustrate reform through granting greater economic powers to the Commonwealth. The Australian Constitution provided for referendums as a means to alter the terms of Federation; and Labor Democrats intended to use this to the full, empowering and mobilising the citizenry to recraft the machinery of government itself. Efforts would be twice made to do so during the life of this Fisher government, but on both occasions, the stringent requirements for success – including a total majority of electors and the assent of a majority of states – were not met.

Scullin’s first term as a parliamentarian ended with the government in 1913, as he lost his seat in the swing against Labor. The ALP’s vision for Australia had not been achieved in this short tenure in government, though this did not diminish the party’s belief in the need for such change. As the government neared its end, Scullin spoke proudly of its achievements, particularly its construction of a Dreadnought battleship for Australian use, its

52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 Mark Hearn recognised this reforming impetus, but only as a continuation of an appropriated liberal project: “Examined Suspiciously: Alfred Deakin, Eleanor Cameron and Australian Liberal Discourse in The 1911 Referendum,” History Australia 2, no. 3 (2005): 87.6-8; “’The Benefits of Industrial Organisation’?”, 49. 55 Eley, Forging Democracy, 3.

89 implementation of the military training scheme, and its refusal to indebt the nation through reckless borrowing.56

After seven years working for the labour movement Scullin’s skills were considered too important to lose. Not long after conceding defeat in his seat, Scullin was appointed by the AWU as the editor of the Evening Echo newspaper in Ballarat. This appointment later allowed him to boast that he had been an editor without being a journalist, and Prime Minister without being a minister.57 Though the AWU did not formally own the Echo, the union held a controlling stake in the paper. As a result it became the closest Victoria had to a daily labour newspaper, and would be integral to the union campaign against conscription in 1916.

During Scullin’s editorship, the Evening Echo demonstrated the idiosyncrasies of the rural newspaper, as well as the influence of a Labor intellectual. At once provincial and worldly, it mixed reportage on local races and sporting events, announcements of job openings, and national and local advertisements, with international news reports and a stream of pro- Labor articles. The edition of 2 July 1914 revealed the diverse content it provided. The issuing of writs for the upcoming Federal Election was announced, and the paper’s front page also included headlines such as: “Mexico: Peace Conference Fails – Rebels Pursue Each Other”; “Labor Legislators Turn: Industrial Laws Defended”; “Sporting Cables: Bell Wants Return Match – Johnson’s Winnings”; and “Pigeon Patter: South Aust. Show – Forthcoming Display”.58

Important as the racing prowess of South Australian pigeons assuredly was, such matters shall be left to the side. What is important to note is that from mid-1913 Scullin was an influential movement intellectual, directly connected to the AWU. The AWU itself was asserting its power within the movement to direct Labor towards the realisation of a Labor Democratic vision. Up until 1913 they could feel relatively confident in this project. Despite a slim federal defeat that year, Labor’s electoral stocks seemed to be rising. A Labor Democracy seemed within reach.

The VSP’s decline

The VSP’s story is one of sudden success followed by rapid decline. Entering the second year of its existence Mann had every reason to feel optimistic about the development of socialism in the state. Though the 1906 PLC conference was a significant defeat for socialists, the burgeoning VSP had ample reason to hope that a resurgence of socialistic sentiment was not too far away. But events in 1907 initiated an internal strife that would lay waste to that

56 CPD, vol. 64, 762-7 (11 July 1912). 57 Robertson JH Scullin, 32. 58 Evening Echo (EE), 2 July 1914, 1.

90 which had been built. This devastation was the result of a major debate within the party, and in the Australian socialist movement more broadly, over the relationship radical forces should have with the Labor Party. This was a messy debate, often confused, and extremely vituperative, that was informed by developments in the socialist movement in America, Britain, and Europe.59

In one of the bitter ironies of socialism, the divide’s genesis was in attempts to forge a greater unity amongst Australian radical groups. An interstate conference of socialist organisations was held in Melbourne in 1907, resulting in the formation of the Socialist Federation of Australasia (SFA). This move towards greater unification created pressure on the VSP to accommodate, or at least consider with greater seriousness, the ideas of the smaller groups represented at the conference. Most potently, this included the political hostility towards Labor predominant in socialist groups in Sydney.60

This was represented in the motion moved by Henry Holland at the inaugural conference of the SFA banning its members from seeking election as ALP representatives, carried by seven votes to two. Turner noted that the VSP had two official delegates at this conference, Mann and Bennett, but four other VSP members attended as proxies for other states. Turner postulated that Mann and Harry Champion voted against Holland, while the other VSP members did not, suggesting division on this question within the party.61 It is not clear, however, if these proxied delegates had pledged to vote in any particular manner on this motion. Additionally, the conference accepted the preamble of the IWW for the new federation. The Socialist reported that this was of 'far-reaching importance', with its content being:

whilst political action is necessary on the part of the workers, it is not by political or Parliamentary means that the workers will become the owners of all the wealth-producing agencies and of the wealth produced, but that this will be done so by means of effective industrial organisation.62

Just as elsewhere in the world, socialists were responding to what was seen as the excessive moderation of mainstream parties of political labour. Desirous of greater and more rapid change than these parties seemed willing to accommodate, radicals grew impatient and dismissive towards these mass organisations and their programs of reform. In Europe, revolutionaries of various stripes advocated measures based around the General Strike. In the United States Daniel de Leon’s syndicalist theories gripped many, contributing to two distinctive IWW organisations. Such radical sentiments were translated into Australia,

59 A debate discussed on a nation-wide scale, but with a particular focus on NSW: Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 55-8. 60 Based on Hewitt's estimates of the various groups the VSP at this stage recorded a membership of 1400, while all other non-Labor socialist groups combined, including three in Sydney, could count only 465 members in total. Hewitt "A History of the Victorian Socialist Party", 59. 61 Turner, “Socialist Political Tactics”, 12. 62 "The Interstate Conference", Socialist, 22 June 1907, 2.

91 although it would be years before the IWW came to any influence down under, and they were never a substantial force in Victoria.

Similar hostility towards co-operation with, and membership of, Labor was growing amongst Australian socialists. The new emphasis was on industrial power, and the creation of larger unions based on single industries to unify the working class and exert its power at the point of production, and reorganise the economy along co-operative lines.63 This was not the One Big Union advocated by the Wobblies, and did not necessarily have to be oppositional to political action. Many socialists sought to maintain a combined commitment to this new industrial socialism and the transformation of the PLC. But increasingly a section of the socialist movement, with adherents in the Victorian counterpublic, came to consider Labor as part of the problem for its refusal to go beyond ‘palliative’ measures. They considered any involvement with Labor as a betrayal of socialist principles.64 These ideas became increasingly popular in the VSP.

Mann rejected this perspective; though he did come to advocate industrial unionism, he did not renounce political activity. He continued to argue that the PLC could be won to a socialist position. Throughout 1908 this debate became increasingly bitter as a number of young radicals advocated for the VSP to take on Labor in electoral contests. Mann opposed these proposals to the acrimony of the anti-PLC agitators. This was to become the pivot on which the debate increasingly turned. In 1908 hostility in the ranks boiled over as critics of the party's relationship with Labor successfully swayed the membership towards an open electoral challenge.65

In December the party ran in the state elections against Labor candidates, seemingly validating the fears of those in the PLC who had warned that the socialists were on such a trajectory. The VSP ran in two seats, Collingwood and Melbourne, on an impeccably revolutionary programme that denounced the ‘palliatives’ offered by PLC candidates.66 The working-class electors in the seats of Collingwood and Melbourne were unimpressed, with only 167 cumulatively voting for the socialist candidates across both electorates.67 Far from chastened by this result the Socialist declared that 'it is everything to have made a beginning.

63 While the ideas of American syndicalists, including the IWW, were important influences, they were overshadowed by European thinkers: Hewitt, “A History of the Victorian Socialist Party”, 60. 64 Frank Bohn, "Working Class Ownership", Socialist, 24 August 1907, 5; "Industrial Unionism Versus Trade Unionism", Socialist, 21 December, 1907, 4; Turner, “Socialist Political Tactics”, 12-17. 65 The party executive had backed away from standing in a by-election for the seat of Richmond in September that year: VSP Minutes 14 September 1908. The party executive originally proposed to run four candidates in four electorates, subject to approval from a general meeting of members. This was later whittled down to just one, before expanded once more to two candidates. VSP Minutes, 7 December 1908, General Meeting of Members 10 December 1908, Special Executive Meeting 11 December 1908, MS13110, SLV. 66 "To the Electors - Electoral Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Victoria", Socialist, 18 December 1908, 5. 67 Walker, Solidarity Forever, 60.

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This our acorn: in the future our oak ... apparent failure is frequently the precursor of success.'68

This was a prophesised success that reality obstinately refused to match. Arguably the result was of greatest benefit to the PLC who could now be confident in retaining their strongholds from the socialist challenge. Acrimony poisoned the counterpublic. The intricacies of these debates need not be followed here, beyond noting their embittered nature. Some VSP loyalists chose to stay in the organisation and fight it out. Others determined to devote their energies elsewhere. Holloway, for instance, resigned from the VSP at this stage, dedicating his efforts to the THC and the PLC.69 Others retained their party membership while shifting their main forum of activity to positions within the union movement.70 John Curtin and Frank Hyett, for instance, became secretary of the Timber Workers, and the Railway Workers unions respectively, intending to seek an industrial solution to capitalist oppression in a very literal manner: by leading the unions towards radical change.71 The greatest blow to the party came when Tom Mann, increasingly dispirited by the implosion of his creation, decided to return to Britain, leading one more strike in Broken Hill in 1909 on the way.72

The party began to disintegrate, with both opponents and supporters of a relationship with Labor evacuating what increasingly resembled a sinking ship. It fell to Mann's successor, the more moderate Robert Ross to try and put the party back together and to lead it through the tumultuous times that lay ahead. The final show-down between the factions came early in 1912, when a number of radicals ran for the party executive. Hyett and Curtin, leading pro- Laborites, stepped in, appointing a Board of Management and expelling key anti-Labor figures. This precipitated a wholesale exodus of these radicals from the party.73 The damage had been done. Over a thousand members had been lost since the electoral challenge in 1908, and many thousand more followers as well.74 The party's leading light had left the continent. Many members were disengaged from party activity, focusing instead on their duties as unionists and union leaders.

The VSP would never again be the significant force it had been between 1906 and 1908. One former member mournfully reflected on the decline in party culture after Mann left, remarking: ‘the Bijou had to be closed. It was impossible to draw audiences and collect seven pounds ten every Sunday night. So the Gaiety was hired at half the rent, and the Party struggled to carry on.’75 The VSP’s halcyon days had ended, but its project of transforming Labor to socialism would be carried on by the next generation. The swathe of members who

68 "After the Battle" Socialist, 1 January 1909, 5. 69 Turner, "Socialist Political Tactics”, 15. 70 Hewitt "A History of the Victorian Socialist Party", 245. 71 Ross, John Curtin, 35; Day, John Curtin, 135. 72 Mann, Tom Mann's Memoirs, 185. 73 Turner, "Socialist Political Tactics”, 16; Hewitt "A History of the Victorian Socialist Party", 99-101. 74 Farrell, International Socialism and Australian Labour, 11. 75 Wilson, All for the Cause, 23.

93 left the party, or withdrew from its activities to focus on the major institutions of Victorian labour, constituted a new subaltern counterpublic. More diffuse, and less organisationally bounded, it would be led by figures who had gained their political training as cadres of the VSP, and who became labour leaders in their own right. This section cohered within the Melbourne THC and the PLC conferences to promote anti-capitalism. Socialist women, alongside others, would seek to develop a counterpublic of labour women, a project that stirred controversy and debate in the years leading to the war.

The women’s subaltern counterpublic

In the pre-war years Labor women sought to construct a counterpublic within the labour movement as a space to develop and articulate their specific demands for economic independence, such as equal pay. The significance of this issue can be seen in a series of articles written by Ellen Mulcahy for the Labor Call in 1910. Mulcahy was secretary of Labor’s WOC, and member of the PLC’s Central Executive, who, after a teaching career lasting thirty years, devoted her energies to organising women workers, playing a notable role in the iconic campaign by women clerks to achieve equal pay in 1913.76 In that year she was expelled from the party after running against Maloney, the endorsed candidate in Melbourne, while citing her opposition to caucus control.77 The first article in her series was titled “Justice for Women” and subtitled “Equal Pay for Equal Work. The Laborer is Worthy of her Hire.”

Mulcahy traced the relationship between differing forms of class societies and women’s labour, concluding that capitalism created the potential for freedom, but one that had not been realised. In her argument, women were used by capitalism ‘in the interests of wealth attainment by subjecting her to commercial and industrial usury.’78 Mulcahy argued that women’s labour was exploited by the capitalists ‘as a means of enslaving the worker’ by consciously pitting women’s work against men’s, using the lower wages paid to women to reduce male wages. This was:

fatal to the masses … for WOMAN’S SWEATED LABOR PITS SEX AGAINST SEX, AND IS FURTHERMORE ASSUREDLY FOLLOWED BY THE DEPLORABLE ELEMENT OF CHILD LABOR, and thus woman’s economic independence (which is her just right) by her own actions in allowing herself to be exploited, reduces the toiling millions of the earth to degradation.79

76 Dick, “’Vigorous-Minded and Independent’”, 38. 77 Ibid., 35-6. 78 Ellen Mulcahy, “Justice for Women”, LC, 28 April 1910, 3. 79 Ellen Mulcahy, “Justice for Women”, LC, 5 May 1910, 3.

94

Therefore the ‘one, and only sheetanchor (sic)’ for women ‘lies in the justice of the dictum “Equal Pay for Equal Work.’”80 Part of the justification she offered for equal pay was that it would bolster the established wage system and prevent the hyper-exploitation of women’s labour, ensuring that male wages would not fall. Mulcahy argued that this would allow ‘the worker of every degree … to maintain a decent home where woman will reign in her natural sphere as wife and mother.’81 Mulcahy’s argument reflected many dominant understandings of work and gender. But in associating women’s freedom within the broader struggle against capitalist exploitation, it also served to challenge others. It offered a solution to the hyper-exploitation of women: fight for equal pay as part of the immediate struggle against capital. Contradictory though it was, it was a clear attempt to disseminate knowledge within the movement about burdens faced by working-class women to win support for their key demand.

The demand for equal pay unified the identities these activist-intellectuals were negotiating as proletarian women. As Lake has demonstrated, it was one of the core campaigns through which labour women sought to gain ‘the economic independence and social rights that would give substance to their new political status.’82 This was underpinned by what Cathy Brigden has identified as a ‘significant feminizing’ of the THC between 1908 and 1911 with the establishment of at least eight women’s unions, meaning the number of women delegates rose from eight to thirty-four. But they remained in minority; around 130 delegates usually attended these meetings.83

This feminising was represented in the PLC by the establishment of the WOC in 1909. From the outset this was a controversial development in a party highly suspicious of ‘dual representation’, that is the accrediting of delegates with full voting rights from both the constituent branches and organisations such as the WOC, and other precursor organisations of Labor women.84 Such suspicion was partially responsible for the series of setbacks and hiatuses suffered by similar committees before 1909.85 It is important, however, to understand this within the broader context. Labor was a party under construction, and the growth of the VSP stoked cynicism towards dual membership. Many Labor activists, including Labor women, were suspicious of forms of organisation they considered might test the unity of labour through asserting alternate identities – political, religious, or gender based. Of course, Labor men carried the sexism of their time and perpetuated this within the movement. For many, opposition to the WOC was motivated by a patriarchal repudiation of

80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 82 Lake, “The Independence of Women and the Brotherhood of Man”, 4. 83 Brigden, “The Legacy of Separate Organizing”, 252. 84 This can be seen in the 1906 refusal to accept representatives of the women’s group as accredited delegates to the PLC Conference, as the Melbourne branch to which it was connected had already sent delegates: “The Parliament of Labour", Tocsin, 19 April 1906, 1. 85 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 124-131.

95 the notion that women should, or were capable, of playing a political role. Others, such as the AWU’s Grayndler, were in favour of women’s organisation. At the 1906 PLC conference Grayndler supported a ‘special representation of women.’ He argued that if a branch were sizeable, consisting of at least twenty-five members, it should be allowed to send a second delegate to conference, ‘provided such a delegate was a woman.’86

Of course, there is a substantial difference between a pledge to increase the very low representation of women to Labor’s conference, and a more wide-reaching correction of the gendered leadership of the party. Political decision-making was considered by movement powerbrokers to be men’s business. A motion passed at the PLC’s annual conference in April 1912 shows how many Labor men viewed the role of women in politics. The motion recognised the excellent role of the WOC in providing meals for conference delegates and ‘the capable manner in which they had catered.’87 Labor women faced significant barriers to being heard within the movement. The WOC became one means through which they sought to assert themselves.

Crucial too were conferences of labour women. These operated as significant sites for the construction of a network of women activists, the development of their programme, and attempts to mobilise the labour movement behind these demands. A particularly notable meeting was the Women’s Convention of October 1912, an event where the development of the women’s counterpublic can be identified in action.88 In the debates and discussions that took place at conferences such as this, activist-intellectuals reflected ideas from the dominant public sphere as to the role of women, and simultaneously recrafted them, instilling concepts such as ‘motherhood’ with a political content through which they asserted not just their rights as women, but also their identity as part of the working class.89 As was argued by Amy Whitham, President of the WOC and the chair of the Convention: 'Show a mother how her children could be advantaged by supporting the Labor party, and it was not long before the mother would be with the Labor party.'90

But Labor women were not of one mind, and did not operate as a single bloc. Whitham acknowledged this from the outset of the convention, noting that 'whilst they were agreed upon certain principles, they might differ somewhat on details, but arguments between those seeking the common good gave a zest to life.'91 The most prominent issue at the conference, as it would be for Labor women in the coming years, was equal pay. The main debate was how it could best be achieved, and whether Labor men could be trusted to act upon their rhetorical support, or if Labor women should develop a distinctive presence in

86 “The Parliament of Labour”, Tocsin, 19 April 1906, 3. 87 "PLC Annual Conference", LC, 25 April 1912, 2. 88 "Women's Convention", LC, 24 October 1912, 8-9. 89 Lake, “The Independence of Women and the Brotherhood of Man”, 5. 90 “Women's Convention”, LC, 24 October 1912, 8. 91 Ibid.

96 the movement to ensure action was taken to realise the demand. As a general rule, socialists argued that only women could be trusted to turn statements into action on the issue. Women closer to the leadership of the delimited sphere wanted more women involved in the movement, but they did not believe that new standing structures were necessary to ensure their demands were acted upon. The acceptance of equal pay precipitated a questioning of how best to achieve it, bringing the division amongst Labor women into the open.92

The case for equal pay received a boost before the convention owing to its acceptance by the clerks wages board for work performed in that industry, albeit briefly.93 As one participant asked rhetorically, ‘as women had equality with men politically, why should not the principle apply industrially?’94 These discussions on equal pay were important, but uncontroversial in this gathering, and the motions were endorsed with ease. The conference did not limit itself to this specific issue, however. A wide range of economic and political rights were discussed and debated, including the six-hour day for women workers, greater sanitation and protection from industrial diseases, and support for ‘the principle of equal marriage and divorce laws.’95

This conference represented a key moment in the construction of a subaltern counterpublic within the movement. It was an important moment of symbolism and practical application in which labour women clarified positions, and projected their political voices. It clearly conformed to party strictures in that its decisions were ultimately suggestions for the PLC conference proper rather than actual changes in policy, and the gathering’s loyalty to the party was consistently declared. This in itself can be read as a radical act – such assertions of loyalty did not necessarily imply subordination so much as assert a sense of belonging, a statement that women were part of the movement, and that their demands would not be ignored.

That such an assertion was necessary was made clear by the movement’s failure to act on equal pay. In August 1913 this led to a motion on the THC from Sara Lewis and a Mr Carter, asking that ‘permission be granted the Caterers women employes (sic) union to circularise the various unions having women members, with the object of persuing (sic) an effective "Equal Pay" campaign.’96 Sara Lewis was the Secretary of the Caterers Union’s Women’s Section,97 and a member of the PLC State Executive, who had proposed the motion in favour of equal pay at the previous year’s convention. Her motion was amended by the Council. It

92 Raymond, “Sara Lewis”, 51-55. 93 Nolan, “Sex or Class?”, 103-116. 94 “Women's Convention", LC, 24 October 1912, 9. 95 Ibid., 8-9. 96 Trades Hall Council (THC) Minutes, 7 August 1913, 1978.0082.00009, p.551, University of Melbourne Archives (UMA). 97 The union’s full name was The Female Hotel, Club, Restaurant and Caterers Employees Union.

97 voted to convene a convention ‘from recognised Trades Unions composed wholly or partly of Women Workers … to consider and report to the Council on questions effecting Wages, Hours, and general Industrial Conditions of Women Workers.’98

A resulting convention of women workers was held in September 1913, and this was an event that precipitated great controversy.99 At the convention Lewis moved support for ‘a Bill providing that women shall receive equal rates of pay as men when engaged in work of the same character’ in both the State and Federal realms, and the elimination of the term ‘sex’ from the Factories Act that oversaw industrial wages and conditions. Unfortunately the limited reporting of the event provides few details as to the proceedings. As is shown below, this lack of clarity proved to be of great significance, provoking a dispute amongst women participants as to the resolutions and meaning of the conference.

Following the convention, the THC addressed the motions that had been adopted, most notably that pertaining to equal pay. On 16 October 1913 the THC adopted a motion recommended by the convention calling for legislative reform to attain the demand, meaning that the body’s official position from that point on was to support equal pay for women.100 Controversy arose immediately over the council’s refusal to adopt a further clause from the convention concerning organisation to achieve that demand, a clause that was not published in the report of the conference that appeared first in the Labor Call, but is included in the subsequent report of the THC as it discussed the convention. It is not clear if this was the result of oversight, or insidious intent.

This clause would create a ‘Standing Committee to organise a vigorous campaign to secure equal rates for men and women in all industries.’101 The defeat of this proposal clearly provoked Lewis’s ire; another delegate reported that Lewis had threatened to ‘go outside and publish all that had taken place in the public press.’102 If true, this was a serious threat, given the suspicion and outright hostility with which the non-labour press was viewed by the movement.103 These actions prompted a revealing debate between several key participants of the Convention, demonstrating the political differences that existed amongst Labor women who were constructing the subaltern counterpublic. The debate is of quite a detailed procedural nature with a narrative that can only be drawn out after all three letters have been considered. Yet the points made demonstrate the existing tensions.

98 THC Minutes, 7 August 1913, 1978.0082.00009, p.551, UMA. 99 "Women's Industrial Convention", LC, 2 October 1913, 5. 100 THC Minutes, 16 October 1913, 1978.0082.00009, pp.569-70, UMA. 101 “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 23 October 1913, 2. 102 THC Minutes, 16 October 1913, 1978.0082.00009, pp.569-70, UMA. 103 That regularly barred the non-labour press from its meetings and events.

98

An L Mantach initiated the debate in the pages of the Labor Call.104 Mantach, the Honorary Secretary of the Hessian Bag Makers’ Union, was responding to the report by the THC on the Women’s Convention in the paper. Mantach questioned the reporting of the resolution, which stated that the THC should form a committee to act on the motions adopted by the Convention. She related that the motions that appeared in the report had ‘no relation whatever to the original resolution.’

Mantach argued that she had moved a motion at the conference on behalf of her union calling for a committee to be created ‘to deal with all questions relating to the betterment of women,’ reported as having been adopted. This was in spite of the fact that she had withdrawn this motion at the convention ‘after so much time had been wasted by the men at this so-called “Women’s Convention”’ whom she knew to have ‘attended with the object of preventing any machinery being brought into being to carry out any suggestions of the convention.’105

Mantach suggested that the motion she had moved was aimed at forming a committee of women to deal with issues relating to the betterment of conditions for female labourers. The motion reported in the Labor Call, which was not adopted by the Council, was a recommendation that the THC should convene such a body. The difference would be in the initiative and the agency of this committee, and if it would be formed by working women themselves under the auspices of the convention, or if only the THC would be able to summon such a body, if it so chose. Mantach argued that the latter was represented in the THC report, but that had not been the motion she had originally moved. She took aim at the male leaders of the THC, ‘the men who are in power,’ who she argued were ‘terrified that the women might strike out and fight for themselves, for unless they do they need not expect much help from the men.'

The President of the Convention, Amy Whitham, swiftly responded in a letter to the Labor Call.106 She detailed the procedures of the conference stating that the official report was correct. Whitham explained that during the Convention, as the chair, ‘I ruled “that the Convention was not an Executive body, and did not possess the power to create special machinery to deal with the questions before it, but could send on suggestions to the Trades Hall Council for the consideration of that body,”’ also ruling that male delegates were able to attend and act upon the proceedings. She took issue with Mantach blaming the THC leadership for frustrating the establishment of a separate organisation of women, as ‘I am answerable for that position; I acted solely on my own initiative, and accept full responsibility. Evidently, a majority of the delegates agreed with me, as my ruling was not questioned.’

104 Mantach was referred to as ‘Miss’, and her first name was not provided. L Mantach, “Women and the Trades Hall”, LC, 13 November 1913, 5. 105 Ibid. 106 A Whitam, “Women and the Trades Hall”, LC, 27 November 1913, 3.

99

Whitham went a good deal further than simply defending the THC. She also prosecuted a case against anyone who ‘either by untrue statement or subtle insinuations, seeks to alienate the support of women from the Labor movement.’ Whitham argued that women’s economic position had become so poor not because of the actions of labour men, but because women ‘are generally speaking, bad trade unionists, blind to their own interests, and their work [is] principally of an unskilled character, requiring little technique—a class of worker always difficult to organise.’ This, she argued, made it even more necessary for women workers to ‘learn the lesson which men have taken years to master, THAT UNITY IS STRENGTH.’ Whitham considered those critiques of the labour movement’s male leadership that took them to task for not working hard enough to organise women, or to allow women their own distinct sphere to organise, as menacing to labour’s unity. She outlined a starkly different vision of relations within the movement:

We women stand on equal footing with regards to the privileges enjoyed by the men. Our Labor men everywhere fought for political recognition for women, knowing well the dangers to themselves politically of bringing into existence a number of uneducated voters ... The Trades Hall Council receive delegates from the women's unions on the same terms as the men. Where is the injustice? If women consider they do not carry sufficient weight on that Council the remedy is to see that more women are eligible to sit there by organising women workers.

Whitham’s arguments were in riposte to those she believed were ‘making wild statements, indulging in personalities and generally raising Cain’ over the Convention’s conclusion. Clearly, there was political benefit in this for the moderate Whitham. Such motivations, however, were inspired simultaneously by a political perspective which informed her view of these events, namely that class was a unifying factor between men and women, and that women bore the responsibility of organising themselves more effectively within the existing movement structures, rather than creating additional bodies of women.

But it was Lewis who had the last word.107 She detailed the convocation of the Convention as endorsed by the THC, in which her original motion to call together a meeting of affected unions to move towards a campaign for equal pay was amended by a male delegate to hold a ‘Women’s Convention’ attended only by women delegates. It is unclear from her account whether she considered this beneficial to her intention to convene a campaign for equal pay. What is clear, however, is that Lewis considered the convention to have been ‘practically controlled by a few men delegates,’ a fact that obscured the initial intention of the gathering, namely ‘getting the women workers' opinion on their industrial conditions.’ Due to the ‘elastic nature’ of the convocation from the THC it was found that a man’s name had been submitted as a delegate, with his credentials being accepted ‘On the suggestion of Mrs. Whitham, in order “not to affront the union that had sent him along.”’ Following this five more men were admitted. Lewis objected to having been allowed only fifteen minutes to

107 Sara Lewis, "Women and Trades Hall", LC, 4 , 3.

100 speak to her equal pay motion, whilst the men enjoyed a full hour to expostulate upon prevailing conditions.

Steeled as she was in the Victorian Labor school of battle, Lewis was not above the well- aimed political insult, noting it as unfortunate that ‘Mrs. Whitham has not organised any body of industrial workers, and cannot therefore be expected to have an intimate knowledge of women's industrial grievances.’108 Had she done so, Lewis continued, she may have known that ‘it is ill-advised that anyone should speak of women's work as “unskilled.” Nor would I class women as “bad trade unionists,” considering the limited information they can gain of these matters.’ She articulated a vision of political and industrial organising at odds with Whitham’s, arguing that:

We are out to educate the women workers into a better understanding of their position, and only when we have succeeded will they be filled with zeal to use their voices in their own interests and against the mighty forces of Capitalism which are crushing them.109

Lewis considered that union men had a responsibility to aid in the work of education, and was ‘sorry when the organised men unionists are so blind to their own interests that they would seek to deter us from any onward move in the right direction.’ Because of this, women ‘to a large extent’ faced the task of aiding each other first, and then ‘we can stand shoulder to shoulder with our brother unionists, confident of our strength, better fitted for the fight, and more hopeful of success.’

The public debate ended at this point, leaving many questions unanswered, but the emerging divergence amongst Labor women over these crucial questions of organisation is clear. While these two sections differed over the extent of organisational independence required to pursue the aims of working women, both agreed that they should operate within the official structures of the movement. Manthac and Lewis did not argue for women to leave the movement and construct an independent feminist organisation, but to operate from within to advance their aims; that is, to operate as a counterpublic within the proletarian sphere.

But they still had a considerable distance to go before achieving this aim. The participation of Sara Lewis and other radical activists in a non-PLC endorsed campaign for equal pay hardened the hostility of movement power brokers who were suspicious of female-specific organisation.110 The WOC’s position within the party structures was uncertain. In 1913, motivated either by concern over dual organisation or outright , the central

108 Ibid. 109 Ibid. 110 Bongiorno, The People’s Party, 134.

101 executive informed the WOC it did not have an official standing within the party.111 This ensured the battle over separate organising would continue in the years to come.

The debate over militarism

In 1908 the Federal Labor conference determined to support compulsory military training for domestic defence.112 This was the genesis of the policy for the military training of boys and young men aged between twelve and twenty-one that Labor-in-government implemented in 1911. It was a policy driven by a belief in self-reliance, scepticism that Britain could support the dominion, and a deep-seated suspicion of professional military forces that desired the white-male citizenry to shoulder arms to protect the democracy it was creating.113 It was the product of racial fears, an anxiety that the new federation was vulnerable to potential military incursions by its northern neighbours in Asia, such as the ‘sleeping giant – ,’ as federal leader Watson warned.114 For Labor Democrats, the defence of White Australia and military preparedness were inseparable.

The divisive nature of the conscription campaign in 1916 in the Victorian party make its members’ participation in the debate of 1908 particularly notable. In the deliberations of the Labor Conference in 1908 the moderate member for Yarra, Frank Tudor, opposed the compulsory policy, stating that the party should not ‘bind themselves down definitely to any particular scheme without close inquiry.’115 Anstey, on the other hand, provided his tacit support for the policy and argued that while all labour supporters were aware of the manner in which the military had previously been deployed for the capitalists against the workers, Labor’s policy was ‘to arm the whole nation.’ He proceeded to declare his support for the compulsory scheme against any other ‘hybrid’ models of ‘granting exemptions,’ as other delegates allegedly proposed.116

While the VSP were immediate opponents of the measure, leading Labor Democrats, Tudor aside, registered support. In the face of opposition from socialists in the rank-and-file, the Labor Democrats argued once again for conformity by the state party with the national decision. This could be seen at the PLC special conference held in November 1908, convened by the Central Executive ‘to consider primarily the vexed question of the excision of compulsory military training from the Federal platform.’117 The special meeting had been

111 Ibid., 133. 112 ALP, Official Report of the Fourth Commonwealth Political Labour Conference (Brisbane: Worker, 1908). 113 Ibid., 16-7. 114 Ibid., 16. 115 Although he did support maintaining Labor’s support for a volunteer citizen defence force: Ibid., 19. 116 Ibid. 117 "Special PLC Conference", LC, 26 November 1908, 3.

102 provoked by the decision of the national conference, with one central executive member explaining that they had convened because ‘a number of affiliated organisations’ had requested a special conference, though he personally ‘did not favor any step that might tend to prejudice the solidarity of the movement’ in such a way.118

Two procedural attacks on the Federal Conference’s resolution were launched at the special meeting. The first was an attempt to rescind the determinations that prevented the PLC from adopting positions that conflicted with those of the Federal platform. The second would make adherence to the Federal position on defence optional, rather than automatic. In this move two seemingly distinctive questions – military defence and the socialist objective – were bound together. To remove the prohibition on altering federal decisions could potentially create the opportunity for renewed socialist efforts to transform the objective of the party. The process of enforcing the federal decision on socialisation also acted to bind state branches to the national defence policy, against the wishes of the Victorian left.

The Labor Democrats continued to argue that solidarity demanded conformity with the Federal decision. Grayndler contended that the PLC conference of 1906 had adopted resolutions that bound the state party to decisions of the Federal Conference, and therefore ‘it was not competent for the Special, or any other State Conference to alter the Federal Platform.’ It should be noted that by this time the AWU had publicly expressed its support for the policy.119 The President of the proceedings initially disagreed with Grayndler, determining to allow a discussion, but after a lengthy debate this ruling was overturned by a majority of forty-three to thirty agreeing with the AWU man that the Federal Conference’s determinations were supreme. The left’s attempts to exempt the PLC from complicity with the Federal party’s perceived militarism were defeated, without a single reference to the policy itself. Once again the moderates, this time spearheaded by the AWU, had made national solidarity and compliance with party procedures the issue. Once again, they had won. In the end the Special Conference spent longer deliberating Labor’s increasingly acrimonious relationship with the VSP than it did matters of militarism.120

The VSP was critical of the operations of the scheme, but not all socialists opposed compulsory training itself.121 This reflected the ideological dissonance within the organisation, particularly at this weakened stage. Tom Mann was an ardent anti-militarist, who sought to instil the working-class internationalism of the Second International into the organisation. He believed that war was the product of capitalism, and it was necessary for the workers of the world to unite in solidarity against militarism as part of the socialist

118 Ibid. 119 McQueen, “Victoria,” 324. 120 “Special PLC Conference”, LC, 26 November 1908, 7. 121 Though one socialist, Strahan, moved a number of motions at the THC to ameliorate its unfair impact on young working-class men: THC Minutes, 14 August 1908 p.146, 30 October 1908 p.192, 1978.0082.00008, UMA.

103 project. This was given practical expression in August of 1908 when the American Fleet, or Great White Fleet as it was known, docked in Melbourne. The Fleet had arrived in the context of growing military tension in the region, and increasing suspicion in Australia of the Japanese Empire.122 The VSP opposed this heightening of military animosities and campaigned against the purpose of the fleet's visit, while appealing to the lower-ranked sailors. Mann ensured that the party extended a welcome to them ‘as Men, and not as members of the United States' Navy’ and expressed the belief inscribed deep into socialism, that workers across the globe had the same interests regardless of national citizenship. In his argument, war solely benefitted ‘the profit-mongering Capitalist Class.’ Only the establishment of ‘the Socialist Commonwealth throughout the World!’ would benefit the working-class, including those sailors aboard the fleet.123 But such general sentiments were not the surest guide when approaching the specific proposal for Australian citizens to be trained to defend the (white) democracy. That the proposal came from Labor, rather than the conservatives, added another layer of complexity for socialists who from 1909 were without Mann’s guidance.

Within the VSP there were no supporters of capitalist military aggression. But there were voices, such as Bernard O’Dowd’s, in favour of the training scheme as part of the development of a citizen defence force, a perspective aligning roughly with that of Anstey at the 1908 conference. The existence of these views has led some historians to doubt the consistency of socialist opposition to compulsory service.124 Maurice Blackburn was the most notable figure arguing for socialists to endorse the compulsory service scheme, as he believed it would prevent the development of a military caste in Australian society, as well as ensure the protection of White Australia.125 There is evidence of some wider sympathy for this position within the VSP, though it would seem to have been in the minority.126

There was a solid core of internationalists who had belonged to Mann’s inner circle that maintained his perspective after he had left, and sought to translate the politics of the Second International in the Australian context to interpret, and oppose, what they considered the domestic growth of capitalist militarism. Chief amongst them was Curtin, who from 1909 was the VSP’s main theoretical and polemical voice on imperialism and militarism.

122 Day, John Curtin, 115. 123 “Socialist Welcome to the American Fleet”, Socialist, 7 August, 1908, 2, bold in original. 124 John Barrett, Falling In: Australians and 'Boy Conscription' 1911-1915 (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1979), 89; Hewitt, “A History of the Victorian Socialist Party”, 115-6. 125 Hewitt, "A History of the Victorian Socialist Party", 115-6. 126 See for instance the debate in the Socialist over the publication of an anti-war manifesto by the American author Upton Sinclair: “War: A Manifesto Against It”, Socialist, 3 September 1909, 4; Wharfer, “Upton Sinclair's Manifesto Against War”, Socialist, 5 November 1909, 4; Chas Green, “Upton Sinclair's Manifesto Against War”, Socialist, 10 December 1909, 3.

104

This began in 1906, when a twenty-one year old Curtin joined the VSP. His had been a peripatetic youth. Born in Creswick, not far from Ballarat, in 1885, instability in his father’s employment saw Curtin and his family often uprooted and moving around country Victoria, before settling in the working-class enclave of Brunswick. Recollections from those who knew him in Victoria’s labour circles focus on his air of isolation, often seeming withdrawn from others.127 It was also recalled that in times of crisis he could summon something within himself that allowed him to provide the sort of leadership that won him plaudits and respect within the movement.128

In many ways, Curtin’s political development bears comparison to that of Scullin. Similar personality types, often seeming more withdrawn and less personable than others around them, both were born in a similar region of colonial Victoria, and developed an appetite for learning that their formal education could not sate. With his schooling ending at fourteen, as it did for most of the working class at the time, Curtin was largely an autodidact, consuming books at the public library. Both men were drawn to Labor politics by Tom Mann, and both began to make their mark in 1906.

For Scullin this was in his first parliamentary campaign. For Curtin it was in the intellectual and activist circles around Mann and the VSP. Upon joining the party Curtin immersed himself in its intellectual community and was an eager participant in the range of educational activities the organisation offered as it sought to train the next generation of socialist agitators. After Mann left Australia, Curtin demonstrated the capacity for leadership that defined his political career, particularly in moments of crisis. In Mann’s absence it was necessary for a new generation of socialists to try and fill the gap he had left. Robert Ross came to Melbourne from Broken Hill to act as editor of the Socialist, and Curtin’s writings on militarism and imperialism began to feature frequently on its front page.

In his writings, Curtin outlined a sophisticated theory of imperialism as an outgrowth of the capitalist system of competition and accumulation. Two aspects of the system pushed in this direction. The first was the capitalist class’s fear of the growing international workers’ movement. Akin to many other Laborites and socialists, Curtin observed the seemingly inexorable growth of the social democratic forces in Europe with great hope for the eventual triumph of socialism. He considered that the capitalist enemies of social democracy were aware of these advances, which were ‘pressing heavily’ on them ‘in every country’. He argued that war was a means through which the capitalist classes, whatever the hue of their national flags, could distract, divide, and destroy the working-class movement and prevent its advance.129

127 May Francis (Brodney), “Drafts of letter to JJ Dedman”, Alfred Tennyson Brodney Papers (hereafter Brodney Papers), MS 10882, Box 4. Folder 6 (iii), SLV. 128 Holloway, From Labor Council to Privy Council, 30. 129 JC, “Australian Defence”, Socialist, 8 October 1909, 2.

105

To achieve this, the capitalists summoned ‘from the sepulchre of annihilated superstitions the bogeys of racial animosity and human suspicion’ to break the international unity of the class.130 This nationalist fervour was spread by the ‘press and pulpit’, which ‘chloroforms’ the ‘public mind’ in the ‘interest of political operations.’131 Curtin considered it the duty of the class to oppose these divisive efforts and to unite in the cause of international socialism.132

But war was not simply a means to stave off social democratic advance. Similarly to European socialists, Curtin argued that war was also the inevitable product of the mercilessly profit-hungry nature of capitalism. He painted a vivid, if somewhat simplistic picture: ‘When shipbuilders do not receive orders to construct vessels for service in the mercantile marine, they have either to close down or build ships of war.’133

In a series Socialist articles Curtin outlined a consistent critique of international capitalism on this basis. Unlike most other radical writers of the time, Curtin did not focus his ire on a single section of capital, such as the financial trusts. In this, he differed starkly from his friend, Anstey. Where Anstey’s excoriations of the financial system blended seamlessly with his anti-Semitism,134 Curtin’s analysis explicitly avoided such overtly racist stereotypes.

For Curtin, those governments that protested their ‘total repugnance to the incidence of war preparations’, and yet simultaneously placed ‘orders with private enterprise for ships, guns, [and] ammunition’, were all complicit alongside the giant firms to which they paid an ‘immense tribute.’135 Not to be denied their slice of the profits from the arms race were the ‘parasitical groups of petty traders’ who clung to the ‘coat-tails’ of the armaments contractors, licking their lips at the potential benefits ‘that future developments will bring in their train.’136 His position at this time could be summed: ‘War creates no market, it is a market itself.’137

He rejected the growing nationalism and anti-German hostility of the time, telling his audience to ‘[a]nswer their cries of “Look out for the Germans” by pointing to our 3,000,000 comrades resident in the land of the Kaiser’, and to answer discussion of Imperial conferences with ‘your triennial congress representative of the toilers of every race!’138 This was in reference to both the mass membership of the German SPD, and the congresses of the Second International, which had been meeting to discuss the response of labour to the possible outbreak of war.

130 Ibid. 131 JC, “Capitalist Politics”, Socialist, 2 April 1909, 1. 132 Ibid. 133 JC, "Australian Defence", Socialist, 8 October 1909, 2. 134 Dyrenfurth, Heroes and Villains, 176-81. 135 JC, “Capitalist Politics”, Socialist, 2 April 1909, 1. 136 Ibid. 137 Ibid. 138 JC, "Australian Defence", Socialist, 8 October 1909, 2.

106

It is not always possible to identify the wide variety of thinkers and writers who helped Curtin hone his thoughts. The general intellectual climate of the VSP and Victorian labour was clearly a broad influence, and figures such as Mann can be presumed to have done much to guide his thoughts. But there were two thinkers in particular whose influence Curtin acknowledged, and whose ideas he clearly attempted to integrate into his worldview: the British economic and political theorist JA Hobson,139 and the French radical Gustave Hervé.140

It would seem to be Hobson’s influence that led Curtin to emphasise the importance of under-consumption and the consequent need for new markets, to the extension of imperialism.141 Curtin was also an enthusiast for Hervé’s radical tract, My Country, Right or Wrong, and his call for the workers’ movement to meet the outbreak of conflict with a general strike, or insurrection, that had caused great consternation amongst the moderates and trade union leaders of the German movement.142 Though their paths diverged strongly in 1914, when Hervé’s socialism morphed into a particularly vitriolic brand of nationalism, he and Curtin held recognisably similarly radical positions before the war.

Curtin’s commitment to socialist internationalism was not without complications, particularly concerning the vital question of White Australia that dominated the local movement. The socialist approach to White Australia had been a matter of debate within the VSP, particularly in 1907, before being overshadowed by the contest over its relationship with Labor. Graeme Osborne and Verity Burgmann have charted this “Brotherhood” debate and the contradictions it exposed in VSP policy.143 Both conclude that Mann generally opposed the most vehement racism of some VSP members in the name of internationalism, but did not overtly attack the underlying principles that bolstered labour support for racial exclusion. In the pre-war period Curtin did not tackle the question, even while making passionate pleas for international working-class solidarity. As Osborne noted his ‘position on racism was at best equivocal.’144 He did argue that immigration to Australia was based on capitalist exploitation and that ‘[w]age-slavery will be accentuated by the increased competition for employment and the economic standard of the workers now obtaining will yield to the pressure of subsistence necessities’.145 He was speaking here of all immigration,

139 JC, “Capitalist Politics”, Socialist, 2 April 1909, 1. 140 See for instance Curtin’s review of Hervé’s ‘epochal’ book: JC, “My Country, Right or Wrong”, Socialist, 23 December 1910, 1. 141 For instance: Ibid.; JC, “Capitalist Politics”, Socialist, 2 April 1909, 1; JC, “Our Navy”, Socialist, 2 December 1910, 4; J Curtin, “Back to the Abyss”, Timber Worker (TW), 10 October 1914, 1. 142 JC, “My Country, Right or Wrong”, Socialist, 23 December 1910, 1; Callahan, Demonstration Culture, 26. 143 Graeme Osborne, “A Socialist Dilemma,” Labour History, no. 35 (1978): 113-121; Verity Burgmann, “Revolutionaries and Racists: Australian Socialism and the Problem of Racism, 1887 – 1917” (PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1980), 162-176. 144 Osborne, ‘A Socialist Dilemma’, 117. 145 JC, “The Coming Chaos”, Socialist, 8 April 1910, 1.

107 including that from Britain. Curtin argued that, under capitalism, immigrants were exploited and domestic workers undercut by the influx of labour, a commonly-held view. Overall, Curtin’s language and rhetoric was starkly different to that of other sections of the labour movement in its absence of racist stereotypes and fear-mongering about Australia’s Asian neighbours. Yet his silence on racism was damning.

Despite this omission, Curtin developed a theoretical apparatus of anti-imperialism to guide his opposition to militarist policies which he considered inimical to working-class interests. Much of this opposition was expressed towards the Labor government which had won office in 1910. This lent a particularly pointed character to Curtin’s writing at this time, and clarified his purpose. His critiques of militarism in these years must also be seen as a criticism of the direction of the Labor Party. He was writing as a socialist intellectual engaged in contest with the leadership of the delimited sphere and its defence policies.

Curtin lambasted Federal Labor’s claims that its military preparations were necessary to defend the continent, denouncing the ‘palpably fake character’ of the ‘ridiculous abortion labelled Australian Defence’.146 These measures were, he argued, a fundamentally unnecessary ‘veil’ behind which hid ‘the material advantages to be derived by powerful manufacturing and trading groups in whose interest the war policy is formulated.’147 It was not that Curtin believed Australia should take no measures to defend itself: he famously advocated for an air-based defence strategy that was perhaps naive, but undoubtedly contained advantages that would not be considered in any realistic sense for decades to come.148 He did argue that the measures being proposed by Labor represented capitalist interests, and were part of an international trend aimed at aiding the accumulation of the ruling elite.149

A lampoon from December 1910 demonstrated the verve of his writing at the time, and his ability to translate theoretical concepts for a working-class audience in his chosen medium of the newspaper article. He penned a satirical speech for Labor Defence Minister Senator , whose greeting of ‘Capitalists, Sweaters and Parasites, Comrades and Friends’ indicated the tone with which it proceeded. This article attacked Labor’s prioritising of military spending, alongside the training scheme, repeating earlier arguments that such measures were aimed at curtailing the workers’ movement. Curtin’s Pearce promised his capitalist ‘friends’ that if the workers ever misbehaved there would be ‘at hand the material for an armed despotism,’ that is a trained military force.150

In his writings Curtin consistently returned to several key points: that war and militarism were inherently part of the capitalist system; that the Australian government was intent not

146 JC, “Capitalist Politics”, Socialist, 2 April 1909, 1. 147 Ibid. 148 “The Balaclava Contest”, LC, 20 August 1914; Ross, John Curtin, 44. 149 JC, “Australian Defence”, Socialist, 8 October 1909, 2; “Our Navy”, Socialist, 2 December 1910, 4. 150 JC, “Our Navy”, Socialist, 2 December 1910, 4.

108 on defence but on joining the global arms race to benefit the profiteering capitalists; and that measures such as compulsory training were not truly about defending the country so much as eroding democracy and attacking the organisational and economic gains of the trade union movement.

In 1911 Curtin was appointed secretary of the Timber Workers’ Union. From this point he would be an increasingly prominent leader in the major institutions of the labour movement, particularly the THC. This new profile afforded him the opportunity to disseminate his radical message amongst a broader labour audience. From 1912 Curtin’s anti-militarist articles started to appear in the Labor Call, the movement’s major organ in Victoria.151 In 1913 Curtin’s voice was further amplified as he founded a newspaper for his union, serving from this point on as both editor and the major contributor. Extending a now well-established parallel path, this was the same year Scullin took editorial control of the Echo.152

In these years before the war, both Curtin and Scullin had established themselves as intellectuals of skill and prominence, connected to sections of great power within the movement. The Labor Democrats, underpinned by the AWU, had cemented its position as the dominant section of the movement, while the VSP had been torn apart by internal division. This made the life of the socialist party less attractive for some members, such as Curtin, who turned their energies towards building the union movement, taking their radical politics with them. The division between these sections was clear on the issues of militarism and defence, a division that would grow in importance after the outbreak of war in 1914. But as has been seen this was not the only matter of contest in this period. Labor women activists also debated the most effective means to advance their aims with men of the movement, and with each other. These tensions would deepen further with the onset of war.

151 JC, "Repeal the Defence Act", LC, 18 April 1912, 18; JC, "Mutiny or Murder", LC, 4 April 1912, 6. 152 J Curtin, “War and the Workers”, TW, 8 April 1914, 1; J Curtin, “Back to the Abyss”, TW, 10 October 1914, 1.

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Chapter Four: the cost of war, 1914-1916

The war seemed far from over in April 1918, as Australia’s most powerful political leaders gathered at the Governor General’s Melbourne residence to discuss the recruitment effort. Former friends and comrades glared across the table at one another. On one side sat representatives of the Nationalist Party, forged from the unification of former Labor hero Prime Minister ‘Billy’ Hughes and his fellow party ‘rats,’ and their previous antagonists on the conservative side of politics. The Leader of the ALP, Tudor sat on the other. He was joined by Victorian Labor’s president, James Scullin. Those gathered could not resist settling scores from the preceding years. Each side lay blame on the other for throwing, what Tudor termed, ‘the apple of discord … into the midst of the public.’1 Scullin bemoaned the inability of those in attendance to ‘bring about harmony between all the different sections of the community’ as had existed ‘when the people of Australia were rushing to the colours in large numbers’ in August 1914.2

At that time, according to Scullin, ‘there was absolute unanimity in Australia.’3 This was a political, rather than historical, recollection. He was accusing Hughes and his supporters of rending the Australian social fabric by proposing conscription in 1916 and 1917, and as a result, overstated social cohesion in August 1914. But historians have generally accepted that the announcement of war met with little opposition, if not overwhelming enthusiasm.4 The difference of mood between 1914 and 1918 that Scullin pondered indicates a significant quandary: why did a labour movement that so readily accepted the responsibility of government during wartime, and so enthusiastically pledged itself to the imperial war effort, rip itself apart in opposition to a measure through which the war was to be prosecuted?5 How did Australian Labor get from winning government in September 1914 to the embittered meeting of April 1918?

1 "Report of the Proceedings of the Conference Convened by His Excellency the Governor General on the Subject of the Securing of Reinforcements under the voluntary system for the Australian Imperial Force Now Serving Abroad". Held at Federal Government House, Melbourne, April 1918, p.19, Australian Workers Union. E154/38/2. Noel Butlin Archives Centre (NBA). 2 Ibid., 11. 3 Ibid., 61. 4 For a small sample see: Ernest Scott, Australia During the War (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1936), 23-6; LL Robson, The First A.I.F.: A Study of its Recruitment 1914-1918 (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1970), 21-4; McMullin, The Light on the Hill, 92; Neville Meaney, Australia and World Crisis, 1914- 1923 (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2009), 21-4; Joan Beaumont, Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2013), xvi, 21-6; Michael McKernan, Victoria At War: 1914-1918 (Sydney: Newsouth, 2014), 17-23. 5 Robin Archer, “Stopping War and Stopping Conscription: Australian Labour’s Response to World War I in Comparative Perspective,” Labour History, no. 106 (2014): 43-67.

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This question is key to unlocking the transformative processes at work in the ALP, and Australian politics, during the war years. This transformation was facilitated by wartime hardships that led many in the labour movement to believe it bore disproportionate costs for the conflict. Economic conditions for working-class Australians deteriorated rapidly from the onset of war. The disruption of trade and continuing drought in states such as Victoria led to losses of jobs in both urban and rural industries.6 Earnings lagged behind the rapid growth in prices through the war years. Real wages alone fell ten percent from 1914 – 1915.7 Unemployment nearly doubled by the end of 1914 to eleven percent, swelling enlistment queues.8 Australia’s enlistees were waylaid in Egypt following Turkey’s entry into the war. Their first major engagement was on the Gallipoli Peninsula in the Dardanelles, from April to December 1915. The campaign ended in retreat, and 7500 Australian dead, amongst many more wounded and maimed.9 Australian troops were subsequently posted to the Western Front, joining the most devastating battles of the war, often with great distinction.10 59,000 Australians did not return from the war, out of the 330,000 who flocked to the imperial colours.11

In this chapter I consider the contrasting responses to the war, and its social effects, by Labor Democrats and Labor Socialists. I do so through the prism of the work of the representative movement intellectuals of each section: James Scullin and John Curtin. Secondly, I chart the developing radicalisation within labour that enhanced the power and reach of the socialist subaltern counterpublic. Finally, I demonstrate the significant changes in women’s organisation in these years. Doing so I will demonstrate the continuing contestation between these sections, and the growing influence of the counterpublics. In particular, I will assess the character of the socialist counterpublic as it began to grow in influence and confidence from 1914 to 1916.

James Scullin and the Labor Democrats at the outbreak of war

In August 1914 Scullin had been in the editor’s chair of the Evening Echo for less than a year. With the outbreak of war he faced a significant challenge in crafting the message of the newspaper that was the only labour daily in the state, and to all intents and purposes, the main organ for Labor Democrats in Victoria. The task was substantial. In Europe, parties of the Second International famously failed to live up to their pre-war pledge of unity against conflict. Instead, with few exceptions, they supported their nations’ war effort. This came

6 Stuart Macintyre, The Oxford : Volume 4, 1901 – 1942, The Succeeding Age (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986), 145. 7 Ibid., 155, 163. 8 Ibid., 146. 9 Ibid., 147-9. 10 Ibid., 175-6. 11 Ibid., 177.

111 without the pressures of government. In Australia, war was declared with Labor in full- election mode, with a realistic prospect of regaining executive power.12 The party’s noted ‘precocity’ in assuming office heightened the stakes when the moment of crisis came, leaving much that was unresolved to find its solution in the pressurised atmosphere of war.13

Scullin was a strong supporter of the war effort due to his sense of imperial duty. In his view, Britain had, regrettably, been dragged into the conflict against its better intentions by the autocratic and militaristic Central Powers. After these assaults on its allies, those who loved Britain would have felt a ‘grave disappointment,’ had the Empire stood aside, believing ‘that she is not acting up to her best national traditions.’14 Though the war was ‘abhorrent’ to ‘[t]hinking people’ he argued that Britain was ‘duty bound to actively assist her allies.’15

Scullin believed a means should be found to avoid war. He advocated the ‘Labor ideal of abolishing international disputes by arbitration.’16 This was the widely-held view of Labor Democrats. Campaigning as the prospective Prime Minister at Benalla, Andrew Fisher stated that it was a ‘deplorable thing that countries should go to war without first going to arbitration to settle their differences.’17 Whatever his desire for such an outcome, ‘facts are stubborn things,’ and as ‘the mother country may be drawn in’ he accepted that Australia would also be involved, ‘more or less.’18 Circumstances could be regretted, but this would not alter them, and Fisher repeated his famous pledge made previously at Colac, ‘that our last man and our last shilling will be offered and supplied to the mother country in maintaining her honor and our honor.’19

Scullin was not so apocalyptic of phrase but his argument progressed along similar lines. Any chance for arbitration had passed, and there ‘must be no backing down on Britain’s part.’20 Australia should contribute to the war effort to support Britain, but also as an act of self-defence. If Britain were defeated, Australia would be without its imperial protector, and vulnerable to attack. The spectre of two nations loomed large in this regard for Scullin. The first was Australia’s ‘ally for the sake of convenience,’ Japan, into ‘whose face the White Australia policy has been thrust.’21 The second threat was Germany. Scullin asserted, incorrectly, that ‘next to Britain Germany is the greatest colonising nation in the world,’

12 McMullin, The Light on the Hill, 93. 13 Stuart Macintyre, The Labour Experiment (Melbourne: McPhee Gribble Publishers, 1989), 36. 14 “Our duty to Britain and to ourselves”, EE, 5 August 1914, 2. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 “Speech by Mr Fisher”, EE, 4 August 1914, 4. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 “Our duty to Britain and to ourselves”, EE, 5 August 1914, 2. 21 “What In (sic) Means”, EE, 6 August 1914, 2.

112 pointing to the German presence in the South Pacific as a potential threat.22 Australia, he wrote, ‘stands not only for the integrity of the Empire, but for absolute self-protection.’23 For those who doubted Germany’s military capacities to launch an invasion across the globe, Scullin reminded: ‘Carthage said that Rome could never conquer Africa.’24

He lauded the mobilisation of two local regiments, the 70th and 71st, in the first weeks of the war.25 Having men so rapidly at arms proved, he argued, that the ‘Australian compulsory defence system —[was] the best thing that Australia has ever had.’ Scullin argued that shouldering arms for domestic defence ‘counts even more than the volunteering for service abroad … IT IS PART OF THE REAL THING.’26 His enthusiasm for compulsory military training had been consistent since 1908. In 1914 the AWU also reiterated its support for the policy at its annual conference.27 This service was conceptualised as being only for domestic defence. There was no suggestion that Australians should be compelled to serve on foreign fields.

Labor Democrats supported the war effort, but believed its burden should be borne equally by all sections of Australian society, and not just the working class. Scullin was sceptical of large-scale borrowing by governments, as he believed this placed them in the hands of exploitative financiers who would extract large rates of interest from the taxpayers.28 He was fearful this situation would be exacerbated by the exigencies of a war effort, and maintained his deep-seated scepticism towards governmental borrowing, even during such a grave emergency.29 He and other Labor Democrats believed that the ultimate cost would be borne by the working class, both on the frontlines and economically.30 The best means to prevent this disproportionate burden was by targeting exploitative trusts and monopolies to ensure they made their contribution. The implacable opponents and antagonists of Labor Democracy were to morph in this conceptualisation into anti-patriotic war profiteers.

Practically, Scullin continued his advocacy for a referendum to empower the central government as the most effective means to resolve the ‘Great Problem’ of protecting working-class interests in the war economy.31 While acclaiming Labor’s return to office

22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 AWU, Official Report of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Convention (Sydney: Worker Trades Union Printery, 1914), E154/17, p.73, NBA. 28 JH Scullin and R Jordan, “Concerning Practical Suggestions”, EE, 21 August 1914, 2; JH Scullin, “The Financial Problem”, EE, 14 September 1914, 2. Though he showed none of the anti-Semitism of some labourites: Peter Love, Labour and the Money Power: Australian Labour Populism (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1984), 64-5. 29 JH Scullin, “The Financial Problem”, EE, 14 September 1914, 2. 30 Ibid. 31 JH Scullin, “The Great Problem”, EE, 12 September 1914, 2.

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Scullin lamented that the proposed referendum on the transfer of powers had not been put to the vote by Cook’s government, leaving the people vulnerable to exploitation by ‘predatory combinations.’32 This would remain the case for as long as ‘the hands of the people’s representatives are tied by the restrictions contained in the Constitution.’33

Scullin believed the war needed to be fought, but that its burden should be shared amongst the community, not borne by the working class. Dyrenfurth has identified this sentiment as a ‘bargain,’ the precondition of labour movement support for the mobilisation.34 As Scullin had concluded in 1910 – the adequate defence of the country required that all did their share of the work, particularly those who held the wealth.35 He expressed the hope that this Labor Democratic worldview could yet be achieved, if the ‘Labor Government will make haste to overtake the delay.’ He concluded: ‘we can take it for granted that the Referendum questions will soon be submitted again.’36 Such optimism would prove to be misdirected, with the gravest of consequences for Labor.

Curtin and the Labor Socialists respond to the war.

Histories of labour and the war often conclude that there was no significant opposition to the conflict beyond the IWW.37 Curtin’s response challenges these assumptions. While the VSP was somewhat uncertain as to the correct attitude to express at the time, and its secretary Robert Ross equivocated in declaring the party’s position, Curtin drew upon his theoretical analysis of imperialism to inform his opposition. He did so not as an isolated socialist shouting into the political winds, but as a powerful unionist amongst a network of radicals at the THC.

The THC was the primary forum through which Curtin sought to translate his theoretical rejection of imperialism into practical action. In May 1914 he won the THC’s endorsement of the Second International’s Hardie-Vaillant resolution.38 This was the commitment of the International from 1910 that in the instance of a European war, the workers’ movement would co-ordinate industrial action across borders, in an act of internationalism and solidarity, to stymie the designs of the warmongering capitalist classes. This declaration

32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Dyrenfurth, Heroes & Villains, 166. 35 JH Scullin, “The Great Problem”, EE, 12 September 1914, 2. 36 JH Scullin and R Jordan, “’Stand Down!’”, EE, 7 September 1914, 2. 37 Recent examples include: Robert Bollard, In the Shadow of Gallipoli: The hidden history of Australia in World War I (Sydney: Newsouth, 2013), 29-38; Verity Burgmann, “Syndicalist and Socialist Anti- Militarism 1911-18: How The Radical Flanks Helped Defeat Conscription”, in Fighting Against War: Peace Activism in the Twentieth Century, eds. Phillip Deery and Julie Kimber (Melbourne: Leftbank Press, 2015), 63-9. 38 THC Minutes, 26 March 1914, 1978.0082.00010, pp. 25-7, UMA.

114 greatly affected Curtin, who wrote of it at length in the Timber Worker on the cusp of war.39 Curtin was reported in the Labor Call as having made a ‘fine speech’ on the ‘general stoppage of work as the best means of preventing war between nations.’40 Unfortunately, there is no record of the ‘very interesting discussion’ that took place on this motion.41 How Labor Democrats received the proposal is not clear. The list of attendees does not exist for this meeting or vote, so it is unclear which personalities, apart from Curtin, were present. What is known is that at the start of the meeting 139 delegates answered to the roll, and the motion was carried unanimously.42

Following the Second International’s abandonment of Hardie-Vaillant, Victorian labour similarly failed to take industrial action against the war. This does not render the motion itself irrelevant. Based on the promise if not the reality of working-class internationalism and anti-imperialism, this commitment provided the ideological anchor for the Labor Socialists during the war. Time and time again its permeations can be seen in the subsequent motions and strategies they proposed.

Curtin’s article “Back to the Abyss”, printed in both the Timber Worker and Labor Call in October 1914, demonstrates how the theoretical system of anti-militarism he developed before 1914 continued to guide his thought and actions after the war began.43 Hobson’s influence on this indictment of the war was evident as Curtin described capitalism as consumed by ‘the driving force of economic chaos,’ deriving from the fact that ‘production has outgrown the assimilative capacity of the market’ in the world’s imperial centres. This necessitated capitalist concerns capturing ‘a dumping-ground’ for ‘surplus productions’ outside their own borders. This, he argued, was the motivation for colonial expansion undertaken by all the major powers, including Britain, to ‘ease the increasingly urgent economic problem begotten of the inherent contradictions in the laws governing capitalist economy.’ Quite simply, growing domestic monopoly necessitated expansion, which begat the drive to armament and drove the prospect of war. He included Australia in this dynamic, arguing it was the desire to imitate the old world imperialists that had led to its control and enacting of ‘native labor ordinances in Papua,’ a colonial acquisition.44

Curtin captured the mood of the moment in his inimitable, and somewhat maudlin, style: ‘The day turns back to the night, even as our eyes are fixed on the noontide sun.’45 Workers would be blooded on the battlefield. But this would not be the limit of its ill-effects, for war,

39 “War and the Workers”, TW, 8 April 1914, 1. 40 “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 4 June 1914, 2. 41 Ibid. 42 THC Minutes, 28 May 1914. 1978.0082.00010, p.41, UMA. 43 J Curtin, “Back to the Abyss”, TW, 10 October 1914, 1; J Curtin, "Back to the Abyss", LC, 22 October 1914, 9. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid.

115 he argued, ‘is not only the assassin’s trade, it is the exploiter’s auxiliary.’46 Similarly to the Labor Democrats he predicted that as trade declined, and the exploitative capitalists’ desire for profits increased ‘[w]ages will go down in proportion as work becomes scarce.’ Social deprivation would swiftly grow, and the ‘streets will echo to the tramp of the hungry men, while wives and children weep in silence and sorrow.’ His answer was for the state to take responsibility, and to nationalise industry to ensure plentiful work. If ‘the State shall be responsible for feeding, clothing and equipping the soldiers defending the nation,’ Curtin suggested, ‘it is an equally valid proposition that it shall be responsible for the organisation with which communities combat destitution and death within the gates.’ This would require ‘compulsion’ by the workers’ movement to force the state to meet labour’s demands.47

Curtin’s was not a solitary opposition, but he was part of a minority. It can be reasonably surmised that the motion passed unanimously in May would have been defeated had it come again in October. Some at the grassroots sought to have their opposition recognised. The Sandringham Branch of the PLC for instance passed an anti-war motion stating that ‘there are no national boundaries to the Labor movement, and that the only war that we as workers recognise is the class war.’48 One eager correspondent to the Labor Call, writing under the pseudonym ‘Nemo’, encouraged workers to ‘carry the class war into the enemies’ stronghold … United we rule the world, divided we are slaves.’49 But apart from these glimpses of discontent, it was generally all quiet on the protest front.

In the election of September 1914 Curtin ran in the safely conservative seat of Balaclava, aiming to cut into the large margin held by the former Victorian Premier William Watt. In the campaign he determined not to denounce the imperialist operations of capitalism. Yet, even in these circumstances, representing the Labor Party as a candidate for the first time, he carried a radical message to the hustings. He critiqued ‘defence’ policies for being overly reliant on British protection and declared himself to favour the creation of an air force to repel invaders. This was an argument about Australian defence and technology that if somewhat naïve in this context would prove to be a prescient recommendation.50 He argued that less should be spent on defence, a radical position to take shortly after the declaration of war.51

He spoke in favour of national ownership of all monopolies as a means to reduce the high cost of living, and argued the necessity of Labor to introduce a ‘bill providing for the initiative and referendum.’ This was a means by which to ensure that ‘the people should have sovereign power,’ and enjoy the capacity to reject ‘any law passed by Parliament which

46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 LC, 20 August 1914, 2. 49 Nemo, "Class or Country?", LC, 12 March 1914, 6. 50 “The Balaclava Contest”, LC, 20 August 1914, 1. 51 Ibid.

116 was obnoxious to the great mass of the people.’52 In this, Curtin was speaking to and, to an extent, interpreting the Labor programme. He believed the people should police their parliamentary representatives, of whatever hue, as part of a broader struggle against established social relations,53 an understanding of initiative that went beyond the Labor Democrats vision of the referendum as a tool to re-craft the constitution.

Curtin did not defeat Watt at the polls. But he did cut the conservative majority in the seat from nearly nine thousand to five thousand.54 Joseph Hannan, a Labor MP, paid tribute to Curtin’s effort, stating that he ‘was sure that no man, either Labor or Liberal, elected, or not elected, had put up a better fight, and the success of this young fighting Laborite as a public man was assured.’55 This judgement would be vindicated through the course of Curtin’s career, though Hannan may well have regretted this statement in the years to come as Curtin raised increasingly strident critiques of Federal Labor’s conduct.

The state of the movement in 1914

A survey of Victorian labour in 1914 indicates that the movement was closer to Scullin than Curtin in its response to the war. Large numbers of working-class men signed up to serve in the war against Germany. Inner-city working-class centres felt the pain of war early and deeply, with a large number of their young men killed or wounded on the frontlines. Simultaneously, increases in the costs of living alongside stagnating wages led many to feel that their sacrifice was disproportionate to wealthier Australians. Michael McKernan’s Victoria at War indicates the accuracy of this sentiment, revealing that over 2,000 young men from proletarian Richmond signed up to the imperial colours, with the patriotic middle classes in Camberwell contributing a loyal 255.56 The union movement would also make a large contribution. The AWU, for instance, had so many members under arms that Holloway appealed to Defence Minister Pearce on its behalf to have an entire division drawn from that union’s men alone.57

52 Ibid. 53 He had argued something similar earlier: J Curtin, “The Coming Contest”, TW, 8 May 1914, 2. 54 “The Elections”, Argus, 21 , 19; “Federal Elections”, Bendigo Advertiser, 24 September 1914, 8. 55 “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 17 September 1914, 6. 56 McKernan, Victoria at War, 164; Janet McCalman charted Richmond’s wartime fate: Struggletown: Public and Private Life in Richmond 1900-1965 (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1985), 89-104. 57 In 1916 the report of the Victorian-Riverina branch of the AWU listed 11,683 members, with ‘fully one-fourth of last year’s membership has enlisted for the war.’ AWU, Annual Report and Balance Sheets for the Year ending May 31st, 1916 (Ballarat: Berry, Anderson & co., 1916), E154/55/12, NBA; EJ Holloway, The Australian Victory over Conscription in 1916-17 (Melbourne: Anti-Conscription Jubilee Committee, 1966), 3.

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The PLC conference of that year gives little indication of labour’s feeling, coming as it did before the outbreak. The meeting was dominated by women’s organising58 and a long-list of central executive recommendations held over since 1912.59 The only ‘Defence Matters’ discussed related directly to the operation of the Defence Act, and compulsory military training. A special committee dominated by Labor Democrats such as Senator Barker, the AWU’s Ted Holloway, and McGowan, but also including left-wingers , AD Jones, and Edward F Russell, prepared a report for the conference.60 This did not recommend abolishing the scheme, but suggested amendment to the Act as ‘a safeguard’ against ‘the Continental practice of “calling to the colors” men out on strike’ to break up industrial disputes, a concern Curtin had also consistently raised. The report made clear its opposition to weekday morning drills of young cadets, believed to penalise young working- class men who had to absent themselves from work to attend, and any potential use of the trained military force ‘against the workers in the time of an industrial dispute.’61

But it is important to note that the report recommended the Act be amended, not abolished. It insisted that an amendment should be made ‘to clearly set forth that the object of creating a citizen defence force … is for the purpose of defending the Commonwealth against possible foreign aggression.’ There was no indication that those who prepared this report considered the possibility that within two years a Labor Prime Minister would propose compelling men to fight overseas. Neither was there much indication from this conference that the question of European war was dominating the thoughts of delegates.

The silence on the war in labour forums in August 1914 is notable. This is not to suggest that there was no discussion taking place beyond that provided by Scullin and Curtin, but that the attention of Labor intellectuals and activists seemed more focused on the looming September election. When the war was discussed it tended to be in a tone of resignation. The regular “Shot and Shell” column in Labor Call, asked morosely: ‘When are the workers going to learn to fight for themselves? When are the workers of the world going to unite to win the world and establish universal peace and brotherhood?’62

Few articles in the Labor Call were clearly anti-war at this stage. While the paper did run critical articles such as Curtin’s, its regular contributors were primarily concerned with the upcoming federal election and returning Labor to power. Articles in August 1914 that discussed the war tended to focus on Labor’s proud record on defence matters as indicative of the need to return the party to government. For instance, RN Walton, a regular contributor, laid out the reasons to vote Labor, focusing not on internationalism and

58 Explored below. 59 The PLC did not hold an annual conference in 1913 to avoid a clash with the federal election taking place that year. 60 “PLC Annual Conference 1914", LC, 30 April 1914, 4. 61 Ibid. 62 "Shot and Shell", LC, 1 October 1914, 9.

118 solidarity, but warning that Prime Minister Cook would use wartime anxieties to try and discredit the party. Walton remarked with no little satisfaction how shocked Cook would have been to find that in the Labor team of Andrew Fisher and Billy Hughes he had met his match in patriotism and defence policy.63

More significantly, Walton expressed a concern similar to Scullin and Curtin that the war would leave workers vulnerable to exploitation by opportunistic capitalists. These, he mused, might use the exigencies of war to undermine hard won industrial conditions gained by the Australian labour movement.64 Labor commentators such as Walton contested the meaning of patriotism during war. He argued that patriotism:

does not consist in the idle flapping of toy flags, of tuneless roaring of national songs or anthems, of blatant blatherskite from crowded platforms, but in self-sacrifice, in strenuous work, and if need be, in hardship and suffering bravely borne.65

Capitalists were accused of being false patriots, allegedly scheming to suspend wage boards, ‘Poor worker, be hanged.’66 These themes were reinforced by other regular contributors, such as W Wallis, who condemned the clique of parasitic capitalists that, he alleged, sought to profit from war privations, while wrapping themselves in the flag. This threat meant, for Wallis, that ‘at no time in our history are elections of greater importance.’67 Wallis denounced those ‘steamship-owner patriots’ who had been ‘swelling the fund of patriotism’ while ‘raising freights 25 per cent ... By-and-bye (sic), every patriot will recoup himself out of the pocket of the worker.’68 The correspondent “Shotgun” joined the chorus, with his criticism of these ‘human vultures’ profiting on the back of the war, and upon the ‘miseries of their fellow citizens.’ Such men, he noted, ‘bellowed loudest at patriotic demonstrations,’ and were also ‘the most energetic in declaring that it was the duty of the other fellow to go to war at once.’69

These Labor journalists were spreading a radical message about the burden of the war, but not writing in opposition to the war itself. Neither were they directly connected to a power base within the movement; making their influence difficult to quantify. But their work, alongside that of Scullin and Curtin, indicates the extent to which the burden of the war troubled the labour movement.

The THC discussed war conditions at its meeting on the 27th of August, but not its attitude to the war itself. The Council resolved to form a deputation to wait on the Prime Minister and

63 RN Walton, “The War and the Elections”, LC, 13 August 1914, 2. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 W Wallis, “Federal War”, LC, 3 September 1914, 4-5; W Wallis, “The Patriotism of Cook and the Patriotism of Labor”, LC, 13 August 1914, 4. 68 W. Wallis, “Federal War”, LC, 3 September 1914, 4. 69 Shotgun, "First Provision of War", LC, 20 August 1914, 5.

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Premier to insist that the financial support for the banks during the war be extended to ‘Wage Earners’. They further requested that the penalty clauses in the Landlords and Tenants Act be suspended.70 The Council did not seek to enact the commitment contained in the Hardie-Vaillant resolution, but did determine by unanimous vote to affiliate to the Australian Peace Alliance (APA), a small group of religiously-inspired pacifists and socialists, including VSP Secretary Robert Ross, who had pledged to organise against the war.71 This was relatively symbolic as the APA’s ability to influence favourable public discourse on the war was minimal at best.

The powerful centre of rural labour organisation, the AWU-dominated Trades and Labor Council in Ballarat, did not meet at all between July 2 and September 10, 1914; its usual fortnightly meetings suspended. This was almost certainly due to the local organising efforts to ensure the election of Labor candidates in the coming election, particularly the AWU Senators John Barnes and Andrew McKissock. When the Council did convene it did not discuss the war. It did take time to congratulate Barnes and McKissock on their election.72 Individual unions acted in similar ways. The Federated Clothing Trades Union for example never discussed the war at the federal level, and its state branch also affiliated to the APA without discussion.73 So far, the Labor Moderates remained in their position of control within the movement’s ranks. The socialists were on the defensive. The actions of Labor-in- government would transform this in the years to come.

1915: Labor Democrats respond to the unfolding crisis.

The most significant issues for labour on the home front in 1914 and 1915 were the declining living standards of the working class, and the perceived inability, or refusal, of the Labor government to take action.74 The Victorian labour movement advanced its pre-war strategy of a referendum for a transfer of powers, now as a defensive measure, not to positively recalibrate the Federation, though this it would do, but to arrest the decline in conditions. In October 1914 the THC endorsed the formation of a deputation to the Prime Minister ‘to lay before him the need of amending the Arbitration Act embodying the full powers granted in the constitution and approved of by the Electors in the last Federal election.’75 This need was

70 THC Minutes, 27 August, 1978.0082.00010, p.65, UMA. 71 Leslie C Jauncey, The Story of Conscription in Australia (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1936), 113- 125. Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 168-172. 72 Ballarat Trades and Labour Council (TLC), Meeting 10 September 1914, p.135, E97/1/8, NBA. 73 Bradon Ellem, In Women’s Hands?: A History of Clothing Trades Unionism in Australia (Kensington: UNSW Press, 1989), 91. 74 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 114. 75 THC Minutes, 29 October 1914, 1978.0082.00010, p.78, UMA.

120 to be met, they proposed, by ‘bringing forward the referenda proposals at the earliest possible moment.’76

The government’s refusal to do so – or to take other progressive economic actions – increased tensions with the extra-parliamentary movement. The absence of a state Labor administration in Victoria worked in two directions. In NSW, frustration at Federal Labor and the state premier William Holman fed into a general discontent with Labor-in-power,77 whereas in Victoria, conservative dominance of the state parliament provided a buffer for the federal government: there was someone else to blame. At the same time, Victorian Laborites could not appeal to the state sphere for redress, so they focused their attention on the actions, or inactions, of the federal party. Little distraction was offered by the ineffective and relatively inoffensive state parliamentary organisation. So in December 1914, when the THC condemned state government inaction over wheat prices they requested the Federal Labor administration take the extraordinary step of ‘proclaim[ing] martial law so far as regards to wheat.’78

The AWU’s 1915 national conference showcased the growing disenchantment with political labour, both in Victoria, and elsewhere in the country. In his opening report as national secretary Edward Grayndler began with an excoriation of those ‘Australian business people and State Governments’ who panicked at the onset of war and closed their doors, throwing many unionists out of work.79 He argued that a ‘little applied patriotism and courage on the part of our so-called “captains of industry” would prevent stagnation in Australia.’80

The words of the secretary of Australian’s largest union carried weight nationally. Grayndler had been a founding member of the Amalgamated Shearers Union of Australasia in 1886, before its later conglomeration into the AWU. His bitter experience of industrial defeat in the shearers’ strikes of the 1890s led him to believe passionately in arbitration, a lesson well learned by his acolytes who formed core of the Labor Democrats.81 Grayndler’s intervention in a debate over political organising at this conference, initiated by delegates from the Victoria-Riverina branch, demonstrated the pent up frustration in the southern state, and the ability of its key figures to influence the movement nationally.

The debate began with a proposal put by Scullin’s brother-in-law John McNeill on behalf of the branch executive to allow a small amount of money from each member to be taken to

76 Ibid. 77 Childe, How Labour Governs, 22-70. 78 THC Minutes, 10 December 1914, 1978.0082.00010, p.87, UMA. 79 AWU, Official Report of the Twenty-Ninth Annual Convention (Sydney: Worker Trades Union Printery, 1915), E154/17, p.3, NBA. 80 Ibid. 81 Frank Farrell, “Grayndler, Edward,” Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 20 August 2016. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/grayndler-edward-6465.

121 fund a political organiser.82 This earned instant reproach from South Australian delegates who felt ‘sick at the way many so-called Labor politicians had acted,’ and drew the conclusion that involvement in parliamentary politics was a waste of resources compared to direct industrial action.83 The two centres of opposition to this sentiment were Victoria and Queensland. A clear tocsin for those in parliamentary Labor who choose to heed its call came from a Queensland delegate named Collins, who referred to the Labor split in his state in 1911, warning that the party elsewhere might ‘have to go through the same painful process to thoroughly purify the movement.’84

The Victorians also offered their state as a model of the preferred relationship between labour’s industrial and political wings. One delegate somewhat over-enthusiastically argued that Victoria ‘was a “political Arcadia” in the matter of straight-going Laborites.’ He recognised that Labor members in the state legislature were not numerous, but argued this was ‘preferable to a majority in Parliament which cared little or nothing for Labor ideals.’85 All things considered, this was an extraordinary statement to arise in the nation’s largest, most powerful, and traditionally politically committed union: that a party tied to the movement out of power was preferable to a party that did not govern as the movement desired.86

Grayndler’s intervention in the debate was even more foreboding for those in the parliamentary realm. He was unequivocally in favour of an industrial movement ‘with sole control over the men sent into Parliament,’ or the revocation of pay for MPs so that unions could control Labor members through payment of their wages. He argued that such measures must be adopted, or else ‘no great good would be achieved, for no sooner would one renegade be dealt with than another would arise elsewhere, and so the thing would go on.’ The problem with Labor arose, he argued, ‘when majorities were obtained,’ and it became clear how different was the party’s ‘fighting capacity to that displayed when in opposition.’87 The Victorian motion was eventually defeated, but not before these telling statements which reveal the growing disenchantment within AWU ranks towards political labour. If these had not come to dominate the organisations thinking at this stage, the cracks were beginning to show.

The Labor Democrats were frustrated. The ALP seemed to be slipping from their control. This was feeding into the renewal of a syndicalist critique of the party. Political labour needed to be defended, but the approach of the parliamentary party increasingly alienated its major supporters in the AWU. As Childe demonstrated, the labour vision of democracy

82 AWU, Official Report of the Twenty-Ninth Annual Convention, 12. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid., 12. 85 Ibid., 13. 86 Predating the threats for form a separate organisation by AWU member later in 1916 in NSW: Childe, How Labour Governs, 44. 87 AWU, Official Report of the Twenty-Ninth Annual Convention, 14.

122 was one in which Labor-in-parliament operated as the delegates of the movement. What they were intended to operate for, according to the Labor Democrats, was the realisation of the labour democracy that would guarantee a more egalitarian social structure. Labor Democrats were not content to allow the exigencies of war to impede their vision for change, nor for their members to pay a disproportionate price for the war effort. As Childe and Turner explained, fears that Labor were not acing in the movement’s interests was confirmed to many later that year when Billy Hughes, as Prime Minister, dropped the long- advocated referendum proposals to transfer the powers to control prices from the states to the federal government.88

There was another significant motion discussed at this conference. Delegate Jack Cullinan, from the Wamboin branch in NSW, moved to condemn ‘warfare which is against the workers’ interests,’ and stating his hope that war would lead to ‘the overthrow of capitalism and militarism and the triumph of the working class movements throughout the world.’89 This radical motion was carried.90 Collins, the Queensland delegate, argued in favour, noting that he would like to see the courage emanating from the working class replicated by the employers, and some ‘of the landowners of Australia … who owned more territory than Belgium itself, volunteering for the front instead of inviting the “other fellow” to do so.’91 These remarks bore more than passing resemblance to the infamous statement of the Industrial Workers of the World, that the workers should ‘follow your masters,’ to the front. This was not a meeting being held amongst the radicals of Broken Hill, however. It was the major forum of the AWU, dominated as it was by a moderate leadership, in which radicals from within the union were successful in winning endorsement of their aim. This does not mean that the AWU leadership pledged itself to oppose the war. The union’s leadership was practiced at ignoring inconvenient resolutions when required. It does indicate, however, that even the AWU’s bureaucracy was vulnerable to the burgeoning radicalism.

But at this stage the AWU had one object in mind: a referendum for the transference of powers. McNeill, who was secretary of the union in Victoria, expressed this at the AWU’s 1915 state conference, writing that it was ‘gratifying to know’ that the Labor government ‘have decided to submit … the Referendum Proposals, which, if carried, will give to the Labor Government the power to free the people of this country from the intolerable burden of the ever-increasing cost of living.’92 Only this would protect the ‘welfare of the community’ from the ‘commercial traitor that battens on the woes of his fellowmen and women.’ For McNeill, ‘[n]o fouler specimen of humanity is found anywhere than the private enterprise gentleman that is “rigging” tenders for food supplies to the men fighting in the

88 Childe, How Labour Governs, 42-51; Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 99-101. 89 AWU, Official Report of the Twenty-Ninth Annual Convention, 34. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid. 92 AWU, Annual Report and Balance Sheets for the Year ending May 31st, 1915 (Ballarat: Berry, Anderson & Co., 1915), E154/55/11, pp.4-5, NBA.

123 trenches in Europe.’ Against this ‘class of man that waves a flag on every public occasion, and assumes a mask of patriotism to rob the people,’ the referendum would be the triumphant bulwark erected by the people for their own protection. It was the pre-requisite for defence, and the construction of a viable Labor Democracy.93 For the movement, as time progressed, the stakes on this question could only rise.

At a meeting of the AWU-dominated Ballarat Trades and Labour Council McNeill, also its secretary, spoke of the ‘victimisation of Laborites and hungry children attending school.’94 He condemned the inaction of the Federal Labor Government, as well as ‘the supineness of the in the matter.’95 McNeill was a powerful figure in the AWU and the state movement, and his frustration with Labor is a significant indicator of the developing tensions. But despite this growing bitterness the conciliatory attitude of the mild-mannered Fisher and his guarantee that the referendum would come before the people, given time, was enough to assuage the Victorian movement’s ill-temper. Even the THC was not averse to passing a motion of confidence in the Federal Government in June of 1915 to ‘carry on the work of the Commonwealth during the crisis we are now passing through caused by the present European War.’96

But this confidence extended only so far, and patience with Labor inaction was running out. The election of a state Labor administration in Queensland accelerated this disaffection with the Federal party. The northern government’s swift steps to establish state enterprises and legislate progressive industrial reforms seemed to prove that Labor-in-power could take decisive action in favour of the movement if it possessed the political will.97 At the AWU Federal Conference, it had been argued that the purification of the Queensland party was necessary to ensure true labour government. Now, there seemed to be a practical example of the gains that could be achieved, and of the need for the rest of the country’s movement to similarly get its own house in order. The party’s federal conference in May of that year provided an opportunity to do so, with Victorian delegates Cohen and Hannan securing support for their motion calling for the referendum to be put to the people as soon as possible.98

93 Ibid. 94 TLC Meeting, 11 March 1915, E97/1/8, p.162, NBA. 95 Ibid. 96 THC Minutes, 24 June 1915, 1978.0082.00010, p.128, UMA. 97 Murphy, “Queensland”, 188-191, 199; McMullin, The Light on the Hill, 97. 98 ALP, Official Report of the 6th Commonwealth Conference of the Australian Labor Party (Sydney: Worker Trades Union Printery, 1915), 10-11.

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Labor Socialists and the new subaltern counterpublic

Labor Socialists similarly supported the referendum, but did not believe that it alone would provide the necessary alteration to the social system to protect the working class from exploitation by profiteers. Curtin, again, provided the most consistent and prominent example of a socialist movement intellectual developing and advocating a radical strategy to address these social ills. He condemned what he considered to be Federal Labor’s inaction over the rising inequities caused by the war, writing that ‘if ever there was an occasion when Labor-in-Power might be expected to be bold, even defiant, in its proposals of amelioration, now is the hour and here is the place.’99 It was precisely, he argued, to prevent such an increase in want amongst the industrial class that ‘the workers elected their own Government, and the Government must either accomplish the things demanded or pass away even as its predecessors.’100 Curtin interpreted this inaction as the logical result of maintaining capitalism, a system based upon fundamental inequity between the classes. Curtin’s response to this situation was to point to the actions of the government in commandeering key sections of the economy for the war effort, and arguing that if it could do this for military purposes, then ‘it is imperative, urgent and logical that it organise factories, workshops, mines, farms, and forests to supply the materials requisite for the equipment of life.’ This was, he argued, the very lifeblood of Labor’s purpose:

For Labor stands—if it stands for anything—for the substitution of national control, public management, and social organisation for the existing monopoly, anarchy, and rascality conditioning the production and distribution of the means of human subsistence.101

Whereas the Labor Democrats wanted the government to use wartime powers to control prices, Curtin wanted it to do so to control industry. He had little tolerance for compromise or acquiescence in restrictions upon Federal Labor’s actions. Whereas the Labor Democrats argued that constitutional restrictions required a referendum to grant it powers, Curtin rejected Federal Labor’s ‘flimsy excuses’ of constitutional restrictions. He argued that Labor should ‘break the constitution rather than permit penury, misery and horror.’102 Curtin argued that if ‘the constitution stands between the toilers of the nation and bread and meat, then smash the constitution.’103 It is difficult to see how this could be practically applied by the movement at this time. But for Curtin, of course, it was not a socialist’s duty to be bound by constitutional niceties. His belief in a peaceful road to socialism included mass working- class action and the complete recrafting of social relations. Insofar as the constitution was a barrier to this, it needed to be overcome.

99 J Curtin, “The Famished Legion”, TW, 10 February 1915, 2. 100 Ibid. 101 Ibid. 102 J Curtin, “The Struggle for bread”, TW, 16 January 1915, 2. 103 Ibid.

125

As the months passed without substantial action from the Federal Labor Government, Curtin’s frustrations grew. In April he called for Labor to resolve the issue by immediately submitting the bills for the referendum. He argued that every ‘Bill the Government give priority to over the Referendum Bills will indicate their insincerity and make-believe.’104 He repeated his earlier theme that it was ‘time we gave up crying about the Constitution and the inexpediency and the rest of it, and set to work to demonstrate to the world what labor means and what Labor does.’105 This time he concluded with the barely concealed threat that ‘we are on the threshold of a new historic epoch.’ Once the smoke cleared and the dead were counted ‘there will be a reckoning with the war-makers … and it were well for the Governments of this Commonwealth to save themselves from the wreckage.’106 For Curtin, the referendum was only the start of this process.

Curtin spoke not just for himself, but articulated the perspective of socialists in the Victorian movement. This was a radical counterpublic of activist-intellectuals of power within the movement, increasingly frustrated at the war and Federal Labor’s inaction in alleviating the conflict’s burdens. These powerbrokers and intellectuals were not politically defined by formal membership of a socialist body, but pursued a similar project and formed a united network threaded throughout labour institutions.

This is where the analytical model developed in chapter one allows unique insight into the Victorian left. A counterpublic is not necessarily an organisation: it can be a network, a coherence of personalities and individuals around a common sentiment or identity. In this sense, the Labor socialists can be identified as a subaltern counterpublic in this period, part of the labour movement and its dominant institutions but with a distinctive identity, perspective, and plan of action. This socialist network did not have a formal membership list, specific branches, or formal caucus procedures. It did have a common point of origin in the VSP, and an intellectual inheritance from the organisation and, in particular, the radical core around Tom Mann.

By 1915 this grouping of socialist activist-intellectuals operated in tandem to influence the institutions of labour in a socialist direction. This model of a socialist subaltern counterpublic operating without formal organisational bounds within the broader proletarian sphere is comparable to other major parties of political labour at the time. The socialist presence in Labor resembles that of the SPD, where loose networks of radicals operated without strong organisational differentiation within the proletarian public sphere, at least up until 1917.107 These left-wing forces were beaten into retreat in 1914, before

104 J Curtin, “War and Work”, TW, 9 April 1915, 2. 105 Ibid. 106 Ibid. 107 Roth, The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany, 187-8; David Morgan, The Socialist Left and the German Revolution: A History of the German Independent Social Democratic Party, 1917-1922 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975).

126 reasserting themselves from the middle of the war as political and economic polarisation created impetus for a renewed left-wing challenge to the leadership of the movement.

The lack of distinctive organisational boundaries makes it difficult to quantify the precise numbers involved in this counterpublic. This is the case in terms of the grassroots of the labour movement, where records of participation in politics are thin. What can be identified are the leading activist-intellectuals of prominence and influence, predominantly through their participation as union officials, THC delegates, and representatives to the PLC and labour conferences. Even here major gaps exist. For instance, the THC did not record the voting numbers for most of its motions. Discussions at the THC were not always minuted, so it can be difficult to understand the precise dynamics of debate that took place there. The regular THC reports in the Labor Call help to address this, but these rarely covered entire meetings, or even entire debates. Often, the PLC conference reports would list the total number of votes for and against motions, but not the precise breakdown delegate-by- delegate. Considering that around 130 delegates regularly attended THC meetings, and PLC conferences drew together close to 150 (with both unions and branches sending representatives), a large number of delegates are not recorded as having spoken, and their votes cannot be known.

It is possible to trace the network of the socialist subaltern counterpublic through the key figures who were responsible for the left-wing motions and proposals that pushed in a socialist direction. Such motions became increasingly noticeable from mid-1915 onwards as frustrations with the war grew. They demonstrate the increasingly radical direction of the Council and its key members. Through these motions the coherence of the socialist counterpublic can be charted, the movers and seconders who worked together can be identified, and a number (if not all) of the arguments these figures made can help fill out the picture of a left-wing network seeking to push the movement in a radical direction.

The key personalities of this socialist subaltern counterpublic were usually connected to the VSP, having been members of the organisation at some point. If they retained membership in 1915, the main sphere of their activity had shifted from the declining socialist group and was focused on their union, the THC, and the PLC. A brief survey of some of these individuals indicates the influence this section had begun to accumulate.

Hewitt identified eleven unions as sending VSP delegates to the THC.108 The two most prominent of these were Curtin and Hyett. Each retained their VSP membership, but was predominantly occupied by the business of his union, and his role on the Council. Curtin’s work appeared frequently in the Labor Call, he was a regular contributor to motions at the THC, and would be a delegate to the PLC’s 1915 conference. Hyett was Curtin’s great friend, and secretary of the Victorian Railways Union. In this post he was admired and respected widely within the labour movement, playing a prominent role in the debates over industrial

108 Hewitt, “A History of the Victorian Socialist Party”, 193.

127 unionism.109 In 1915 his union was not affiliated to the THC. So great was the admiration for Hyett, however, that he was enjoined to represent the clerks union on the Council, despite not being a member of that union.

He was joined in a similar position by his fellow VRU official and VSP member JF Chapple, who represented the Pastrycooks.110 AD Jones represented the Agricultural Implement Makers, a radical redoubt of the socialist left in the state that had VSP links going back to 1908. Jones himself was a VSP member and staunch believer in the general strike against militarism. The Builders Labourers’ delegate, Ben Mulvogue was also a member of the VSP, and a leading advocate for industrial unionism in the state. PJ Loughnan was a VSP member who represented the Liquor Trades Union, and would play a prominent role in THC debates on conscription and socialisation. They were joined by a number of other delegates listed by Hewitt, John Cain, who represented the Theatrical Employees, and at least six other VSP members. Hewitt does not include Jean Daley who was THC delegate for the Hotel and Caterers union, as well as a member of the VSP executive.111

While this was a solid bloc of individuals who held party cards, even if not playing an active role in the party itself, these numbers were further bolstered by a number of ex-VSP members. The most prominent of these was Holloway, a friend of Curtin and Hyett, who was also at various points a THC delegate, THC President, President of the PLC, and the first President of the National Executive of the ALP in 1915. He was one of a number of powerful former VSP members who worked with the individuals named above to push the movement leftwards, such as Fred Katz of the Clerks, R Smart of the Typographical Society, PJ Brandt of the Pastrycooks, and Edward Russell, who was also connected to the Agricultural Implement Makers.112 They were joined on the THC by left-wingers such as Jack Cosgrave and May Francis who had never been part of the VSP. Cosgrave was the secretary of the Cycle Trades Union and collaborated on a number of radical motions with other figures from the left, particularly Jones. Francis was a close associate of Cosgrave who represented women textile workers, and who had little patience for the timidity of Labor’s moderate leaders.

As will be shown, these individuals co-operated on the THC, at state, and federal conferences of industrial and political labour over the following years. They drew upon the traditions of agitation and theorisation developed by the subaltern counterpublic of the VSP, in conjunction with key individuals, such as Curtin, who were involved in both forms of counterpublic. Notably, it retained the commitment to operating within the movement. In this they contrasted to NSW radicals, such as members of the Australasian Socialist Party

109 A Scarlett, “Hyett, Francis William,” Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 16 September 2016. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hyett-francis-william-frank-6783. 110 Hewitt, “A History of the Victorian Socialist Party”, 193. 111 Feeney and Smart, “Jean Daley and May Brodney”, 278. 112 Hewitt, “A History of the Victorian Socialist Party”, 193.

128 that retained an implacable hostility to Labor, or the IWW who wanted to substitute themselves for already existing forms of labour organisation.113 The different socialist orientation was related partially to the record of Labor government in the states. The NSW state Labor government’s actions had done much to alienate socialists, and much of the labour movement, there.114 In Victoria, there was not the same tradition of Labor-in-power on the state level that could similarly disaffect its radicals. But an absence of power in the state parliament does not fully explain the orientation of Victorian socialists, who had witnessed Labor govern federally up-close in the nation’s capital. The willingness of Victorian socialists to operate within the PLC is connected to the specific experience of socialism in that state. As is discussed in Chapter Two, whereas NSW socialists largely left the party in the 1890s, the later development in the southern state meant that socialists played a prominent and significant role in constructing the party in the early twentieth century. Mann’s political approach of transforming Labor was continued by the grouping of young socialists that had rejected anti-political syndicalism and maintained his approach while coming to positions of power within the major institutions of the movement, most notably the unions and THC.

The strength of this counterpublic can be seen in the PLC’s 1915 conference. Labor Democrats continued to control the party, claiming a majority of the office bearer and executive positions.115 But the left was capable of asserting itself in a manner that was far more noticeable than the previous year. This can be seen in a motion moved by Loughnan, calling for the conference to approve ‘any proposal that may be forthcoming for a conference of delegates representing the workers of the world’ that intended to ensure international disputes were resolved through ‘arbitration,’ with the aim of ‘abolishing the present system of wholesale murder, in which wage-earners take a prominent part.’116

The coding of the language makes it difficult to tell whether this was referring to a conference already planned, or an abstracted call for one to take place. It is possible that it was a reference to the Zimmerwald peace conference held in Switzerland that September, with social democrats and socialists who opposed the war gathering to discuss how best to facilitate an end to the conflict.117 This was not stated in the reported minutes. But in calling for an international conference of the working class of the world it was clearly a repeat of the sentiment cultivated by Curtin in the pre-war years, symbolised by the THC’s embrace of Hardie-Vaillant in 1914. Amendments were made to this motion recommending that the ALP’s federal conference, scheduled for later that year, take steps ‘immediately to convene a conference of the workers of the world’ to consider the means to utilise arbitration to

113 Farrell, International Socialism and Australian Labour, 27-8. 114 Childe, How Labour Governs, 22-70. 115 “PLC Annual Conference”, LC, 15 April 1915, 2. 116 Ibid. 117 Eley, Forging Democracy, 128.

129 prevent war.118 This was not, of course, as radical as calling for a general strike against war. But in the context of the early stage of the conflict, while the Gallipoli campaign was underway, such a clear expression of a desire for peace was controversial. It indicates further the consistency with which the socialist counterpublic maintained their tradition of anti-imperialism in changing political circumstances.

Debate shifted to a new motion: should employers be eligible for PLC membership? PJ Clarey from the left-wing Clerks union moved the motion to confine party membership to ‘wage-earners,’ arguing that Labor was a party that originated from ‘the dissatisfaction felt at the treatment accorded to the workers by Liberalism,’ and should be confined to the workers themselves.119 He received support for this motion from AD Jones, who believed that employers who sought to join Labor were really seeking to ‘block the road to economic evolution.’120

The motion was strongly opposed by the Labor Democrats. One country delegate castigated the socialists for being ‘mostly of a city character.’ The AWU’s James Kean, representing Ballarat West, shared this opposition. The real problem, he argued, was not the involvement of employers but divisions amongst the working class itself. He drew on Engels, ‘through Kautsky’ to demonstrate that ‘there could be nothing better than allowing existing relationships to develop.’121

According to Childe, Labor moderates sought to expand the party’s electoral prospects by appealing to constituencies beyond the movement. This can be seen with the Labor Democrats, who identified the enemy not as ‘the capitalist,’ but ‘the exploiter’. Whereas the socialists considered capitalists to be the enemy, the Labor Democrats believed in working alongside progressive employers in common cause. But most significant was the voting, as it provided an indication of the forces at the conference. Seventy-seven votes opposed Clarey’s motion, and sixty-seven supported, showing a sizeable left-wing minority backing the motion, representing the socialist counterpublic.

Socialist efforts to direct the movement to the left continued at the THC. On 22 July THC president Laurie Cohen and PJ Brandt moved a motion critiquing the government for floating War Loans with interest, arguing that the capitalists should finance the war effort ‘without drawing interest on what is practically the blood of their fellow men.’ The government’s action was particularly unfair, they argued, when ‘those who have left and are leaving to fight for and defend Australia comprise at least 90 per cent of the working

118 “PLC Annual Conference”, LC, 15 April 1915, 2. 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid., 3. 121 Ibid., 3.

130 class.’122 This motion was based on the belief that the exploitative capitalists were utilising the war crisis to further bolster their profits.

Cosgrave and Jones put forward the most significant in this series of motions on 29 July. This recognised ‘the need of complete National unity in the present War Crisis,’ then somewhat undercut this sentiment by arguing that ‘the Workers have most to gain by Peace conditions,’ proceeding to request the Federal Labor Government to ‘urge the Imperial Government in the name of suffering Humanity to openly declare to the World the terms upon which they the Imperial Government think the Allies should negotiate Peace.’123

This echoed the motion moved by Loughnan at the PLC conference. It did not represent the same radicalism as Hardie-Vaillant in 1914. Ostensibly it suggested that Federal Labor should clarify with the British government as to the terms it required for the negotiation of peace. But, in the context of Gallipoli; support for the war, and increasingly punitive actions by the government against anti-war dissent, it demonstrated an important continuity of anti- militarist thought and agitation. The motion had the temerity to question what Britain was fighting for, rather than taking the righteousness of its cause for granted.

This was enough to provoke outrage on the Council. An amendment was immediately moved expressing support for the Labor Government and faith that it would ‘strongly support any movement for an honourable peace at the proper time.’124 After heated debate the amendment was lost by a single vote with fifty-two against. At this juncture a VSP member, Strahan, sought leave to move a motion, a request denied by the President in the chair. This provoked a furious response from Jones who moved that the President’s ruling be disagreed with, resulting in two divisions. Ultimately, Cosgrave and Jones prevailed, winning the same number of votes in favour of their motion as opposed the amendment, fifty two, this time with fifty votes on the other side.125 The result of these motions and manoeuvres was that the socialist left had won the THC to the position that the Imperial Government should declare the terms of peace. The motion’s passage demonstrates the socialists’ strength on the THC. Dyrenfurth argued that in 1915 ‘no Laborite seriously advocated against continuing Australian military involvement.’126 He is correct on the level of rhetoric and official pronouncement. Beneath this rhetoric, however, there was a significant sentiment against the war, tied to a theory of anti-imperialism developed by Curtin in the pre-war years, and propounded by an increasingly powerful section of the Victorian labour movement.

122 THC Minutes, 22 July 1915, 1978.0082.00010, p.137, UMA. 123 THC Minutes, 29 July 1915, 1978.0082.00010, p.138, UMA. 124 Ibid. 125 Ibid. 126 Nick Dyrenfurth, “’Conscription is Not Abhorrent to Laborites and Socialists’: Revisiting the Australian Labour Movements Attitude towards Military Conscription during World War I,” Labour History, no. 103 (2012): 153.

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This group had already identified another potential threat looming on the political horizon. On July 8 1915 a motion came before the THC, calling on the council to oppose ‘any scheme of compulsory military and naval service that envolves (sic) service outside the territorial confines of the Australian Commonwealth.’127 Connected to this was a clause to ‘acquire 10 per cent of the wealth’ of each Australian to establish ‘heavy artillery and submarine works.’128 The motion was defeated. It is unclear whether this was because of support for military compulsion outside Australia, or more likely, reluctance to tax every single inhabitant of Australia at a time of economic decline to build submarines and cannons. Beyond the certain naiveté of this motion, moved by two relatively inactive delegates whose union affiliation cannot be traced, this first mention of compulsion for overseas service indicated that labourites were aware of this possibility. In September, on a motion moved by Jones and Loughnan, the Council first stated its opposition to forced overseas service.129

In December 1915, the government indicated that conscription was on the cards, literally. The War Council required all Australian men not yet in uniform to fill out a survey on cards sent to them stating why they had not enlisted. Katz and Jones moved that the Council ‘recommends to the members belonging to Unions which are affiliated with the Trades Hall Council to ignore the cards which the War Council have instructed to be sent out.'130 This opposition to the government’s survey caused great controversy in the movement, and particularly in Victoria, where in January 1916 the President of the THC declared the motion rescinded, as it requested people to break the law, and therefore was retrospectively ruled out of order.131 Immediately, Jones moved that this ruling be disagreed with, eventually losing his motion by thirty-six to sixty-six votes. No doubt, many delegates sympathetic to the refusal were concerned with the legal implications considering the punitive approach to dissent adopted by the government. Hughes was a particularly enthusiastic proponent of the War Precautions Act, passed at the onset of war, granting the Prime Minister sweeping powers, and often deployed the Act for the purposes of censorship and repression of dissenting views.132

At the end of 1915 the socialist counterpublic had asserted itself within the forums of the movement, but was not able to control its direction. The Labor Democrats continued to guide the proletarian sphere, and were not yet ready for any form of breach with its Federal Parliamentary leadership, despite growing frustrations. This would change rapidly. Labor Democrats had invested their hopes in the process of referendum, in particular the proposal from Federal Labor to put a measure to the people enabling the federal government to

127 THC Minutes, 8 July 1915, UMA, 1978.0082.00010, 132. 128 Ibid. 129 THC Minutes, 16 September 1915, 1978.0082.00010, p.150, UMA. 130 THC Minutes, 9 December 1915, 1978.0082.00010, p.173, UMA. 131 THC Minutes, 20 January 1916, 1978.0082.00010, p.180, UMA. 132 Macintyre, Oxford History, 161-2.

132 control prices, of obvious importance at a time of increasing pressures on wages from the inflated cost of living. Socialists did not believe that such measures would be adequate for the total alleviation of want, but were solidly behind the proposal that was considered as a step in the right direction. The referendum’s fate would have grave consequences for the unity of Labor.

In 1915 the belligerent Hughes realised his ambitions for leadership when he succeeded Andrew Fisher as Prime Minister. Fisher had resigned his office to take up Australia’s High Commissionership in London. The tempestuous and controversial Hughes succeeded him to acclaim in the movement. The Labor Call had previously lauded him as ‘the brainy and indefatigable exponent of all that is best and most sincere in Labor politics.’133 Hughes’ Prime Ministership was marred from the outset when he took the proposal to the state premiers, and came to an arrangement whereby he would not push for a federal referendum on the understanding that his state counterparts would seek a transfer of powers to the Commonwealth.134 This was roundly condemned as tantamount to betrayal, for to ‘imagine that the Legislative Councils would agree to practically sign the death warrant of the class they largely represented, was unthinkable folly.’135 This deal would stir the tempers of both Labor Democrats and Socialists, and ‘throw a match on an already smouldering Victorian labour movement.’136

Labor women and the re-creation of a counterpublic.

Labor women activists had not given up on establishing their own organisational space within the proletarian sphere, defying the masculinised rhetorics and political approaches that dominated the public sphere in the conflict’s early state of mobilisation.137 Efforts were made in this direction at the PLC’s 1914 conference, when leading activists involved in the Women’s Organising Committee sought to win support for a standing Council of Women that would draw the electorate-based WOC’s together into a constitutionally recognised space for the political organisation of women within the labour movement.

As the PLC conference approached, these activists organised to win party branches to support for the proposal to institute a standing council of labour women. Leading activists such as Muriel Heagney and Jean Daley visited a number of branches to explain the case for a standing organisation, with reports of these meetings indicating support was received.138

133 RN Walton, “In Harness”, LC, 24 September 1914, 2. 134 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 78-9. 135 En Avant, “Resurrection of the Referendum”, LC, 6 January 1916, 4. 136 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 116. 137 The gendering of conflict has been examined in-depth: Joy Damousi and Marilyn Lake, eds, Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 138 “PLC Women’s Organising Committee”, LC, 12 March 1914, 8.

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As a result, the motion brought forward at the PLC’s conference to form a Council of Women was moved on behalf of thirteen branches from both Melbourne and rural areas.139 PJ Flannery moved it on behalf of these branches, noting that his branch had instructed him to do so despite his lack of personal sympathy for it.140 The introduction of the proposal spurred an intense debate at the conference. The MLA EJ Hogan seconded the measure, but it fell to Heagney as Secretary of the WOC to explain its intent and significance to the assembled delegates. Speaking in a language all could surely understand, she outlined that when ‘seats were to be won, it boiled itself down to a question of effective organisation in order to be successful.’141 But the conference was not entirely convinced. A continued hostility towards separate organisation was evident in a number of interventions.142

Socialist leaders such as Russell and Jones spoke in opposition to the proposal, demonstrating that, while the counterpublics of socialists and Labor women overlapped to a degree, they cannot be conflated. Russell insisted that his ‘admiration for the work performed by women’ in the movement was ‘second to none,’ but he simply did not believe ‘in any separation taking place.’143 Jones also argued that he was ‘out for economic justice’ and this ‘recognised both sexes,’ but the interests of ‘men and women in the Labor movement were identical.’ Therefore, Jones believed that ‘there should be nothing done that might make for separation.’144 Refusal to recognise the substantial differences between the experience of working-class women and men was a form of patriarchal silencing that served to entrench masculine priorities and dominance in the movement. But it would be wrong to confuse this with simple opposition to women’s organising. The fear of separation in the movement was very real, and at the 1915 PLC conference the socialists similarly opposed separate organising by Catholics in the party, arguing, as Russell did, that it would endanger the unity of labour and the ‘Labor movement had to remain intact.’145

Just one woman intervened in the debate in 1914, the inimitable Sara Lewis. Adopting a more moderate tack than usual, she argued that women simply wished ‘to be recognised officially,’ and that it would be ‘very desirable that there should be a body of women who could confer with other women in State Electoral Councils when necessary.’146 But practicalities were not enough to sway the vote. Considering the tenor of the debate, with just two men speaking in favour of the WOC’s proposal,147 it is surprising that it won a

139 These branches were: Prahran, Edenhope, Horsham, Warnambool, Creswick, Preston, Brunswick, Mortlake, Blackwood, Clifton Hill, Violet Town, Tallangatta and North Melbourne. "PLC Annual Conference 1914", LC, 30 April 1914, 8. 140 Ibid. 141 Ibid. 142 Ibid., 8-9. 143 Ibid., 9. 144 Ibid. 145 “PLC Annual Conference”, LC, 15 April 1915, 6. 146 "PLC Annual Conference 1914", LC, 30 April 1914, 9. 147 Ibid.

134 majority, seventy-six votes to fifty-six. But this was not enough to secure a constitutional change, meaning the motion lapsed. Lewis managed to re-open the question, with a vote to reconsider the proposal coming before the conference on the final day, but this was rejected.148 Why this was so is not entirely clear, although it is quite likely that it was recognised that the numbers had not changed since the initial vote, and unnecessary debate was likely to interfere with post-conference festivities.

This episode captures the ambiguities and contradictions of this debate, while demonstrating clearly the activism of women within Labor at this time. It is indicative of the attempt to construct a subaltern counterpublic that was organisationally bounded within the broader proletarian sphere. As such, it highlighted one of the major political fault lines that ran through the movement.

The crisis of August 1914 was formative for many women activists, such as May Francis. Prior to 1914 Francis had been involved in Vida Goldstein’s Women’s Political Association; a feminist organisation that campaigned for state suffrage (until it was granted in Victoria in 1908), equal pay, women’s property rights, and other issues of .149 Francis recounted the ‘storm’ that hit the WPA at the declaration of the conflict, with the organisation rupturing over pro/anti-war attitudes.150 Dislodged from her political network by her radical stance Francis was drawn more and more into the problems of industrial organisation, dedicating herself to protecting the rapidly eroding industrial conditions in her workplace. The similarly poor conditions for women in other industries led Francis to advocate for, and attempt to initiate, ‘a union for all women workers whatever work they did.’151

Francis’ efforts were prompted by a dispute at her workplace, Craig Williamson, when her employer attempted to steal extra labour time from its female-dominated workplace by refusing to use time clocks to mark the end of shifts. Her agitation around this matter led to an introduction to a radical friend of her neighbours, Cosgrave.152 While impressed with her efforts to organise working women, Cosgrave expressed his shock that she had ‘formed what he called a “scab union”’, that is, a union not affiliated with the THC, which to Cosgrave ‘was apparently the greatest crime a worker could commit.’153

148 Ibid. 149 Janice Brownfoot, “Goldstein, Vida Jane,” Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 26 November 2016. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/goldstein-vida-jane-6418. 150 May Francis (Brodney). "Draft of Beginning of Autobiography", MS 10882, Folder 23 (I), p.9, Brodney Papers, SLV. 151 Ibid., 9. 152 Ibid., 10-11. 153 Ibid.

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According to Francis, Cosgrave determined to make representations about the women’s organisational efforts to Chas Gray, the Secretary of the THC.154 This spurred Francis to leave her employment and take a job in military production so she could join the Clothing Trades Union. Though the scheme for an all-woman union fell away at this point, Francis became a union radical, quickly ascending to its wages board, and official positions with the union’s women’s section.155

Francis’ experiences indicate some of the problems facing women workers. In some sectors women were forced to begin to construct union bodies under the pressures of the war economy. This was the case with the Female Confectioners Union, formed in 1916, which was forced in its initial period to confront the major problems of registration, affiliation, and basic membership growth.156 In other industries, established women’s organisations, such as the Clothing Trades Union, had to adjust to wartime conditions.157 This had the effect of localising activism to the shopfloor as activists such as Francis sought to build up industrial organisations, and inject radical politics into their workplaces.

While there is evidence of sympathy towards women’s political involvement from labour men, this did not extend to women’s political leadership. The executive bodies of the proletarian sphere only rarely featured women, and though women did raise demands at conferences, they did so against the express opposition of powerful members of the movement. Though figures such as Lewis, Daley, and Francis demonstrate that there were prominent women socialist leaders in the state, the Labor Socialists were also male dominated. This makes it difficult to chart the thought and action of labour women until the end of 1915 as the efforts of women to organise industrially were not prevalent in reports in the labour press or the THC. At the end of that year, however, women convened a PLC- and THC-endorsed convention.158

When the convention opened at the Trades Hall in September Heagney was elected President and opened the proceedings by welcoming all those present. This included THC President Cohen, who delivered the opening speech. Cohen demonstrated an awareness of the tensions over schemes for women’s representation, speaking of the ‘valuable work [that] could be done by the Convention in the interests of the Labor movement,’ with the accepted resolutions, ‘of course, being subject to review by the annual conference.’159 His main point, however, was to ‘impress on delegates’ the importance of the ‘fight for the Referendums, the carrying of which would mean the removal of many of the disabilities the democracy had

154 Ibid., 11. 155 Ibid., 12. 156 Cathy Brigden describes these years as being defined by ‘considerable member engagement and internal conflict’: Brigden, “’A Fine and Self-Reliant Group of Women’”, 53-4. 157 Bradon Ellem, In Women’s Hands, 91-7. 158 “Women’s Convention”, LC, 30 September 1915, 7. 159 Ibid.

136 now to contend against.’160 Heagney then addressed the delegates from the chair, responding directly to Cohen. She argued that ‘[o]rganisation amongst women industrially presented a problem,’ and that to successfully engage with the question of industrial organisation for women would require ‘not only earnest endeavor on the part of those undertaking it, but cordial co-operation from men themselves, who had nothing like the same difficulties to encounter.’161 Whether or not this shot reached its target is not recorded in the minutes of the proceedings.

A large variety of motions were brought before the conference for discussion. Particularly prevalent were motions dealing with the industrial conditions of women workers, and the treatment of children.162 The convention also adopted motions calling for state intervention and nationalisation to ‘protect the people from unscrupulous and unpatriotic traders who have been allowed to raise prices of the necessaries of life, thereby making large profits at the expense of the nation.’163 This was a spur in support of the referendums, but this was not the only conclusion drawn by the activists gathered at Trades Hall.

On the initiative of the Office Cleaners’ Union the demand was brought forward for the Federal Government to ‘remain true to this plank of their platform with regard to the women office cleaners at the Commonwealth offices,’ and to grant those workers ‘equal pay for equal work.’164 The Hawthorn branch responded to Heagney’s statement on the industrial question in a more collective sense, arguing that ‘the serious consequences that must result from the filling of men’s places in the industrial world’ made immediate steps necessary to ‘organise women and to provide for the persistent advocacy of the principle of equal pay for the sexes.’165

Two other motions adopted at this conference are of particular significance amidst the growing radicalisation of the movement in Victoria. The first endorsed the THC’s earlier call for the Federal Government to confer with the Imperial Government as to ‘the terms upon which it will discuss peace.’166 A second motion, reported separately in Labor Call, sought to enter ‘an emphatic protest against the present methods of enforced recruiting—mainly by starvation.’ It further pledged all participants at the conference ‘to work, speak, and write against conscription in any form, and desires a definite statement from the Prime Minister as to his attitude on the matter.’167 The sentiment behind this motion was given a practical

160 Ibid. 161 Ibid. 162 Ibid. 163 Ibid. 164 Ibid. 165 Ibid. 166 Ibid. 167 “Conscription”, LC, 30 September 1915, 7.

137 expression when both Heagney and Mrs. Katz were included in a THC delegation to meet Prime Minister Fisher and outline their opposition to conscription.168

In 1916 Labor women would be active participants in the fight against conscription. They brought to this fight their experience of agitation and organisation, experience that they had gained within the institutions of labour as they sought to act upon the proletarian sphere to achieve their demands. In the years to come their successes would be limited, particularly on the issue of equal pay. To achieve the measure in a war economy would require a sustained campaign, and the movement evinced little desire to add this to the number of intense battles they would fight on the industrial front in years to come. Labor women continued to receive endorsement for this aim. For instance in 1916, amidst the growing momentum against conscription, a regularly scheduled interstate union congress took place at the Victoria Hall in during May. On the initiative of a number of state branches it received motions regarding support for equal pay, for equal work. These motions were moved by two delegates, Chas Gray and Arch Stewart, both from Victoria. The motion was adopted unanimously.169 The difficulty women activists encountered was in translating this sentiment into action.

This was an important dynamic in the cultural creation and power distribution within the movement. Labor women organised and challenged male-dominant narratives. They achieved some successes in changing the position of women and the understanding of their political contribution to labour, but only against strong resistance, and only to a point. But in so doing they established a strong network of activists who gained experience in developing and articulating specific forms of knowledge, taking this to the dominant institutions of the movement, and contesting for their policies and directions. Through this they forged a counterpublic within the proletarian sphere that continued to agitate for organisational form, a struggle that would come to fruition alongside the fight against conscription in 1916.

The period under discussion in this chapter was one of developing trends, a series of processes set in train, or accelerated, as the pressures of the war grew. This period was a substantial test for Labor-in-power, and a time of questioning and development for the extra-parliamentary movement that had to seriously consider its understanding of, and plans for, social transformation in this new context. This questioning spread across the entirety of the movement; Labor Democrats, socialists, and women activists, all addressed the changing circumstances in their own manner, drawing upon pre-war ideas and forms of activity.

The split between Labor Democrats and Labor Socialists can be recognised through the divergent stances taken by Scullin and Curtin, two representative movement intellectuals who crafted knowledge for their respective sections of labour. Both figures played a crucial

168 Ibid. 169 “Interstate Trades Union Congress, 1916”. TLC Correspondence. E97/7/1, p.4, NBA.

138 role in the period before the war of developing a consistent worldview that was directly connected to a power bloc in the movement. Throughout the war they drew upon this accumulated knowledge to interpret and strategise in the new context. This survey of the leading figures against the broader movement demonstrates the important intellectual leadership that had the capacity to influence its decision making. These processes would gather pace in the time to come, and the crisis in the year ahead would redefine the political culture of the party. Labor women were also engaged in a creative contest. Once again the vexed issue of separate organisation had been pursued with tenacity by activist-intellectuals determined to ensure the movement responded to their demands. To do so, these women sought to create a standing organisational space within the movement. The women’s convention was a key site through which they pursued this – and their declared opposition to conscription and the repudiation of the referendum was a further indication that they sought to pursue their aims as proletarian women: part of the movement, demanding to be heard by broader publics.

If one thing was certain as 1915 drew to a close, it was that, despite the significant differences between these sections, when Billy Hughes announced that the Federal Government was to withdraw the proposed referendum each had their own reasons for bitter resentment, and increasingly, outright hostility. The pressures that had been building since Labor’s last election and the outbreak of war were reaching a crucial point, requiring only time and further provocation to reach combustion. It would come in the fateful year of 1916.

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Chapter Five: conscription and the split, 1916-1917

1915 was a difficult year for the AWU. Thousands of members had flocked to the imperial colours to serve in Gallipoli, many would not return.1 Drought had hit its rural membership hard, with jobs drying up along the riverbanks. The pastoralists used this to their advantage, attacking hard won wages and conditions on the farms and in the shearing sheds.2 To make matters worse for the union’s leaders, these developments fuelled discontent in the ranks, heartening their radical critics. Hughes’ repudiation of the prices referendum stoked this sentiment further.

The rising tensions were evident from the outset of the AWU’s national conference held in Sydney, January 1916. Jack Cullinan, a delegate from the Western NSW branch, took the unusual step of moving as the first order of business that ‘no members of Parliament address the Convention.’3 The motion’s seconder, Frank Lundie from , argued that if ‘the Federal members could not receive’ union representatives, then neither should the union receive them.4 The motion was defeated. But the point had been made. Tolerance for federal representatives acting independently of the movement’s interests was nearing its end.

Then came the President’s address. The grand old man of the union, William Guthrie Spence, rose to deliver his report. Had Cullinan’s motion passed, Spence, the President and founder of the AWU, would not be able to speak in front of the union he had led for two decades, as he was a member of the Federal Government, the Postmaster-General no less. For some in the movement Spence represented the problems with labour’s reliance on the political process. In his rambling speech Spence anticipated this sentiment, lambasting the ‘economic lunacy’ amongst ‘younger men’ in the movement, who were drifting off course due to the influence of syndicalism, the creed of French radicals.5 These proponents of ‘direct action’ were a threat to the movement, supporting the rule of a minority, opposing arbitration, and all forms of political action.6 Considering all it had delivered why, he asked, ‘blame Parliament always?’7

1 AWU, Official Report of the Thirtieth Annual Convention (Sydney: The Worker Trades Union Printery, 1916), E154/17, p.3, NBA. 2 Ibid., 6. 3 Ibid., 5. 4 Ibid., 5. 5 Ibid., 6. 6 Ibid., 7. 7 Ibid., 8.

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The radicals had an answer. They were not content to maintain faith in the parliamentary party to defend labour in this unprecedented period. Spence was to discover this first-hand, being challenged by AJ McNaught for the position of President in the conference’s first ballot. The AWU’s leadership was tightly controlled by a network of Labor Democratic office bearers and organisers. As demonstrated in Victoria, such men were the core of the delimited proletarian sphere, and its extra-parliamentary leadership. But the union was not monolithic, amidst its rank and file there was a swathe of activists and conference delegates who wished to overturn this moderate character. Spence survived, with 13,102 votes in a state-balloting process. McNaught came uncomfortably close with 9,484. Resentment at Labor’s perceived capitulations were not to be easily assuaged.

Difficult as this moment was for Spence, signs of greater danger were yet to come. A delegate from NSW moved that the union should ‘take steps to control the Senate’ by running an AWU ticket in party pre-selection.8 In the discussion that followed great frustration was expressed at political labour, both federally and in NSW where the Labor government of William Holman’s opposition to the prices referendum provoked the ire of the AWU.9 Forebodingly for Spence, and any parliamentary colleagues who were following events, was the argument put in support of this motion by the General Secretary, Edward Grayndler. Building upon his critical attitude to the party at the 1915 conference, he voiced dissatisfaction with both Federal and NSW Labor-in-government. He felt ‘that sooner or later the New South Wales party would have to go through a purifying fire, in order to reform it from within, just as had happened with Queensland.’10 That is, in January 1916, one of the most powerful unionists in Australia was already considering the benefits of a split. Without fundamental change, he continued, ‘the time would come for the formation of a trades union party with their own platform.’11

The unions did not form another party in 1916; they recreated the one they already had. In December, the party conference expelled the sitting Labor Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, and his supporters from the Australian Labor Party for defying the will of the union movement. The formal motion that enacted the split was moved by one of the leading movement intellectuals of the delimited proletarian sphere, and Grayndler’s protégé, James Scullin.

The growing tensions between Hughes’ government and the extra-parliamentary party motivated the split. But the formal trigger was Hughes’ defeat in the first conscription referendum held in October 1916. This issue was foreshadowed in January 1916 with the AWU pronouncing its opposition to military compulsion for overseas service as being against the ‘spirit of our time and race.’ Australia had, the union declared, done its part

8 Ibid., 67. 9 Ibid. 67-8. 10 Ibid., 68. 11 Ibid., 69. The process of division between Hughes and his followers and the union movement was identified by: Childe, How Labour Governs, 46-52; Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 113.

141 under the system of voluntary recruitment, contributing more ‘in proportion to its population than any other portion of the British Empire.’ To accept conscription would mean importing ‘all the militarism of Prussia into the land.’12

Alongside the socialisation debates of 1921, this would be one of two key episodes in the transformation of Labor’s political culture, where its structural character would be set. Through the campaign against conscription, Scullin and Curtin would come to national prominence, a vital step in their political careers. As for Spence, by the year’s end he would be an apostate to the union he had created. The grand old man was a victim of the bitter conscription schism. But his decades of service were not forgotten. After casting his vote in favour of holding the conscription referendum in parliament, the old stalwart was allowed to resign from the AWU before he was expelled.13

The telling of conscription

Due to the significance of conscription to this account of Labor’s political culture it is worth explaining the dynamics of its historiography that I engage with throughout this chapter. The first major work to chart in detail the debates and campaigns over conscription was Leslie Jauncey’s A History of Conscription in Australia, published in 1935, almost two-decades after the first poll. Jauncey surveyed opposition to all forms of compulsory military service, and emphasised the role of Christian and pacifist organisations alongside that of the labour movement. He celebrated the ‘significant victory’ achieved by ‘progressive forces’ in this ‘democratic experiment never before attempted in a modern democracy.’14 Jauncey’s celebratory ethos was maintained in accounts by labour participants, such as Maurice Blackburn’s commemoration in 1936, and EJ Holloway and Bertha Walker’s pamphlets on the movement, published during the campaign against the Vietnam draft in 1966 and 1968 respectively.15

This story of conscription’s defeat has been told and retold in biographies of its protagonists,16 histories of the Homefront,17 and general histories of Australia.18 Robin

12 AWU, Official Report of the Thirtieth Annual Convention, 10. 13 Coral Lansbury and Bede Nairn, “Spence, William Guthrie,” Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 17 May 2016. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/spence-william-guthrie-4628. 14 Jauncey, The Story of Conscription in Australia, 217. 15 Maurice Blackburn, The Conscription Referendum of 1916 (Melbourne: The Anti-Conscription Celebration League, 1936); Holloway, The Australian Victory over Conscription in 1916-17; Bertha Walker, How to Defeat Conscription: A Story of the 1917 and 1917 Campaigns in Victoria (Northcote: Anti- Conscription Jubilee Committee, 1968). 16 For instance three figures who feature in this chapter: Ross, John Curtin, 38-55; Robertson, JH Scullin, 39-50; LF Fitzhardinge, The Little Digger 1914-1952: Hughes A Political Biography Volume II (London: Angus and Robertson, 1979), 171-215. 17 Scott, Australia During the War, 320-430; CEW Bean, ANZAC to Amiens: A Shorter History of the Australian Fighting Services in the First World War (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, [Fifth Edition]

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Archer has emphasised the global significance of the campaigns, seeking to synthesise Australian labour’s muted embrace of the war and ‘unique’ rejection of conscription with responses elsewhere in the world.19 Judith Smart and Joy Damousi have demonstrated how women claimed public space in the campaigns, braving physical violence from males in response.20 In a recent collection Sean Scalmer has charted the changing nature of conscription’s memorialisation and remembrance, from heroic struggle of labour to a symbol of social disquiet, emphasising ‘disunity, bitterness, and division.’21

The generally positive discussion of the ‘antis’ and their contribution to Australian politics prompted a reaction from a determined group of myth busters who have sought to rebut the ‘legend’ of anti-conscription. Jeremy Sammut argued that the unions evinced hypocrisy in proclaiming opposition to conscription while maintaining support for domestic compulsory military service.22 John Hirst depicted the unions’ campaigning methodology as a disingenuous one of ‘raise every bogey until you find ones that bite,’ in which it utilised an alien rhetoric of individual liberty appropriated from British liberalism.23 Dyrenfurth postulated that opposition to conscription was not labour’s natural position, and that much of the movement may have compromised had wealth also been conscripted.24

The challenges to well-worn assumptions posed by these studies of labour’s rhetoric during the campaigns are welcome, but their myth-busting credentials are limited by an inattention to the dynamics of the movement. Elsewhere, I have rebutted Dyrenfurth’s argument on the potential for compromise.25 Frank Bongiorno has recently demonstrated that the commitment to freedom and liberty was deeply embedded in labour ideology, and Robin Archer has explained that liberty was central to how opposition to conscription was

1968), 290-307; Joan Beaumont, “The Politics of a Divided Society”, in Australia’s War, 1914-18, ed. Joan Beaumont (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1995), 43-59; Beaumont, Broken Nation, 219-247, 374-388. McKernan, Victoria at War, 153-168. 18 Ernest Scott, A Short History of Australia, (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, [Seventh Edition] 1964), 366-9; , A History of Australia: VI ‘The Old Dead Tree and the Young Tree Green’ (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1987), 28-42, 66-79; Macintyre, Oxford History, 162-175. 19 Archer, “Stopping War and Stopping Conscription”, 43-67. 20 Judith Smart, “Feminists, Food and the Fair Price: The Cost of Living Demonstrations in Melbourne, August-September 1917,” Labour History, no .50 (1986): 113-131; “The right to speak and the right to be heard: The popular disruption of conscriptionist meetings in Melbourne, 1916,” Australian Historical Studies 23, no. 92 (1989): 203-219; Damousi, “Socialist Women and Gendered Space”, 1-15. 21 Sean Scalmer, “Legend and Lamentation: Remembering the Anti-Conscription Struggle”, in The Conscription Conflict and the Great War, eds. Robin Archer, Joy Damousi, Murray Goot, and Sean Scalmer (Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2016), 188-210. 22 Jeremy Sammut, “’Busting’ the anti-conscription legend,” Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society 91, no .2 (2005): 163-183. 23 JB Hirst, “Australian Defence and Conscription: A Re-assessment Part I,” Australian Historical Studies 25, no. 101 (1993): 616, 608-627. 24 Dyrenfurth, “’Conscription is Not Abhorrent to Laborites and Socialists’, 145-164. 25 Liam Byrne, ‘”Workers of the world have one common enemy to fight’: The Anti-Militarist Left in the Victorian Campaign Against Conscription”, Traffic 13 (2013): 151-174.

143 understood by the labour movement.26 The reliance of these revisionist accounts on the AWU’s publications as representative of labour opinion is problematic.27 Dyrenfurth, for instance, stated his investigation was based on the ‘eastern seaboard labour press during 1916.’ All ten of the articles referenced as representative of labour opinion are, however, from the Worker or the Australian Worker.28 This presents a myopic view of the movement and its position, a view that sidelines more radical perspectives.

Here, my focus is not the specifics of the language chosen to campaign towards broader electorates for the no vote, but the internal processes through which labour determined to act, and what these processes reveal about power distribution within the movement. Childe’s and Turner’s accounts remain the most influential in comprehending these dynamics. Both identified the conscription battles as part of the broader contestation between parliamentary Labor and the union movement. The abandonment of the prices referendum is treated as the key moment where unionists determined to gain control over Labor’s decision making. Childe’s account focused particularly on developments within NSW - where a section of the unions cohered around the AWU into the ‘industrialists’ - and their role in opposing Hughes and Premier Holman. Through defeating conscription and expelling Hughes they asserted the ‘great principle of the supremacy of the whole Movement over any individual.’29 Michael Hogan later identified these processes as establishing the ‘template’ for Labor factions.30 Turner paid greater attention to the national dynamics of the conscription campaign, but agreed that this was a fundamental battle for control of the movement, where ‘anti-conscription became one (finally the most important) of the watchwords with which trade unionists challenged politicians for control of the movement.’31 Rodney Cavalier has demonstrated the continuing relevance of this assertion of union power, from a more critical perspective.32 This is an important narrative, albeit one that privileges developments in the NSW party over those elsewhere. But it neglects the ideological division that ran through both wings of the movement, and depicts the union movement as operating in a unified manner – a trend disproven below.

26 Frank Bongiorno, “Anti-Conscription in Australia: Individuals, Organisations and Arguments,” in The Conscription Conflict and the Great War, eds. Robin Archer, Joy Damousi, Murray Goot, and Sean Scalmer (Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2016), 68-91; Robin Archer, “Labour and Liberty: The origins of the conscription referendum,”in The Conscription Conflict and the Great War, eds. Robin Archer, Joy Damousi, Murray Goot, and Sean Scalmer (Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2016), 37-66. 27 Hirst, “Australian Defence and Conscription”, 617-9. 28 Dyrenfurth, “’Conscription is Not Abhorrent to Laborites and Socialists’”, 159-160. 29 Childe, How Labour Governs, 52. 30 Michael Hogan, “Template for a Labor Faction: The Industrial Section and the Industrial Vigilance Council of the NSW Labor Party, 1916-19,” Labour History, no. 96 (2009): 79-100. 31 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 113. 32 Rodney Cavalier, Power Crisis: The Destruction of a State Labor Party (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 12-15.

144

Finally, scholars of the far-left at this time have argued that it was the IWW who were the most consistent opponents of the war, spurring the campaign against conscription.33 Childe in particular emphasised their radical role, over-embellishing their influence to a startling degree, claiming that the IWW was responsible for the anti-conscriptionism of the AWU, and Labor in NSW and Victoria.34 This indicates his unremitting hostility to the AWU and inability to identify its genuine motivations in opposing the measure – explored below through analysis of Scullin’s anti-conscriptionism. It also completely ignores the existence of Labor Socialists of power and influence within the Victorian party. Frank Cain, historian of the IWW during the war, made it clear that in Melbourne the strong organised left that predated the foundation of the Wobbly chapter in February 1915 meant the IWW was ‘unable to recruit large numbers or produce capable leaders’ there.35

Verity Burgmann has recently contended that the IWW, and other radical non-Labor socialists, acted as a ‘radical flank’ to the movement, the threat of which made labour moderates seem more acceptable in comparison.36 It is a compelling argument. But it contains an implicit assumption that those with Labor party loyalties could not belong to this radical flank. Burgmann indicated that the Wobblies’ argument in favour of a general strike demonstrates its radical leadership.37 This ignores the long tradition in Victoria, established and maintained by Labor Socialists, that favoured this tactic. As will be demonstrated below, while the IWW certainly contributed to the radical temperament of the time, Victorian Labor Socialists gave a consistently radical lead, and were able to exert an influence in initiating, and leading, the conscription campaign that required no assistance from the smaller radical grouping of the IWW.

The left moves.

Tensions ran high in the movement in early 1916. The sense of betrayal by Labor MPs over the prices referendum was acute, and disenchantment with the war was growing after the Gallipoli evacuation. For radicals this seemed to justify their suspicions that workers would bear the war’s costs. Imperial loyalists were also frustrated, perceived left-wing disloyalty drew their ire. In December 1915 this boiled over with a brutal assault on Katz, after he had moved that Trades Hall should instruct union members to ignore the War Council’s recruitment cards. Following the coverage of this motion, deemed by the Argus as ‘offensive

33 Frank Cain, The Wobblies at War: A History of the IWW and the Great War in Australia (Melbourne: Spectrum Publications, 1993); Verity Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: the Industrial Workers of the World in Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 181-202. 34 Childe, How Labour Governs, 146. 35 Cain, The Wobblies at War, 133. 36 Burgmann, “Syndicalist and Socialist Anti-Militarism 1911-18”, 56-78. 37 Ibid., 71.

145 and unpatriotic,’ Katz was tarred and feathered by men ‘wearing the King’s uniform.’38 The THC responded furiously to this ‘outrage,’ as a departure from the ‘spirit of British fair play.’39

Rumours from Britain, where Hughes was touring, spread whispers that the Prime Minister was contemplating conscription. A conscription Bill passed in Westminster in January 1916, further heightening speculation that Australia would soon follow.40 The AWU’s conscription declaration prompted a flurry of resolutions from unions, Trades Councils, Labor party branches, and state executives.41 While such opposition was widespread amongst the movement, there was no organisational focus that could mobilise sentiment into action. A meeting of the Federal Grand Council of unions was scheduled to meet in Hobart in the middle of the year, but this lacked representative functions and authority, as well as the capacity to co-ordinate day to day action.

The Victorian socialist counterpublic determined to fill this organisational vacuum. Through the THC, socialists took the initiative to call together the All-Australian Trade Union Congress (AATUC), which met at the Melbourne Trades Hall Council in May 1916. This meeting launched the national campaign against conscription. In displacing the Grand Council, which a limited number of representatives attended, and instead inviting unions to direct representation to determine a specific action, this set a new democratic precedent. Through the convocation of this meeting the socialist left found a conduit to influence national events.42

John Curtin played a major role in developing the left’s perspective. But he was not involved in the initial moves to convene the AATUC. In the middle of 1915 at the national conference of the Timber Workers Union Curtin had sought to resign his position as federal president, one he held in addition to his role as Victorian secretary. His popularity was such that he ultimately changed his mind after effusive appeals from his comrades in the other states to maintain the office.43 But something was clearly wrong and not long after he resigned all his positions with the union, and sought treatment for his alcoholism. His political resurrection was intricately connected to the AATUC. But first, the great assembly had to be summoned.

38 Argus, 23 December 1915, 8. 39 THC Minutes, 13 January 1915, 1978.0082.00010, p.177, UMA. 40 Conscription was implemented in New Zealand in May 1916, and in Canada the following year. Archer, “Stopping War and Stopping Conscription”, 54-7. 41 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 101-4. 42 A few significant examples do suggest the origins of the AATUC, though none draw out its lineages or implications in detail. Turner recognised the ‘socialist’ origins, but does not explore the processes of its convocation, or draw out its significance, Industrial Labour and Politics, 101; McQueen rhapsodises on Hyett’s role in the motion, ignoring the role of the broader Victorian Left, “Victoria”, 325-6; Strangio notes that the Victorians initiated the conference, but misattributes the motion to Holloway: Neither Power Nor Glory, 117. 43 “Official Report of the Twelfth Annual Conference of the Amalgamated Timber Workers of Australia”, Australian Timber Workers’ Union, T34, NBA.

146

It was his friend and comrade, Frank Hyett, who moved at the THC that the ‘Council call a congress representative of all Unions throughout Australia,’ to discuss conscription.44 It outlined that such a congress should be convened through the Grand Federal Council, but crucially, stated that if the Council were unwilling or unable to immediately do so, the THC itself should take responsibility for a national meeting. This can be seen as an act of great confidence by the counterpublic. It also demonstrated its political approach, which sought to draw the unions together for co-ordinated action, believing that in such unity the movement found its strength.

A motion moved by Jones and Cosgrave immediately after Hyett’s indicated the radicalism that underpinned the counterpublics’ perspective. This called for the THC to seek from its affiliated unions the power to call a ‘General Strike, should Conscription become law by Proclamation.’45 This was an adaptation of Hardie-Vaillant’s spirit to oppose conscription. It was a projection of the left’s political approach from the largely abstract, to the very real and concrete. The motion went on to request labourites to ‘closely observe’ the attitudes of Labor MPs on the question of conscription, so as to ensure ‘that when selection time comes around, the remedy will be certain.’46 Hostility towards the federal party could not be clearer. The General Strike proposal was lost, with the vote numbers not being recorded, so the margin of its defeat is unknown. But crucially Hyett spoke in opposition to the amendment, arguing they should not prefigure the deliberations of such a conference.47 Jones and Cosgrave were acting in concert as part of a new organisation they had established in February, the Militant Propagandists of the Labor Movement (MPLM).

The MPLM was established after Cosgrave sent a circular around the unions seeking to assemble self-identified ‘militants’ to ‘frustrate the chloroforming tactics of time-serving opportunists & reactionaries’ in the movement, and to provide a ‘determined lead’ on issues such as ‘Peace Terms, Conscription, Freedom, The Right to Strike, The Wages Question, & The Cost of Living.’48 The group considered itself part of Labor, and was determined to work within the movements’ structures. Coded disdain for groups such as the IWW that sought to challenge the official movement for leadership of the class was frequent in the Militants’ statements.49

Cosgrave had never been a member of the VSP, but many who answered his call such as Jones and Daley were or had been. Strangio labelled the MPLM as a ‘far left faction.’ This overemphasised the coherence of this loose-knit group, but was indicative of its purpose:

44 THC Minutes, 2 March 1916, 1978.0082.00010, p.188, UMA. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 9 March 1916, 8. 48 “Invitation Circular, first sent out to Meeting on 26th Feb, 1916,” Militant Propagandists of the Labour Movement, MS 10882, Box 4, Folder 6 (i), Brodney Papers, SLV. 49 “Proceedings of Meeting of 26.2.16”, Militant Propagandists of the Labour Movement, MS 10882, Box 4, Folder 6 (i), Brodney Papers, SLV.

147 radical transformation of the labour movement. It was, Strangio argued, ‘a vehicle for the VSP’s permeation of the PLC.’50 Though broadly correct in the lineage of the MPLM’s political strategy, by this point the formal influence of the VSP was considerably weakened in comparison to its height between 1906 and 1908. Rather, the MPLM represents the efforts of a section of the socialist subaltern counterpublic – operating as a network within the movement – to develop an organisational coherence similar to that it had once enjoyed in the form of the VSP. The Militants kept a roll of its members – not a formal membership list – suggesting 234 individuals were involved.51

The VSP’s legacy was demonstrated even more starkly at the THC on 9 March when two MPLM activists and long-standing members of the counterpublic, Delegate Scott from the Painters Union and Norman Grant from the Amalgamated Carpenters, moved an explicit anti-war motion that drew heavily on Curtin’s from 1914. Their motion called on the THC to send ‘fraternal Greetings to Organised Workers in every Country,’ imploring them to ‘take simultaneous Action, to force their respective Governments to openly pronounce themselves upon the terms of Peace and time of negotiation.’52 Later that year Grant was sentenced to prison alongside Curtin for refusing to answer a call-up for military service.

Acceptance of this anti-war motion in wartime would be an extraordinary move for as important a body as the THC. Though of course it was largely symbolic, this motion would have declared the THC in favour of international and domestic industrial action against the war, clearly a radical move of ‘disloyalty.’ The motion was opposed at the meeting by moderate forces including the MP Joseph Hannan, and the AWU’s Kean, Treasurer of the Council. They moved a motion to dispatch the proposal to affiliated unions to be discussed and voted upon.53 It is important to note that even the moderate opposition to the motion did not attempt to have it dismissed immediately, but rather to delay the process in the hope of it being defeated elsewhere.

The numbers were tight. The amendment to dispatch the motion was originally declared lost, but on a second count voting was tied at thirty-three votes for and against. The left solidly backed the motion. As chair, the THC President CJ Bennett from the Blacksmiths, was required to use his casting vote to decide the matter. Bennett determined to dispatch, but the closeness of the initial count further demonstrates the strength of the counterpublic within this vital institution of Victorian labour.

By the middle of March Hyett and Jones determined that the Federal Council would not, or could not, take the initiative, and prompted the THC to give ‘immediate effect’ to

50 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 117. 51 “Militant Propagandists of the Labor Party Militants Roll”, MS 10882, Box 4, Folder 6 (ii), Brodney Papers, SLV. 52 THC Minutes, 9 March 1916, 1978.0082.00010, p.189, UMA. 53 “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 16 March 1916, 10.

148 assembling the AATUC.54 Two meetings later Hyett and Russell moved for the THC to appoint a propaganda committee to ‘bring the matter of Conscription and the forthcoming congress before the Australian Trades Unions.’55 This committee was charged with explaining the purpose of the proposed congress to the entire union movement, and was dominated by well-regarded socialists such as Hyett, Holloway, Jones, Russell, and Mulvogue.56 In April this Committee determined to send two delegates from the THC interstate to personally ‘ensure the adequate representation of the Unions of those States at the Congress.’57 Under the auspices of the THC, the socialist counterpublic was undertaking the unglamorous but vital organisational work to bring the national movement together in an unprecedented manner.

The MPLM had some initial success at this time in organising left-wing activists. But it swiftly reached its apotheosis. Within a few months Cosgrave fell ill and resigned his position with the Cycle Trades Union, and the Militants, leaving for Tasmania to recuperate. Francis replaced him as secretary, but the absence of Cosgrave’s influence at the THC enervated the group.58 The MPLM’s factionalism was not received well by all.59 Francis recalled the left-wing MP Maurice Blackburn’s condemnation of the group for caucusing before the PLC conference in 1916. She later claimed that the Militants’ influence could be discerned from its success in running a ticket for the PLC Executive that had a number of its members elected. How far this was part of the MPLM’s specific efforts as opposed to a general increase in support for the socialists, however, was unclear.60

As such, the influence of the group is difficult to quantify. Its existence does, however, provide an indication of the bourgeoning radicalism of the time. Participation of women Militants was particularly notable. It would appear that the MPLM provided an important political space for socialist women to organise in the movement, in lieu of an official Labor- sponsored organisation. Alongside Francis, more prominent and influential women leaders were also involved, including Jean Daley, Sara Lewis, the radicalising Muriel Heagney whose brother had recently died in the war, as well as Adela Pankhurst, the British

54 THC Minutes, 16 March 1916, 1978.0082.00010, p.191, UMA. 55 THC Minutes, 30 March 1916, 1978.0082.00010, p.195, UMA. 56 Ibid. 57 THC Minutes, 13 April 1916, 1978.0082.00010, p.197, UMA. 58 “Proceedings of meeting held Trades Hall 19.6.16”, MS 10882, Box 4, Folder 6 (i), Brodney Papers, SLV. 59 Planning, for instance, a bloc vote for the PLC conference: “Report of Proceedings of Meeting held in W.P.A. Rooms on Mar. 25th 1916”, MS 10882, Folder 6 (i), Brodney papers, SLV. 60 Brodney would later reflect that Maurice Blackburn was part of this ticket, but considering his opposition to the methods of the Militants in organising before conference this is unlikely. She further reflected that Blackburn and others ‘would, no doubt, have been elected even if no militant ticket had been organised’: “April 1963, At the 1916 Labor Conference”, MS 10882Box 4, Folder 6 (i), Brodney Papers, SLV. M Brodney, “Militant Propagandists of the Labor Movement,” Labour History, no. 5 (1963): 15.

149 suffragette and socialist who also belonged to Vida Goldstein’s Women’s Peace Army, and by year’s end would be an organiser for the VSP. Through the auspices of the Militants these activists sought to sway the movement to increase efforts to organise women, calling for the THC, for instance, to appoint organisers for this purpose.61 The MPLM was an important, though temporary, staging-post for the Victorian left, and radical women’s activists, seeking to direct Labor to the left. The main battleground was the PLC’s annual conference.

The PLC Conference

The 1916 conference was held at Trades Hall, as usual, amidst a notably darkened atmosphere, with the rumours of conscription heavy in the air. Hughes’ perceived legerdemain with the prices referendum had not been forgotten. The first substantive motion of the gathering was moved by AWU delegate Carey from the Ballarat West branch condemning the ‘action of the Federal Parliamentary Labor party in abandoning the Referendums,’ a ‘breach of faith’ with both the labour movement and the broader electorate.62 These had been ‘in the public mind for a number of years,’ he emphasised. It was the latest in a string of defeats for Labor Democrats, who had sought to use these referendums to recalibrate the constitution. But the hurt this time was greater than before. In previous attempts Labor Democrats could blame the obstinacy of conservative politicians, or fear-mongering execrations from media barons, for defeat. But this time it was Labor’s leadership that was to blame, backing down without a single vote cast. The referendums were, Carey continued, ‘of much more importance … than seats in Parliament.’63 Labor Democrats did not just want Labor in power; they wanted the party to leave a lasting mark on Australian democracy through its actions in government. Wartime exigencies were no excuse for inaction.

Loughnan, the socialist secretary of the Shop Assistants, agreed with this assessment. He argued that ‘Members of Parliament had been guilty of a breach of trust as representatives of the people,’ by not pursuing the referendums as ardently as possible.64 Loughnan warned that if such behaviour was tolerated then it would be ‘“good-bye” to the Labor movement.’65 Labor Democrats and Socialists were united in frustration at Hughes’ actions.

Denunciations of Federal Labor flew thick and fast. Near the end of the debate James Scullin, representing the AWU, rose to address the assembly. The Evening Echo editor sought to redirect the energies of the convention. If the parliamentary leadership should be censured,

61 Jack Cosgrave, “Militant Propagandists of the Labor Movement”, LC, 30 March 1916, 8; Jack Cosgrave, “Militant Laborites”, LC, 11 May 1916, 10. 62 “PLC Annual Conference”, LC, 4 May 1916, 2. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid.

150 he argued, it was not for dropping the referendum upon resistance from the state governments, but for ‘failing to re-instate them’ once the obstinacy of the premiers was known.66 But scorn was not enough. If any motion was to be carried, ‘he hoped it would be of a constructive character,’ and suggested that the critique of the government should be its failure to reinstate the bill, and the Victorian members be directed to argue for this in the Federal Caucus.67 Delegates listened. Immediately the THC president Bennett moved a motion along these lines that was accepted by the conference.68

The next order of business was conscription. Kean, from the AWU, moved a motion declaring opposition to the measure ‘unless all wealth is first conscribed.’69 Dyrenfurth suggested this indicated potential AWU support for a compromise measure, where conscription would be traded for, what would in effect be, a higher tax rate on the wealthy.70 Kean did not, however, move the motion on behalf of the AWU, but for the Ballan branch of the PLC. In fact the AWU’s Carey immediately dismissed the idea that conscription of wealth and life should be discussed at the same time, and an alternative motion for outright opposition to conscription was moved, and adopted by the conference.71 Senator McKissock, an AWU powerbroker, stated explicitly that he ‘did not believe in making conscription of men conditional on conscription of wealth.’72 He was ‘all the time against conscription.’73 It is unclear if the Ballan branch’s motion indicated a desire to ‘compromise,’ or if it was a rhetorical thrust, intending to highlight capital’s lack of contribution to the war. It certainly does not indicate AWU support for a compromise its powerbrokers explicitly ruled out.

Delegate after delegate proclaimed their opposition to compulsion for overseas service, but beneath the ostensible unity differences persisted. Moderates disagreed with Loughnan and his declaration of being ‘against conscription at home and abroad,’ as they maintained a commitment to the measure for domestic defence.74 But it was clear that the overwhelming majority opinion was to repudiate the measure. The next questions to arise were how to translate sentiment into action, and what type of action would it be?

The Labor Democrats had a strategy. The AWU’s McNeill moved a motion calling on PLC branches and unions to ‘take immediate steps to select candidates to contest the next election in opposition to all Labor members who vote in favor of conscription.’75 The seconder of the motion, the AWU’s TP Mottram, endorsed its attitude that ‘Labor members who voted for

66 Ibid., 9. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 Dyrenfurth, Heroes & Villains, 204. 71 “PLC Annual Conference”, LC, 4 May 1916, 9. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid.

151 conscription should be out of the movement.’76 This echoed Cosgrave’s and Jones’ motion on the THC, but notably, where the socialists had a dual industrial and political strategy, the AWU advocated a purely political response, fighting the issue out within party structures.

This approach did not satiate party radicals. Muriel Heagney, for instance, argued that the motion did not go far enough. She drew attention to the actions of the ‘Women’s Convention, held in Melbourne last September,’ where conscription had been condemned. With this subtle reminder that Labor women had taken the initiative to oppose conscription, and call for its parliamentary supporters to be identified and opposed, she ‘trusted that resolutions which had been agreed to there would be endorsed by this Conference.’77 She called on the Central Executive of the PLC to survey all Victorian sitting members on the question, and demand the resignation of any who endorsed the measure.78

Grant, a member of the MPLM and the Carpenters union, criticised McNeill’s motion for lacking ‘genuine sting.’ He was not, he said, one of the ‘milk-and-water crowd to threaten to do something in the future,’ and believed that the ‘only weapon the workers had was the industrial strike.’79 Not all the Militants agreed. Cosgrave did not believe McNeill’s motion was sufficient, but offered a rejoinder to Grant that ‘both the industrial and political branches of Labor’ would be required to defeat conscription – neither alone was enough. He moved a motion similar to that endorsed by the THC: that if there was any attempt ‘to introduce conscription in any form’ the reply should be ‘a general strike.’ This was a motion intended to work alongside, rather than replace, McNeill’s. Katz, the survivor of jingoistic violence, seconded the motion.80 Cosgrave’s motion received fifty-five votes in favour, with eighty-six against.81 While this was a comfortable margin for those who opposed industrial action, it was a very significant minority of the movement that supported the radical strategy. The influence of the subaltern counterpublic can be clearly discerned in the political, as well as industrial, wing of labour.

This industrial strategy was not just proposed to deal with conscription. Heagney moved a motion, seconded by Grant, calling on Federal Labor to ‘declare the terms upon which they will discuss peace,’ that is, to declare their war aims.82 Cosgrave used this as an opportunity – by design or fortune is unclear – to introduce the motion he had previously moved on the THC calling for international industrial action against the war.83 It is a great loss that the discussion that followed is not recorded in the minutes: it is simply noted that one did take place. The failure to transcribe was likely because opinions expressed in the debate might

76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid., 10. 82 “PLC Annual Conference”, LC, 11 May 1916, 2. 83 Ibid.

152 have opened up speakers, and the Labor Call, to recrimination for disloyal attitudes. More than one radical had already been charged for acts deemed prejudicial to the war effort.84 The records do show that Cosgrave’s motion was carried by the slim margin of seventy-two votes to sixty-nine.85 That is, the same congress that would not vote for industrial action against conscription accepted the position that the general strike should be used to bring an end to the war.

The most obvious rationale for this discrepancy is that the prospect of an international action against war was a remote one, and hence, this was an abstracted proposal. It was a statement of sentiment, rather than an immediate plan for action. Radical as this sentiment was, and it was certainly one that could easily attract the obloquy of Labor’s opponents, it did not have the direct application that the motion of a strike against conscription did. But the two motions should be seen as connected. Both were inspired by the tradition of anti- militarism the counterpublic had developed in the state, and sought to utilise its primary strategy – the general strike.

This motion had been circulated amongst the union movement by the THC. Little mention had been made of it in the labour press, or at the Council since the March meeting. Its victory on the conference floor suggests it received some support amongst the individual unions and their members. In May the motion returned to the THC from circulation and was accepted without debate.86 Though it is not clear how many affiliated unions discussed the motion and what its response was, the THC adopted the proposal following the vote. In early May 1916 the official position of industrial and political labour in Victoria was to call on workers across the globe to engage in industrial action against the war. The power of the left was evident. A dynamic that would shape the interaction between socialists and the Labor Democrats in the years to come had emerged: the left won the movement to its proclamation of a broad aim, but the moderates had managed to control labour’s immediate direction.

The Labor women’s counterpublic utilsed the conference as a site of movement power to again raise the prospect of official organisation. Heagney spearheaded these efforts. Citing to delegates the ‘serious consequences that must result from the filling of men’s places in the industrial world,’ she moved a motion directing the Central Executive to take immediate steps to ‘organise women and to provide for the persistent advocacy of the principle of equal pay.’87 This motion grew, Heagney explained, from the deliberations of the Women’s Convention. It aimed at remedying the ‘menace’ posed to trade unionism by unorganised

84 The treatment of whom had already been condemned at the conference: Ibid. 85 Ibid. 86 THC Minutes, 4 May 1916, 1978.0082.00010, p.201, UMA. 87 “PLC Annual Conference”, LC, 11 May 1916, 2.

153 women workers being brought into the economy, vulnerable to ‘exploitation on the part of employers.’88

This was an issue commonly raised by women activist-intellectuals. They argued that the most effective means to prevent the hyper-exploitation of women workers, and its potential impact on the male standard, was to organise women, and for Labor to legislate for their rights. Whereas the response of some in the movement was to seek to lock women out of the workforce, activist-intellectuals such as Heagney prosecuted the case that the class struggle should include the demand for equal pay. The movement did accommodate this demand, and as recently as March 1916 the THC endorsed a claim for equal pay made by the Rope Making and Cordage Union.89 More difficult was to translate rhetorical support into action. To accomplish this, Labor women sought their own organisational presence within the movement. This was Heagney’s purpose at the conference. After a brief discussion in which labour women such as Mary Rogers from the Office Cleaners Union – and later the first Victorian woman to be elected as a councillor – explained the situation for women in employment, PJ Clarey from the Storeman’s Union moved an addendum to the motion calling on the THC to develop a ‘scheme for the organisation of women,’ and for the ‘introduction of legislation to give effect to equal pay for the sexes.’ He explained his motion, emphasising the importance of ‘systematically’ organising women in the workforce, foreshadowing the future problem of ‘interference with the industrial positions of men by women being introduced to do their work’ when the war came to an end. Heagney’s motion, and this addendum, were accepted unanimously by the conference.90

The terms of acceptance were bound tightly with gendered perceptions that reflected those of broader Australian society. It was the white-male wage earner that remained the presumed agent of the labour movement. Consideration of women worker’s rights was measured against this gendered standard. But these were nonetheless important developments that established the ground for the development of Labor women’s organisation, and their active role in the battle against conscription.

The All-Australian Trades Union Congress

On May 10 and 11 ninety-seven unions and five regional Trades Councils claiming to represent 280,000 workers across Australia gathered in historic conference at Melbourne’s Trades Hall. At this conference the dynamics of contestation that shaped the Victorian movement were brought to a national level; the campaign machinery that would mobilise the ‘antis’ against conscription was formed. It was fitting that CJ Bennett, THC president, opened the proceedings, addressing delegates on the vital role of the Council in gathering

88 Ibid. 89 THC Minutes, 9 March 1916, 1978.0082.00010, p.189, UMA. 90 “PLC Annual Conference”, LC, 11 May 1916, 2.

154 them there that day to form ‘a collective expression of opinion.’91 Bennett’s place in the chair indicated Victorian influence over proceedings, as did the role of Holloway as the congress’ Vice President, and Hyett’s position as chair of the Credentials Committee.92

Victoria’s influence was not simply procedural, however. The AWU’s McNeill moved the substantive motion of the meeting. Labor Democrats from the union were at the centre of the meeting, crafting resolutions, and directing its future actions. McNeill’s motion was submitted in seven sections, its apotheosis an arrant repudiation of the measure. It argued that conscription for overseas service was contrary to the democratic rights of the individual, was beyond the state’s ethical prerogative, and would introduce ‘the vile means by which (as in Germany) organised Labor is overawed in the interests of Capital.’93

The motion was crafted to disclaim any suspicion of disloyalty to the imperial effort, affirming ‘its active sympathy with the cause of the Allies.’ But it also made clear the belief that the voluntary system was morally and logistically preferable to compulsion.94 Kean, from the Victorian AWU, seconded the motion. He explained to the delegates that workers had disproportionately sacrificed for the war. If the capitalists that supported conscription believed more soldiers were needed, then ‘let the capitalist get down to the same rate of pay and show his bona fides’ on the frontlines.95

The conference adjourned for the day without a vote. After it reconvened the following day McNeill withdrew his motion after discussion with other delegates, submitting in its place ‘specific propositions’ for consideration.96 The first declared the congress’ ‘uncompromising hostility to Conscription of life and labor,’ and promised to organise against ‘any attempt to foist Conscription upon the people of Australia.’97 On the basis of card voting, where the numerical strength of each union was represented through the votes it held, the motion succeeded by 258,018 votes in favour, 753 opposed, a relatively comfortable margin. A subsequent motion was carried endorsing the efficacy of the volunteer system, which would ‘leave no machinery—as would Conscription—to be used after the war to crush the aspirations of the workers.’ So was a measure demanding that the Federal Labor party ‘reverse the capitalist war policy and prohibit the exploitation of the public,’ and instead conscript the wealth of the capitalists to fund the war.98 These motions were relatively uncontroversial, and with the exception of some tinkering, largely passed by hefty margins without substantive disagreement.

91 Australian Trades Unionism and Conscription: Being Report of Proceedings of Australian Trade Union Congress Together With the Manifesto of the National Executive (Melbourne: Labor Call Print, 1916), 10. 92 Ibid., 11-12. 93 Ibid., 11. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid., 12. 96 Ibid., 13. 97 Ibid. 98 Ibid., 14.

155

A motion moved by DP Russell, representing the left-wing Clerks Union, divided the conference. This proposed the familiar strategy of a ‘general cessation of work,’ or general strike, ‘in the event of the Federal Parliament attempting to impose Conscription of life or labor upon the people.’99 Unfortunately, the paucity of the minute-taking means that the arguments made for and against the motion on the conference floor were not recorded. The Labor Call report, for instance, does not even mention this motion, though it does refer to ‘the militant section of the Labor movement’ circulating a pamphlet at the congress calling for a general strike.100 What is known is that once again Victorian leftists had raised the strategy of the general strike in opposition to conscription, as a primary means through which to oppose the measure.101 The motion was defeated: 129,730 votes against, 103,728 in favour. While the card system of voting inflated the numbers on both sides of the ledger, this proposal clearly received substantial support. A significant portion of the national movement had accepted the proposal of the Victorian socialists that an industrial campaign would be the most effective means to defeat compulsion. After the motion’s defeat Buchanan (of the Victorian Pastrycooks) and Frank Hyett successfully moved a motion for the unions present to survey their members to discern their support for a general strike. This was likely an attempt to keep the option open in the wake of defeat.102

But action was required while this opinion was sought. The conference declared support for Labor in Victoria and New South Wales ‘opposing all political candidates who speak or vote in favor of Conscription.’103 Next, it elected a twelve-person National Executive to conduct the campaign’s quotidian organising. The influence of the Victorian counterpublic was demonstrated by its dominant position on this body. Seven of its twelve members belonged to the counterpublic: Hyett, Jones, Mulvogue, McGowan, the VSP Secretary Robert Ross, Russell, and as secretary of the National Executive, EJ Holloway. They were joined by Frank Anstey, CJ Bennett, and the AWU’s McNeill.104 The Victorian majority reflected strategic factors – Melbourne was Australia’s capital, a key battleground in the campaign. But it also reflected the organisational drive and energy of the Victorian movement that had done so much to bring the campaign into being. Labour’s position had been declared. The movement awaited Hughes’ return, and an indication of his intentions. They did not have long to wait.

99 Ibid. 100 “Trades Union Congress”, LC, 18 May 1916, 10. 101 Turner is uncertain about the origins of this motion, or its significance, subsuming it into his union/parliamentarian narrative, but he does note that something akin to the battles of the pre-war Second International were playing out, Industrial Labour and Politics, 103. 102 Australian Trades Unionism and Conscription, 15. 103 Ibid., 15. 104 Ibid., 6.

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The Campaign Begins

Hughes’ reception upon his return from Britain demonstrated the battle lines drawn over conscription during his absence. Conservative opinion entreated him to ‘rise above party and grasp the status of national leader’ by introducing the measure.105 The Australian Worker, welcomed him home ‘to the cause of anti-conscription.’106 James Scullin could not bring himself to believe the worst about his former parliamentary colleague. Editorialising immediately upon Hughes’ return he dismissed the ‘cocksuredness of the Tory and anti- Labor press,’ who ‘try and read a pro-conscription meaning into everything he says.’ There was, ‘a note of anguish’ in ‘their utterances,’ and the imperial cause would be better served, Scullin suggested, by finding the means to utilise ‘the wea[l]th and resources of the country so that better provision may be made for soldiers and their dependents’ rather than speculating on the Prime Ministers intent.107 This belief, that Hughes would not defy the movement, ensured Scullin’s bitterness was all the greater when, on 30 August, that was precisely what he did.

Hughes returned to Australia intending to implement conscription to replenish Australian battalions on the Western front. Pro-conscription conservatives urged him to do so through a parliamentary edict that was in turn justified by the War Precautions Act. Hughes, however, was more sensitive to labour’s power dynamics.108 He was not confident that he could win parliamentary support for an edict. Of particular concern were the Labor senators, centrally-selected by their state parties and hence more vulnerable at pre-selection to the large union power blocs.109 Hughes sought to overcome reticence in his ranks by two methods. The first was to convince the extra-parliamentary party of the righteousness of his path, the second was to seek a popular vote to give his measures legitimacy. His attempts to sway the extra-parliamentary movement failed. His decision to begin with the Victorian party was a blunder, and he was given short-shrift by the PLC’s Central Executive.110 The next stop was NSW. The eager Victorians dispatched Stewart, the PLC secretary, north to ensure that Hughes could not deceive that party’s executive as to the PLC’s decision.111

105 Fitzhardinge, The Little Digger, 175. 106 Australian Worker (AW), 3 August 1916, 5. 107 “Flogging a Dead Horse”, EE, 11 August 1916, 2. 108 Fitzhardinge, The Little Digger, 179-192. 109 Archer has discussed Labor’s senate ‘supermajority’ strengthening the hand of the ‘radicals.’ But the broadness of their selection tended to strengthen the hands of larger unions such as the AWU, which in Victoria had active senators in Barnes and McKissock. Archer, “Stopping War and Stopping Conscription”, 66. 110 Holloway, The Australian Victory over Conscription in 1916-17, 5. 111 Ibid., 5-6.

157

Failing here, Hughes determined to hold a public vote, much to the chagrin of conservatives. Hughes was seeking to overpower reticence in the movement through public acclaim for the measure. In so doing, he created a new democratic precedent. No other combatant country held such a vote during the war. Technically a plebiscite, the ballot for the conscription referendum was scheduled for 28 October. The decision to force Australians to vote in this referendum exacerbated tensions with those in the movement angered by Hughes’ repudiation of a national poll on price control. Hughes’ campaign began at a disadvantage. The AATUC had solidified a campaign machinery, and united the unions in common purpose. Less than a month after announcing the vote would take place Hughes was expelled from the NSW Labor Party, and from the Sydney Wharf Labourers Union of which he had been a founder and president.112

Meanwhile, the Melbourne THC was a hive of anti-conscription activity. The body had determined to support ‘all Secretarial work’ for the national campaign ‘through the Trades Hall Council office.’113 The National Executive immediately set about preparing and printing its manifesto outlining the union case against conscription. This manifesto was clearly informed by the motions moved by McNeill and Kean at the AATUC, and expressed a perspective that was more moderate than some of the Executive members were likely to personally endorse.114 Even this would be too much for government authorities. On 29 July soldiers from the censor’s office raided the Trades Hall building and seized copies of the Manifesto, an anti-democratic act roundly condemned by union leaders.115

As the fervour of the campaign increased Holloway found the burden of conducting the work of the national secretary too great alongside his substantial workload for his union, the THC, and the Labor Party. The movement needed a full-time campaigner with experience and skills in writing, speaking, and organising. They turned to John Curtin. It was his first position of national prominence, but not his last. Nor was it the last time he would step unto the breach in a time of crisis. Holloway later remarked that Curtin’s ‘great characteristics of leadership almost seemed to lie dormant until some great crisis.’ As his successor, Holloway continued, Curtin did ‘a wonderful job,’ noting that his ‘flare for journalism’ was ‘of untold value.’116

He was not the only labour anti-conscriptionist thrust into the national spotlight. Scullin also came to prominence through the campaign, eclipsing even his tenure in the parliament of the Commonwealth. Scullin was in a unique position as editor of the Echo. The paper’s production schedule meant that it was the only anti-conscription daily newspaper in the state. Scullin’s work was read widely, his articles circulated by labour activist-intellectuals,

112 Fitzhardinge, The Little Digger, 196. 113 THC Minutes, 6 July 1916, 1978.0082.00010, p.212, UMA. 114 Australian Trades Unionism and Conscription, 1-6. 115 “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 10 August 1916, 4. 116 Holloway, The Australian Victory over Conscription in 1916-17, 6.

158 informing the campaign. Jauncey estimates that the Echo had a circulation of 60,000 throughout the state leading up to 28 October.117 One anti-conscriptionist later recalled it being ‘sold in the thousands in the streets.’118

Scullin’s arguments in 1916 echoed themes from 1914. He maintained his support for the war effort, declaring that he, and other opponents of conscription, remained ‘resolved to prosecute the war and deliver civilisation from the rule of ruthless militarism which is typified by Germany.’119 The voluntary system, he argued, provided ‘the best means of carrying on the struggle.’ His fear was that conscription would be used not just to reinforce the battalions in Europe, but also to introduce ‘militarism into industry.’120

His critique was sharpened by the belief that Hughes and his supporters were not just advocating conscription, but repudiating Labor Democratic principles. By the end of August 1916 Scullin had realised that those conservatives who spoke of Hughes’ conscription plans were not as anguished as he had hoped. The movement had to accept, he argued, that there were now some within the ranks who ‘are no longer to be trusted,’ and who were poised to do ‘more harm to the Labor movement than Toryism could have hoped to accomplish in a score of years, even if it had full control of all Parliaments, Federal and State.’121 The stakes could not be higher. By substituting ‘military law for civil law’ and challenging the principles of democracy, Hughes was considered to be repudiating the political project to which Scullin, and his comrades in the AWU, had dedicated their lives. That this had come from within the ranks of the movement made it particularly odious. He urged his readers, ‘GIRD UP YOUR LOINS FOR THE FRAY, FOR THE FIGHT THAT WOULD MEAN THE EXTINCTION OF YOUR MOVEMENT MAY BE AT HAND.’122 Conscription, Scullin alleged, was intended not to further the war effort, but to serve the interests of ‘the squattocracy,’ and would lead to an influx of ‘cheap colored’ or ‘coolie’ labour, and would ultimately see ‘every Australian soldier’ competing for jobs with ‘every woman worker who is now paid less than men,’ and ‘every coolie.’123

Both sides of the campaign presented theirs as the best strategy to protect Australia’s policies of racial purity. In late October the Labor Call was censored for trying to run articles on a shipload of Maltese migrants, the arrival of whom, it alleged with great hyperbole, represented a capitalist plot to import cheap labour and erode union conditions.124 Most of the racism of the campaign was aimed, however, towards China and Japan. Labor

117 Jauncey, The Story of Conscription in Australia, 174. 118 “Bosher's reminiscences of no-conscription campaigns”, Eric (Jock) Bosher. Papers 1870-1969, MS 1147, Box 1771/9, 1, SLV. 119 “Conscription Disloyalty”, EE, 3 August 1916, 2. 120 Ibid. 121 “Labor, Prepare!”, EE, 29 August 1916, 2. 122 Capitalisation in the original. Ibid. 123 Ibid. 124 LC, 26 October 1916.

159

Democrats tended to highlight the potential military threat of Japan as a reason to keep Australian soldiers close to home and hearth.125 The socialists in the movement often repudiated the notion of military threat from the Asian powers, claiming instead that Australia faced an economic threat from the north.126

The supposed threat of conscription to the white-male standard of labour meant that the campaign was gendered, as well as racialised. The impact of societal gendering can be seen in campaign propaganda that depicted women as passive, domesticated, moral agents with the responsibility of the lives of other women’s sons in their hands on 28 October.127 This was the message of the “Blood Vote,” perhaps the campaign’s most recognisable appeal. It asked women how they could justify their decision to ‘smugly’ sentence other mother’s sons ‘to death/In that dreadful little room,’ if they voted yes to conscription.128 The union campaign raised the spectre of women’s labour being purposefully used to undercut established work conditions and wages, if men were sent to fight. At times, as expressed in Scullin’s words above, these racial and gendered threats were presented simultaneously. But while connected they were distinctive anxieties raised by male labour leaders.

Women were not simply the subjects of appeals, but were active agents of the campaign. Smart demonstrated how working-class women asserted their right to speak through interference in pro-conscription events.129 Damousi argued that women’s activities in the campaign undercut masculinist assumptions over gender roles, instilling a radical temperament that was met with physical and sexualised violence against those women who asserted themselves in the public sphere.130 Both these dynamics are vital to understanding the campaign as a sprawling, chaotic, and passionate upsurge of popular sentiment and political expression. But it was how Labor women mobilised to simultaneously combat conscription, and stake a claim for their own permanent organisation within the movement that is of greatest significance for this thesis.

Labor women did not allow their demands to be subordinated to the masculine understanding of labour’s aims. Their experience was distinctive, but no less proletarian for this. Sexism diminished their industrial position. Bella Lavendar articulated how this dynamic operated when she critiqued proposed anti-strike provisions in 1916. Women, she argued, ‘are SHOULDERED, under the pretence of being SHIELDED, into a secondary position.’131 Women activist-intellectuals of the movement were determined that they would

125 Dyrenfurth, Heroes & Villains, 208-214. 126 W Wallis, “A Mean’s to an End”, LC, 31 August 1916, 9; W Wallis, “The Conscription Issue”, LC, 21 September 1916, 4. 127 LJ Villiers, “Mother’s Love and Patriotism”, LC, 5 October 1916, 6. 128 “The Blood Vote”, AW, 12 October 1916, 3. 129 Smart, “The right to speak and the right to be heard”, 203-219. 130 Damousi, “Socialist Women and Gendered Space”, 1-15. 131 Bella Lavendar, “Breakers Ahead”, LC, 6 July 1916, 8.

160 not be pushed aside, and set about constructing an institutional space from which to organise.

This led to the formation of a Labor Women’s Anti-Conscription Committee on 13 September.132 Over three-hundred women were reported to have attended its foundation meeting, with Bella Lavendar and Sara Lewis its main organisers. Addressing assembled activists at the meeting’s opening, Lewis explained that she hoped ‘that a good, strong, virile organisation of women would be the result.’ The purpose of the organisation was to ‘work in conjunction with the National Executive to fight against the introduction of conscription in Australia,’ and it was an indication of its importance that key Labor figures such as Curtin, Holloway, and Edward Russell attended. Curtin seconded Lavendar’s foundational motion that pledged ‘Labor women―mothers, wives and sisters of working men … to oppose conscription at whatever cost,’ and called upon ‘all true Labor men in the Federal Parliament’ to show the same dedication.133 Holloway commended the motion and the initiative shown to bring women activists together. He and Russell ‘stressed the importance of women’s work at elections,’ activist energy and experience that would be vital for the battle to come.

An executive was formed at the meeting with Lavendar as president and Lewis as one of two vice-presidents. Sub-committees were organised within electoral districts, and a campaign plan developed including ‘house-to-house visits, literature distribution and factory meetings at mid-day.’ A mass meeting was scheduled for later in the month. ‘Women,’ the new committee extolled, ‘be true to your womanhood and be there.’134 These activists set about organising local meetings to further the anti-conscription cause, with agitators such as Lewis addressing meetings in Port Melbourne, North Fitzroy, Northcote, Collingwood, Prahran, Preston, Carlton, Balaclava, Geelong, as well as the banks of the Yarra.135 It was, one participating activist remarked, ‘most gratifying to any student of Feminism’ to witness ‘the educated woman of the working class’ having ‘risen to the occasion’ in that time of ‘crisis.’136 At a meeting scheduled to take place in the Northcote Town Hall with Anstey and ‘Mrs’ AK Wallace as the designated speakers, the assembled audience was too large for the small space allocated to the estimated thousand-strong audience, prompting the women present to take ‘the matter into their own hands,’ storming the main hall.137 In public spaces and in the party itself, Labor women were not to be ignored.

132 “Women’s Anti-Conscript Committee”, LC, 21 September 1916, 7. 133 Ibid. 134 Ibid. 135 “Women’s Meeting at Northcote”, LC, 5 October 1916, 7; “North Fitzroy”, LC, 5 October 1916, 10; “Women Anti-Conscriptionists”, LC, 12 October 1916, 3. 136 “Women’s Meeting at Northcote”, LC, 5 October 1916, 7. 137 “Labor Women’s No-Conscription Meeting” LC, 5 October 1916, 7.

161

A general strike against conscription?

During the campaign the Labor Democrats and Socialists were equal in ardour to defeat the measure, but disagreement persisted as to how this could best be achieved. The socialist counterpublic believed the general strike to be labour’s most powerful weapon against compulsion. The leadership of the delimited sphere wanted to prevent such radical action over which it would have minimal control. This dynamic defined the interactions between these sections under the surface of the public campaign discussed above.

This was most evident in tensions that emerged on the THC as campaign strategy was planned and negotiated. It is not known how the nation’s unionists voted on the survey concerning the general strike. The announcement of a referendum disoriented radicals who had not anticipated that there would be a democratic means to oppose a measure they assumed would be handed down via parliamentary edict. This may have disrupted the survey. In late September the National Executive organised a second interstate conference to establish ‘uniformity between the States in the matter of conscription’ to take place at Melbourne Trades Hall.138 Turner considered this ‘the most important of the union gatherings’ in the campaign.139

Looming over the 23 September meeting was the latest escalation in the campaign by the Prime Minister, who had announced a ‘call up’ of single men of military age for an assessment of their suitability to serve. For many unionists this was a sign of the ‘proclamation’ of conscription ‘without the consent of the people’ that they had feared.140 The National Executive was prepared to defy Hughes’ plans. Curtin insinuated that Hughes might still turn to less democratic means to achieve his aim; stating that he had ‘turned down one Referendum not so very long ago at the eleventh hour.’ Would he, Curtin asked, ‘do the same this time?’141

Hughes’ proclamation was the trigger that the subaltern counterpublic needed to push for radical action. The dominance of socialists on the National Executive resulted in the call for on 4 October. Evidence suggests that the initial proposal may have been for up to seven days of continuous action.142 In its second manifesto, written by Curtin and printed above his signature, the Executive condemned Hughes’ ‘despotic and unlawful’ move that, if successful, would be ‘an act of dictatorship unparalleled in Australian history … destructive of the basic principles of civic liberty and democratic rule.’143 The Executive

138 “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 21 September 1916, 7. 139 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 108. 140 J Curtin, “Anti-Conscription”, LC, 28 September 1916, 6; Fitzhardinge, The Little Digger, 200-2. 141 J Curtin, “Anti-Conscription”, LC, 28 September 1916, 6. 142 “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 12 October 1916, 7. 143 Australian Trades Union Anti-Conscription Congress, “Manifesto, No. 2”, Riley and Ephemera Collection, SLV.

162 directed ‘simultaneous stop-work meetings of 24 hours duration’ across the country on Wednesday 4 October.

Evidence of the subsequent debate is partial, and much remains obscured. The meeting of the THC that immediately preceded the Stop Work, on 28 September, demonstrates why. Reports of the meeting record that as soon as the National Executive’s report was received the Council determined to ‘go into Committee.’144 This meant that the deliberations would take place without a record being taken, clearly a cautious approach inspired by fears of potential repercussions as the THC debated major industrial action. As a result, records are incomplete. What is known is that the 4 October Stop Work was a major mobilisation that demonstrated the scale of opposition to conscription, with attendance at the Yarra bank in the tens of thousands.145 Tramways secretary LJ Villiers described the ‘continuous stream of men and women [who] poured to and fro along the road to the “Bank” all day.’146

Whatever its success as a public show of dissent, it was not the general strike the left had proposed. Disappointment with this result emerged on the THC. At its 12 October meeting a letter was received from the National Executive to thank those that participated, commenting that it had been, ‘all things taken into consideration, a magnificent demonstration of working-class hostility to “Prussianising Australia.”’147 But in taking all things into consideration, frustration was evident amongst the left. The first to give voice to the frustrations felt by socialists at the mobilisation was Delegate Hall of the Stevedores, who ‘felt annoyed at the attitude of unions in not complying with the stop-work meeting.’148

Hyett spoke in response, quick to clarify that the fault did not lie with the National Executive who he explained had proposed ‘a general strike of seven days,’ a plan ‘turned down.’ He made it clear that two perspectives dominated the movement’s attitude to the campaign, with one section favouring the industrial course, and another believing labour ‘organisations should concentrate on the Referendum.’ This was a divide between those who wanted a straight-out political campaign, and those who wanted to use industrial tactics. Hyett left no doubt which side he was on in that debate, strongly criticising those who had voted against the Executive and for a ’24 hours’ stop work meeting and did not afterwards support it.’149

But who were the culprits? Hyett spoke in broad terms, but others did not. Mulvogue showed little compunction in naming the AWU as having ‘turned the proposal down.’ He believed that ‘when a decision was arrived at by a representative industrial body’ that it

144 THC Minutes, 28 September 1916, 1978.0082.00010, p. 226, UMA; “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 5 October 1916, 7. 145 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 109. 146 LJ Villiers, “The Destiny of Australia”, LC, 12 October 1916, 6. 147 “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 12 October 1916, 7. 148 Ibid. 149 Ibid.

163 should ‘be respected’ by affiliated unions, ‘but this had not been done on October 4.’150 Stung by the critique, delegate Culliney of the AWU sprung to his unions defence, wanting no ‘cheap sneers in this matter,’ and defending its ‘solid position of uncompromising hostility to conscription.’ The AWU were, as he could rightly claim, ‘organising so as to put a big “No” vote in order to out conscription in Australia.’151

Both sections of the movement campaigned against conscription, but not in a united manner. The socialist counterpublic had constructed a national framework for the campaign, and cultivated a radical strategy for the movement to pursue. Due to their efforts, the prospect for a general strike was a very real one. But the AWU’s powerful position in the movement still allowed it to prevent these plans from coming to fruition.152 The numerical advantage of the AWU meant that without its support industrial action on the scale the left desired would not be possible – they quite simply composed too much of the movement. But the AWU was disinclined to take such action, preferring methods that aligned more closely with its own political and constitutional approach. There is evidence that there was some localised resistance to this. The MPLM reported that the AWU’s Geelong branch, for instance, determined to participate on 4 October ‘notwithstanding the decision of the A.W.U. executive.’153 There is no evidence of local defiance beyond this instance, and certainly not of the scale to overturn the union’s position.

This was a strategic and ideological contest between socialists and Labor Democrats, each of which advanced a distinctive view of how best to achieve the movement’s aims. Such tensions are suggested, but not explored, by Turner, who gives passing mentions to divisions between Victorian socialists and NSW radicals that propelled the 4 October Stop Work, with moderates such as the AWU content to use political action to defeat conscription.154 He does not, however, explore the depth and meaning of this difference, nor relate the narrative of active contestation over these techniques of resistance. For Turner, while differences existed in the union movement, these are subordinated in his account to the more meaningful contest between MPs and the unions. This side-lines the fundamental and creative divide and contest within the movement between the leadership of the delimited sphere that wanted to purge the party and defeat conscription at the polls, and the subaltern counterpublic that wanted to take radical action as part of a broader rejection of the war effort, and the capitalist system. Other scholars’ tendency to judge a limited sample of perspectives as broadly representative of union opinion ignores substantial differences

150 Ibid. 151 Ibid. 152 Turner suggests a lack of AWU commitment to the action represents their desire to maintain political action as the key means to defeat conscription: Industrial Labour and Politics, 110. 153 “Report of Meeting held Trades Hall 31st September 1916”, MS 10882, Box 4, Folder 6 (i), Brodney Papers, SLV. 154 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 101-8.

164 within the ‘anti’ campaign.155 This contest continued beyond the conscription battle, as each side sought to win Labor to its ultimate project. But first, Australia was heading to the polls.

Conscription and the split

“Democracy Vindicated”: so read Scullin’s editorial in the Evening Echo two days after the referendum.156 In it, he expressed his pride at the defeat of conscription at the polls, but also his rage against those who had proposed the measure.157 The issue had not reached its conclusion for Scullin, and there was one more step to take. He warned those who had supported compulsion within the movement that the ‘day of reckoning for political rats and opportunists is at hand, and no squirming will save them.’158 The scales had, he argued, ‘fallen from the nation’s eyes,’ and its treacherous political leaders were ‘marked and numbered. They simply stand on one side till the hour comes to wipe them out!’159 That hour was soon at hand. The violence of Scullin’s rhetoric is notable; his was usually a restrained and highly reasoned style of expression, aimed at educating rather than condemning. The transformation of tone is a strong indicator of the heightened passions within the movement. Scullin, and others, felt genuinely betrayed at what they perceived as the abjection of Labor’s purpose by Hughes and his followers.

The meaning of the results of 28 October 1916 has been the cause of much debate, and is a recognisable point of origin for anti-conscription ‘mythology.’160 Turner conducted a famous analysis of the results, arguing that the greatest factor in the slim ‘No’ majority was the votes cast by farmers, concerned about the loss of labour.161 Strangio has speculated that the vehemence of Victorian Labor’s anti-conscription stance may have contributed to the narrow majority in favour of “Yes” in the state.162 But the numbers alone do not capture the meaning ascribed to the victory over conscription within the movement, and its significance for the transformation of its political culture. Nowhere else was a popular democratic vote held on the question of conscription, and nowhere else could sentiment against the war effort – if not the war itself – be expressed through the ballot box. Labor’s victory, as it was presented, emboldened opponents of the measure, and their belief that mass transformation of society was possible through acts of popular democracy. That is, unlike in other countries where

155 Sammut, “’Busting’ the anti-conscription legend”, 163-183; Hirst, “Australian Defence and Conscription”, 617-9; Dyrenfurth, “’Conscription is Not Abhorrent to Laborites and Socialists’”, 159- 160. 156 Staff writer R Jordan was co-attributed: JH Scullin and R Jordan, “Democracy Vindicated”, EE, 30 October 1916, 2. 157 Ibid. 158 Ibid. 159 Ibid. 160 That Scalmer explored: “Legend and Lamentation”, 188-210. 161 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 113-6. 162 A position he states is ‘plausible, if difficult to verify’: Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 121.

165 revolutionary change soon came to be seen as the only means to express the popular will, Labor Democrats and Labor Socialists could point to the referendums as an example of change occurring through constitutional means.

In December 1916 the party formally expelled the ‘rats’ from its ranks, demonstrating the limits of independence that would be allowed to parliamentarians.163 In so doing, the two sections of the movement – the leadership of the delimited sphere and the socialist counterpublic – firmly entrenched the fundamental power relation that was to define Labor from that point on.164 That was one of underlying trade union control, expressed through the capacity to utilise numbers at the party conference, the pronouncements of which would bind the parliamentary representatives. This was the ultimate expression of the Labor theory of democracy identified by Childe.

In November 1916 Labor’s federal parliamentary caucus met following the conscription defeat. After a tense discussion, and realising that he did not have the numbers over the meeting, Hughes dramatically led his followers from the caucus room. Maintaining the prime ministership, he began the process of coalescing with his former conservative opponents to form a new government. The Victorian member for Yarra, Frank Tudor, was elected federal leader. There was some ambiguity over Hughes’ position at this point: Labor had never expelled a sitting PM before. This was resolved at Labor’s special conference in December 1916, where the gate was firmly shut on the ‘scabs’ who were thrown on ‘the political scrap-heap where they can die and rot like all political traitors.’165 Suffice to say, passions were running high.

Appropriately, the conference was held at the Melbourne Trades Hall, with delegates representing all the state branches.166 The Western Australian (WA) branch’s credentials were controversial, with pro-conscription MPs amongst its delegates due to the state party not taking a position on the issue. But the major business of the conference was conducted between the Victorian and New South Wales delegates. Maintaining the pattern of conferences to follow, the AWU dominated the Victorian delegation, due to a combination of its affiliation as a union, control of rural branches, and influence in the party machinery. Four of six Victorian delegates were from the AWU: Scullin, McNeill, Stewart and TC Carey from Ballarat. The remaining delegates were RH Gill from the left-wing liquor trades union, and Holloway, who was also elected as conference chair.

163 Jacqueline Dickenson has analysed the significance of the concept of the ‘rat’ in labour’s political culture in both Australia and Britain: Renegades and Rats: Betrayal and the Remaking of Radical Organisations in Britain and Australia (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2006). 164 Cavalier, Power Crisis, 12-15. 165 “Outing Political Scabs”, LC, 7 December 1916, 6. 166 ALP, Report of the Proceedings of the Special Commonwealth Conference (Melbourne: Labor Call, 1917).

166

It was James Scullin that moved the defining motion, demonstrating his heightened stature in the movement. It was seconded by the powerful Victorian AWU operator and PLC secretary Arch Stewart. The motion read:

That, as compulsory overseas military service is opposed to the principles embodied in the Australian Labor party’s platform, all Federal members who have supported compulsory overseas military service, or who are members of any other political party, are hereby expelled from the Australian Labor movement.167

Scullin summed up its sentiment: those who had taken the party pledge ‘should conform to the principles of that party,’ and those who did not should be expelled. Scullin explained that in his interpretation, though the party platform did not explicitly oppose compulsory military service overseas, there was ‘no doubt as to the spirit of the Labor movement on this subject.’168 This was a telling comment that can only be understood in the context of Labor’s own theory of democracy. According to this worldview it was the extra-parliamentary organisation, and the unions that dominated it, that would determine Labor’s ideological limits, the lines in the sand which none were to cross. Those who did were to be condemned, no matter the justification. Overseas service meant, Scullin argued, the introduction of ‘militarism,’ and the ‘whole history of the Labor movement had been against militarism.’169 Later in the debate Scullin’s justification was challenged by a delegate pointing out that he had not said that opposition to overseas compulsory service was ‘laid down on the platform,’ Scullin curtly interrupted: ‘It is greater than a plank. It is a principle.’170

NSW delegate spoke in favour of the motion. Blakeley provided an indication of the underlying meaning of the proposed expulsion, speaking of the struggle in his state to ‘get a good party,’ requiring the expulsion of ‘a large number of Labor men.’ To his mind, echoing sentiments from the AWU conference in January that year, it was ‘far better to have half a dozen real Labor men in opposition than a whole Government in power if there was no attempt being made to put Labor principles into effect.’171 The expulsion was not, in the eyes of Scullin and his supporters, due to a direct abrogation of the Labor platform, but the betrayal of its spirit. It was not a policy that had been transgressed, but a principle. The movement had made its attitude known, and Hughes had defied it. This was what earned him expulsion.

The vote was taken at 5.30pm on 5 December 1916. The WA contingent fought a rear-guard action against the motion. Senator Lynch, who had left the caucus room with Hughes, was particularly adamant that the pro-conscriptionists had not defied Labor party rules. But the

167 Ibid., 4. There was a small amendment to explicitly name those who had left the party, but the substance of the motion remained the same. 168 Ibid. 169 Ibid., 5. 170 Ibid., 11. 171 Ibid., 5.

167 majority of delegates felt the time for attentiveness to such formalities had passed. By twenty-nine votes to four, Labor was officially purified, just as Grayndler had desired in January 1916. Cornell, one of the WA delegates and a pro-conscription state MP, asked as to ‘his position in the Conference’ following the vote. Holloway from the chair ruled that the Federal MPs from WA, Lynch and Burchell ‘have no further right to sit at the Conference.’ They had been expelled, and their names added forever to the infamous list of Labor ‘rats.’ Lynch left the Council Chambers at Trades Hall, expelled.172 Holloway would later recall his exit:

Lynch replied, “Very well, Mr Chairman, I bow to your ruling.” He then walked to the Press table, filled a glass with water, turned to me, and raising his glass above his head said, “Here’s good luck to you, Sir. You will need it all, and remember you will come to Paddy Lynch before Paddy Lynch comes to you.173

In the end, neither went to the other.

A week later in the Evening Echo, Scullin justified the expulsion in an editorial titled “Removing a Cancer.”174 Scullin’s reasoning had shifted slightly since the conference, as he insisted that supporting overseas compulsory military service did in fact violate the party platform as military service was only ever supposed to be for domestic defence. But he maintained that Hughes had ‘defied the movement. For that, and that alone, he has been expelled.’175

This was a pivotal moment in the transformation of Labor’s political culture. The unsettled power relationship between MPs and the broader movement that provoked such tension had been resolved: the unions asserted their right to dominate the direction of the ALP. Hughes and his supporters had distanced themselves from the leadership of the delimited sphere, and paid the price. The combined action of the Labor Democrats and Socialists entrenched a structural dynamic that ensured Labor remained deeply embedded in the labour movement, maintaining a distinctive character from more diffuse ‘progressive’ alliance parties, such as the Democrats in the United States, or in a more contemporary sense, Greens parties.

The Labor Democrats and Socialists had asserted the right of the labour movement to determine the direction of the Parliamentary Labor Party. But a defining question remained: what would that direction be?

172 Ibid., 16. 173 Holloway, The Australian Victory over Conscription in 1916-17, 18. 174 “Removing a Cancer”, EE, 13 December 1916, 2. 175 Ibid.

168

1917

At the PLC’s 1917 Conference, held late due to the July federal election, state President EJ Holloway reminded those assembled that it ‘had been a strenuous time for Laborites since Conference had last met.’176 Such a reminder was hardly required. Since the split Labor had fought a damaging Federal Election in which they had been defeated by the new combine of their former comrades and conservative opponents. Workers in NSW had rebelled against a Taylorist card system, undertaking a general strike that coincided with dockers in Victoria refusing to ship foodstuffs for export when prices rose while wages fell in Australia.177 Fears of a second attempt to introduce conscription hung in the air. These proved justified when Hughes called for a second vote later that year. The second conscription campaign was more bitter and sectarian than the first, particularly with the famous intervention of the Catholic Archbishop Mannix in Melbourne, but was of less general political significance: the battle lines of 1917 had already been set by the conscription campaign and party split the year before.178

This was the first state conference of the recently purified party. It would also be the last time the Victorian party would meet as the PLC. Conference determined that it would be henceforth known as the Victorian Branch of the Australian Labor Party.179 Clearly, the scale of Hughes’ victory in the recent federal election had demoralised some Labor activists. Fresh from victory over conscription, hopes were high for Labor under Tudor. But opposition to conscription was not automatically translated into similar levels of support for the ALP. In the federal poll Hughes’ new Nationalist party won over fifty-four per cent of the vote, granting it a majority of fifty-three seats out of a House of seventy five.180 Party leaders sought to restore morale. Labor, Holloway argued, ‘was as strong as ever,’ and would allow no ‘temporary set-back’ to impede its progress.181 They had ‘emerged from the struggle solid on Labor principles,’ a sentiment seconded by the Central Executive in its report which noted that the ‘defeat which we sustained at the polls may, in the long run, prove of great value.’182

The left sought to consolidate the victory of 1916 through a motion moved by Mulvogue to end party support for compulsory training.183 For the counterpublic this was the logical outcome of conscription’s defeat, and of its own long-term opposition to the measure.

176 “Political Labor Council of Victoria”, LC, 19 July 1917, 2. 177 Robert Bollard, “’The Active Chorus’: The Great Strike of 1917 in Victoria,” Labour History, no. 90 (2006): 77-94. 178 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 163-4. 179 “Political Labor Council of Victoria”, LC, 9 August 1917, 1. 180 Results available: University of Western Australia Elections, accessed 11 August 2016. http://elections.uwa.edu.au/listelections.lasso. 181 “Political Labor Council of Victoria”, LC, 19 July 1917, 2. 182 Ibid., 2-3. 183 “Political Labor Council of Victoria”, LC, 2 August 1917, 1.

169

Echoing debates from the VSP almost a decade before, Maurice Blackburn maintained his support for a ‘citizen army,’ criticising ‘the volunteer system of armies for home defence.’ If they accepted ‘disarmament’ in this manner, he asked, ‘where would a White Australia be?’184 Blackburn’s argument was not well received. The socialist counterpublic evinced the brand of anti-militarism that Curtin had helped develop that saw in Blackburn’s scheme merely another variant of compulsion. This was reflected in the conference. The socialist DP Russell dismissed those who made the argument that compulsory training should be maintained ‘on the assumption that various countries were desirous of invading Australia.’ This was, he argued, ‘a “bogey” cry.’185

The Labor Democrats strongly disagreed, just as they had since Labor adopted the policy in 1908. One particularly strong voice on the matter was Scullin, who condemned acts by which soldiers could be ‘sent out’ of Australia ‘at the bidding of the Imperial Parliament,’ but maintained that compulsory training for domestic defence was vital to successfully ‘fight … against any invader of their shores,’ and to protect ‘the women and children of the Commonwealth.’186 Scullin’s brother-in-law, James Kean, was blunter in his assessment, he ‘considered the resolution suicidal,’ suicidal, that was, to White Australia.187

Sara Lewis weighed into the debate, seeking to sway delegates to maintain a consistent position on all forms of military compulsion. If, she argued, ‘they were anti-conscriptionists last October, they should be anti-conscriptionists through and through.’188 Interestingly, Muriel Heagney was one of the few who supported ‘a Citizen Army form of defence,’ labelling reliance on ‘voluntarism’ a ‘great mistake.’189

Holloway removed himself from the conference chair and took to the floor. He intended, he told the delegates, to ‘vote against militarism in any shape or form,’ including a citizen army.190 Unless they ‘got rid of militarism in all its forms, they would not get Socialism.’ In a clear echo of the arguments Curtin had made in the years before, Holloway asked those assembled to think of ‘the great nation they could rear if all the money spent on militarism were devoted to purposes of education and general enlightenment of the people!’191 The delegates agreed. Mulvogue’s motion was carried, 112 votes to fifty two. The left had scored a clear victory. But to make it decisive the question needed to be taken to the national conference.

A delegate questioned if the Victorian delegates to the federal conference would be ‘bound to vote for the motion that has been carried?’ Holloway had to admit that he could not rule,

184 Ibid., 1. 185 Ibid. 186 Ibid. 187 Ibid. 188 Ibid. 189 Ibid., 2. 190 Ibid. 191 Ibid.

170 as there was ‘no direction on the subject.’ Two left-wing delegates, Grant and Loughnan moved a motion, accepted by conference, directing whoever was elected to represent the state ‘to vote for the motion which had been decided,’192 a decision that would prompt much angst over the following two years, explored in the next chapter. Following swiftly in the wake of this discussion, the conference determined to adopt a proposal originating in the NSW party to put forward a series of conditions for peace that, if stopping short of a direct call for the war to end, certainly gestured in that direction. Of course, considering its own anti-war pledges, such a motion was passed without substantial controversy in the Victorian party.193

The debate over compulsory service was indicative of the division between socialists and moderates on the question, but also more broadly of the strengthening hand of the left. The intervention of Lewis and Heagney was representative of their increasingly prominent role in the movement with their activist credentials enhanced by their involvement in the anti- conscription campaign. Though in a notable, and overwhelming, minority, the pattern would be confirmed subsequently: women activists imposing themselves on conference proceedings, and ensuring that their voices would be heard.

These efforts were further consolidated at the 1917 Conference. On Lewis’ motion, the proceedings accepted the establishment of a ‘Central Council of Women’ that would ‘propagate the principles of the Labor party’s platform and organisation, and to assist in the better education of women, socially, industrially and politically’; that is, to institute the organisational space within the movement that Labor women could claim as their own, to develop knowledge and mobilise for their demands.194 Support was forthcoming. Blackburn spoke in favour of women’s organisation, noting, importantly, that such a body would be ‘subordinate to the Central Executive.’195 Delegate Shepherd spoke of the ‘right’ of Labor women to ‘meet and discuss matters,’ provided, that is, that ‘there was the proper authority which was superior to them.’196

Not all delegates were even this receptive. The AWU’s Daniel McNamara expressed his opposition by invoking the argument that had been previously made against the WOC, noting his disagreement with ‘anything which was in the nature of a separate section in the Labor movement.’197 Two other delegates voiced a similar opinion in the debate. One was Minnie Felstead, who argued that labour was already ‘one immense movement for social, industrial and economic reform’ in which ‘men and women were of equal importance.’ The creation of a body explicitly for women, to Felstead, ‘looked like dividing the organisation.’ If they ‘divided their forces,’ she asked, ‘what chance would they have?’

192 Ibid. 193 Ibid., 4. 194 “Political Labor Council of Victoria”, LC, 23 August 1917, 2. 195 Ibid. 196 Ibid. 197 Ibid.

171

Mary Rogers, secretary of the Office Cleaners Union agreed. Stating her opposition, she explained that she ‘believed in the men and women of the Labor movement standing unitedly together,’ not in forming ‘any separate bodies’ that might ‘lead to confusion.’198 Her position was particularly significant. She was expressing the same political attitude that Whitham had before the war, that a women’s section was not necessary, and in fact could damage the position of women by dividing a movement based on solidarity. This was not an anti-feminist position. It was a calculated judgement on how best to advance women’s interests that saw any form of separate organisation as potentially damaging to the prospects for working-class women being able to influence the labour movement.

Heagney took the floor as the final speaker in the debate. She explained that she too was ‘strongly opposed to anything that meant a separate movement’ but stringently critiqued the idea that the proposed Council represented any such thing. The body was ‘in reality a committee to deal with matters’ in which Labor women were ‘specially qualified.’ To ensure that women workers gained a ‘fair chance’ within the movement and in industry itself ‘it was essential that a department should be created which would help better their education in the aims and objects of the Labor movement.’199 The vote to create such a body was won, ninety-six votes to fifty three.

Following their heightened role in opposing conscription, Labor women such as Heagney and Lewis were determined to construct the formal boundaries of their own counterpublic, a space in which they could formulate and circulate counter-discourses and project themselves out against broader publics. The socialist counterpublic was similarly confident to press its claims within the purified party structure. The contest over Labor’s political culture was set to enter a new stage in 1918. With the structures of the organisation settled, the battle over the party’s meaning and purpose had only begun.

198 Ibid. 199 Ibid.

172

Chapter Six: the battle for socialisation, 1918-1921.

In June 1918, Labor’s anti-conscription veterans gathered in Perth for their first national meeting since the split of 1916. Six Victorians journeyed across the Nullabor, half of them from the AWU: Scullin, Stewart, and Senator Barnes. Representing the socialist left in the company was EJ Holloway, joined by CJ Bennet, and the independent former-MP Maurice Blackburn. The trip was too great for some. John Curtin, who had moved to Perth in 1917 to take up the position of editor of the Westralian Worker newspaper, held a proxy from the Tasmanian branch, which was unable to support its full complement.

Compulsory service was the defining debate of the conference. The Victorian delegates had been bound by their state conference to support a motion, moved by Holloway, committing Labor to repeal all clauses in the Defence Act relating to compulsory military service, abroad, and at home.1 The Labor Democrats spoke against this radical stance. They argued, as did Blackburn, that the defence of White Australia necessitated such a scheme. Scullin’s voice was prominent in the debate. His stock had risen dramatically in the movement since his role in the defeat of conscription, leading to his election as president of the state party. This was generally well-received, though Labor Call’s claim that it was met with ‘the utmost satisfaction everywhere,’ stretched the truth somewhat.2 Scullin assured the conference that he would vote ‘as he had been instructed’ by state conference. But he wanted his disagreement with the vote he was about to cast to be heard. He held still to the position he had adopted in 1908. In the face of invasion, he exclaimed, he would ‘not hesitate to conscript the manhood of Australia to defend the hearths and homes of this young democracy.’3

Soon after Curtin rose to explain his opposition to military training, similarly dated to 1908. Australia could not defend itself, he argued, through ‘reproductions of the methods of Europe.’ He revisited his plan for an air-based defence of the continent.4 He explained that his opposition had always accorded with ‘the decisions of representative working-class congresses’: the Second International’s declarations against war. But he assured his listeners that as a proxy-delegate for Tasmania he would vote as that state party insisted – against the Victorian proposal.

1 ALP, Report of the Seventh Commonwealth Conference (Melbourne: Labor Call Print, 1918), 29. 2 “In the Public Eye”, LC, 2 May 1918, 7. 3 ALP, Report of the Seventh Commonwealth Conference, 32. 4 Ibid., 33.

173

For a decade, Scullin and Curtin had embodied the disjunction between Labor Democrats and Socialists on the issue. In 1918, they did so at the pinnacle of movement power. That each was pledged to vote against their personal position demonstrates the nature of these power relations within the movement. The Labor theory of democracy determined that they acted as delegates, not representatives. This was the legacy of 1916.

Scullin and the Labor Democrats won the day at the 1918 conference; but this was short- lived. Labor’s support for the measure would be overturned the following year. Such ideological instability was a feature of the party at this time. Labor Democrats and Socialists had asserted movement control over the party, but not yet defined its ultimate purpose. The contest over Labor’s ideological outlook was the second stage in the transformation of Labor’s political culture. Between 1918 and 1921 both the socialist and women’s counterpublics made the most of the radicalisation within the movement to consolidate their position. But the realisation of their ultimate objectives was to be denied.

Radicalisation remembered.

As the second defining event through which Labor’s political culture was transformed, it is worth briefly adumbrating the most significant treatments of the socialist objective. Turner provided the most sustained and influential analysis; situating its adoption within the context of post-war radicalisation, focusing particularly on NSW, where a series of breakaway schemes for political and industrial organisations to rival the established movement were planned, pursued, and abandoned. This was expressed in growing industrial militancy and support for the One Big Union, a legacy of the IWW.5 The Russian Revolution of 1917 instilled further confidence in labour radicals.6 Turner depicts this radicalism as proceeding toward the formation of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in 1920.7 In his account, Labor’s socialist objective did not indicate any radical potentialities; it was simply a manoeuvre by politicians to ensure they were not outflanked on their left.8 He described the objective as a ‘neat piece of conjuring’ through which the ‘socialist tiger’ was transformed into a ‘sacred cow.’9

Other accounts have similarly diminished the objective’s significance, and radical potential. LF Crisp provided a procedural account of the motion and the party machinery that reached similar conclusions as Turner, though with less cynicism, finding that it operated as a means for the party to maintain unity with a radicalising union movement.10 Its spirit was at odds

5 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 182-202. 6 Ibid., 203-6. 7 Ibid., 206-210. 8 Ibid., 210-226. 9 Ibid., 226. 10 Crisp, The Australian Federal Labour Party, 279.

174 with the ‘average Labour rank and file member’ and ‘marginal voters.’ 11 Subsequent revisions ‘vindicated’ the opponents of the objective, and the actions of Labor-in-power demonstrated ‘no desire to push public ownership,’12 a strange claim from someone who was actively involved in post-war reconstruction. From the left, McQueen posited the objective as the product of disingenuous parliamentary leaders seeking to ‘contain the movement,’ affording no possibility of genuine commitment.13 In broader narratives of the party the objective tends to be mentioned in passing, adjudged a deviation from Labor’s predominantly moderate line, indicative of a brief moment of post-war political madness.14 The most recent works spare little time for the measure, with Strangio’s history of the Victorian party spending less than a page on the topic, and Dyrenfurth’s not mentioning the objective at all.15

Strangio’s history does, however, redress an imbalance in these histories by discussing the Victorian experience in detail. In this account the Victorian parliamentary party, and in particular Maurice Blackburn, was an important bulwark against the radical temperament of the unions.16 Blackburn was an idiosyncratic figure in the movement at this time, but a popular one. He came to the labour movement via the VSP, where he was a member of note, but never part of the close circle around Curtin and Hyett.17 Joining Labor in order to gain preselection in 1912, he lost the state seat of Essendon in the election of 1917 largely because of his staunch opposition to the war. He was a somewhat erratic figure often acting in an unpredictable manner. This won him the lifelong enmity of Curtin. The two first clashed in the VSP over militarism due to Blackburn’s support of compulsory military training. Blackburn’s propensity to strike an independent course and often ignore the political advice of his comrades led Curtin to later remark he was ‘personally too good to be politically worth a damn.’18 As will be shown, Blackburn’s intervention at several key moments certainly helped shape the debates of these years, though not with the extent of impact Strangio suggests. Strangipo argued that the shallowness of the split in Victoria, where the majority of the MPs were anti-conscription, meant that the parliamentary wing was in a

11 Ibid., 282. 12 Ibid., 283, 298. 13 Humphrey McQueen, “Glory Without Power,” in Australian Capitalism: Towards a Socialist Critique, eds. J Playford and D Kirsner (Ringwood: Penguin, 1972), 360-1. 14 Fitzpatrick, A Short History of the Australian Labor Movement, 180-1; McMullin, The Light on the Hill, 126-7; Freudenberg, Cause for Power, 129-133; Nick Dyrenfurth and Frank Bongiorno, A Little History of the Australian Labor Party (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2011), 69. 15 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 135. 16 Ibid., 130-1. 17 Carolyn Rasmussen, “The ‘Lone Wolf’ In Sheep’s Clothing? Maurice Blackburn, The Australian Labor Party and the Limits to Mateship,” History Australia 3, no. 2 (2006): 40.3. 18 Quoted from Ibid., 40.5.

175 stronger position there than elsewhere to ‘check militant industrial impulses, both those indigenously generated and those imported from across the New South Wales border.’19

In the discussion below I demonstrate the utility of the analytical model developed in chapter one to nuance this understanding, and identify the contest within the party as having an ideological, as well as structural dynamic. It was primarily the AWU, in fact, that resisted the radical line. But this model also seeks to overcome the implied essentialism in the majority of earlier accounts. Such essentialism diminishes the radical potentials of the objective on the assumption that by 1921 the party’s moderate character was already set, assuming that socialisation could only represent a brief deviation in which the organisation acted out of character, or else its leaders operated with an insidious intent.

Of interest here is not whether the party failed to live up to its radical aims, which it clearly did not, but what the process of its adoption reveals of Labor’s political culture; the basis of critique for the above interpretations. As Irving argued, the adoption of socialisation was contingent, the product of a genuine belief in ‘workers’ control and direct industrial action for socialism’ within the movement, that represented and reflected the ‘experience of a decade in which industrial action and socialism had converged.’20 Rather than simply the cynical manipulation of politicians – though they played their part – the objective was part of the processes through which working-class ideology was developed, through the mobilisation that ‘weakened the hold of liberalism on the workers and produced a separate, mass workers’ party.’21

The process of its adoption was one of creative contest between Labor Democrats and Socialists, through which intellectuals of each section articulated their vision of Labor’s purpose, and fought for the leadership of the movement. The resolution that came about at Labor’s conference in October 1921 was dependent on a variety of contingent factors: of individuals, ideas, and strategies, as well as power blocs that had developed around personalities and ideologies.

Labor and the post-war order

In 1918, the labour movement generally accepted that the Empire would be victorious, and thoughts turned to the post-war world to come. Belief that the ‘old world’ had dragged Australia to war fuelled the desire for a new social order, based on greater political and economic democracy. This was a desire held internationally. Most pertinently for Australia

19 Ibid., 129. 20 Irving, “Socialism, working-class mobilisation and the origins of the Labor Party”, 42. 21 Ibid., 42-3.

176 it led British Labour to adopt Clause Four in its new constitution: a belief in the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.22

Scullin and other leaders of the delimited sphere conceptualised this new order as a Labor Democracy: a democratic order where labour would stake its claim to greater social equity, where national consciousness based on racial purity would be heightened, and the land monopolies and capitalist trusts would be broken up for the benefit of all. This vision suited the times. The Labor Democrats sought to realise it through the use of Australia’s democratic machinery, the centralisation of government, and transformation of the Constitution. They believed that the expansion of Commonwealth power during the war should remain to govern in peace.

Scullin continued to be the most prominent voice of the Labor Democrats in Victoria. Tribute was paid to the new state president in the Labor Call, to his previous ‘yeoman service to the Labor cause.’ He was lauded as ‘one of the best debaters in Australia,’23 and ‘one of the most convincing speakers we have at present.’24 He served on numerous labour committees, made high-profile speeches, and continued as editor of the Evening Echo. In 1922 after the untimely death of Labor leader Frank Tudor, Scullin was elected to his seat of Yarra, which he would hold until his retirement from parliament in 1949.

This rise was underpinned by his status as an AWU powerbroker. The cauterisation of the parliamentary party had increased the union’s influence within the party machinery. Its Senators, such as Barnes and McKissock, and party officials – Scullin and Stewart, found themselves in the upper echelons of the party’s ranks after the purge. The AWU’s prestige had grown due to its role in opposing Hughes, and its industrial position was steady within a disturbed post-war economy. In 1919 the Victoria-Riverina branch claimed a membership of over 14,000.25 This inflates its Victorian influence slightly. The figure would include a swathe of members in the NSW Riverina region, and a number of non-dues paying service personnel that the union maintained on its rolls. But there is no reason to suspect major discrepancy. Strangio estimates a membership of around 8000 in Victoria itself, out of a total of 47,000 unionists in the state.26

The AWU was comfortably the state’s largest union, but this did not translate into dominance at the THC. The Council’s affiliate structure gave all unions connected to the council at least one delegate, and one vote. While the multiple delegates of the AWU – usually at least four – gave them the largest single contingent, the preponderance of smaller

22 Pelling and Reid, A Short History of the Labour Party, 39. 23 Derby Clonard, “In the Public Eye”, LC, 20 June 1918, 5. 24 Derby Clonard, “In the Public Eye”, LC, 2 May 1918, 7. 25 AWU, Annual Report and Balance Sheets for the Year ending May 31st 1919 (Ballarat: Berry, Anderson & co. 1919), E154/55/15, p.3, NBA. 26 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 134.

177 unions created a counterbalance for the subaltern counterpublic. The AWU was more able to exercise its strength in the forums of Victorian Labor, as it had since 1905.

The Evening Echo gave the union, and Scullin, a conduit to communicate its worldview. Its tone under Scullin’s editorial guidance was markedly different from the Labor Call. Its articles were more specific and reasoned, providing detailed critiques of government policy and explanations of how Labor could transform the situation. In his editorials he built a consistent case against Hughes’ government, accusing it of enabling large profiteers to make fortunes by exploiting high prices on necessities such as meat and butter.27 He bemoaned the selfish actions of the ‘squatters and land monopolists [who] are withholding millions of acres of our best land from production.’28 In numerous articles Scullin painstakingly outlined the solution to such problems, in particular the widespread intervention of the federal government in the economy, building upon its wartime powers. He referenced the use of the War Precautions Act to allow price fixing in some industries, arguing that this should be extended through an ‘amendment of the Australian Constitution’ so that prices could be regulated ‘in times of peace or war.’29

Scullin was able to transform these ideas into party policy. At Labor’s 1918 conference he proposed the ‘abolition of State Parliaments.’ 30 This radical plan to reconstruct Federation was enthusiastically received by Labor Socialists. Holloway even seconded the motion. But it was the AWU-aligned Victorian Senator Barnes who gave the clearest indication of the proposal’s motivation. He reminded all of the frustrations experienced by Fisher’s post-1910 administration due to constitutional restrictions on Commonwealth power. He argued that in Australia there was a clear demand for greater federal intervention, and the necessity of a ‘Commonwealth governed democratically by a Constitution untrammelled and unrestricted in its sovereign authority.’31

Victorian enthusiasm was not shared by all. Queensland Premier TJ Ryan opposed the attempt to abolish his government. The minutes do not record who voted for and against the amendment but it was defeated. The ultimate result was the appointment of a committee to formulate proposals to transfer greater powers to the national parliament. Scullin’s desire to abolish the states altogether went too far for the majority of delegates, but the debate

27 “Butter and Recruits”, EE, 4 May 1918, 2; “Profiteering”, EE, 31 May 1918, 2; “Meat Profiteering”, EE, 3 June 1918, 2. 28 “England’s Folly”, EE, 1 April 1918, 2. 29 “Permanent Price Fixing”, EE, 22 February 1918, 2. 30 This was moved as an amendment to another delegates motion to simply call a National Convention to consider greater Commonwealth powers. ALP, Report of the Seventh Commonwealth Conference, 18. 31 Ibid., 18-9.

178 demonstrated that there was support amongst many delegates for the expansion of Commonwealth jurisdiction, and the Labor Democratic project for transformation.32

The Women’s Counterpublic.

Unlike the Second World War women did not displace male workers in key industries between 1914 and 1918. There was, however, a greater presence of women in the workforce, and some consolidation of industrial organisation in these areas. A 1917 THC survey of union membership provides a snapshot of women‘s involvement in the industrial movement, with 5880 women enrolled out of a total membership of 46940 in the state.33 By 1918 women activists were frequently represented at labour forums, but always in the minority. Many debates would take place at the THC, or at party conferences, without any women speaking. Women were participants – for example, Lewis, who frequently contributed to debates at the THC and party conferences – but this was the exception to the rule.

One particular motion at Labor’s 1918 conference is indicative of its gendered worldview. The Grocers’ Union moved in support of ‘Equal pay for the sexes.’34 One delegate responded that this was a ‘fallacious idea,’ for while the movement ‘did not want women to be exploited’ the phrasing as it existed could lead to male wages being brought ‘down to the wages of women.’ To prevent this an amendment altered the motion to read ‘Equal pay for the sexes, based on the wages of an adult male.’35 Equal pay was accepted, but the priority was clearly the protection of the male standard.

Labor women maintained their efforts to organise within the movement after their successful contribution to the fights against conscription. Leading activists often called upon the reputation of women as Labor’s main canvassers and participants in electoral battles to demonstrate the necessity for their organisation and support for their activities.36 The institutional embodiment of this counterpublic was the Women’s Central Organising Committee (WCOC), formed in 1917 following the resolution of conference, formalised by state conference in 1918. This body organised parallel to the party branches, and was subject to the authority of the Executive, and conference. It could not make policy for the party, though it could recommend it to conference delegates.37 Daley was one of its leading figures, elected unopposed as president and overseeing its regular column in the Labor Call. The committee met regularly in conference, conducted political reading groups, marshalled

32 Ibid. 33 THC Minutes, 22 February 1917, 1978.0082.00010, p.257, UMA. 34 “Victorian Labor Conference”, LC, 16 May 1918, 5. 35 Ibid. 36 “Women’s Organising Committees”, LC, 23 May 1918, 9; “We Women”, LC, 30 May 1918, 9. 37 “We Women”, LC, 16 May 1918, 9.

179 women activists to canvass during election time. Continuing the well-worn pattern, women undertook the bulk of the ‘social’ work of the movement.38

But they made sure that the social was political, instilling political meaning into ostensibly social events, such as the regular fundraising bazaars. At one such event in 1919, Daley used her position as WCOC president to give a rousing speech advocating an internationalist outlook from Labor.39 She took the platform to argue that the best way to ‘adequately and effectively assist the Labor Movement in every country the width of the world’ was to perfect industrial organisation domestically. She called on all present to ‘stand solidly behind their Parliamentary representatives,’ and urged them ‘to carry on the work of reconstruction in Australia.’40

Daley’s passion contrasted with the following speech by Frank Tudor who intoned that he was ‘not optimistic’ about Labor’s prospects at the next poll, ‘as the people seemed to be doped by the present Government.’ Two further speakers followed this dispiriting effort. The first was party secretary Arch Stewart who lauded women campaigners for their electoral canvassing. The second was THC president Russell who used the opportunity to speak in favour of the OBU.41 Though ostensibly ‘social,’ this was therefore an important political event where influential figures took to the stump to argue a political perspective to the movement. Daley’s presence on the speaker’s roster was mediated through the social expectation of her role as WCOC’s president. But her ability to command the platform amongst these male leaders indicates her capacity to seize the moment and assert herself politically. This is not to suggest parity within the movement, or to diminish the gendered nature of its allocation of responsibilities that were clearly on show. Rather, it is to suggest that Labor women were not shy in seizing opportunities to intervene in political debates, and were constantly asserting their right to be heard, and to legitimise their place as agents of the labour movement.

Similar dynamics were at play in the Labor Call’s regular “We Women” column, running from 1918 under Daley’s stewardship. This column was dedicated to expressing women’s perspectives, and covering ‘women’s issues’. Much of its content could be considered to belong to the private realm: poetry for artistic expression, recipes, and motherhood guides. The column also served an overtly political purpose, allowing a space for Labor women to discuss key issues of the day, as well as functioning as an organising tool linking together disparate individuals.

38 For example: “We Women”, LC, 23 May 1918, 9; “We Women”, LC, 30 May 1918, 9; “We Women”, LC, 29 August 1918, 9; “We Women”, LC, 26 September 1918, 9; “We Women”, LC, 28 November 1918, 9; “Women’s Organising Committee”, LC, 5 June 1919, 10; “We Women”, LC, 10 July 1919, 9. 39 JD, “Women’s News”, LC, 20 February 1919, 4. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid.

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One edition of the column, from 30 May 1918, was indicative.42 It contained a report from the executive on the organisation of the upcoming fair. Muriel Heagney provided an extensive review of an American text, The Trade Union Woman, which she used to argue for women workers to organise in Australia. This was followed by an instructional piece by Daley on how best Labor women could organise in their constituencies to secure ‘an educated and class-conscious vote at election time.’43 The column sought to mobilise women in the WCOC’s campaigns. In July 1919 it advised readers of the progress of an equal pay bill in the Victorian parliament, encouraging them to contact ‘non-Labor members, and learn their position.’ It assured them that the ‘Labor men can be let alone. They will look after themselves.’44

Some Labor women doubted this was the case. When it came to the crucial questions of women’s political engagement, Labor men could not always be ‘let alone.’ In 1919 Labor women continued to push their industrial and political demands within the movement, pressing for the appointment of women organisers. Muriel Heagney showed the reservations held by some on the ability of Labor men to be ‘let alone,’ insisting that the organisers should be women, as men ‘failed to organise women, either politically or industrially.’45

These moves were accepted. The Central Executive appointed Mary Rogers from the Office Cleaners Union as the first women’s organiser to the disappointment of the other candidates, Daley and Heagney.46 Rogers was a less radical candidate, who in 1917 had opposed the establishment of a Women’s Committee, which was possibly why she was favoured over the two socialists.47 She was no less distinguished for this, however, serving as secretary of her party branch in North Richmond, president of her union, and from 1920 becoming Victoria’s first woman councillor, and Australia’s second. Though not as well remembered by history, Rogers was a tireless advocate for the Labor cause, and a staunch supporter of Equal Pay.48

Labor women had come a long way in establishing themselves as active and integral participants in the labour movement. They had succeeded in forming their own organisation, won Labor to a series of motions supporting their demands, developed a tradition of industrial and political activism, and gained at least a measure of organisational

42 “We Women”, LC, 30 May 1918, 9. 43 Ibid. 44 “We Women”, LC, 10 July 1919, 9 45 “Annual Conference Report”, LC, 8 May 1919, 5. A previous attempt had been made by Lewis in 1917, and inaction by the THC fuelled Heagney’s desire for women to be allocated the organisational responsibility: THC Minutes, 8 February 1917, 1978.0082.00010, p.254, UMA. 46 “We Women”, LC, 4 September 1919, 5. 47 “Political Labor Council of Victoria”, LC, 23 August 1917, 2. 48 Chris Cunneen and Kim Torney, “Rogers, Mary Catherine,” Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 18 May 2016. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/rogers-mary-catherine-13173.

181 support from the broader movement. Some women had become prominent leaders in the broader proletarian sphere, participating in its deliberations in the THC, party conferences, and interstate bodies. Daley would also serve on the state party’s executive. These activists utilised these positions and this experience within the movement as a springboard for sustained agitation in the years to come. Perhaps the most famous of these would be Muriel Heagney’s long campaign for Equal Pay.49 Through asserting their presence, and shaping Labor’s demands, these activist-intellectuals had carved out a space for their organising within the movement, and recrafted the political culture of the party.

Scheming for the future: the One Big Union in Victoria

By 1918 the socialist counterpublic had established itself as a grouping of significant power within Victoria, and nationally. But success brought its own problems. Radical activists debated the possibility of socialist transformation not in the distant future, but in the present. The Russian Revolution crystallised these debates, providing some with an example of the change that could be achieved through extra-parliamentary action amidst a climate of mobilisation and industrial disputation.50

The One Big Union scheme was debated in this context. The OBU was conceived as a means to unite labour in one industrial organisation to co-ordinate working-class action, not just to fight the capitalists but to overthrow them. Radicals in NSW were divided between variants of this scheme, and were further hindered by the AWU, obstinately opposed to a plan that would erode its own power.51 This was not the case in Victoria. The greatest opposition to the OBU came from within the ranks of the socialist counterpublic, as the debate that tore the VSP apart a decade before was played out again – this time with far higher stakes.

Victorian support for the OBU can only be understood in the context of the long-standing commitment to industrial unionism amongst its radicals. As has been seen, Mann himself came to support this creed at the end of his time in Australia, becoming Britain’s leading syndicalist leader on his return.52 Core leaders of the counterpublic, such as Hyett and Holloway, shared Mann’s attitude that the union movement should put aside craft and industrial differences to form new organisations and utilise the industrial power of the working class, alongside political action. This political action was to be conducted through the ALP, a body they still believed could be captured for socialism.

49 Bremner, “Heagney, Muriel Agnes”. 50 Frank Anstey published a study on Russia’s influence in Europe after returning from travels in Britain and the continent: Red Europe (Melbourne: Fraser & Jenkins, 1919); Stuart Macintyre, The Reds, (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1998), 15; Turner estimates this militancy not peaking until 1919-1920, the ‘year of strikes.’ In 1919, ‘6.3 million man-days were lost in industrial disputes.’ Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 194. 51 Childe, How Labour Governs, 169; Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 185, 188. 52 White, Tom Mann, 151-2.

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In the pre-war period these leaders had a dual strategy of agitating for socialism while also forging new industrial unions organised largely around the principle of one union per industry.53 Lecturing in 1913 Curtin outlined these principles.54 He argued, firstly, that labour’s divisions diminished its industrial position. The remedy was the conglomeration of industrial organisation so there would be ‘less unions and more unionists.’ These unions would defend workers’ conditions, but would also be ‘economic organisation[s] to fight capitalism.’55 As has been seen, Curtin’s commitment to Labor, albeit with a more radical programme, was not diminished by this perspective. This industrial unionism was distinct from the project of the IWW. These unionists sought to conglomerate the existing bodies, not replace them with a new organisation. Many Victorian radicals were overtly hostile to the IWW’s methods. May Francis, for instance, condemned Victorian Wobblies for not taking union tickets, or paying union dues.56 The legacy of the VSP’s decline weighed heavily on the counterpublic’s leadership. Though critical of labour’s institutions, they were determined to transform them, rather than to replace them.

This leadership underwent significant change. Curtin left Victoria in 1917. Hyett’s influence and leadership was lost to the movement in 1919 after his tragic death in the influenza epidemic. In their absence the most notable socialist leader was EJ Holloway, who, by 1918, had served as president of the THC and Victorian Labor, and had been named the first president of Labor’s National Executive.57 Edward Holloway was known as ‘Jack’ in the movement, a name the bootmaker had gained from an early employer uninterested in learning his name.58 Holloway staunchly believed in political as well as industrial methods to achieve socialism. His resignation from the VSP was spurred by the increasingly hostile attitude towards Labor amongst the hard left.59 He was sceptical of those who called for industrial action as the first and only response for every grievance. Holloway believed in using strike methods only from a position of strength, such as closer unionism would provide.60 He sought to direct the movement towards a restructuring of labour’s institutions, rather than their overthrow in favour of hastily constructed edifices. Other socialist leaders already encountered played a prominent role in the counterpublic alongside Holloway, including: Daley, Lewis, Russell, Brandt, Grant, Katz, and McGowan. Together, they translated the radical temperament into specific policies to guide the movement in a socialist direction. The most prominent and influential amongst them, however, was Jack Holloway.

53 Day, John Curtin, 143, 161. 54 “Closer Organisation”, TW, 16 November 1913, 2. 55 Ibid. 56 May Francis (Brodney), “Draft of Beginning of Autobiography”, MS 10882, Folder 23 (i), p.15, Brodney Papers, SLV. 57 Holloway, From Labor Council to Privy Council, 23-4. 58 Ibid., 3-5. 59 Turner, “Socialist Political Tactics”, 15. 60 Holloway, From Labor Council to Privy Council, 18.

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The political counterweight to Holloway in the socialist counterpublic was Ben Mulvogue, of the Builders’ Labourers. Mulvogue had long been an advocate for closer unionism on the THC. But his belief was that an OBU should replace political efforts. His earliest moves in this direction came in June 1915, when Mulvogue invited the AWU-controlled Ballarat TLC to a meeting of Victorian union councils to discuss the OBU. The precise details of these overtures and their immediate response are unclear, as references to these developments are scattered and incomplete, but his resilient advocacy for the scheme can be identified.61

Mulvogue renewed these overtures in the middle of 1918. He received some support from the Ballarat TLC, which looked positively on a scheme that gave preference to ‘industrial departments’ over existing craft union forms.62 Mulvogue would discover that support for closer unionism abounded in Victoria, but that little agreement existed on what form it should take.63 The main division was between preference for a single organisation or for a federation of multiple bodies (this latter position supported by craft unions). A pamphlet on the issue was prepared, with an introduction by Mulvogue, in which each side put its position.64 Frank Hyett wrote in favour of the Victorian Labor Union, a scheme close to the OBU, but based upon amalgamation, while Henry Watson of the Painters and Decorators union wrote from the craft unionist’s perspective to outline a less concentrated Victorian Labor Federation proposal.65

A conference was convened to determine the Victorian movement’s position. Kean wrote to Mulvogue assuring him that ‘we of the One Big Union idea’ would prevail over the ‘Watson Federationists’ if their arguments were relayed in a clear and logical manner.66 Subsequent actions by the AWU cast doubt over this assurance of support.67 But at this stage it would seem the AWU was amenable to discussion of the OBU, partially as the exact nature of the scheme had not yet been defined. The conference met in September 1918, with 188 delegates representing 71 unions, as well as the Ballarat and Geelong Trades Halls.68 After much debate conducted ‘in good spirit’ the conference determined to accept a motion moved by Mulvogue to adopt the OBU model proposed by its advocates in NSW.69 That is, after all the effort of schematising the possible VLF and VLU, both were discarded for an embrace of the NSW model.70

61 TLC Meeting, 22 April 1915, pp.167-8; 1 July 1915, pp.181-2; 23 September 1915; E97/1/8, NBA. 62 TLC Meeting, 22 August 1918, E97/1/8, p.81, NBA. 63 Proposed Schemes for Closer Unionism in Victoria, TLC Correspondence, E97/9A, p.1, NBA. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Letter from Kean to Mulvogue, 5 March 1919. TLC Correspondence, E97/9, NBA. 67 Childe, How Labour Governs, 169-182. 68 “Closer Organisation”, LC, 3 October 1918, 4. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid.

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Fissures immediately opened between Victoria and NSW. This was due, in part, to the indistinct nature of the plans. The full implications of this scheme were not evident amidst the flurry of enthusiasm for closer unionism. But the personal would play a critical role in the political. was a forceful advocate for the OBU, representing the NSW proposal at the Victorian conference. Garden was the leader of the NSW ‘Trades Hall Reds,’ described by Macintyre as an ‘unlikely revolutionary … a born fixer and utterly shameless in his opportunism.’71

Seeds of distrust between the state movements were sown by Garden when he claimed that in NSW forty-nine unions had discussed aligning with the OBU, and forty-six resolved to do so.72 The vice-president of the THC, Joyce, visited Sydney after the conference and reported that this figure was ‘absolutely wrong’ and in fact, ‘instead of all the unions excepting two having accepted the scheme they found that only two out of the whole lot had agreed.’73 At a second meeting of the THC Joyce confirmed that Garden had lied to the convention.74 Despite the discrepancy in numbers – two or three – in the claim, clearly Garden was considered to have deliberately deceived them.

Garden discovered that Victoria’s powerbrokers had no intention of being conned by some upstart from New South Wales. The immediate repercussions were borne by Mulvogue, who was asked to justify these false claims. Mulvogue did his best to distance himself from Garden – a difficult task; his support for the NSW scheme bound him in the eyes of the THC to the Trades Hall Red. He had no intention, he informed the Council, of defending the NSW man: if ‘Mr. Garden had told any lies he was not responsible for them.’75

Mulvogue’s credibility suffered significantly due to Garden’s machinations, and so had the OBU scheme. Ardour for the OBU cooled in Victoria. Despite the decision of the conference, union powerbrokers gradually concluded that the NSW model was not the course to follow. This was compounded by attempts in NSW to establish political rivals to the ALP, including the formation of an ‘Industrial Labor Party’ by disaffected radicals, some with an IWW connection, and initial steps towards the creation of a Communist Party, driven by Garden and others hostile to Labor.76 This anti-Laborism was an anathema to the majority of the socialist counterpublic. But Mulvogue and some supporters continued to deviate from this commitment, embracing schemes to replace labour’s institutions with new, purer, more radical ones.

71 Macintyre, The Reds, 16-7. 72 “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 21 November 1918, 10. 73 THC Minutes, 31 October 1918, 1978.0082.00010, p.372, UMA. 74 THC Minutes, 21 November 1918, 1978.0082.00010, p.376, UMA. 75 Ibid. 76 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 204-5; Macintyre, The Reds, 12-16; Paul Adams, “The Annihilation of the ILP: The Third Industrial Labor Party and the Sturt Vacancy,” Labour History, no. 105 (2013): 79-92.

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The industrial and the political approach

Victorian Labor’s 1919 conference was a major battleground between these radical approaches. Scullin’s presidential address indicated the heightened temperament. He spoke of the ‘Profiteers rioting amongst huge profits,’ the ‘rapacious shipowners,’ and the ‘Land monopolists,’ all benefiting from the exploitation of the working class.77 This diagnosis of social ills was uncontroversial at such a gathering. The looming question was what strategy should be pursued as a remedy. Scullin had an answer, exclaiming that ‘Revolutionary change was inevitable.’ Capitalism had cursed itself through its unceasing scramble for profits. He drew on the authority of Marx, who ‘had said: “Capitalism is industriously digging its own grave.”’78 Scullin’s rhetoric would have encouraged the assembled radicals. But his invocation of revolution did not yet have the content it would in latter years, when it would be synonymous with the Bolshevik insurrectionary model. His definition was broader than this, and he cautioned that it ‘was stupid to even think of bullets where the ballot rightly understood was all-powerful.’79

The Bolshevik model of revolution did not appeal to Victorian socialists. The first motion voted on at the conference called for an end to Allied intervention in Russia, and support for the revolutionaries’ ultimate aims, but not their methods. Socialist delegates argued that Australia had democratic mechanisms to affect far-reaching change, and clearly indicated that their project of transformation would be pursued through these channels.80

The seeming unanimity behind such declarations swiftly gave way to division. Mulvogue was in a particularly belligerent mood. In a fiery intervention he attacked the delegates to the 1918 federal conference, accusing them of having ‘ratted’ on the last state conference’s decision to vote for the abolition of compulsory service; including both Scullin and Holloway.81 Though he backtracked on this insult in the face of the conference’s condemnation, he continued to command centre stage during the conference’s dominant debate.

On behalf of his union Mulvogue proposed a far-reaching objective to override the existing one, completely re-writing its platform, aims, membership rules, and pledge.82 The motivation behind it was clear, with the Labor Call describing it simply as the ‘One Big Union’ objective.83 It was split into six sections, each building the overall argument that the class war ‘must continue until capitalism is abolished.’84 This abolition could only be

77 “The Presidential Address”, LC, 24 April 1919, 6. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid. 80 “Annual Conference Report”, LC, 8 May 1919, 4-5. 81 “Annual Conference Report”, LC, 22 May 1919, 2. 82 “Annual Conference Report”, LC, 29 May 1919, 4-5. 83 B Mulvogue, “One Big Union”, LC, 20 March 1919, 8. 84 “Annual Conference Report”, LC, 29 May 1919, 4.

186 realised by ‘workers uniting in one class-conscious economic organisation to take and hold the means of production by revolutionary industrial and political action.’ In this treatise, the ultimate objective was the overthrow of private ownership ‘of the means of production’ in favour of ‘social ownership by the whole community.’85

This radical aim could be broadly agreed upon by the socialist counterpublic. What stoked the ire of many socialist activists was its dismissal of the ‘existing political and industrial methods, which aim at mending and rendering tolerable, and thereby perpetuating Capitalism, instead of ending it.’86 This statement was intended to provoke. Its repudiation of political methods was joined with a proposal in favour of the One Big Union, though it deliberately did not term it as such. Mulvogue’s proposal was to subordinate Labor to the OBU, just at the time this scheme had largely lost favour amongst Victorian industrialists. Mulvogue made this clear in his arguments at the conference, but also in a piece in the Labor Call published just before the meeting of the movement

In this article he argued that his objective would educate the class, and ‘express the evolution of the Labor movement to a further stage.’ This was necessary to ‘achieve social reconstruction.’ In a resuscitation of the debate that had plagued the VSP during its bitter civil war, Mulvogue critiqued the strategy of the movement, and argued that ‘the Labor Party has concentrated its energy mainly upon the Parliamentary sphere,’ achieving little, ‘except comparatively futile and elusive palliatives.’ While he did not argue that political action was completely unnecessary – a difficult point to make in a party forum – he clearly subordinated it to industrial organisation, writing:

While the Parliamentary arena cannot be neglected, industrial organisation is more important, and must be directly pursued to the end that the workers may precipitate and prepare for actual industrial control.87

LF Burnie, who identified himself as an OBU supporter, rejected this argument. Demonstrating the commitment amongst Victorian socialists to political action he proceeded to criticise the objective for reducing Labor to ‘nothing but the shadow of the O.B.U.’88 This was an anathema to socialists such as Holloway, who had dedicated their lives to the labour movement, and believed that Labor could be captured for socialism. The leadership of the delimited sphere, for obvious reasons, were unwilling to accept that their major mechanism for political reform should be subordinated to an unwieldy and uncontrollable form of union organisation.

Some did support Mulvogue’s proposal, most notably Daley and Russell. But the conference report suggests their interventions in its favour were relatively brief, and encountered substantial opposition. The AWU’s Barnes moved a motion that would attenuate the

85 Ibid. 86 Ibid. 87 Mulvogue, “One Big Union”, LC, 20 March 1919, 8. 88 LF Burnie, “One Big Union”, LC, 27 March 1919, 6.

187 proposal, declaring Labor’s objective as ‘the securing to each person all that he earns’ through ‘industrial, political and every kind of educative action.’89 Holloway was particularly dismissive of Mulvogue’s designs, which he considered ‘obsolete’ like many others ‘trotted out’ of a similar nature in previous years. In its place he moved a motion with familiar phrasing, calling for the ‘securing of the full results of their industry to all producers by the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange.’ This was to be realised through the ‘Democratic State’ via an ‘extension of the functions of the State and Municipality.’

Another proposal swiftly followed, a form of compromise that sought to accommodate the radical sentiment of Mulvogue’s measure with the political substance of Holloway’s motion. This was moved by Maurice Blackburn, the radical lawyer and former member of the VSP. His independence and tendency to speechify make Blackburn difficult to place within the power relations of the movement. But in 1919 he won the day, winning support for his motion that the objective of the party should be the ‘peaceful overthrow of the capitalistic system’ and the ‘collective ownership of the collectively used means of production, distribution, and exchange.’90 The conference resolved to take Blackburn’s version to the next federal conference as the recommended party objective. On a motion seconded by Holloway it was agreed that should it win favour there, it would stand as the objective of the Victorian party as well.91

Mulvogue had been routed, and all that remained was to install the new party officials. Blackburn was elected unopposed to follow Scullin as president. Holloway, Russell, and Daley were all elected to the executive, but their influence was balanced by the AWU’s Scullin, McKissock, and McNeill. The AWU continued to have great sway over the party machinery, with Stewart again elected as secretary, and both vice-presidents being from the AWU: Barnes and Kean. Setting a pattern for the union’s influence that would have great implications in the years to follow, the AWU would make up half the delegation to the next national conference: Scullin, Stewart, and Barnes.92

The Victorian conference resolved that its delegates would be bound to speak as well as vote against compulsory service at the next federal meeting. As a result, Scullin and Blackburn both refused to attend. The Victorian delegation, therefore, had a noticeably left-wing complexion, though Stewart, McNamara, and Barnes did represent the AWU. Alongside them were Holloway, Daley, and Carey.

These Victorians ensured the party’s objective was prominent at the federal meeting. Dissatisfaction with the 1905 objective was shared by South Australian delegates, who also

89 “Annual Conference Report”, LC, 29 May 1919, 4. 90 “Annual Conference Report”, LC, 29 May 1919, 4. 91 Ibid., 5. 92 Ibid., 8.

188 moved for collective ownership to be the aim of the party.93 One of the main objections to these proposals came from the NSW Senator Gardiner, who took issue with the erasure of Labor’s commitment to cultivating an Australian sentiment, which twinned with a commitment to racial purity had underpinned Labor’s objective since 1905.94 The perceived threat of socialism to White Australia would be a common theme in opposition to the radical objective at these meetings of Labor.

Before the Victorian objective committing the party to a ‘peaceful overthrow of the capitalistic system’ was moved, Senator Barnes, from the Victorian AWU, put a procedural motion for the appointment of a committee to consider it.95 This was a well-worn tactic to remove the issue from the conference floor, and confine deliberation to a smaller delegation. The move was defeated, but the manoeuvre would be used again, and to greater effect, in meetings to come. Following the expression of support for the objective from Victorian delegates Barnes took to the floor once again, to also express his preference for the motion.

His methods are significant, demonstrating the approach of the leadership of the delimited sphere. Barnes did not want to isolate himself from the radical sentiment behind the objective. He did want to contain these antagonistic energies within the bounds of the Labor Democratic project. This required acts of interpretation: acceptance of the words of the objective alongside an argument that redefined its meaning. While supporting the motion Barnes explained that he was not ‘particularly strong on Objectives,’ but thought of those on offer it was ‘the best.’ He then proceeded to seek to downplay the meaning and significance of a pledge to overthrow capitalism, arguing that what was really important was the ‘legislative programme’ to be put to the people; after all, Objectives ‘did not cut much ice at election times.’96

This was an act of interpretation in which the objective was accepted, but the real business of the movement defined as the immediate platform of practical demands upon which Labor could fight the election, and deliver for its electorate once in government. This was the fighting platform, upon which the main planks of the Labor Democratic project was placed. As with the debates over socialisation in the Victorian party following 1905, he had outlined an effective break between the immediate, to be dealt with by conference, and the future, which would take care of itself.

Holloway’s vision was different. Following objections to the Victorian proposal, he absented himself from the chair he occupied as Labor’s national president and weighed into the debate. He argued that the objective was an immediate proposition, stating that the ‘Nationalists might be prepared to have something transcending Labor’s programme’ prepared for the next election, so it ‘was incumbent on Labor to keep moving advancingly

93 ALP, Report of the Eighth Commonwealth Conference, 26. 94 Ibid., 27. 95 Ibid., 28. 96 Ibid., 29.

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(sic) or get out of business.’ It was, he argued, as ‘Mr. Ben Jones had said: “Labor must have a soul.”’ Labor’s project must be, he argued, ‘for the democratic control of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.’97

A second move to committee was introduced, this time successfully.98 A good deal of business was conducted over the following few days while the committee’s report was prepared, including support for further expansion of commonwealth powers, and a Motherhood endowment.99 When the committee returned its report three points were emphasised: the cultivation of an Australian sentiment, the ‘democratic control of all agencies of production, distribution, and exchange,’ and fraternity with all countries as a means to prevent war.100 The Victorians had exerted great influence on the national movement, successfully shifting its well-entrenched objective to the left. This had been moderated to a degree by Labor Democrats. The socialists were not content with this result.

But first they had to resolve the issue of the OBU, and the relationship with Labor. The anti- political perspective amongst some in the counterpublic was raised again in August when Brandt moved a motion at the THC to support ‘the One Big Union as the best means of dealing with organisation and industrial strife.’101 Brandt, representing the Pastry Cooks’, was a former VSP member.102 This was one of his less notable organisational efforts, and his motion was immediately ruled out of order for want of a seconder. The chair’s ruling was challenged, and delegate Brown of the Clerks union nominated to second. But it was to no avail. In the chair was THC vice president, J Chandler of the Engine Drivers, a moderate union, and his ruling was upheld.

Of itself, this somewhat farcical attempt to affirm support for the OBU indicates little beyond the THC’s low tolerance for disorganisation. At the same meeting, however, McLaughlin of the Hospital Attendants moved with a seconder:103 ‘That this Council endorses the proposition of One Industry one Union.’ It was determined to adjourn discussion to a later date, but it is an indication of the politics on Council that while the OBU motion could not even be discussed, the language of single industry unionism had re- emerged. This was not a semantic issue, but an alternate model for closer unionism directly counterpoised in this context to the OBU.

That this was the case was made even clearer at the next council meeting on 28 August. There, it was revealed that the main division on the question was not between socialists and

97 Ibid., 30. 98 Ibid., 31. 99 Ibid., 65. 100 Ibid., 68. 101 THC Minutes, 21 August 1919, 1978.0082.00010, p.425, UMA. 102 Hewitt, “A History of the Victorian Socialist Party”, 193. 103 Identified as only ‘Carroll’ in the minutes, it is not precisely which Carroll this was, as multiple people with that name had served as THC delegates for various unions in this period.

190 the Labor Democrats, but within the counterpublic itself.104 Debate on McLaughlin’s motion reopened, and the former THC President Russell, with support from Holloway, moved an amendment instructing the executive to convene a conference of the craft unions to seek their incorporation into industry-wide unions. This was an attempt to integrate these unions into a single-industry union model – not the OBU.

Holloway’s justification for this measure, reported in the Labor Call, made clear that this was a conscious repudiation of the OBU. Lambasting craft unionism, which no ‘sane man’ could believe in, Holloway went on to argue that industrial organisation was ‘controlled by the universal law of evolution, and an attempt to jump stages meant foredooming’ closer unionism to fail.105 They must, he explained, advance one step at a time. The next stage of development was the incorporation of craft unions into industrial organisations. The OBU movement was ‘purely academic,’ and he regretted to say that ‘no real advance had been made.’ That this was, in fact, a not-so regretful repudiation of the OBU project was not lost on Mulvogue who responded in the defence of the OBU, which would provide for ‘controlling industry as well as fighting the employer whilst he was in charge.’ He argued that Russell and Holloway’s motion was merely a ‘palliative to the workers for a continuance of the wages system.’106After discussion the debate was adjourned until the meeting on 11 September.

At that meeting, Holloway won the day.107 A crucial development came in the form of an intervention from another Holloway: TP Holloway from the AWU. TP supported EJ’s position, endorsing the argument that the movement should seek to realise what was immediately achievable. He generously offered the AWU as an example of single-industry unionism, and one that was willing to support others if Holloway’s scheme were endorsed. It was.108 Mulvogue, Russell, and a minority of left-wing delegates voted for New South Wales’ OBU. But notably other powerful counterpublic figures did not. Brandt, for instance, who had unsuccessfully moved the motion endorsing the OBU weeks before, voted alongside EJ Holloway to defeat Mulvogue, with the ultimate tally being 65 votes to 44.109 Support for the OBU had been effectively stymied. Efforts for closer unionism would continue, but from this point on the OBU project was effectively dead in Victoria.

In March of 1920 Mulvogue would again try to resuscitate the proposal, by winning the THC to organising ‘the whole of wage workers into one great class conscious, economic organisation to take and hold the control of industry by revolutionary political action.’ Though he did not use direct reference to the OBU, delegates were not fooled, and this

104 THC Minutes, 28 August 1919, 1978.0082.00010, p.427, UMA. 105 “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 4 September 1919, 3. 106 Ibid. 107 THC Minutes, 11 September 1919, 1978.0082.00010, pp.429-430, UMA. 108 “Trades Hall Council”, LC, 18 September 1919, 5. 109 THC Minutes, 11 September 1919, 1978.0082.00010, p.430, UMA.

191 motion was immediately lost.110 In place of Mulvogue’s motion the Council determined in favour of an objective put forward by Holloway at a previous meeting.111

The substantive part of this motion read:

That the future objective of the Aust. Trade Union Movement shall be the collective Ownership and Democratic Control of Industry. The immediate policy to be a constructive programme of joint control representative of the Government the community and the people who perform the work in carrying on the various industries.112

With this motion, Holloway had won the THC to an objective that conceived of a role for both the industrial and political organisations of labour. It was the longstanding objective of the socialist counterpublic, and within a year this sentiment would inform the objective of both the national trade union movement and the Australian Labor Party.

The AATUC Debates Socialisation

In June 1921, EJ Holloway welcomed delegates from across the country to an All-Australian Trade Union Conference. The assembly followed the precedent of the 1916 AATUC, drawing unions from across the country together as a site of movement power. He explained the meeting’s purpose: ‘there had been lightning changes all over the world, and the programme of the Australian Labor Party was considered by some members as growing obsolete.’113 The task facing the delegates, he explained, was to bring the party’s programme in ‘line with modern thought,’ and to reflect the ‘mental revolution’ that had taken place within the international workers’ movement, specifically referencing radical efforts for social transformation in Europe.114

This conference was the second of two major episodes in this year through which the party’s political culture was transformed, and its ideological boundaries determined. Holloway later recalled the process through which the conference was convened, stating that in 1921 ‘the swing to the left was so noticeable that I proposed to the Federal Secretary of the Party,’ Arch Stewart, that a conference should be held ‘of all shades of opinion in the Industrial wing’ to cohere party policy.115 It is a significant demonstration of national dynamics that,

110 THC Minutes, 25 March 1920, 1978.0082.00010, p.470, UMA. 111 Referred to in the minutes as being 5 February, when it was actually put forward on 29 January. 112 THC Minutes, 29 January 1920, 1978.0082.00010, p.454, UMA. 113 Official Report of the All-Australian Trades Union Conference (AATUC) (Melbourne: Labor Call Print, 1921), 3. 114 Ibid. 115 Holloway, From Labor Council to Privy Council, 56.

192 post-1916, the unions’ perspective on the party’s objectives were sought, and that this was initiated by two Victorian powerbrokers.116

Holloway was true to his word, and a broad spectrum of labour opinion was represented at the Melbourne Trades Hall. This included the Victorian counterpublic, the driving force pushing the socialist objective. The leadership of the delimited sphere was also present. AWU leaders such as Scullin played a prominent role in the debates, drawing on the authority and structural power of the union. In attendance were the NSW radicals who continued to pursue the OBU project, and the associated Industrial Labor Party (ILP), a small breakaway from the ALP that briefly inflamed tensions in the movement before being extinguished due to lack of enthusiasm.117 These delegates overlapped with the two nascent Communist Groups, the more powerful of which was led by Jock Garden.118

Macintyre discussed the underwhelming start of the Bolshevik movement down under, and the inability of various socialist factions to unite in a single cohesive body. Garden was a particularly corrosive element in attempts to forge cohesion, largely due to his lifelong habit of intrigue.119 Victorian personalities were involved in the initial stages of Communist formation. Adela Pankhurst, now Pankhurst-Walsh, and May Francis, now May Brodney, were involved in the party’s founding. But Pankhurst did so from outside of the southern movement – having moved permanently to NSW with her husband Tom Walsh of the Seamen’s Union.

Attempts to organise a communist insurgency within the Victorian movement were unsuccessful. The VSP majority managed to stave off such attempts at a takeover, before gradually crumbling internally. By 1923 its rather desperate pleas for assistance betrayed a terminal condition.120 Communism’s lack of success was a result of the dominance of the socialist counterpublic in Victoria, dedicated to winning Labor to their project of transformation. The AATUC was their opportunity to do so.

The conference was dominated by two contests, one implicit; the other less so. The overt ideological battle was conducted over a familiar theme: should labour pursue a parliamentary strategy? The communists and the ILP launched an assault on the ALP, and the movement’s political approach. Turner considered this the primary antagonism at the conference: the ‘heart of the matter.’121 Eye-catching as these denunciations were, it was not the main affair at the AATUC. The arithmetic of power meant that the factions favouring parliamentary action were always dominant. Beneath the sound and fury of the communist- inflected critiques, the anti-Laborites were always working against the numbers.

116 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 218. 117 Adams, “The Annihilation of the ILP”, 79-92. 118 Holding twenty-five votes. Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 219. 119 Macintyre, The Reds, 16-7. 120 “Back to Socialism,” Robert Ross Papers, 1923, MS3222, Folder 3, Item 8, NLA. 121 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 221.

193

The more substantive contest occurred on a subliminal level, between supporters of political labour, in ostensible agreement over socialisation. Through a process of interpretation over the objective and its implications, the Labor Democrats and the counterpublic both sought to stamp the proposal with their intellectual imprint. Labor Socialists believed the party could be transformed into a vehicle for socialist change. Holloway summed up this belief, writing to enthuse comrades in the lead up to the conference that: ‘THE LABOR PARTY AND ITS PROGRAMME AND OBJECTIVE IS LIKE A HUGE PIECE OF WAX — WE CAN MOULD IT INTO ANY SHAPE OR FORM WE LIKE.’122 This is precisely what the subaltern counterpublic sought to do.

This contrasts strongly with Turner’s depiction. As Turner had little faith that Labor could be captured for socialism, and endorsed the attempts to form a communist alternative, he dismissed the ‘A.L.P Left’. He did not examine the politics of this section, merely stating they were ‘sympathetic to guild socialism’ and wanted to ‘graft on to the party a socialist policy.’123 Elsewhere, he critiqued the VSP as representing the ‘parliamentary illusion of the “centre” socialists.’124 The AWU were associated with the Labor politicians as seeking to use the socialist objective to retain union support. Again in Turner’s argument, the union played a subsidiary role to the MPs. The AWU’s leaders had, he argued, ‘few ideas of their own, [and] played little part in the debate,’ content merely to prevent the far left from ‘getting out of hand.’125 Turner’s account is unsatisfying as he denies the creative agency of both the socialists and Labor Democrats in favour of charting the communist insurgency. This diminished his capacity to understand the progress of the socialist objective, as the product of the counterpublic with genuine faith in its capacity to transform Labor, and the resistance put in place by AWU-led Labor Democrats that did not seek to stamp it out, but to reinterpret it to align with their own project.

The AATUC was a sprawling, chaotic event, with delegates from across the country coming together in the smoky chambers of Trades Hall to debate, and scheme over five days. Even the most experienced proceduralist was challenged by the disorganised and frenetic air. Seeking to impose some order from the chair, Holloway commanded delegates to ‘stand where they sit! (Laughter.) I will ask all delegates concerned to stand where they usually sit. (More laughter.) Well, I will ask delegates concerned to stand where they mean to remain.” (More laughter).’126 But soon enough the conference settled down to serious business.

Holloway’s opening speech indicated the aims of the counterpublic. He explained that the radical ‘feeling of the international movement’ and the establishment of ‘workers’ councils and tribunals of industry’ across the globe had provoked discussion as to how best labour

122 Holloway, “Will Labor Make the Next Move”, LC, 19 May 1921, 1. 123 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 220. 124 Ibid., 206. 125 Ibid., 220. 126 “Notes on Congress”, LC, 23 June 1921, 7.

194 could achieve its aims.127 Speaking of Russian Soviets, German Councils, and other forms of working-class power, Holloway indicated his personal preference for the system of socialised industry devised by the French movement.128

The far-left’s first salvo was launched by Mick Considine, representing the Workers Industrial Union from Broken Hill, and an advocate for the split-away ILP. His political separation from the rest of the movement was demonstrated in unease over one of the core rituals of labour: no one knew how to address him. Some considered ‘Brother’ or ‘Friend.’ Considine himself recommended ‘Citizen.’129 It seems that nobody thought to call him ‘comrade.’

Considine condemned parliamentary government, whether by Labor or its conservative opponents, as ‘the instrument of domination by a capitalist minority.’130 Labour should only embrace parliament, as a ‘temporary weapon’ aimed at exposing its ‘true nature’ and to ‘hamper the operations of capitalists.’131 Just in case any had missed the point, the motion went on to demand the conference declare ‘its entire loss of confidence in Parliamentary or industrial policy and action aiming at reforms in this, the existing economic system,’ and to ‘abandon former reform methods and tactics.’132

Both Labor Democrats and Socialists were affronted by this carefully prepared polemic. Holloway, for one, was not prepared to accept this political deviation from the conference’s purpose and swiftly ruled the motion out of order. This provoked an outraged Garden to dissent from the ruling, using his gift for obfuscation to insist that the motion did not oppose parliamentary methods, but only ‘Parliamentary activity along certain given lines,’ that is, effective ones.133

Debate raged over whether the motion should be heard. Holloway recognised that the foot stomping of the far-left could drag the meeting off track. He was insistent that the discussion must focus on what they had been assembled to consider: socialisation. He would not let the radicals from NSW, who had not even submitted an agenda item, hijack proceedings. Holloway refocused the discussion on the socialisation objective. To achieve this ambition, which was the ‘culmination of the teachings of Marx,’ they would have to utilise ‘a scheme of political action.’134 It was this fact that the ‘communist minority’ who were ‘non-political’

127 AATUC, 3. 128 Ibid. 129 “Notes on Congress”, LC, 23 June 1921, 7. 130 AATUC, 4. 131 Ibid. 132 Ibid. 133 Ibid. 134 Ibid., 5.

195 were trying to avoid.135 The conference majority agreed with Holloway, and upheld his ruling against Considine.136

This effectively side-lined the far left, clearing the way for socialisation to be discussed. The honour fell to Edward F Russell, of the Victorian Agricultural Implement Makers, and former VSP member. Russell introduced socialisation through two motions. The first sought the ‘opportunity of discussing the socialisation of industry.’ This initial motion stated that the congress believed ‘that the only way in which the working-class can achieve its emancipation is by the complete overthrow of the capitalistic system.’137 This paved the way for a second, more formal, motion: ‘That the socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange be the objective of the Labor Party.’138

The workers were, Russell argued, ill-informed as to the meaning of the objective and it was necessary to educate them upon its significance. Though he did not express it in such terms, the responsibility for this lay with movement intellectuals. Just as the VSP once encouraged each member to be a ‘thinker for others, a persuader of others’, Russell was urging delegates to educate the working class on the objective and its meaning.139 He argued that the lack of such education explained Labor’s failure to achieve ‘political power.’ He spoke positively of his own recent campaign as the Labor candidate in Echuca, where from the outset he had ‘pointed out that the ultimate object was the overthrow of the present capitalistic system, and the vote that he got was a vote from those who believed in Labor’s emancipation.’140 While, he conceded, it ‘might be true that he didn’t get as large a vote as others had got in the past,’ he considered the campaign a success in its educative capacity for the proletariat in the seat.141

How the Labor Democrats must have shuddered at this bold proclamation, particularly those who personally aspired to parliamentary rank. After initial discussion in which the NSW far-left again attempted to capture the attention of those assembled, the Victorian delegate John Barnes intervened. The AWU man deployed the same tactics used by moderates in the past to contain the radical content of the objective without overtly disagreeing with it: lower the temperature of the debate, imply greater agreement than actually existed, and downplay the significance of the motion. He argued that ‘the proposal before the chair had been on the platform of the Labor Party for years,’ and that far more significant than such an objective was the formulation of ‘something to put before the people on the big question that would inevitably face them in the future.’ Compared to this

135 Ibid. 136 Ibid. 137 Ibid. 138 Ibid. 139 "Training for Socialism", Socialist, 8 December 1906, 4. 140 AATUC, 5. 141 Ibid. He did have some election-winning pedigree, as the former Mayor of Port Melbourne.

196 necessity, to bring concrete proposals before the people in an election campaign, he declared that this ‘thing before the chair does not matter a damn.’142

This pleased neither the counterpublic nor the far left. As the debate developed, Garden shifted gears. He sought to minimise the divisions between himself and the conference majority, stating that all agreed in the ultimate goal of working-class control of industry, and the real disagreement was over ‘how to get there.’143 A series of interjections in his speech demonstrated clearly that not all shared his comradely opinion, with demands raised that he explain precisely what it was he stood for. Garden replied that he could not outline how to overthrow the system in the five minutes allotted. The conference, therefore, politely granted him an extension to ten.144

He was not successful in convincing the delegates that all shared, fundamentally, a common cause. The AWU’s McNeill queried if Garden believed ‘the working-class should arm and bring about a revolution? If he does we will know where we stand; we have asked them to bring about a revolution at the ballot box, but did not get that. (Laughter.).’ McNeill argued that it was not the passing of resolutions that mattered, but immediate and practical proposals to resolve the problems the movement faced. They would achieve change, he argued, not by ‘revolution; but, as in the past, by evolution.’145

The Labor Democrats were building a consistent line of argument, obviously rebuking Garden and his allies. But their purpose was greater than this. They were actively interpreting the socialist motion, defining and constructing the meaning of the pledge.146 This interpretation broadly supported socialisation as a goal for the distant future, but with greater concern for the immediate, the practical, the electoral. It was the programme they could take to the people to win government – a precondition of any change being achieved – that was most important to define. This can be recognised as the latest iteration of arguments this section of the movement had been making since at least 1905.

After further discussion it was determined to form a ‘ways and means’ committee to prepare a report on socialisation, a more detailed development of the sentiment underlying Russell’s motion. Both Scullin and Curtin were appointed to this committee. Curtin was noticeably quiet in the official proceedings of the conference itself, but appointment to such a committee reflects his prestige in the movement, and indicates his likely influence.147

142 Ibid., 6. 143 Ibid., 7. 144 Ibid., 8. 145 Ibid. 146 The importance of subsequent interpretations of the objective is suggested: Bruce O’Meagher, “Introduction,” in The Socialist Objective: Labor & Socialism, ed. Bruce O’Meagher (Marrickville: Hale & Iremonger, 1983), 9. 147 “Notes on Congress”, LC, 23 June 1921, 7.

197

Scullin presented the report to the conference – an extensive outline of practical means through which to achieve socialisation. It included a pledge to the ‘organisation of the workers along the lines of industry, as shall be decided by the Organisation Committee of this Conference,’ notably not discussing the OBU.148 Scullin made his position clear, and outlined what the committee was intending to achieve, explaining to delegates that the movement ‘must fly with both wings – the industrial and political.’149

General acclaim for the report suggests a closing of ranks by the Labor Democrats and the Socialists against the far-left. Considine opposed the report, claiming it maintained support for the capitalist state. In conjunction with Garden, he sought to amend it to read that parliament should only be used as a tactical tool through which to promote the end of the system.150 This aroused the ire of the other factions. Curtin was adamant in his repudiation of the proposal, pointing out that Garden, a member of the drafting committee, was refusing to support a report he had already consented to unless this additional amendment was accepted.151

Heagney represented the socialist counterpublic’s opposition to the far left, defending the unaltered report, which ‘embodied the idea that was permeating the movement throughout the world to-day, that the workers themselves must control industry.’ She argued that Considine and Garden were outlining visions only for the distant future, but if they were to be ‘true to the doctrine of Marx,’ it was necessary to connect the present and the future.152 Heagney’s intervention was reported in the Labor Call as ‘one of the speeches of the Congress’ that had ‘quite astonished the Considine crowd.’153 Kean also refuted Considine and Garden, and in particular their argument that ‘the existing Parliaments are of no earthly use in the movement toward emancipation,’ when, in fact, ‘we have the power to obtain control of Parliament, through the franchise.’154

Heagney and Kean were united in opposing the far-left, but with different emphases. For Heagney, the commitment to socialisation was a very real and immediate pledge to transformation to guide Labor’s present-day actions. For Kean, the main game was the protection of Labor’s commitment to parliamentary change. In opposition to the far left, this may appear an exiguous difference. But in fact, this was a substantially different interpretation of the motion, as intellectuals with two distinctive programmes sought to craft the objectives meaning, and hence its reception in the broader movement. The combined forces of the delimited sphere and the counterpublic saw off the amendment, by forty-one

148 AATUC, 9. 149 Ibid. 150 Ibid., 11. 151 Ibid. 152 Ibid., 12. 153 “Congress Notes”, LC, 30 June 1921, 4. 154 AATUC, 12.

198 votes to 123. The committee’s report was accepted with only four votes against.155 The union movement had reached agreement that the ‘socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange’ should be Labor’s objective. It was necessary now to gain acceptance at the national conference of the party itself.

From the industrial to the political: Labor debates socialism

For the objective to proceed through Labor’s machinery it was necessary to secure support at the state level, which the Victorian party swiftly assembled a special conference to do. At this meeting Holloway moved for the endorsement, encountering opposition from a country delegate concerned over the potential for the longstanding party commitment to the cultivation of Australian sentiment and racial purity to be overturned if Labor adopted the AATUC’s objective.156 A decision was deferred by Scullin who successfully moved – again – that a committee should be convened to discuss the issue and bring a proposal back to the conference. Amongst the seven committee members were Holloway and Scullin himself – probably the two most influential figures at the conference. The committee proposed the new objective be approved as Clause 1, ‘with the recommendation that the principles of the existent Objective be retained.’157 This would ensure the commitment to an Australian sentiment, and White Australia, remained in Labor’s platform.158

A ballot was then conducted for delegates to the interstate conference. The balance of power is illuminating. Once again the AWU dominated the delegation to the national meeting, drawing upon their position in the party machinery, the rural branches, and as an affiliated union. Scullin, Stewart, Kean and McNamara were elected, with Blackburn, and Hannan joining them. Holloway did not nominate to attend. Despite both Daley and Heagney nominating, the contingent was all-male.159

Curtin was elected to attend this conference on behalf of his new home branch of Western Australia. Illness prevented him from attending. Bob Ross, veteran VSP secretary and newspaper editor, held his proxy. Ross was incidentally present in Brisbane to report on events.160 But Curtin played an important role in the lead-up to October by advocating the objective’s adoption in his articles and editorials. He captured the essence of what was being advocated as ‘the reconstruction of society … [t]he transformation from ownership and control by capitalists to ownership and control by the community of all the industries and

155 Ibid., 14. 156 ALP State of Victoria, Report of Special Conference (Melbourne: Labor Call Print, 1921), 3. 157 Ibid. 158 Ibid. 159 Ibid. 160 “The Federal Labor Convention”, LC, 3 November 1921, 9.

199 services essential for the satisfaction of the people's needs.’161 This was a clear continuation of the argument he, and the subaltern counterpublic, had been advancing since the outbreak of war to the resistance of the delimited sphere.

The apotheosis of this contest was Labor’s national conference, held at Brisbane’s Trades Hall, in October 1921. Compared to the AATUC, the socialist counterpublic’s representation at this conference was much diminished, due to the ability of the Labor Democrats to influence the delegate election. Without a strong socialist presence the objective was re- interpreted at this conference by these powerful figures in a manner that diminished its radical content, without alienating the party’s base. Through these acts, the leadership of the delimited sphere asserted its control over the direction of the party. But this was not entirely on its own terms. The Labor Democrats had to accept a radicalised rhetoric, and find a means to accommodate a plan for social transformation more far reaching than their own.

Turner’s account of the conference is the most detailed and influential. He identified some of these tensions, but considered the primary division as being between parliamentarians and the unions, attributing the starring role to Queensland Premier , an arrant antagonist of socialisation, alongside the NSW MP James Catts and Maurice Blackburn; with the AWU’s role as minor allies of the Premier.162 The unions, he argued, ‘had spoken forthrightly’ in favour of socialisation, but at this conference control ‘had reverted to the politicians whose first interest was in attaining office.’163

Turner is correct to state that MPs, exposed to electoral pressures, tended to oppose radical objectives. But his interpretation missed several crucial factors due to its overwhelming emphasis on the actions of allegedly scheming politicians. His critical take, that considered any action by these MPs as almost by definition reactionary and in opposition to radical aims, effectively denies other factors that influenced their decision making; for instance, that Theodore genuinely perceived socialisation as a threat to the Queensland Labor government’s programmes, which were motivated by a desire to benefit the working class. The NSW delegation voted in a bloc against socialisation. It was dominated, but not wholly, by MPs. Their opposition was motivated by the long-term moderate attitude of their state branch, stretching back to the 1905 objective, but also the fear that the measure was being utilised by the far-left as it split from Labor to form antagonistic organisations, such as the Communist Party.164

The most significant factor that his analysis does not explain is, if the MPs were so opposed to the measure, and if they controlled the conference, why was it accepted? It was, as he stated, accepted in a diminished form, but it was accepted against their opposition

161 “Calling the ‘Sunday Times’ Bluff”, Westralian Worker, 25 November 1921, 4. 162 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 223-5. 163 Ibid., 226. 164 ALP, Official Report of Proceedings of the Ninth Commonwealth Conference (Melbourne: Labor Call Print, 1921), 11-5.

200 nonetheless. This was the result of an act of interpretation, not outright opposition, conducted by the Labor Democrats, and spearheaded in particular by the Victorian AWU intellectual-activists at the conference, and was the product of a more subtle form of cultural creation that Turner did not recognise.

This is not to deny Theodore’s visible antagonism towards the objective. Occupying the home turf, he certainly was not hesitant in making his opposition known. Theodore was first to his feet after the objective was moved for adoption. He attacked the motion for being too abstract. Labor should, he argued, ‘have an objective that everyone knew the meaning of.’ The party needed to ‘proclaim to the world what they were striving for.’ He claimed with surety that ‘no two delegates would agree as to what the socialisation of industry meant.’165 He moved an amendment proposing to maintain the radical tone of the objective, but specified that the ‘nationalisation of those agencies of production, distribution and exchange’ be targeted only at those industries ‘which are used under capitalism to despoil the community.’166 Theodore argued that socialisation and nationalisation were not synonymous, drawing on the tradition of Labor’s opposition to monopolies, but not capitalist enterprise as a whole, adopted as the party’s objective in opposition to socialisation in 1905. His strongly expressed opposition, and audacious statement – considering Labor’s recent history – that the party had no obligation to adopt ‘the recommendations of the Melbourne Congress holus bolus’ demonstrates why Turner attributed him such agency in opposing the measure.167

But Theodore’s opposition was contained. The most stinging critique he offered centred around an objection already resolved in Victoria: its potential threat to the existing first clause commitment to cultivating an Australian sentiment, and protecting racial purity through White Australia.168 Leaders of the delimited sphere, particularly Scullin who also strongly believed in racial exclusion, acted quickly to ensure that this commitment would be maintained alongside the motion for socialisation; just as they had at the Victorian conference.169

Kean, of the Victorian AWU, dismissed Theodore’s concerns. The objective was, he explained, something to attain whereas White Australia ‘was something consummated and at rest.’170 Hence, adopting the new objective would not erode this commitment. Prompted by an interjection from Theodore who challenged him to explain ‘the difference between nationalisation and socialisation,’ Kean defined socialisation as opposed to state intervention in the economy. The latter, he argued, could ‘be conducted to make millionaires greater than

165 Ibid., 6. 166 Ibid. 167 Ibid. 168 Ibid. 169 Ibid., 8-10, 15, 21. 170 Ibid., 7.

201 before,’ but ‘socialisation could only have one end in view – the interests of society alone.’171 The amendment move by Theodore, he claimed, ‘could be brought under the heading of methods.’ This was a move to diminish the impact of Theodore’s intervention, subsuming it beneath the broader intention of the motion – to proclaim socialisation as Labor’s objective.

Theodore attracted some support. One of his most notable allies was Blackburn, who declared that he ‘did not like the objective of the All-Australian Congress.’172 Echoing Theodore, he argued that socialisation ‘meant all things to all men.’ In place of the ill- defined nature of the AATUC proposal Blackburn declared for one that would ensure that workers would ‘have no doubt as to its meaning.’ He spoke in favour of an objective that would target large enterprises while leaving ‘the small ones alone.’ Labor’s current objective ‘had drawbacks,’ but he judged it to be ‘better than the new proposal.’173

Both were correct that the AATUC objective was broad, and somewhat ill defined. In fact, its amorphous nature allowed the Labor Democrats to redefine its meaning, and ensure its place within the party’s aims differed from the socialists’ intention. But first, Theodore’s amendment had to be dealt with, and it is notable that it was defeated by a sound margin of nineteen to nine.174

Theodore was a forceful presence, and of renown within the party. As Queensland treasurer, and then premier, he had spearheaded many of the reforms in that state lauded by Scullin and other labourites. He was a figure of influence, but this vote demonstrates the problem with Turner’s emphasis on his role. Theodore wanted the entire objective to be redrawn, but it was not. Similarly, the socialists wanted it adopted as a guide to the immediate actions of the party, and it was not. The main actors behind the series of manoeuvres that redefined the socialisation objective, and its place within Labor’s programme, were both parliamentary and non-parliamentary, but the nexus was within the ranks of the AWU figures assembled. These men – and they were all men – were not cynical conservatives, as they have tended to be depicted, but activist-intellectuals undertaking the actions they believed necessary to defend their belief in Labor Democracy, as opposed to total systemic transformation.

Scullin articulated this perspective for the Labor Democrats, outlining his support for ‘nationalisation with a view to socialisation.’ This was innately connected, as he explained, to his commitment to developing an ‘Australian sentiment’ and maintaining ‘White Australia.’175 This statement both helped to dispatch Theodore’s continued objections, and indicated the racialised perspective of these Labor Democrats. When Theodore maintained his scepticism that advocates for socialisation could define the term, Scullin clarified that socialism and nationalisation were distinct concepts. Socialisation, he explained, was about

171 Ibid. 172 Ibid., 8. 173 Ibid. 174 In an unnamed vote: Ibid., 9. 175 Ibid., 10.

202 direct working-class control, whereas nationalisation was ‘really ,’ but was ‘a necessary step in that direction’ of achieving socialism.176

His vision of change, and his interpretation of the socialisation objective, was based on a stages theory that disconnected the immediate from the ultimate goal. Scullin favoured nationalisation of swathes of industry as an in immediate demand. He commended the state-owned enterprises that had entered the market in Queensland for demonstrating the constructive economic role the state could play. This was his vision of a Labor Democracy: increased central powers allowing a greater role for the state to diminish the most exploitative dynamics of the capitalist system. Such measures were an initial step towards a larger goal. But it was these first stages that preoccupied him most. He drew the line explicitly between actions required in the present, and hopes for the future, explaining that socialisation was ‘ultimate and not immediate.’177 This was not the intention of Holloway and others when they spoke in favour of socialisation, but it was a means through which to denude the motion of immediate impact, and to avert the victory of the counterpublic. This ensured that in the day-to-day the moderate direction of Labor could be retained, even as loftier aims were proclaimed for a distant future.

Scullin was also clear as to the methods through which this goal would be pursued. Alongside his comrades he emphasised the necessity of legal ‘political action’ and dismissed syndicalist methods of ‘direct action.’ Such change, he warned, could not be achieved by ‘the red army.’178 He was happy to leave more precise planning to the future. In this, Scullin was parrying a series of accusations made by Theodore that the changes proposed to Labor’s objective would pledge the party to ‘something quite revolutionary.’179 It was quite to the contrary Scullin insisted; their intention was, in fact, ‘to prevent a revolution by force.’180 These were, of course, radical times. Scullin and the Labor Democrats were staking their ground as to the best means to transition from the status-quo to a new social order. This was to remain strictly within constitutional bounds, advocating political over radical industrial action.

One further aspect of the debate between Scullin and Theodore exposed the power dynamics at the conference. The premier opposed Scullin’s motion to establish a ‘Supreme Economic Council by all nationalised industries,’ as part of the eventual move towards socialism.181 This motion derived from the AATUC. Scullin outlined a plan where such a Council would be established through parliamentary means to co-ordinate production. Theodore rejected this proposal, lamenting that many delegates ‘had their minds saturated

176 Ibid., 11. 177 Ibid., 27. 178 Ibid., 18. 179 Ibid., 11. 180 Ibid., 27. 181 Ibid., 24-27.

203 with ideals and dogmas that did not belong to Australia.’182 He argued that such ideas originated with men influenced by the Bolsheviks and IWW, and protested against ‘Labor being prostituted by Communism,’183 an accusation somewhat reminiscent of that made in 1905 that the socialisation objective was the work of insidious ‘continental’ forces.

Scullin refuted these allegations by the tub-thumping Theodore, explaining calmly that these ideas were organic to the Australian movement, assuring him that he ‘stood for the political Labor Party and bowed to no extreme section.’184 The tub-thumper lost the argument, and the vote. Scullin’s motion was carried by the conference twenty-one to fifteen, in a reminder that at such gatherings of Labor the loudest voice was not always the most powerful, and it was the numbers behind each figure and their words that counted the most.185

The key manoeuvre through which the socialisation objective was entrenched in the realm of the ultimate, rather than the immediate, came when two AWU figures moved to form a committee, a familiar tactic. This committee would be charged with considering the place of socialisation and other amendments in the fighting platform of the party. The motion to convene such a group was moved by John Power, a powerful AWU figure who had only recently been appointed to the New South Wales Legislative Council.186 John Kean, the Victorian AWU powerbroker, and Scullin’s brother-in-law, seconded the motion. When the report of the committee was prepared, Theodore delivered it to conference. It is important to note, however, that the report was not his alone. There were six members on this committee, including Theodore, Catts, and Power, all of whom had voted against accepting socialisation. They were matched by Ross, Alexander Panton from Western Australia who was an MLC and the AWU president there, and the respected South Australian labour journalist Henry Kneebone, all three of whom supported the objective.187 The committee was not, as Turner argued, simply assembled by NSW and Queensland MPs, which Kean’s role attests. Nor was it dominated by the right as Turner claimed.188 The committee met separately from conference, and its record keepers, so the precise nature of the exchange that took place in the meeting is impossible to know. What is known of the committee is that three of its members were from the AWU, and it was evenly split between supporters and opponents of socialisation. To declare its work that of Theodore alone ignores this dynamic. More significantly, it ignores the fact that it was not Theodore who had promulgated the idea that the objective should be accepted, not as the immediate platform, but the ultimate

182 Ibid., 25. 183 Ibid., 26. 184 Ibid., 27. 185 Ibid. 186 “Power, John Maurice,” The Biographical Dictionary of the , accessed 18 November 2015. http://biography.senate.gov.au/index.php/john-maurice-power/. 187 “Interstate Conference at Brisbane”, AW, 27 October 1921, 15. 188 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 225.

204 goal. The report effectively put into practice Scullin’s argument that it should be ‘ultimate and not immediate.’

The committee proposed that socialisation should stand as an objective separate from the fighting platform that would be taken to elections. As Barnes had argued, it was fine to have a grand objective but what was taken to the people was more important. Maurice Blackburn attempted to overturn this decision, proposing that the first plank on the fighting platform should be socialisation – that is to make it central to the party’s immediate project for change. His motivation for this, after arguing against the objective, was unclear: his statement that it was ‘idle to pass resolutions unless they were to be [on] the fighting platform’ suggests a procedural rather than political frustration.189 This was defeated, initially by nineteen to ten.190 When a motion was passed to record by name how each delegate voted, these numbers changed. Eleven now voted with Blackburn, twenty-one against him. The same number of votes that had repudiated Theodore now opposed Blackburn. In both instances the AWU voted in a solid bloc.

Labor had its socialist objective, but not as the socialists had envisaged. It was there, for all to see, in Labor’s programme, but this aim was ‘ultimate and not immediate.’191 This manoeuvre was reminiscent of that utilised by Victorian moderates in 1905 to remove a similar socialist objective from the programme to the constitution of the party, a move that had transformed the nature of the objective. It had become a goal of the movement in the future, not part of its immediate programme for change. This is not what the socialists had intended. Subsequent to this manoeuvre, Blackburn moved a further amendment to clarify Labor’s attitude to private property as acceptable in instances where it was being operated ‘in a socially useful manner.’192 Notably, this was seconded by the Victorian AWU delegate and supported by Scullin. This has been identified as the defining moment that diminished the radicalism of the objective, but it was the earlier manoeuvres of the solid bloc of the AWU in the delimited sphere that had done the most to reframe the meaning of the objective, and defined its place in the party’s programme. Blackburn’s amendment would not have succeeded had it not been for the support of this bloc, despite the emphasis placed on his actions in the account of Strangio, McMullin, and others.193 In addition, while getting the majority of votes, 15-13, Blackburn’s motion did not have the required majority to affect the platform.194

This has led some to dismiss the objective as a mere rhetorical adornment. But the significance of the objective lies in its acceptance, more than its implementation, or lack

189 ALP, Official Report of Proceedings of the Ninth Commonwealth Conference, 30. 190 Ibid., 30. 191 Ibid., 27-9. 192 Ibid., 35. 193 McMullin, The Light on the Hill, 127; Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 131, 135; McQueen, “Glory Without Power”, 361; Freudenberg, Cause for Power, 133; O’Meagher, “Introduction”, 9. 194 Crisp, The Australian Federal Labour Party, 281; Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 225.

205 thereof. The process through which Labor came to this position reveals much about the dynamics of its political culture, and the active contestation, debate, and power negotiations that resulted in this socialist objective being accepted. By committing itself to this meaning, even while open to interpretation, and pledging the parliamentary wing to ultimate control by the labour movement, Labor had recreated itself. In a period of great questioning over the purpose of political labour after the experience of government and subsequent split, as the party faced a changing world order, uncertain as it might have been, the party had begun to answer. This came about as a result of the active intervention of the socialist counterpublic and their genuine belief that they could recraft Labor. To an extent, they had succeeded, and for many working-class militants this was a pledge of great meaning and significance. For thousands, their understanding of Labor’s actions and its short-term programme would be sustained by the belief that the ultimate project was underlined by this socialisation commitment. After the Second World War Holloway reflected on his long-held belief that Labor’s project was to make ‘much more of the programme of that historic 1921 Conference’ part of ‘everyday lives.’195 It was a guiding light for these activists: the inscribing of their commitment to a radically different world.

195 Holloway, From Labor Council to Privy Council, 58.

206

Conclusion

From the 1870s parties of political labour pursued a common project of democratic transformation.1 As Geoff Eley identified, social-democratic/labour parties sought to expand the franchise, but also to instil democratic principles in the economic realm.2 These parties can be considered as broadly comparable, though substantial differences did exist between each, based upon their national political cultures, economic variance, and particular personalities.3 But the construction of parties to represent the labour movement to contest for state power and for social transformation was a generalised phenomenon in Europe and the antipodes.4 This was, incompletely, represented in the Second International. The International proclaimed a common aim, one that was the product of debate, negotiation, and difference within its ranks.5

The ability of such parties to transform their societies before the First World War was limited by an often restricted franchise, or by electoral systems that removed executive power from the legislature. It is illuminating that the major party of the International, the SPD, could not experience government due to the very nature of the Reich’s constitutional and electoral system, until the system was overturned at the conclusion of the First World War. But even limited potential to participate in government prompted fierce debate. Should social democratic parties join the cabinets of non-labour governments?6 Should they seek any form of change through parliament? Should the main stratagem for transformation be, instead, the direct industrial action of the working class? Each party was, as Eley argued, ‘organizationally united but ideologically diverse.’7

Different dynamics shaped these debates in each national party, but the contestation in one movement influenced, and spurred, similar discussions happening elsewhere. British Labour, for instance, has often been explained as a party defined by moderation, its socialism ethical, its politics strongly influenced by liberalism.8 But it contained left-wing counterpublics, notably the ILP, that sought consistently to push it in a socialist direction.9

1 Eley, Forging Democracy, 5. 2 Ibid., 20-2. 3 Bartolini, The Political Mobilization of the European Left, 10. 4 Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism, xxi; 5-6. 5 Callahan, Demonstration Culture, xx. 6 Known as ‘ministeralism’: Eley, Forging Democracy, 89. 7 Ibid., 85. 8 Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism, 16; Bartolini, The Political Mobilization of the European Left, 70; Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism, 21; Geoffrey Foote, The Labour Party’s Political Thought: A History (Basingstoke: Macmillan, [Third Edition] 1997), 6-8; Ross McKibbin, The Evolution of the Labour Party 1910-1924 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 102. 9 Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism, 14-5; Anderson, “Origins of the Present Crisis”, 44.

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After his return from Australia Tom Mann became a prominent syndicalist, influenced by French ideas of direct action. While not taking the hard anti-political line of many French radicals he argued for industrial power to be used to advance the cause of the class, and put this into action in major strikes such as in Liverpool in 1911.10 ILP leaders advanced radical stratagems. Keir Hardie, after all, lent his name to the famed declaration of the general strike against war: Hardie-Vaillant. Labour leaders were forced to debate the question of strategy and tactics. Their disagreement had to be articulated and justified by honing arguments, writing articles, taking to party and movement platforms to make their positions clear.11 A section of the ILP wanted to pursue more radical measures, alongside ongoing commitment to parliamentary efforts. In 1918, amidst an increase in radical militancy, Labour embedded socialisation in its platform with the adoption of Clause 4.12

Similar debates took place in the SPD. The very names of the great leaders of this time: Bernstein, Kautsky, Luxemburg, evoke the differentiation in these positions, reform or revolution, parliamentary action or the mass strike?13 These debates forged a distinctive organisational life and defined the outlook and orientation of the party. The counterpublics continued to operate without distinctive organisational boundaries until 1917, when the counterpublics developed their own organisational identities: first the USPD, and the Spartakist League, forerunner to the Communist Party.14

Common processes operated within social-democratic/labour parties as they pursued this project of democratic reform. These processes crafted their political cultures, and shaped their trajectories. The operations of these processes varied greatly according to the specifics of each organisation and the context in which they sought to articulate and enact their visions for change. But they can broadly be recognised: a dominant leadership of the labour movement that pursued a project of non-revolutionary social transformation through a dedicated political wing, challenged by more radical sections, with the contest between the two generating labour knowledge and being undertaken by movement intellectuals. Within these parties, in addition, women activist-intellectuals contested the gendered knowledge of male leaders, often through demanding these organisations pursue the franchise for women, asserting the rights of women as workers, and seeking to construct organisational embodiments of their efforts within the structures of the labour movement.15

10 “Seaman’s Strike”, Manchester Guardian (MG), 26 June 1911, 7; “Mr. Tom Mann”, MG, 16 October 1911, 4; “Mr. Tom Mann”, MG, 24 June 1912, 7; “Mr. Tom Mann and Direct Action”, MG, 4 September 1912, 8; “Syndicalism”, MG, 2 December 1912, 9. 11 “Mr. Philip Snowden, M.P., and ‘Direct Action’”, MG, 6 October 1913, 15; “Labour Chairman on Irish Party Tactics”, MG, 2 February 1914, 16. 12 Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism, 53-61. 13 Bartolini, The Political Mobilization of the European Left, 73-4. 14 Stefan Berger, The British Labour Party and the German Social Democrats, 1900-1931 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 23. 15 Pore, A Conflict of Interest, 15-20; Graves, Labour Women; Eley, Forging Democracy, 22-3.

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I have sought to use a study of Victorian Labor from 1901 to 1921 to develop a conceptual model to analyse these processes in operation. This study has been both regional and national, but has taken the state party as a useful unit of study to capture the specifics of these processes through a detailed reading of the party life behind its most overt expressions. Through this, it has sought to capture these processes at work in moments of change against the broader backdrop of political labour’s project. Labor sought to forge democracy, but did so with competing visions of what that would entail. This antipodean debate was similar to that taking place elsewhere, and in fact, as has been demonstrated by analysis of Labor socialists in particular, was conducted in direct engagement with these debates and discussions.

The experience of the Australian Labor Party provides a vital perspective to comprehending political labour. European socialists understood this in the early twentieth century. This is why they visited Australian shores, drawing conclusions from Australia about their own political context, and used the country’s development in arguments about labour’s progress. Australia made the abstract practical. Australian Labor did not debate what might happen if they could influence government. They debated how best to use that influence. They did not speculate on the relationship of the state machinery to a workers’ government. They negotiated it.

The specifics of the Victorian party make it of particular use in seeking to draw out, and generalise, these processes. Tom Mann, a clearly identifiable transnational activist, played a particularly prominent role in linking the European and the antipodean labour movements. His belief in transforming Labor through the socialist objective provides a means to chart the debate over the issue within the party at a state and federal level. His formation of the VSP was an important example of a socialist counterpublic in operation. While quantifying the precise influence of the VSP on Labor has proven problematic, it provides a useful starting point for analysis of Labor Socialists and their operations within the movement. These socialists challenged moderates for the movement’s political leadership, first within the formal bounds of the VSP, and then in the diffuse socialist networks threaded through the institutions of labour. Further, women’s organising in the state was of a noticeably vibrant and powerful character. The existence of powerful progressive feminist organisations such as the WPA helped to spur this development. But the efforts of Victorian Labor women to organise are further demonstrative of a process crucial to the political cultures of workers parties: how gendered knowledge was challenged, and the dual identities of proletarian and woman were negotiated.

All these elements taken together make Victoria a fecund site for analysis. My intention has been to identify the processes at operation within the party, and suggest their utility against a broader reading of social democracy and political labour. This is not a comparative study. It has not provided a detailed reading of these processes in multiple sites. Instead, it has drawn upon international literature that considers these other parties in detail to elucidate

209 the important similarities in their distinctive shapes that are of use in considering the dynamics of party life elsewhere in the world; that is, to theorise and understand their political cultures.

The detailed reading informed by the analytical model developed throughout this thesis has allowed me to unearth in greater detail the contribution of the Victorian Labor party to the events that shaped the ALP in these years; most notably, the assertion of union control in 1916, and the adoption of the socialisation objective in 1921. This has enabled me to excavate the early political careers of John Curtin and James Scullin, identifying them as powerbrokers of greater significance than previously recognised, but also as serious intellectuals of the movement. Both were engaged with crafting Labor knowledge in ways that directly impacted its worldview and actions in Victoria long before either ascended to the office for which history knows them best.

Crucially, this has allowed me to consider socialism as a meaningful contributor to Labor ideology. Socialism was not the dominant intellectual outlook of the party, but it did play a significant role in shaping Labor’s worldview. Unlike previous accounts, I do not consider the socialist project as doomed to fail. I have analysed the trajectory of Labor socialism, and assessed its successes/failures, against their own aims, not by imposing a retrospective criteria based on the presupposition that Labor was innately hostile to radical change. As I have shown, Labor Socialists were able to influence Labor’s proclamation of purpose in 1921, and were vital to moments of change that defined Australian politics, such as the defeat of conscription in 1916.

They did so in creative competition with Labor Democrats. The ‘moderate’ project was only moderate when considered against the claims of the Labor Socialists. Taken in the context of Australian society and class relations at the time, the worldview they articulated was positive, far reaching, and involved direct confrontation with vested power interests to restructure the state machinery to benefit the working class. This leadership too was invested with the desire to forge democracy. This was based on recrafting the terms of federation, using central economic powers to redistribute wealth, enlarging the economic role of the state without supplanting market relations, and empowering the citizenry through direct public appeal: the referendum. Their dominance over the party was underpinned by the role of the AWU. This dominance was challenged at key points. The reason for their victory can be found in their ability to develop a machinery of power within the movement, but also to articulate a worldview that was compelling and convincing, able to sway and win over workers. It was not pre-determined. They understood contingency as well as the possibility of radical change, this was reflected in their attitude to socialisation in 1921. But their motives should not be considered as simply cynical manoeuvrings. They were motivated in large part, just as were the socialists, by genuine conviction in their project for change.

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The worldview of both these sections was racialised and gendered. I have suggested throughout the thesis the main way in which this racialised worldview framed the politics of the Labor Democrats. Labor Socialists were more troubled on the issue, and some evidence does suggest that by 1921 activists from the counterpublic were actively challenging White Australia in party forums; the logical conclusion not always reached from Bennett’s opposition to Australian sentiment and racial purity in 1905.16 But non-white workers were notably absent from a labour movement that had long demonstrated suspicion, hostility, and outright racism towards them; leaving the Victorian party without a subaltern counterpublic of non-white workers organising to challenge these dominant logics.

Labor women actively challenged male dominance of the movement. Women such as Jean Daley were intellectuals-powerbrokers, crafting knowledge and formulating demands specific to proletarian women that contested gendered assumptions about work and politics. These women were activists within the movement, seeking to advance the cause of Labor, but also to transform its culture. Analytically, they can be identified as a counterpublic operating within the broader proletarian sphere, seeking organisational form within the movement. Their efforts to mobilise over key demands at this point were not always successful, as represented by the fate of equal pay. But their contribution to Labor’s political culture was significant. They forced the movement to consider, and accept, key demands that provided the underlying basis for challenge of gendered understandings. They developed traditions and legacies of activism that demonstrated the ability of women to engage in politics, undercutting to a degree dominant assumptions over the role of women in public life, and the public/private divide in such organisations.

Labor after 1921

While events post-1921 are beyond the scope of this thesis, it is worth indicating the results of some of the key developments I have discussed. Efforts to institute a radical OBU were exhausted not long after the acceptance of socialisation in 1921. The hostility of the majority of the movement towards the scheme strangled potential support. A brief flirtation between the AWU and radicals ended with the creation of an ‘Australasian Workers Union’ that maintained the OBU’s radical declarations, but this soon ran aground after being refused registration and official recognition after Senator Barnes, of the Victorian AWU, elected as secretary of the new organisation, attempted to register it as representative of bodies of already-unionised workers.17 Speculation exists if this was a deliberate attempt to derail the

16 Victorian Labor’s special 1921 conference included a discussion where left-wing delegates attacked the White Australia policy: “Conference Chat”, LC, 22 September 1921, 5. 17 Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, 229-231.

211 body by the AWU, or an over-reach driven by its desire to cannibalise union representation, but its decline represented the end of the OBU.18

Impetus for closer unionism did remain, however, and increasingly amalgamation became the order of the day. While strengthening a large number of unions this had the impact of eroding the position of women on the representative bodies of the industrial movement, such as the THC. Women delegates represented unions that no longer existed post- amalgamation, and often encountered great difficulty in gaining representation within the new organisations.19 The push towards closer unionism saw the formation of a Council of Federated Unions, but when this proved insufficient moves were made to forge a new representative body; much to the chagrin of the AWU that still considered itself the natural representative of Australian workers, and brooked no competition.20 After some wrangling between the Melbourne THC and their ‘comrades’ in NSW, the Australasian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) was formed in Melbourne, 1927.21

Labor women activists continued to maintain a distinct organisational life within the party. They utilised this position to reshape the movement’s demands, and redefine its political culture. The dominant trends identified in this period would continue throughout the 1920s. Women activist-intellectuals such as Daley, Muriel Heagney, and Mary Rogers continued to operate in the decision-making echelons of the party, particularly its Central Executive.22 They would be in a strong minority. In 1922 Daley would set a new precedent in winning pre-selection, making her the first Labor woman candidate in the state.23 That her candidature was for the safely conservative seat of Kooyong indicates the continuing gendered dynamics of the movement.

Throughout the 1920s Labor women would campaign for equal pay, combining this with the demand for a Motherhood and Child Endowment, measures that aimed at elevating their status as wage earners, and as citizen-mothers that contributed to the nation.24 Heagney led the charge. An expert on the basic wage and endowments, Heagney tirelessly campaigned on the matter, leading to its acceptance as movement policy at the AATUC in 1921, and the ALP national conference of the same year.25 She went on to testify to Royal Commissions in 1919 and 1927.26 Heagney’s campaign for endowment continued alongside her tireless

18 Ibid. 19 Nolan, “Sex or Class?”, 116; Brigden, “The Legacy of Separate Organizing”, 254-258. 20 James Hagan, The ACTU: A Short History (Sydney: Reed: 1977), 25-31. 21 Clifford Donn, The Australian Council of Trade Unions: History and Economic Policy (Lanham: University Press of America, 1983), 41-3. 22 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 153. 23 Judith Smart, “Daley, Jane (Jean),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 19 September 2016. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/daley-jane-jean-5866. 24 Nolan, “Sex or Class?”, 116-121; Lake, “The Independence of Women and the Brotherhood of Man”, 4. 25 AATUC, 39; ALP, Ninth Commonwealth Conference, 32-3. 26 Lake, “The Independence of Women and the Brotherhood of Man”, 10, 18.

212 efforts for equal pay. She was joined in this long-march to equality by Rogers, Daley, and others. The major issue they encountered was transforming rhetorical support into action, a consistent problem for Labor women. The campaign for equal pay stretched throughout the decades. The realisation of the demand as a general principle from 1969 largely came too late for most of these early activists.27 But it is a testament to their tenacity and dedication to craft the aims of the movement that labour did persist with the demand.

While socialism as a coherent worldview has receded as a direct influence on the party, the lodestar of socialist efforts, the socialist objective, remains. While it has been a topic of debate and discussion at several points of Labor’s history it has never been replaced; though it has continued to be subjected to acts of interpretation aimed at recrafting its meaning.28 In 1955 the objective was reframed to state that the party’s belief in ‘democratic socialisation’ would apply to ‘the extent necessary to eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features in those fields…’29

The most substantial change took place at Labor’s 1981 conference, as the party struggled to modernise and offer itself as a responsible alternative government. This had been spurred in part by the tumultuous Labor government of Gough Whitlam between 1972 and 1975, a period of immense social reform that had ended with the Prime Minister being dismissed by the Governor General. Modernisers sought to redefine Labor’s objective to demonstrate that the party was no longer bound by the shibboleths of the past. Impetus for change came from the Victorian state branch of the ALP. Ironically, this was the result of its strong left-wing culture.

Victorian Labor remained on the left of the national organisation. But the party also contained a right-wing Catholic section that grew in size and significance throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. This culminated in the split of what become known as the Democratic Labor Party in 1955, based on political Catholicism, and anti-Communism. The split damaged Labor’s electoral prospects, both federally and on a state level. It also entrenched the left of the movement in Victoria in positions of power in the state, as there was no organised right of size to counter them.30 The dominant leadership of the state party drew opprobrium from many, including the soft left, for putting principle above politics; refusing to compromise their staunch positions for the sake of appealing to the electorates necessary to win government. Gough Whitlam, as Labor Leader, gave a famed speech at the Victorian

27 Heagney did live to see the decision, dying one week later: Verity Burgmann, Power, Profit and Protest: Australian Social Movements and Globalisation (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2003), 115-120. 28 O’Meagher, “Introduction”, 7. 29 John Reeves and Gareth Evans, “The Evolution of the Socialist Objective,” in Labor Essays 1980, eds. Gareth Evans and John Reeves (Richmond: Drummons, 1980), 161. 30 Strangio, Neither Power Nor Glory, 284-347.

213 state conference condemning this grouping for its approach, chastising them that ‘only the impotent are pure.’31

In 1970 the federal executive intervened in the Victorian branch, disbanding its executive. Ian Turner, now a Labor figure of prominence as a well noted historian, was amongst the intellectual leaders of the state party that sought to chart a different course.32 A leading proponent of a revised socialist objective, and Foreign Minister in the Hawke-Keating governments, Gareth Evans, later noted that the 1981 change was a ‘slightly refined and amended’ version of a proposal accepted at the Victorian branch’s 1978 State Conference. This would have completely recast the objective, before some ‘sentimental backsliding’ led to the 1921 objective being retained as a “‘masthead” statement.’33 The original proposal for a change to the objective came, Evans recalled, from ‘the fertile mind of Ian Turner some time earlier.’34 At the 1981 conference the original wording, with the amendment from the 1950s, was retained alongside twenty-two explanatory statements.35 The sacred cow had not been slaughtered.

Modern Labor: A Snapshot

At Labor’s 2015 national conference, taking place at the Melbourne Convention Centre, NSW Labor Leader moved for a review of the socialisation objective. Foley is notably from the left-wing faction in a state that has been traditionally dominated by the right. His motivation for the review was to rewrite the objective, to completely replace the 1921 wording.36 The political journalist Josh Taylor’s live blogging of the event recorded Foley’s motion being received with shouts of ‘”shame’” from some delegates.37 Seeking to instil his motion with credibility he drew upon the governing authority of his state party. He reminded delegates that he led ‘the largest and most successful’ Labor branch, an audience member issued the rejoinder ‘“not lately.”’38

31 Gough Whitlam, “’The Impotent are Pure,’” in For the True Believers: Great Labor Speeches that Shaped History, ed. Troy Bramston (Annandale: Federation Press, 2013), 227-232. 32 John McLaren, Free Radicals: Of the Left in Postwar Melbourne (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2003), 304-5. 33 Gareth Evans, “Reshaping the Socialist Objective,” in The Socialist Objective: Labor & Socialism, ed. Bruce O’Meagher (Marrickville: Hale & Iremonger, 1983), 75. 34 Ibid. 35 ALP, Decisions of 1981 National Conference (Melbourne: Australian Labor Party, 1981), 20-1. 36 Luke Foley, “Socialism schmocialism: Luke Foley’s new objective”, Labor Herald, accessed 22 November 2016. https://www.laborherald.com.au/politics/socialism-schmocialism-luke-foleys-new- objective/. 37 Josh Taylor, “2015 ALP Conference Live Blog,” accessed 22 November 2016. https://www.24liveblog.com/live/1297867. 38 Ibid.

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Senator opposed Foley’s motion. Carr is a key Victorian powerbroker, and was reported by Taylor as arguing socialisation had inspired totemic Labor reforms such as the creation of the universal healthcare system, Medicare, and the high-speed internet service, the National Broadband Network.39 But the motion passed on the voices, that is, without a formal vote; not to supplant the objective per se, but to review its content.

What is of greatest significance is not the potential outcome of the review into the objective, but that it remains a point of conjecture in the modern era. Socialisation continues to spur debate as it poses that most fundamental question: what is the party’s purpose? No definitive answer has been found for this question. But in seeking an answer, the past looms large.

Socialisation remains, for now, the party’s ideological boundary. The union movement retains its strong connection to, and at times control over, the Labor machine. The most dramatic assertion of this in recent times was in 2008 in NSW. Right-wing premier sought to privatise electricity providers against the wishes of the union movement. The left and right of the broader labour movement united to scupper his plans. A primary site of this battle was the party’s state conference.40 While this raw assertion of power has not been seen at a national level for quite some time, the potential remains. Affiliated unions still contribute fifty per cent of delegates to Labor’s national conference. Their informal influence through the branches and factional networks likely tips this balance even further. The unions continue to contribute financially, intellectually, and in terms of personnel to the party. The last time Federal Labor won a majority government it was off the back of an ACTU mobilised campaign over industrial relations. Before becoming the current leader of the federal party Bill Shorten was the national secretary of the AWU.

The position of women has drastically changed in the party. Australia’s second woman premier was from Victoria, Joan Kirner, and its first woman Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, held the Melbourne seat of Lalor. But despite these advances Labor women continue to critique male leaders for not adhering to a formal commitment to equal representation of men and women.41 A goal of 50 – 50 parliamentary representation was adopted at the national conference in 2015. It is yet to be seen if this commitment will result in practical application. Notably, women still maintain specific organisations within the ALP including Emily’s List, which dedicates itself to increasing women’s representation in parliament.42 Increasingly, other sections of the movement have cohered into interest-specific groupings

39 Ibid. 40 Cavalier, Power Crisis, 90-118. 41 Troy Bramston, “Bill Shorten pushes 50 – 50 ALP gender split within 10 years,” The Australian, accessed 23 November 2016. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/bill-shorten-pushes- 5050-alp-gender-split-within-10-years/news-story/3f73cfead5fc17c69b57d6668da668de. 42 Emily’s List, “About Us”, accessed 23 November 2016. https://www.emilyslist.org.au/about/what- we-believe-in/ .

215 to advocate their interests. Rainbow Labor, for instance, advances LGBTI policy within the ALP, while proudly carrying the party banner.43

Much has changed within the internal party life of the ALP, even while important continuities exist. The relationship between the delimited proletarian sphere and left-wing counterpublics has been formalised in the factional system. In the modern era, however, the gap between the sections has noticeably declined. The contemporary left and right are divided predominantly by difference over specific policy, rather than identifiably distinctive worldviews, though some critics would suggest the differences between the factions on many of these issues seem slight. In this, the utility of this model can be seen in the breach as much as the observance. Labor’s current state of ideological uncertainty has resulted, in large part, from a lack of meaningful contestation within the party that can act as a generator of new ideas and understandings. It is notable that while Carr tied cornerstone Labor achievements to socialisation, this was not informed by a broader worldview of social change akin to that proposed by Labor Socialists in the period of this thesis.

Without an alternative worldview and project for Labor, the political inheritors of the Labor Democrats do not need to develop the programs and far-reaching visions for change that they did in the past. Whereas once the leadership of the delimited sphere maintained control by argument and persuasion alongside the use of structural power, now they maintain control based on assumption, such as there being no alternative for government but to cut spending and rely on market growth.44 In Australia, as elsewhere, not only has this led to a diminishing the party’s internal life, but in the macro sense, it has diminished the lines of distinction between Labor and its conservative opponents.45 Diminished, not extinguished. But this bi-partisanship betrays an increased inability for Labor to develop and pursue its own distinctive political project. The source, and answer, to this political malaise can be found in Labor’s political culture.

It has not cut a solitary figure on an international scale in such malaise. The crisis of social democracy is deep, as is that of the broader political system. The past has no blueprints, but it does contain warnings. The rise of Jeremy Corbyn from the ashes of New Labour indicates the continued potential within these organisations for matters considered to be settled to come into focus once again. The processes that defined these parties in the early twentieth century still have relevance today. The potential for debates over social transformation, including of a more radical nature than the current discourses, remain within. This is part of their very nature. Parties of social democracy and of political labour that remain connected to the labour movement represent a fundamental cleavage in society, one that has altered, not been transcended. Class remains an issue in the twenty-first century. Inequality is on the

43 Rainbow Labor, accessed 24 November 2016. http://rainbowlabor.org.au/. 44 George Megalogenis, “Balancing Act: Australia Between Recession and Renewal”, Quarterly Essay 61 (2016): 1-13. 45 Ibid.

216 rise. Scholars of renown are questioning in depth and detail the role of markets, and the function of the state in the economy to actively combat social inequality.46

The traditional concerns of social-democratic and labour parties have been posed again, in new means, in a new context. This history of these parties provides indications of how they operate today, and their potential to adapt and respond to the political and economic crises that they face. In focusing on the political culture of political labour I hope to have provided a useful analytical means to comprehend their historical operations, and suggest means to understand them in the contemporary period as they face these challenges, and that most fundamental task: defining not just what they are against, but what it is they are for.

46 Joseph Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future (New York: WW Norton & Company, 2012; Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014).

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State Library of Victoria

Eric (Jock) Bosher. Papers 1870 – 1969. MS 1147.

May Brodney, nee Francis, Papers. Held in: Alfred Tennyson Brodney, Papers, 1915 – 1980. MS 10882.

Muriel Heagney, Papers, 1936 – 1968. MS 9106.

John Percy Jones, Papers 1890 – 1955. MS 13192.

Records of the Democratic Labor Party, 1857 – 1998. MS 10389.

Riley and Ephemera Collection.

Socialist Party of Victoria, Minutes, 1906-08. MS13110.

Minute books; and, Card index of members Victorian Socialist Party. Manuscripts, MS 8253. MS MSM 81 - MSM 82.

Sam Merrifield, Papers, ca. 1858 – ca. 1977. MS13045.

Thomas Tunneclife. Papers, 1892 – 1937. MS 10735.

University of Melbourne

Victorian Trades Hall Council, 1978.0082. During the writing of this thesis the University of Melbourne Archive began a project of digitising the Trades Hall Council minutes, and other records. As a result, the form of item numbering was changed. For ease of location I have used the updated item numbers.

Tom Audley Collection, 1984.0117.

219

Noel Butlin Archive Centre

Australian Workers' Union deposit 1, AU NBAC E154.

Australian Timber Workers' Union, Victorian Branch deposit T34, AU NBAC T34.

Ballarat Trades and Labor Council deposit 1, AU NBAC E97 [now held at the Ballarat Trades and Labour Council].

H Scott Bennett Collection, Deposit P77 , AU NBAC P77.

Les Barnes Collection. AU NBAC.

National Library

EJ Holloway, Papers, 1943 – 1963, NLA MS 2098.

Lloyd Ross, Papers, 1854 – 1986, NLA MS 3939.

Robert Ross, Papers of Robert Samuel Ross, 1907 – 1921. MS 3222.

Published sources

Anstey, Frank. Red Europe. Melbourne: Fraser & Jenkins, 1919.

Blackburn, Maurice. The Conscription Referendum of 1916. Melbourne: The Anti-Conscription Celebration League, 1936.

Holloway, EJ. From Labor Council to Privy Council Personal Papers, National Library of Australia. MS 2098. Folder 1. ———"The Australian Victory over Conscription in 1916-17". Melbourne: Anti-Conscription Jubilee Committee, 1966.

Mann, Tom. Socialism. Melbourne: Tocsin, 1905. ———Tom Mann's Memoirs. London: Macgibbon and Kee, 1967.

Walker, Bertha. How to Defeat Conscription: A Story of the 1917 and 1917 Campaigns in Victoria. Northcote. Anti-Conscription Jubilee Committee, 1968.

Wilson, Alf W. All for the Cause: Being the experience of a Socialist Propagandist. In the Tom Audley Collection, University of Melbourne Archives. 84/117, 1984.0117 Unit 1.

220

Government Publications

Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates.

Report of the Proceedings of the Conference Convened by His Excellency the Governor General on the Subject of the Securing of Reinforcements under the voluntary system for the Australian Imperial Force Now Serving Abroad. Noel Butlin Archives Centre. Australian Workers Union. E154/38/2.

Secondary

Books

Barrett, John. Falling In: Australians and 'Boy Conscription' 1911-1915. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1979.

Bartolini, Stefano. The Political Mobilization of the European Left, 1860-1980: The Class Cleavage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Bean, CEW. ANZAC to Amiens: A Shorter History of the Australian Fighting Services in the First World War. Fifth Edition. Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1968.

Beaumont, Joan. Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2013.

Berger, Stefan. The British Labour Party and the German Social Democrats, 1900-1931. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. ———Social Democracy and the Working Class in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2000.

Berki, RN. Socialism. London: JM Dent and Sons, 1975.

Black, David. In His Own Words: John Curtin’s Speeches and Writings. Bentley: Paradigm Books, 1995.

Bollard, Robert. In the Shadow of Gallipoli: The Hidden History of Australia in World War I. Sydney: Newsouth, 2013.

Bongiorno, Frank. The People’s Party: Victorian Labor and the Radical Tradition, 1875-1914. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1996.

Burgmann, Verity. ‘In Our Time’: Socialism and the Rise of Labor, 1885-1905. Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1985.

221

———Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: the Industrial Workers of the World in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. ———Power, Profit and Protest: Australian Social Movements and Globalisation. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2003. ——— Globalization and Labour in the Twenty-First Century. London: Taylor and Francis, 2016.

Cain, Frank. The Wobblies at War: A History of the IWW and the Great War in Australia. Melbourne: Spectrum Publications, 1993.

Callahan, Kevin J. Demonstration Culture: European Socialism and the Second International, 1889- 1914. Kibworht: Troubador Publishing, 2010.

Cavalier, Rodney. Power Crisis: The Destruction of a State Labor Party. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Rethinking Working-Class History: Bengal 1890-1940. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Childe, Vere Gordon. How Labour Governs: A Study of Workers' Representation in Australia. Second Edition. Parkville: Melbourne University Press, 1964.

Clark, Manning. A History of Australia: VI ‘The Old Dead Tree and the Young Tree Green’. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1987.

Connell, RW and Irving, TH. Class Structure in Australian History: Documents, Narrative and Argument. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1980.

Crisp, LF. The Australian Federal Labour Party: 1901-1950. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1955.

D’Aprano, Zelda. Kath Williams: The Unions and the Fight for Equal Pay. North Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 2001.

Damousi, Joy. Women Come Rally: Socialism, Communism and Gender in Australia 1890-1955. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Damousi, Joy and Lake, Marilyn, eds. Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Day, David. John Curtin: A Life. Sydney: HarperCollins, 1999.

Denning, Warren. James Scullin. Second Edition. Melbourne: Black Inc, 2000.

Dickenson, Jacqueline. Renegades and Rats: Betrayal and the Remaking of Radical Organisations in Britain and Australia. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2006.

Donn, Clifford. The Australian Council of Trade Unions: History and Economic Policy. Lanham: University Press of America, 1983.

Dyrenfurth, Nick. Heroes & Villains: The Rise and Fall of the Early Australian Labor Party. North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011.

222

Dyrenfurth, Nick and Bongiorno, Frank. A Little History of the Australian Labor Party. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2011.

Eley, Geoff. Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Eley, Geoff and Nield, Keith. The Future of Class in History: What's Left of the Social? Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007.

Ellem, Bradon. In Women’s Hands?: A History of Clothing Trades Unionism in Australia. Kensington: UNSW Press, 1989.

Farrell, Frank. International Socialism & Australian Labour: The Left in Australia 1919-1939. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1981.

Ferguson, Sarah. The Killing Season Uncut. Carlton: Melbourne University Publishing, 2016.

Fink, Leon. In Search of the Working Class: Essays in American Labor History and Political Culture. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994.

Fitzhardinge, LF. The Little Digger 1914-1952: William Morris Hughes A Political Biography Volume II. London: Angus and Robertson, 1979.

Fitzpatrick, Brian. Short History of the Australian Labor Movement. Third Edition. South Melbourne: MacMillan, 1968.

Foote, Geoffrey. The Labour Party’s Political Thought: A History. Third Edition. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997.

Fraser, Nancy. Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the 'Postsocialist' Condition. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Freudenberg, Graham. Cause For Power: The Official History of the New South Wales Branch of the Labor Party. Haymarket: Pluto Press, 1991.

Gollan, Robin. Radical and Working Class Politics: A Study of Eastern Australia, 1850-1910. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1960.

Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. New York: International Publishers, 1971.

Graves, Pamela. Labour Women: Women in Working-Class Politics 1918-1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Grimshaw, Patricia, Lake, Marilyn, McGrath, Ann, and Quartly, Marian. Creating A Nation: 1788 – 1900. Ringwood: McPhee Gribble, 1994.

Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, translated by Thomas Burger. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989.

Hagan, James. The ACTU: A Short History. Sydney: Reed, 1977.

223

Hearn, Mark and Knowles, Harry. One Big Union: A History of the Australian Workers Union 1886 – 1994. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Hobsbawm, EJ. Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour. Third Edition. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972.

Hogan, Michael. Local Labor: A History of the Labor Party in Glebe 1891-2003. Leichhardt: Federation Press, 2004.

Howes, Paul. Confessions of a Faceless Man: Inside Campaign 2010. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2010.

Hunt, Karen. Equivocal Feminists: The Social Democratic Federation and the woman question 1884- 1911. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Jauncey, Leslie C. The Story of Conscription in Australia. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1936.

James, David, Jowitt, Tony and Laybourn, Keith. The Centennial History of the Independent Labour Party: A Collection of Essays. Halifax: Ryburn Publishing, 1992.

Kirk, Neville. Comrades and Cousins: Globalization, Workers and Labour Movements in Britain, the USA and Australia from the 1880s to 1914. London: The Merlin Press, 2003. ———Labour and the Politics of Empire: Britain and Australia 1900 to the Present. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011.

Kohn, Margaret. Radical Space: Building the House of the People. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003.

Lake, Marilyn. Getting Equal: The History of Australian feminism. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1999.

Lake, Marilyn and Reynolds, Henry. Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the Question of Racial Equality. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2008.

Lidtke, Vernon L. The Alternative Culture: Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Love, Peter. Labour and the Money Power: Australian Labour Populism. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1984.

Löwy, Michael. The Theory of Revolution in the Young Marx. Chicago: Haymarket, 2003.

Mair, Peter. Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. London: Verso, 2013.

McCalman, Janet. Struggletown: Public and Private Life in Richmond 1900-1965. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1985.

McLaren, John. Free Radicals: Of the Left in Postwar Melbourne. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2003.

224

Macintyre, Stuart. A Proletarian Science: Marxism in Britain 1917-1933. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. ———The Oxford History of Australia: Volume 4, 1901-1942, The Succeeding Age. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986. ———The Labour Experiment. Melbourne: McPhee Gribble Publishers, 1989. ———A Colonial Liberalism: The Lost World of Three Victorian Visionaries. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. ——— The Reds. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1998.

Markey, Raymond. The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales 1880-1900. Kensington: New South Wales University Press, 1988.

McKernan, Michael. Victoria At War: 1914-1918. Sydney: Newsouth, 2014.

McKibbin, Ross. The Evolution of the Labour Party 1910-1924. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974.

McMullin, Ross. The Light on the Hill: The Australian Labor Party 1891-1991. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. ———So Monstrous A Travesty: Chris Watson and the World’s First National Labour Government. Melbourne: Scribe Publications, 2004.

McQueen, Humphrey. A New Britannia: An argument concerning the social origins of Australian radicalism and nationalism. Ringwood: Penguin, 1970.

Meaney, Neville. Australia and World Crisis, 1914-1923. Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2009.

Merritt, John. The Making of the AWU. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Miliband, Ralph. Parliamentary Socialism: a Study in the Politics of Labour. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1964.

Minkin, Lewis. The Labour Party Conference: A Study in the Politics of Intra-Party Democracy. London: Allen Lane, 1978.

Morgan, David. The Socialist Left and the German Revolution: A History of the German Independent Social Democratic Party, 1917-1922. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975.

Nairn, Bede. Civilising Capitalism: The Labor Movement in New South Wales 1870-1900. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1973.

Negt, Oskar and Kluge, Alexander. Public Sphere and Experience: Toward an Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.

Nolan, Mary. Social Democracy and Society: Working-class Radicalism in Düssledorf, 1890-1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Pelling, Henry and Reid, Alastair. A Short History of the Labour Party. Houndmills: Macimillan, [Eleventh Edition] 1996.

225

Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014.

Pore, Renate. A Conflict of Interest: Women in German Social Democracy, 1919-1933. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1981.

Rawson, DW. Labor in Vain?: A Survey of the Australian Labor Party. Croydon: Longmans, 1966.

Robertson, John. JH Scullin: A Political Biography. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1974.

Robson, LL. The First A.I.F.: A Study of its Recruitment 1914-1918. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1970.

Ross, Edgar. These Things Shall Be: Bob Ross, Socialist Pioneer — His Life and Times. West Ryde: Mulavon Publishing, 1988.

Ross, Lloyd. John Curtin: A Biography. South Melbourne: MacMillan, 1977.

Roth, Guenther. The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany: A Study in Working-Class Isolation and National Integration. Totowa: The Bedminster Press, 1963.

Sassoon, Donald. One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century. London: IB Tauris Publishers, 1996. ——— The Culture of the Europeans: From 1800 to the Present. London: HarperCollins, 2006.

Schneider, Michael. A Brief History of the German Trade Unions. Bonn: JHW Dietz, 1991.

Schulz, HJ. German Socialist Literature 1869-1914: Predicaments of Criticism. Columbia: Camden House, 1993.

Scott, Ernest. Australia During the War. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1936. ———A Short History of Australia. Seventh Edition. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1964.

Scott, Joan Wallach. The Glassworkers of Carmaux: French Craftsmen and Political Action in a Nineteenth Century City. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974. ———Gender and the Politics of History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.

Spence, William Guthrie. Australia’s Awakening: Thirty Years in the Life of an Australian Agitator. Sydney: The Worker, 1909.

Steenson, Gary P. “Not One Man! Not One Penny!”: German Social Democracy, 1863 – 1914. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981.

Steinberg, Marc W. Fighting Words: Working-Class Formation, Collective Action, and Discourse in Early Nineteenth-Century England. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.

Stiglitz, Joseph. The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2012.

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Strangio, Paul. Neither Power Nor Glory: 100 Years of Political Labor in Victoria, 1856-1956. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2012.

Thompson, EP. The Making of the English Working Class. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1964.

Thorpe, Andrew. A History of the British Labour Party. Houndmills: Macmillan Press, 1997.

Tsuzuki, Chushichi. Tom Mann, 1856-1941: The Challenges of Labour. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.

Turner, Ian. Industrial Labour and Politics: The Dynamics of the Labour Movement in Eastern Australia 1900-1921. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, [Second Edition] 1979.

Walker, Bertha. Solidarity Forever!: a part story of the life and times of Percy Laidler - the first quarter of a century. Melbourne: National Press, 1972.

Ward, Russell. The Australian Legend. Second Edition. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1965.

White, Joseph. Tom Mann. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991.

Williams, Raymond. The Sociology of Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.

Worley, Matthew. Labour’s Grass Roots: Essays on the Activities of Local Labour Parties and Members, 1918-1945. Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2005.

Book Chapters

Archer, Robin. “Labour and Liberty: The origins of the conscription referendum.” In The Conscription Conflict and the Great War, edited by Robin Archer, Joy Damousi, Murray Goot, and Sean Scalmer, 37-66. Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2016.

Behal, Rana P, Joshi, Chitra and Mohapatra Prabhu P. “India.” In Histories of Labour: National and International Perspectives, edited by Joan Allen, Alan Campbell and John McIlroy, 290- 314. Pontypool: Merlin Press, 2010.

Berlanstein, Lenard. “Introduction.” In Rethinking Labor History, edited by Lenard Berlanstein, 1-14. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.

Beaumont, Joan. “The Politics of a Divided Society.” In Australia’s War, 1914-18, edited by Joan Beaumont, 43-59. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1995.

Bongiorno, Frank. “Anti-Conscription in Australia: Individuals, Organisations and Arguments.” In The Conscription Conflict and the Great War, edited by Robin Archer, Joy Damousi, Murray Goot, and Sean Scalmer, 68-91. Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2016.

227

Burgmann, Verity. “Syndicalist and Socialist Anti-Militarism 1911-18: How The Radical Flanks Helped Defeat Conscription.” In Fighting Against War: Peace Activism in the Twentieth Century, edited by Phillip Deery and Julie Kimber, 56-78. Melbourne: Leftbank Press, 2015.

Campbell, Alan and McIlroy, John. “Britain: The Twentieth Century.” In Histories of Labour: National and International Perspectives, edited by Joan Allen, Alan Campbell and John McIlroy, 99-136. Pontypool: Merlin Press, 2010.

Dyrenfurth, Nick. “‘From a purely working class standpoint’: Labor’s Fusion Legacy.” In Confusion: The Making of the Australian Two-Party System, edited by Paul Strangio and Nick Dyrenfurth, 275-303. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2009. ——— “William Guthrie Spence: ‘Father’ of the Australian Workers Union.” In History of the AWU , WG Spence, xxix-lii. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2013.

Evans, Gareth. “Reshaping the Socialist Objective.” In The Socialist Objective: Labor & Socialism, edited by Bruce O’Meagher, 63 – 78. Marrickville: Hale & Iremonger, 1983.

Eley, Geoff. “Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures.” In Habermas and the Public Sphere, edited by Craig Calhoun, 289-339. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992. ——— “Intellectuals and the German Labor Movement.” In Intellectuals and Public Life: Between Radicalism and Reform, edited by Stephen Leonard, Leon Fink, and Donald M Reid, 74-96. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.

Faue, Elizabeth. “The United States of America.” In Histories of Labour: National and International Perspectives, edited by Joan Allen, Alan Campbell and John McIlroy, 164-195. Pontypool: Merlin Press, 2010.

Feeney, Jennifer and Smart, Judith. “Jean Daley and May Brodney.” In Double Time: Women in Victoria – 150 Years, edited by Marilyn Lake and Farley Kelly, 276-287. Ringwood: Penguin, 1985.

Hanagan, Michael. “Commentary: For Reconstruction in Labor History.” In Rethinking Labor History, edited by Lenard Berlanstein, 182-199. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.

Hobsbawm, Eric. “Opening Address: Working-class Internationalism.” In Internationalism in the Labour Movement 1830-1940, edited by Frits van Holthoon and Marcel van der Linden, 1- 16. Leiden: EJ Brill, 1988.

Holthoon, Frits van and van der Linden, Marcel. “Introduction.” In Internationalism in the Labour Movement 1830-1940, edited by Frits van Holthoon and Marcel van der Linden, vii- xiii. Leiden: EJ Brill, 1988.

Irving, Terry. “Socialism, working-class mobilisation and the origins of the Labor Party.” In The Socialist Objective: Labor & Socialism, edited by Bruce O’Meagher, 32-43. Marrickville: Hale & Iremonger, 1983. ——— “On the Work of Labour Governments: Vere Gordon Childe’s Plans for Volume Two of How Labour Governs.” In Childe and Australia: Archaeology, Politics and Ideas, edited by TH Irving and Peter Gathercole, 82-94. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1995.

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Johnson, Christopher. “Lifeworld, System, and Communicative Action: The Habermasian Alternative in Social History.” In Rethinking Labor History, edited by Lenard Berlanstein, 55- 89. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.

Johnson, Richard. “Culture and the Historians.” In Working-Class Culture: Studies in History and Theory, edited by John Clarke, Chas Critcher and Richard Johnson, 41-71. London: Hutchinson and Co., 1979. ——— “Three problematics: elements of a theory of working-class culture.” In Working-Class Culture: Studies in History and Theory, edited by John Clarke, Chas Critcher and Richard Johnson, 201-237. London: Hutchinson and Co., 1979.

McQueen, Humphrey. “Glory Without Power.” In Australian Capitalism: Towards a Socialist Critique, edited by J Playford and D Kirsner, 345-376. Ringwood: Penguin, 1972. ——— “Victoria.” In Labor in Politics: the State Labor Parties in Australia 1880-1920, edited by DJ Murphy, 293-339. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1975.

Murphy, DJ. “Introduction.” In Labor in Politics: the State Labor Parties in Australia 1880-1920, edited by DJ Murphy, 1-12. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1975. ——— “Queensland.” In Labor in Politics: the State Labor Parties in Australia 1880 -1920, edited by DJ Murphy, 127-228. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1975.

O’Meagher, Bruce. “Introduction.” In The Socialist Objective: Labor & Socialism, edited by Bruce O’Meagher, 1-31. Marrickville: Hale & Iremonger, 1983.

Patmore, Greg. “Australia.” In Histories of Labour: National and International Perspectives, edited by Joan Allen, Alan Campbell and John McIlroy, 231-261. Pontypool: Merlin Press, 2010.

Rasmussen, Amanda. “The Rise of Labor: A Chinese Australian Participates in Bendigo Local Politics at a Formative Moment, 1904-1905.” In Chinese Australians: Politics, Engagement and Resistance, edited by Sophie Couchman and Kate Bagnall, 174-202. Leiden: BRILL, 2015.

Reeves, John and Evans, Gareth. “The Evolution of the Socialist Objective.” In Labor Essays 1980, edited by Gareth Evans and John Reeves, 166-162. Richmond: Drummons, 1980.

Scalmer, Sean. “A Model of Reading Practice in the Australian Labour Movement During the First Half of the 20th Century.” In Labour & Community: Proceedings of the Sixth National Conference of the ASSLH, edited by Robert Hood and Ray Markey, 158-163. Wollongong: The Australian Society for the Study of Labour History Illaware Branch, 1999. ——— “’for the sake of a straight out fight’: The Free Traders and the Puzzle of the Fusion.” In Confusion: The Making of the Australian Two Party System, edited by Paul Strangio and Nick Dyrenfurth, 45-69. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2009. ——— “Legend and Lamentation: Remembering the Anti-Conscription Struggle.” In The Conscription Conflict and the Great War. Edited by Robin Archer, Joy Damousi, Murray Goot, and Sean Scalmer, 188-201. Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2016.

Strangio, Paul. “Introduction: From Confusion to Stability.” In Confusion: The Making of the Australian Two-Party System, edited by Paul Strangio and Nick Dyrenfurth, 1-19. Carlton:

229

Melbourne University Press, 2009. ——— “’an intensity of feeling such as I had never before witnessed’: Fusion in Victoria.” In Confusion: The Making of the Australian Two Party System, edited by Paul Strangio and Nick Dyrenfurth, 134-161. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2009.

Thompson, EP. "Marxism and History." In The Essential E. P. Thompson, edited by Dorothy Thompson, 466-471. New York: The New Press, 2001.

Whitlam, Gough. “’The Impotent are Pure.’” In For the True Believers: Great Labor Speeches that Shaped History, edited by Troy Bramston, 227-232. Annandale: Federation Press, 2013.

Articles

Adams, Paul. “The Annihilation of the ILP: The Third Industrial Labor Party and the Sturt Vacancy.” Labour History, no. 105 (November 2013): 79-92.

Anderson, Perry. “Origins of the Present Crisis”, New Left Review, I/23 (1964): 26-53.

Archer, Robin. “Stopping War and Stopping Conscription: Australian Labour’s Response to World War I in Comparative Perspective.” Labour History, no. 106 (2014): 43-67.

Aslandis, Paris and Kaltwasser, Cristobel Rovira. “Dealing with populists in government: the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition in Greece.” Democratization 23, no. 6 (2016): 1077-1091.

Bollard, Robert. “’The Active Chorus’: The Great Strike of 1917 in Victoria.” Labour History, no. 90 (2006): 77–94.

Bongiorno, Frank. “Bernard O’Dowd’s Socialism.” Labour History, no. 77 (1999): 97-116.

Brigden, Cathy. “Creating Labour’s Space: The Case of the Melbourne Trades Hall,” Labour History, no. 89 (2005): 125-140. ——— “The Legacy of Separate Organizing: Women in the Victorian Trades Hall Council in the Interwar Years,” Labor Studies Journal 36, no. 2 (2011): 245-268. ——— “‘A Fine and Self-Reliant Group of Women’: Women’s Leadership in the Female Confectioner’s Union.” Labour History, no. 104 (2013): 49-64.

Brodney, M. “Militant Propagandists of the Labor Movement.” Labour History, no. 5 (1963): 11-17.

Byrne, Liam. “‘Workers of the world have one common enemy to fight’: The Anti-Militarist Left in the Victorian Campaign Against Conscription.” Traffic 13 (2013): 151-174. ——— “Constructing a Socialist Community: The Victorian Socialist Party, Ritual, Pedagogy, and the Subaltern Counterpublic.” Labour History, no. 108 (2015): 103-121. ———“John Curtin: labour movement intellectual, 1906-1917.” History Australia 13, no. 2 (2016): 243-257.

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Coffém, Hilde and Plassa, Rebecca. “Party policy position of Die Linke: A continuation of the PDS?” Party Politics 16, no. 6 (2010): 721-735.

Cobble, Dorothy Sue. “The Promise and Peril of the New Global Labor History.” International Labor and Working Class History, 82 (2012): 99-107.

Curthoys, Ann. “Labour History and Cultural Studies.” Labour History, no. 67 (1994): 12-22.

Damousi, Joy. "Socialist Women and Gendered Space: The Anti-Conscription and Anti-War Campaigns of 1914-1918." Labour History, no. 60 (1991): 1-15.

Dick, Wendy. “’Vigorous-Minded and Independent’: Ellen Mulcahy as a Labour Leader.” Labour History, no. 104 (2013): 31-48.

Dickenson, Jackie, Grimshaw, Patricia and Scalmer, Sean. “Labour Women’s Leadership: Concept and History.” Labour History, no. 104 (2013): 1-8.

Dyrenfurth, Nick. “Labour and Politics.” Labour History, no. 100 (2011): 105-126. ——— “’Conscription is Not Abhorrent to Laborites and Socialists’: Revisiting the Australian Labour Movements Attitude towards Military Conscription during World War I.” Labour History, no. 103 (2012): 145-164.

Fahey, Charles and Lack, John. “’A Kind of Elysium Where Nobody Has Anything Difficult To Do’: H.B. Higgins, H.V. McKay and the Agricultural Implement Makers, 1901-26.” Labour History, no. 80, (2001): 99 -119. ———“The Great Strike of 1917 in Victoria: Looking Fore and Aft, and from Below.” Labour History, no. 106 (2014): 69-97.

Ferguson, Kathy. “Anarchist Counterpublics.” New Political Science 32, no. 2, (2010): 193-214.

Field, Geoffrey and Hanagan, Michael. "ILWCH: Forty Years On." International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 82 (2012): 5-14.

Frances, Raelene. “Authentic Leaders: Women and Leadership in Australian Unions before World War II.” Labour History, no. 104 (May 2013): 9-30.

Gerrard, Jessica. "'Little Soldiers' for Socialism: Childhood and Socialist Politics in the British Socialist Sunday School Movement." International Review of Social History 58 (2013): 71-96.

Hanagan, Michael. "An Agenda for Transnational Labor History." International Review of Social History 49 (2004): 455-474.

Hearn, Mark. “Examined Suspiciously: Alfred Deakin, Eleanor Cameron and Australian Liberal Discourse in The 1911 Referendum.” History Australia 2, no. 3 (2005): 87.1-87.20. ——— “’The Benefits of Industrial Organisation’? The Second Fisher Government and Fin de Siècle Modernity in Australia.” Labour History, no. 102 (2012): 37-54.

Hearn, Mark and Dyrenfurth, Nick. “Reinterpreting the Second Fisher Government.” Labour History, no. 102 (2012): 1-9.

231

Hirst, JB. “Australian Defence and Conscription: A Re-assessment Part I.” Australian Historical Studies 25, no. 101 (1993): 608-627.

Hogan, Michael. “Template for a Labor Faction: The Industrial Section and the Industrial Vigilance Council of the NSW Labor Party, 1916-19.” Labour History, no. 96 (2009): 79-100.

Hyslop, Jonathon. “The Imperial Working Class Makes Itself ‘White’: White Labourism in Britain, Australia, and South Africa Before the First World War.” Journal of Historical Sociology 12, no. 4 (1999): 398-421.

Irving, Terry. "Labourism: A Political Genealogy." Labour History, no. 66 (1994): 1-13.

Irving, Terry and Scalmer, Sean. "Australian Labour Intellectuals: an Introduction." Labour History, no. 77 (1999): 1-10. ———“Labour Intellectuals in Australia: Modes, Traditions, Generations, Transformations.” International Review of Social History 50 (2005): 1-26.

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Minerva Access is the Institutional Repository of The University of Melbourne

Author/s: Byrne, Liam

Title: Defining Labor: a study of the political culture of the Victorian Labor Party, 1901-1921

Date: 2016

Persistent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11343/129171

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