i

Foot Soldiers for Capital: the influence of RSL racism on interwar industrial relations in and

by

Sarah Gregson B. A. (Hons)

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Industrial Relations and Organisational Behaviour Faculty of Commerce and Economics University of

2003

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SYNOPSIS

The historiography of Australian racism has principally ‘blamed’ the labour movement for the existence of the White policy and racist responses to the presence of migrant workers. This study argues that the motivations behind ruling class agitation for the have never been satisfactorily analysed. To address this omission, the role of the Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL) in race relations is examined. As an elite-dominated, cross-class organisation with links to every section of society, it is argued that the RSL was a significant agitator for migrant exclusion and white unity in the interwar period.

The thesis employs case studies, oral history and qualitative assessment of various written sources, such as newspapers, archival records and secondary material, in order to plot the dynamics of racist ideology in two mining centres in the interwar period. The results suggest that, although labour organisations were influenced by racist ideas and frequently protested against the presence of migrant workers, it was also true that mining employers had a material interest in sowing racial division in the workplaces they controlled.

The study concludes that labour movement responses to migrant labour incorporated a range of different strategies, from demands for racist exclusion to moves towards international . It also reveals examples of local and migrant workers living, working, playing and striking together in ways that contradict the dominant view of perpetual tension between workers of different nationalities. Lastly, the case studies demonstrate that local employers actively encouraged racial division in the workplace as a bulwark against industrial militancy.

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CONTENTS

Abbreviations iv

Acknowledgements v

Introduction Foot Soldiers for Capital: Why focus on the RSL? 1

Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL: a review of the literature 16 Chapter Two Plotting the Ebb and Flow of Racist Ideology: a discussion of theory and methodology 45

Chapter Three ‘Australia’s Picked Citizens’: the RSL in the interwar years 87 Chapter Four Kalgoorlie in Context 117

Chapter Five Kalgoorlie between the Wars: a mine of racism? 151

Chapter Six Broken Hill in Context 199

Chapter Seven Broken Hill between the Wars: the RSL in a ‘union town’ 246

Conclusion Racist Ideology: the end of history? 292

Bibliography 303

Appendixes 334

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Abbreviations

ACTU Australian Council of Trade Unions AIF Australian Imperial Force ALF Australian Labor Federation ALP Australian Labor Party AMA Amalgamated Miners’ Association AWU Australian Workers’ Union BDAALP Barrier District Assembly of the Australian Labor Party BDT Barrier Daily Truth BEL Barrier Empire League BHP Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited BIA Barrier Industrial Association BIC Barrier Industrial Council BWA Barrier Workers’ Association CPA Communist Party of Australia CTA Country Traders’ Association DCM Distinguished Conduct Medal FEDFA Federated Engine-Drivers’ and Firemen’s Association FMU Coolgardie Federated Miners Union HRH His Royal Highness IWW Industrial Workers of the World or the ‘Wobblies’ MC Military Cross MEU Municipal Employees Union MHR Member of the House of Representatives MLA Member of the Legislative Assembly MLC Member of the Legislative Council MMA Mining Managers Association MMM Militant Minority Movement MUA Maritime Union of Australia NCA National Citizens’ Association NSWPD New South Wales Parliamentary Debates OBU One Big Union PM Prime Minister PPTUS/M Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat/Movement PSI Italian Socialist Party RSL Returned Soldiers’ Association Returned Soldiers’ League Returned Sailors and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia T&TL Trades and Trades Labourers’ Union VC Cross WIUA Workers Industrial Union of Australia

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the reference staff at all the institutions that hold sources used in this thesis. May you continue to do so. Despite the continual funding cuts and staff reductions that seemingly haunt all such publicly-funded organisations nowadays, you went placidly amid my noise and haste, providing invaluable assistance and never baulking at my strange inquiries. Special thanks go to the much-put-upon workers at the Noel Butlin Archives Centre – it is my sincere wish that your morning teas remain a haven in a heartless world for travelling historians. In addition, I confess to overworking staff at the NSW State Reference Library and the Mitchell Library in , the Battye Library in Perth, the Mortlock Library in , the William Grundt Library in Kalgoorlie, the Charles Rasp Library in Broken Hill, the National Library of Australia and the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, the National Archives of Australia offices in , Canberra, Perth and Sydney, the Melbourne University Archives and the UNSW Library. At the fearful risk of omitting important debts of gratitude, I would like to express appreciation for the individual assistance given by John Terrell, Victor Oates at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, and Wendy Carter at the Eastern Goldfields Historical Society. They were enormously helpful and generous with their time.

When it comes to acknowledging supervisory help, things get a bit tricky. Of my supervisors four, Michael Quinlan was there at the kick-off. John Shields suggested the case study approach, sharing his own enthusiasm for Broken Hill history, while simultaneously sparking my transformation into a Kalgoorlie-phile. Peter Gahan made me write – no small task. However, special thanks go to Lucy Taksa, who exhibited unique staying power to be there at full-time, offering encouragement, useful advice and continual exhortations not to write in the passive voice. In addition, Phil Griffiths provided unofficial, but not unappreciated, guidance, inspiration, debate and red wine. Diane Fieldes and Sigrid McCausland were meticulous proofreaders, exhibiting friendship and good humour above and beyond the call. To all of you go my many thanks and a sincere hope that you think the final result was worth your collective efforts. Its shortcomings are not your fault.

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When I started university as a mature-age student in 1990, I had never even heard of ‘doing Honours’ and had certainly never imagined that I would take such a path and eventually enter upon PhD research. From start to finish, my family and friends provided constant support and, despite all evidence to the contrary, faithfully believed that I could pull if off. To Ian, the Gregson Five, Sue, Mel, Michael, and all at the Sydney Trade Union Choir – I am, somewhat uniquely, speechless in my infinite gratitude. Lastly, to my cat, Toby, who thinks lizards and rats are infinitely more interesting than PhDs – thanks for the reality check, moggy.

INTRODUCTION

Foot Soldiers for Capital: why focus on the RSL?1

[W]hat is significant to realise now is how every corner of that little suburban house must have been impregnated for years with the very essence of some gigantic and sombre experience that had taken place thousands of miles away … There was no corner of the house … that was not inhabited by the jetsam that the Somme and the Marne and the salient at Ypres and the Gallipoli beaches had thrown up. George Johnston, My Brother Jack

George Johnston’s description of the tiny suburban Melbourne cottage in which David and Jack Meredith grew up evokes a fitting allegory of Australia in the aftermath of World War One, where the repercussions of overseas military involvement were clearly palpable for decades after the last shot was fired.2 The stark absence of so many young men who had left in a blaze of national pride and were now never to return; the disturbing presence of those who had come back with manifest signs of the ordeal through which they had suffered; the terrible poverty into which many soldiers slid as pre-war promises became post-war repudiations; all were jarring reminders of a ‘debt’ for which the home front could, or would, never adequately compensate. It was just as Mickey Flynn, Boer War veteran and boxing troupe manager, had warned his employees. ‘Don’t any of you go taking any notice of the Government’s promises’, he said, because ‘[t]hey will tell you anything to get you in but when you “do your bit” as they call it, you will soon be forgotten and so will the promises.’3

1 Returned service organisations throughout Australia have had a plethora of names and name changes. To avoid confusion with other, sometimes more radical, returned soldier organisations, the acronym ‘RSL’ is used throughout this thesis to denote State branches and sub-branches of the federally recognised Returned Sailors and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, established in 1916. See L. Hills, The Returned Sailors & Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia: Its Origin, History, Achievements and Ideals, part 1, Southland, Melbourne, 1938. 2 G. Johnston, My Brother Jack, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1995 (first published 1964), pp. 11-12. 3 A. B. Facey, A Fortunate Life, Penguin, Ringwood, 1981, p. 235. Introduction

In a bid to capitalise on the collective potential of returned men and to win working class soldiers away from labour organisations, leading members of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia (RSL) placed the image of brave, altruistic, conservative returned soldiers at the centre of national post-war society.4 They constructed an ideological narrative that gave primacy to soldier sacrifice in the protection of Australia’s democratic and egalitarian traditions, in direct opposition to labour movement claims that the successful campaigns against conscription had narrowly averted a military dictatorship over the working class.5 While purporting to represent the interests of all returned men, the ‘brass hats’ who led the RSL used their role as self-appointed guardians of the ‘Anzac legend’ to bolster the place of veteran leaders in national discussions about the subsequent course of Australia’s development.6 Despite expressions of concern about the level of repatriation benefits for ordinary soldiers, the RSL leadership worked much more assiduously to convince governments that it had an important role to play in directing society towards ‘desirable’ national outcomes – ensuring industrial peace, opposing radical politics and reinforcing conservative values. Very few politicians disagreed.

Although Kristianson has detailed the degree to which RSL ‘brass hats’ had considerable access to the holders of high political office, it is equally important to understand the relationship between the RSL leadership and its membership.7 Returned soldiers came from all classes, occupations, religions, localities and political affiliations and this provided the conservative leadership of the RSL with unique access to almost every group in society.8 Ex-servicemen were gradually re-absorbed into civilian life as

4 S. Alomes, A Nation At Last? The Changing Character of 1880-1988, Angus and Robertson, North Ryde, 1988, pp. 67-8. 5 K. Buckley and E. Wheelwright, False Paradise: Australian Capitalism Revisited, 1915-1955, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1998, pp. 19-25. 6 ‘Brass hat’ was a common colloquialism employed to denote officers. As will be demonstrated in Chapter Three, many ex-servicemen viewed ‘brass hats’ and the RSL leadership as one and the same, and not without justification. See also Thomson’s description of the RSL leadership where it was portrayed as dominated by ‘influential ex-officers from the business and professional class’. A. Thomson, Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1998, p. 121. Re the nature of the ‘Anzac legend’, see K. S. Inglis, ‘The Anzac Tradition’, Meanjin, March 1965; G. Serle, ‘The Digger Tradition and Australian Nationalism’, Meanjin, June 1965; M. Roe, ‘Comment on the Digger Tradition’, Meanjin, September 1965; K. S. Inglis, ‘The Australians at Gallipoli-? and ??’, Historical Studies, vol. 14, nos. 54 and 55, 1970. See Chapters One and Three for further comment on Anzac mythologising. 7 G. Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism: The Pressure Group Activities of the Returned Servicemen’s League, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1966. 8 B. Gammage, The Broken Years, Penguin, Ringwood, 1975, pp. 280-2.

2 Introduction

church-goers, sportsmen, school teachers, farmers, small and big businessmen, and workers of all political hues. As such, those returned soldiers who supported the conservative side of politics, and who maintained links with an RSL sub-branch, formed a potentially critical conduit for RSL propaganda into wider society. In particular, conservative workers who embraced RSL policies had a special place in ‘brass hat’ plans to influence the Australian labour movement.

From its inception, the RSL leadership sought to fashion an organisation in its own image. As a counterweight to the political and industrial organisation of the labour movement, the RSL provided the Australian ruling class with a political structure through which to organise conservative programmes, one that I argue was far more organic than that developed by the Nationalist Party in the interwar period.9 RSL meetings provided important organising centres for right-wing ideologues, passing ideas from the predominantly ‘brass hat’ leadership, through a conservative working class cadre to the wider working class. Just as the union movement provided a pole of attraction for those who wanted to, even in a limited sense, oppose the capitalist system, so too did the RSL provide a place where conservative employers and workers could meet to hear re-affirming ideology, discuss current political questions and plan strategic alliances in support of the status quo. Labour movement appeals to working class returned servicemen to rejoin their unions were countered by RSL claims that ex- soldiers were better served by cleaving to each other, much as they had on the battlefields. According to RSL propaganda, those officers who had commendably led them through the war would equally lead them in peace time, thereby ensuring that returned soldier commitment to the defence of the Australian nation would not end with the armistice. In 1917, Senior Chaplain Dean Talbot, an early President of the NSW RSL, described the aims of the newly-formed RSL thus:

[t]he men must be encouraged to help themselves and to help one another … Such an Association as ours can be a great power for good in the community if it is wisely guided. We must perpetuate in the life of the nation the principles for which we have fought …10

9 See P. Cochrane, Industrialization and Dependence, University of Press, St Lucia, 1980, pp. 76-102.

3 Introduction

In the views of such men, dependable ‘diggers’ would mobilise against the disloyalty and industrial turmoil on the home front that had let them down in the trenches. In this battle, returned soldiers would be both practical and ideological warriors, serving as strike breakers during industrial disputes and spreading the conservative political doctrines of Australian nationalism, industrial pacifism and ‘racial purity’. As Thomson argued, at the very least it would get them off the streets.11

One of the most prominent aspects of the RSL’s allegedly ‘non-political’ agenda was its vigorous embrace of the White Australia policy. At Federal, State and sub- branch levels, RSL propaganda maintained that racial purity was one of the principal ideals for which soldiers had fought. As Serle maintained, the digger legend was largely crafted by conservative sections of society who developed ‘a right-wing variation of Australian nationalism … based on the new patriotism and pride of race of the Protestant middle class’.12 Predominantly Protestant and non-working class, the RSL leadership was a key protagonist in this ideological project. It was able to link left-wing ideology with ‘foreign’ and ‘revolutionary’ influence and, in so doing, constructed a case for ‘eternal vigilance’ in the administration of immigration. As Kristianson argued, ‘Ever since its formation ... the League has put to the Commonwealth government demands with regard to defence, immigration and creeds and organizations seen as subversive to the maintenance of the Australian way of life.’13 Every Federal RSL Congress of the interwar period passed at least one motion that criticised successive Federal governments for alleged laxity in their policing of non-British immigration. In this way, returned soldiers were construed as the only proven defenders of the Australian nation. The RSL’s incessant and faintly hysterical propagandising in this area is epitomized by the following motion, entitled ‘Influx of Aliens’, which read:

Congress affirms that in pioneering this young country of Australia only the best citizens are required and desires that the Commonwealth Government should continue its policy of strict prohibition against those

10 Cited in P. Sekuless and J. Rees, Lest We Forget: The History of the Returned Services League 1916- 1986, Rigby, Dee Why West, 1986, pp. 22-3. 11 Thomson, Anzac Memories, p. 123. 12 G. Serle, ‘The Digger Tradition and Australian Nationalism’, Meanjin, June 1965, p. 156. 13 Kristianson, Politics of Patriotism, p. xxviii.

4 Introduction

of criminal tendencies, mental deficients, and those of anti-British views.14

That an elite-dominated organisation such as the RSL could be at the forefront of agitation for non-British immigration restriction contradicts the common assumption that working class people have been the chief agitators for, and beneficiaries from, the White Australia policy.15 Although hostile to labour agitation for better wages and working conditions, the RSL leadership preached adherence to racial homogeneity as a pre-condition for decent Australian living standards and, in the process, encouraged its working class members to embrace exclusionary immigration policies, both at a national and local level. During the 1920s, it lost no opportunity to lobby for the cessation of southern European immigration to Australia. In retrospect, it might be argued that the efficacy of this lobbying at Federal level was not great because non-British immigration continued unabated until the Depression. Yet, this study will demonstrate that restriction was not the RSL’s only objective. Its contribution to the mid-1920s hue and cry about the ‘dangers’ of southern European immigration was, I argue, also designed to penetrate labour movement politics at a local level. It is the nature and extent of that influence which has received little attention in the existing historiographies of racism and the RSL.

It is at this point that a focus on the RSL begins to yield important insights into the dynamics of racism in Australia, raising hitherto unaddressed questions about the motivations behind ruling class agitation for the White Australia. Support for the White Australia policy in the interwar years was most commonly described as having achieved a level of consensus unparalleled by any other set of ideas to have become dominant over the last century, an assumption that is arguably one of the most successful bourgeois frauds of Australian history. As a consequence, attempts made by unionised workers to overcome racial animosity have been neglected by Australian labour historians, who have shown much more curiosity about instances of racist division that

14 Letter, RSL Federal Executive to Prime Minister, 9 December 1929, RSL collection, MS 6609, Item 4739, National Library of Australia. 15 This is a long historiographical tradition but see, for example, W. K. Hancock, Australia, Jacaranda Press, , 1966 (first published 1930), p. 61; A. C. Palfreeman, The Administration of the White Australia Policy, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1967; C. A. Price, Southern Europeans in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1963 and The Great White Walls are Built, Australian

5 Introduction

have sporadically flared among working people and the economic, political and social causes of such enmity. Dissenters to the White Australia ‘ideal’ were seemingly limited to short-sighted employers who put their desire for cheap labour ahead of the ‘national interest’, and small groups of ‘red-raggers’ who spouted ‘lunatic’ ideas about workers having no country. While wide-ranging discussions and disagreements have occurred over virtually every other aspect of Australian history – arbitration, free trade, women’s oppression, for example – similar debates about the origins and dynamics of racism and the White Australia policy were rare until the 1970s and 1980s when, amidst debates surrounding the role of Australian imperialism and militarism in Asia, the dismantling of the White Australia policy and rising agitation around the continued oppression of Aboriginal people, some historians began to strip away the arguments of the apologists for the racist nature of the White Australia policy. Of particular relevance to this study was ’s healthy scepticism about the notion that employers supported the White Australia policy to maintain a high wage economy.16 In so doing, she was tackling an historiographical truism of many decades’ standing.

Published in 1923, Myra Willard’s work was equivocal about what role, if any, might be assigned to the Australian working class in the enactment of the White Australia policy. On the one hand, she acknowledged that support for immigration restriction was virtually unanimous among members of the first Federal Parliament and that the interests of Australian nationhood were more important than the industrial demands of labour organisations.17 According to Willard’s investigations, Australia’s ruling elite was only motivated to support immigration restriction for more sophisticated political motives involving nation-building and cultural heritage. As Edmund Barton articulated to his colleagues in Parliament, the legislation was necessary:

not only for the reason generally urged, because while there may be sympathy with the labour aspect of the question, I have yet to say there

National University Press, Canberra, 1974; A. Markus, Fear and Hatred: Purifying Australia and California 1850-1901, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1979. 16 V. Burgmann, ‘Capital and Labour’ in A. Curthoys and A. Markus (eds), Who Are Our Enemies? Racism and the Working Class in Australia, Hale and Iremonger, Neutral Bay, 1978, p. 33. 17 M. Willard, History of the White Australia Policy to 1920, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1974 (first published 1923), p. 203.

6 Introduction

are grounds even more conclusive than those of labour for the prevention of this kind of immigration.18

On the other hand, she claimed that, in keeping with the noblest British democratic traditions, the Australian Parliament served the people and, for this reason, had allowed popular agitation for restriction to sway its legislative hand.19 In short, she placed an historical ‘each-way bet’ about the political impetus towards immigration restriction, but it was her argument that the working class was the most racist section of Australian society that was widely accepted and repeated uncritically by historians for many decades.

In the 1970s and 1980s, historians such as McQueen, Burgmann, Evans, Saunders and Cronin, Price, Curthoys, and Markus produced a range of studies that attempted to provide more complex and convincing explanations of the continued existence of racism in Australian society, by proposing a range of analyses about the nature and dynamic of racism against Aboriginal, Asian and Melanesian people. However, of all these historians, only Burgmann attempted to make a systematic case for the involvement of the ruling class in Australia’s racist past.20 In her doctoral research and in a range of historical polemics against Professor Geoffrey Blainey’s campaign to restrict Asian immigration, Burgmann argued that a continuing focus on working class racism had let Australian employers off the hook. She was critical of attempts to use economic justifications against cheap labour to ‘whitewash’ the labour movement from the stains of White Australia, but she was equally hostile to the

18 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 1st session, 1901, p. 3503. 19 Willard, History of the White Australia Policy, pp. 88-9. 20 H. McQueen, A New Britannia, Penguin, Ringwood, 1970; A. Curthoys, Race and Ethnicity: A Study of the Response of British Colonists to Aborigines, Chinese and Non-British Europeans in New South Wales, 1856-1881, unpublished PhD thesis, Macquarie University, 1973; C. A. Price, The Great White Walls are Built, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1974; R. Evans, K. Saunders and K. Cronin, Exclusion Exploitation Extermination: Race Relations in Colonial Queensland, Australian and New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, 1975; A. Curthoys and A. Markus, Who are our Enemies? Racism and the Working Class in Australia, Hale and Iremonger, Neutral Bay, 1978; A. Markus, Fear and Hatred: Purifying Australia and California 1850-1901, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1979; A. Markus, ‘Explaining the treatment of non-European immigrants in nineteenth century Australia’, Labour History, no. 48, 1985. For Burgmann’s critique, see V. Burgmann, Revolutionaries and Racists: Australian Socialism and the Problem of Racism, 1887-1917, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University, 1980; ‘Racism, Socialism, and the Labour Movement, 1887-1917’, Labour History, no. 47, 1984; ‘Writing Racism Out of History’, Arena, no. 67, 1984; ‘Who our enemies are: Andrew Markus and the baloney view of Australian Racism’, Labour History, no. 49, 1985; ‘In Our Time’ Socialism and the Rise of Labor, 1885-1905, George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1985.

7 Introduction

attribution of blame for racist immigration restrictions to a working class that had neither the industrial nor political power to secure such legislation from a reluctant ruling class. However, Burgmann did not successfully integrate her analysis of ruling class racism with an equivalent acknowledgement of the wide range of responses that the labour movement might have to such employer strategies. Although she examined the struggle towards anti-racist politics within early Australian socialist organisations, in Burgmann’s formulation the struggle for political consciousness and international solidarism was principally an ideological question that, for the most part, sat above the class struggle where racist ideas mixed with workers’ material existence and employer attempts to divide and rule. With this approach, the question of anti-racist activity within the labour movement was never satisfactorily addressed.

This study builds on the strengths of Burgmann’s contributions, by focusing directly on the issue of ruling class racism and labour movement responses to it. Although historians have made repeated references to Protestant support for a war against ‘the Hun’, conservative newspaper diatribes about licentious Chinese opium dens, demonstrations of Empire loyalty in schools, and employer exploitation of ‘foreign’ workers, these examples have failed to penetrate a systematic explanation of Australian racism. Similarly, working class moves towards internationalism have been treated as little more than isolated examples, rather than problematic cases that do not fit the dominant historiographical interpretation. Although some historians have acknowledged the importance of the internationalist position propagated by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the early years of the twentieth century,21 students of Australian racism could be forgiven for thinking that the state’s ability to assign the IWW to a virtual political oblivion simultaneously silenced the anti-racist project for several decades. Similarly, the anti-racist legacy of the Communist Party of Australia and the important debates and class conflicts that surrounded Australian Council of Trade Unions’ affiliation to the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Movement have not been attributed any enduring significance in labour movement debates about racism.22 It

21 See V. Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: The Industrial Workers of the World in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1995, pp. 79-91; Ian Turner, Sydney’s Burning, Alpha, Sydney, 1969. 22 See F. Farrell’s ‘The Pan-Pacific trade union movement and Australian labour, 1921-1932’, Historical Studies, vol. 17, no. 69, 1977 and International Socialism and Australian Labour, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1981.

8 Introduction

will be argued here that these movements towards international solidarity were public manifestations of a wider issue that members of the Australian labour movement faced repeatedly – how to build industrial solidarity and strength in order to secure gains from the employing class. In that struggle, the question of racism was raised on a daily basis.

While workers have often supported campaigns against migrant labour, their material living and working conditions also establish a potential basis for unity. As Marx and Engels argued, the capitalist class ‘creates its own gravedigger’ – a mass class of free wage labourers – and so must work assiduously to avoid its own revolutionary demise by, among other things, producing ideas that help to entrench its pre-eminent position.23 Prevailing ideas which in effect divide the working class are enormously important in maintaining that position. In Australia, business, political, church, educational and media leaders drew upon a specific array of weapons to wage this ideological battle and one of the most prominent of these was the RSL, usefully promoting, as it did, an ideology of racial division and class collaboration among conservative, working class returned soldiers. What effect did this propaganda have on conservative workers and their associates in the wider working class? These relationships are yet to be plotted, as an outline of the relevant literature will demonstrate.

Given the historiographical emphasis on working class support for immigration restriction, it might be assumed that RSL racism was not at odds with labour movement principles. On the contrary, this examination of the conservative political agenda behind the RSL’s commitment to the White Australia policy demonstrates that RSL racism was deliberately employed to exacerbate a perennial problem within the labour movement – the tactical question of how best to defend employment levels, wages and conditions. On occasion, sections of the labour movement vacillated between a strategy based on Australian nationalism and racial exclusion, on the one hand, and solidarity and internationalism on the other. Against the arguments of some on the Left of the labour movement that racism fundamentally contradicted the arguably more crucial imperative towards industrial solidarity, RSL activists consistently opposed any moves towards

23 K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1970, p. 46; The German Ideology, International Publishers, New York, 1972, pp. 64-68.

9 Introduction

industrial unity across perceived racial boundaries, arguing that the only way to defend working class living standards was by means of non-British immigration restriction. In short, these tensions and debates suggest that racism within the Australian labour movement has a far more complex history than has hitherto been acknowledged.

In order to re-open the case for ruling class ‘culpability’, I examine the activities of the RSL at a local level. Few other organisations could claim a similar degree of political influence in interwar society. While significant studies have examined its role in the heightened political periods of the immediate post-World War One years, the repatriation process, the Depression era and the Cold War witch-hunts of the 1950s,24 much less attention has been focussed on the day-to-day proselytising of the RSL and the possible effects of this conservative influence within Australian communities. These two issues are examined here through a focus on the activities of ordinary people in two local sub-branches and the ways in which RSL members were able to influence the debates on racism that took place in their respective localities. Specifically, I consider attempts by RSL stalwarts to spread ideas of racial division within the labour movement and the wider working class. While an exact measure of the RSL’s ability to influence labour movement responses to migrant workers is probably not possible, an examination of the interactions and altercations between organised employers, workers, migrants and returned soldiers will highlight the alliances and strategies that were employed by the conservatives in attempts to win workers’ allegiance to nationalist outcomes.

This study employs case studies of Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill to examine the dynamics of racism at close quarters. Both towns hosted small but significant southern

24 See K. Amos, The Movement 1931-1935, Melbourne University Press, Clayton, 1976; M. Cathcart, Defending the National Tuckshop: Australia’s Secret Army Intrigue of 1931, McPhee Gribble, Fitzroy, 1988; R. Evans, The Riots: A Study of Intolerance, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1988; H. McQueen, ‘Shoot the Bolshevik! Hang the Profiteer! Reconstructing Australian Capitalism 1918-21’ in E. L. Wheelwright and K. Buckley (eds), Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism, vol. 2, Australia and New Zealand Book Co., Brookvale, 1978; A. Moore, The Right Road? A History of Right-wing Politics in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995 and The Secret Army and the Premier, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, 1989; J. Murray, ‘The Kalgoorlie Woodline Strikes 1919-1920: A Study of Conflict Within the Working Class’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 5, December 1982; P. Sekuless and J. Rees, Lest We Forget: The History of the Returned Services League 1916-1986, Rigby, Dee Why West, 1986; B. Oliver, War and Peace in : The Social and Political Impact of the Great War 1914-1926, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1995 and ‘Disputes, Diggers and Disillusionment: Social and Industrial Unrest in Perth and Kalgoorlie 1918-24’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 11, June 1990; L. J. Louis, ‘The RSL and the Cold War 1946-50’, Labour History, no. 74, 1998.

10 Introduction

European populations during the interwar years, some of whom had been long-term residents and others who were more recent arrivals.25 Both towns were dominated by the mining industry and while geographically isolated, each played a prominent part in the politics of their respective States. This was due in part to the attention they received from Labor and Communist-run newspapers which spread the word about industrial disputes, requested solidarity from other workers and passed on news about employment prospects. Both towns were viewed with trepidation by conservative forces in the capital cities, and on several occasions large contingents of ‘special’ constables were sent from Sydney and Perth to appease the fears of governments and mine managers. However, the disparities between these two towns are as decisive as their similarities. During the Depression, their economies diverged. While job shortages dealt a savage blow to the Broken Hill workforce, in Kalgoorlie the gold mining industry boomed. While unemployment was no stranger to the Kalgoorlie miners, the Depression was felt much more severely in Broken Hill.26 However, until a successful strike in 1935, Kalgoorlie unionists never numbered much more than fifty per cent of the mining workforce and racial scapegoating of southern European miners was a common occurrence. In Broken Hill, racial divisions that arose were dealt with politically, with union leaders and their newspaper, the Barrier Daily Truth, delivering trenchant polemics on the need for internationalism. The Broken Hill unions did decide on a policy of exclusion to deal with the Depression, but it was an exclusion based on locality, rather than nationality. Locals, defined as resident for five years or more, were able to get employment whereas outsiders, born in Australia or elsewhere, were sent elsewhere to look for jobs. Conversely, in Kalgoorlie, racial tensions boiled over into two nights of horrific rioting against the homes and businesses of southern Europeans.

25 An accurate assessment of the number of southern Europeans in Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill is difficult to reach. A 1914 Royal Commission into the mining industry in Broken Hill estimated that 7 per cent of the workforce were ‘foreign’ [see Appendix D] while Price stated that southern Europeans never numbered more than 1-2 per cent of the town’s population. This ambiguity is mostly a product of high labour mobility. Price estimated that from 1892 to 1921, between one third and one half of the southern European workforce entered or left Broken Hill, a figure that only increased during strikes or economic downturns. Bertola cited census figures for Kalgoorlie and Boulder which suggested that, between 1921 and 1933, the percentage of southern European males as part of the overall male population increased from 2.47 per cent to 6.31 per cent. He also cited Mines Department of Western Australia figures which suggested that the southern European presence in the underground workforce was around 20 per cent, but noted that these figures included Australian-born ‘foreigners’. P. Bertola, ‘Tributers and Gold Mining in Boulder, 1918-1934’, Labour History, no. 65, 1993, p. 69. 26 Bolton pointed out that it had not been necessary to set up an unemployment relief committee in Kalgoorlie during the Depression. G. C. Bolton, ‘Unemployment and Politics in Western Australia’, Labour History, no. 17, 1969, p. 94.

11 Introduction

Even here, however, there were indications that racism could, and would, be challenged in the process of class struggle. These case studies demonstrate that racism within the working class has a fluidity not well portrayed in previous analyses. Certainly, they challenge the perception of racism as an almost preordained response from a local Australian working class threatened by migrant competition for jobs.

These case studies also provide examples of the complicated ways in which racism refracts through working class lives and show that, while racism might be one of the most dominant ideologies in society, that dominance is never absolute. While any study that focuses on the ideas held in people’s heads must search for ideological tendencies and group identities, it is essential that these manifestations are examined in a way that takes account of the relationship between ideas and their social, political and economic context. As historians Peter Alexander and Rick Halpern argue in the introduction to a collection of essays on the nexus between race and class, working- class identities may well be ‘constructed’, but ‘they are not assembled with complete freedom from a limitless range of possibilities’.27 Capitalist ideology often makes divisions between workers of different nationalities seem ‘natural’ and, while those divisions are frequently defended by workers, it should not be forgotten that working class people share common interests and experiences regardless of their location. At times of social crisis, ideas which challenge otherwise dominant racist assumptions can emerge and sometimes compete for supremacy. It is possible then to imagine points at which the politics of exclusion might contradict the need for solidarity within the working class. It is these limits to racist ideology, part and parcel of the material conditions within which working class people operate, that have not been satisfactorily acknowledged by Australian historians. For this reason, this study focuses on specific crises in ‘race relations’ as a window into the emergence of ideas that challenge the otherwise dominant racist hegemony. Moreover, by placing these crises in context, it is also possible to observe more long-standing trends that promoted social and industrial conflict or solidarity.

27 P. Alexander and R. Halpern (eds), Racialising Class, Classifying Race: Labour and Difference in Britain, the USA and Africa, Macmillan, London, 2000, p. ix.

12 Introduction

It is the intention of this study to refute the approach of previous historians who have thought it possible to understand the dynamics of racism by examining only the working class. No class exists in isolation.28 As numerous scholars have shown, an equally important part of any historical analysis must be the role played by the other ‘contending’ class, the employing class, whose material interest lies in using a variety of strategies to divide and rule its labour force.29 Racism must be included as one of those strategies. In Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill, I argue that mine managers played a crucial role in promoting racial divisions. In the former, they encouraged competition within the labour market by means of racist hiring practices that advocated migrant labour for certain types of work. In Broken Hill, the mine managers undertook an active campaign to weaken signs of internationalism within the local labour movement, seeing any indication of unity as a threat to their ability to subdue militancy. In short, in both towns mine managers encouraged the arrival of ‘cheap labour’ and fanned racist sentiment in order to ensure that such labour remained cheap. To this end, they fostered alliances within the leadership of the local sub-branches of the RSL. Because the RSL was a cross-class organisation dominated by conservative sections of society, it occupied an important strategic position for the dissemination of racist ideas among working class people. However, in both towns there is evidence that this propaganda met with a very mixed response when RSL members attempted to galvanise workers around conservative and nationalistic platforms. Importantly for the historiography of racism, these case studies throw a good deal of light on the question of working class responses to racism and, just as importantly, the possibilities of anti-racism. They show the weakness of arguments which portray the contact experience engendered by immigration as simply one of suspicion and ghettoisation. They also illustrate how a limited focus on competition for jobs can blind us to the very reason why workers formed unions in the first place – to limit the degree to which employers could exploit their need for paid work by forcing them to compete with each other.

This thesis has seven chapters. The first chapter is an overview of the existing historiography regarding racism in Australian society which identifies key questions

28 Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 31. 29 See, for example, E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, Penguin, Ringwood, 1968, pp. 469-81; R. Connell and T. Irving, Class Structure in Australian History, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1980, pp. 122, 207.

13 Introduction

that emerge from the prevailing accounts. It also surveys the existing literature on the RSL and suggests that some areas of returned soldier activity shed light on the dissemination of racial ideology in local communities. The second chapter outlines the theory and methodology employed in this study and the sources that have been examined. Chapter Three outlines the political, economic, industrial and social role of the RSL, from its volatile inception in 1916 to its more ‘settled’ character in the 1930s. Chapter Four is the first of two background chapters. In order to present developments in Kalgoorlie between the wars, it is first necessary to outline the context in which they occurred. This chapter describes the most influential groups in Kalgoorlie industrial relations and their influence in the area of race relations. Chapter Five is a case study of Kalgoorlie. It provides detailed accounts of the 1916, 1919 and 1934 race riots, events that provide a significant window into race relations in the town. In Chapter Six, the focus shifts to Broken Hill and the groups that had industrial influence there. Unlike Kalgoorlie, Broken Hill experienced no major outbursts of racial violence but the heated debates regarding immigration restriction and internationalism that took place in the 1920s were extremely significant and their implications are examined in Chapter Seven. In the conclusion to this study, I discuss key challenges to the existing historiography raised by the evidence outlined in this thesis. Does the competition for jobs only engender racist responses from host workers? Will the proximity of workers from different countries only encourage feelings of contempt? What role do employers play in the promotion of racist ideology? Did they have an active hand in weakening the industrial organisation of their workforces, using racism as a divisive tool?

In summary, this thesis supports and extends Verity Burgmann’s contention that racism was an ideology manipulated and employed by sections of the Australian bourgeoisie for its own political and economic interests. While racist ideology was widely accepted and often actively supported by the labour movement, there were also significant instances when organised workers were forced to face the limitations of these ideas because they contradicted the need for solidarity. Employing a local focus, the case studies highlight the tensions that existed around the question of southern European immigration and illustrate the need for a class analysis to explain race relations. In short, employers had a lot to gain from racial division and the RSL provided them with an important resource. Its constant harping about the presence of

14 Introduction

southern Europeans on the mines was directed as much at weakening labour unity as it was at sustaining the ideology of a White Australia.

Participant-observer historians, such as Burgmann and McQueen, demonstrated a commitment to producing texts intended as tools for a movement. While the times have certainly changed since ‘New Left’30 historians issued their manifestos for a historical re-assessment of the dynamics of racism, it is no less true that an understanding of the social relations and the material struggles which operate to attack racism's hegemony is a necessary precondition for the consignment of racism to the appropriate dustbin of history. It is in the same light that this thesis has been written.

30 For a discussion of debates between ‘Old Left’ and ‘New Left’ historians, see T. Irving (ed), ‘Labour History, crisis and the public sphere’, Challenges to Labour History, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1994, pp. 1-20.

15 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

CHAPTER ONE

Workers, Racism and the RSL: a review of the literature

Dislike of foreigners [was a] national working-class characteristic. Ray Markey1

The White Australia Policy … can be considered a justifiable attempt to protect the economic livelihood of our country, but its racist xenophobic undertones are no longer acceptable. Ian Cambridge, then Joint National Secretary Australian Workers’ Union2

[T]he White Australia policy was a victory neither of nor for the labour movement. Verity Burgmann3

Introduction

In Australian labour historiography, racism has all too often been treated as an inevitable feature of working class politics. This approach has marginalised the role of anti-racist activists within the labour movement, and even the anti-racist propaganda of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) is credited with having only a marginal impact on the ‘race question’. This chapter examines the ways in which historians have attempted to explain ‘working class racism’. It begins with those who have emphasised competitive employment relations and/or ‘natural’ ethnic rivalries as the foundations of racial tension. While the survey is not exhaustive, it does incorporate work from those authors who, it is argued, best represent three important ‘strands’ of argument that are prominent in the literature on Australian racism – the contention that proximity

1 R. Markey, ‘Australia’ in Marcel van der Linden and Jürgen Rojahn (eds), The Formations of Labour Movements 1870-1914, E. J. Brill, New York, 1990, pp. 580-1. 2 Foreword to M. Hearn and H. Knowles, One Big Union: A History of the Australian Workers Union 1886-1994, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1996, p. ix. 3 V. Burgmann, ‘Capital and Labour’ in A. Curthoys and A. Markus (eds), Who are our Enemies? Racism and the Working Class in Australia, Hale and Iremonger, Neutral Bay, 1978, p. 21.

16 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

necessarily breeds contempt among people of different ethnic backgrounds, the widespread acceptance that workers are ‘natural’ supporters of exclusion because of competition for jobs, and the notion that, for the first half of the twentieth century at least, racism was a virtually unchallenged ideology. The focus will then shift to Verity Burgmann’s rebuttal of these arguments which is based on the premise that racism, as a hegemonic ideology, must be a ruling class, not working class, initiative. To extend this analysis, this study examines the RSL as an active perpetrator of the conservative case for non-British immigration restriction. While the RSL’s commitment to the White Australia policy has been widely recognised, a review of the literature pertaining to this influential organisation demonstrates that its role in spreading racist ideology among working people has never been adequately analysed.

Employment competition and proximity: no way out for workers

As noted in the introduction to this study, Myra Willard’s highly contradictory account of the development of the White Australia policy argued that preserving the ‘British’ character of the new Australian nation was the most vital preoccupation of the first Federal legislators. She invoked the words of Alfred Deakin to illustrate the widely-held view that ‘[n]o motive power operated more universally … in dissolving the technical and arbitrary political divisions which previously separated us than the desire that we should be one people … without the admixture of other races.’4 While Deakin had insisted that there was cross-class support for non-British immigration restriction, Willard sought to ‘whitewash’ the first Federal Parliament of impure motives for instituting a racially discriminatory immigration policy by assigning blame for its ‘indefensible’ aspects to the working class. She portrayed ‘worker agitation’ as motivated by base monetary concerns, coupled with ignorant and uncouth suspicions regarding the dangers of proximity with purported savages. With little qualification, Willard stated that ‘[i]t was the least educated section of the people that at this time felt most keenly on the Chinese question.’5 In her view, working class racism was spiteful and uncouth while the more educated racists could spout ‘higher’ and more ‘logical’ reasons for exclusion. In this

4 M. Willard, History of the White Australia Policy to 1920, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1974 (first published 1923), p. 119.

17 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

vein, Willard could disingenuously suggest that ‘[t]hough the public agitation against [non-British] immigration was carried on mainly by the labouring classes, the conviction that it should be restricted was much more widespread’.6

Willard noted the role of men like Henry Parkes who emphasised the industrial advantages that would be gained from the exclusion of ‘cheap labour’ from Asia, without mentioning that such men were not conspicuous in their support for high living standards in any other context. Indeed, politicians of the first Commonwealth parliament were ‘practically unanimous’ in their decision to restrict non-white immigration; all shades of political opinion were represented in the vote to enact the legislation – conservative, liberal and radical.7 As Willard put it:

Though the leaders of the people admitted the cogency of the industrial reason for the exclusion of Asiatics of the coolie classes, one and all, including the leaders of this party, believed that the higher social and political grounds for their policy were more conclusive than those of labour.8

Ironically, because of her view that the pursuit of racial purity was a noble ideal and a national necessity, Willard did not assign credit for this ‘historic achievement’ to the nascent Labor Party. In her view ‘the policy was complete before the Political Labour Party had in any part of Australia been given the reins of authority’.9

While Willard lauded Australia as a highly democratic country with government policy clearly forming an expression of ‘the will of the people’, she defended Federal parliamentarians for espousing nationalistic reasons for the adoption of immigration restriction.10 The racism inherent in the exclusionary legislation was regrettable, argued Willard, but future generations would appreciate the benefits that such restrictions would bestow – the preservation of Australia’s British character and the promotion of racial unity, and hence, national unity. She identified a new local nationalism that complemented, and even began to supersede, the notion of Australia as an antipodean,

5 Ibid., p. 54. 6 Ibid., p. 37. 7 Ibid., pp. 53-54, 57-58, 120, 199-200. 8 Ibid., p. 203. 9 Ibid., p. 203.

18 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

but distinctly British, outpost.11 Although not offending Britain's treaty partners was an important concern,12 the fate of exclusionary legislation against Asian and African nationals was never in doubt – only the terms of its administration were debated.

Willard lamented that the history of the White Australia policy had essentially been a negative one, but looked forward to a time when the positive sides of the policy would become apparent. She was clearly in sympathy with anti-slavery agitator, Sir William Molesworth, who, in 1838, argued that Australia would be spared from disruptions to social cohesion if a proposal to allow Indian immigration was avoided, as this would only create ‘a class separated by race and habits from the rest of the labouring population ... Indian immigration would only curse Australia with the social and political difficulties of a racial problem’.13 Willard linked the demands for immigration restriction with the outbursts of violence on the goldfields and argued that such evils could be prevented if the tide of immigration was stemmed. Displaying all the prejudices for which she damned the working class, Willard claimed that Asians brought disease, were unfitted for democracy, were too close for comfort and, paradoxically, would not assimilate. They congregated in communities of their own, uninfluenced by the ideas and customs of the people amongst whom they settled. They would remain, in her view, forever alien.14

Despite its inconsistencies, Willard’s argument regarding working class support for a racially discriminatory immigration policy has achieved the aura of holy writ, handed down from generation to generation without serious challenge. Indeed, what is striking about the historiography on Australian racism is the degree to which many of the authors share Willard’s obvious sympathy for the ‘higher ideals’ that prompted the first Federal legislators to institute immigration restriction. Perhaps it is this underlying attitude, more than anything else, which has led previous historians to overlook challenges to the hegemonic ideal of limiting ‘racial admixture’. In the influential book, The Peopling of Australia, Professor K. H. Bailey argued that immigration restriction

10 Ibid., pp. xi, 88-9. 11 Ibid., p. 189. 12 Deakin argued that Japan was one of the most civilised nations and that, when Australia went about excluding its nationals, it must do so politely. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 1st session, 1901, p. 4812. 13 Willard, History of the White Australia Policy, pp. 6-7.

19 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

had not been instituted as the result of racial or political ideas, but from practical experience.

Use has been made of the “Nordic race” idea, and of the idea that political democracy requires a population of homogeneous political sentiment and outlook; but these ideas belong to the intelligentsia. In the popular mind, which expresses itself more crudely and directly, the policy is based on fear of economic competition and on race feeling.15

Even amid the political turbulence of the late 1960s, A. C. Palfreeman was able to write that the insistence on racial ‘purity’ was ‘a fundamental objective of the Australian people’ and that ‘the administrators have had to implement popular demand as best they could’.16 A few years later, he reiterated this view, claiming that immigration restriction was ‘the government’s response to a general consensus – to keep Australia white and racially homogeneous’. In this regard, he argued, it was ‘a fixed, unquestioned objective of Australian society’.17

A. T. Yarwood also wrote in the same vein as Willard, as if the formation of the Immigration Reform Group in the early 1960s had inspired the first significant debate about racially-based exclusion since the passing of the Immigration Restriction Act (1901).18 In the introduction to his 1968 compendium of documents pertaining to Australian ‘race relations’, Yarwood speculated on a range of probable grounds for the establishment of the White Australia policy, including issues such as fears of the ‘unfamiliar and the bizarre’, a desire for racial purity, the economic motives of a labour movement anxious to preserve high living standards, isolation from Britain, male sexual jealousy and the hardening of racial ideology in the late nineteenth century. Like Willard, he was quick to distance his position from the blatant xenophobia of the uneducated and narrow-minded, but felt that undoubted benefits accrued to all Australian people as a result of immigration restriction. Indeed, Yarwood was ‘hard

14 Ibid., pp. 35-37, 61, 190, 193, 200. 15 K. H. Bailey, ‘Public Opinion and Population’ in P. D. Phillips (ed), The Peopling of Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1933, p. 72. 16 A. C. Palfreeman, The Administration of the White Australia Policy, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1967, p. 136. 17 A. C. Palfreeman, ‘The White Australia Policy’ in F. S. Stevens (ed), Racism: The Australian Experience, A Study of Race Prejudice in Australia, vol. 1, Sydney, 1971, p. 164. 18 See N. Viviani (ed), The Abolition of the White Australia Policy: The Immigration Reform Group Revisited, Centre for the Study of Australia-Asia Relations, Griffith University, Nathan, 1992.

20 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

pressed to refute the basic premises of the more enlightened Australian statesmen of the nineteenth century’.19

In 1970, Humphrey McQueen laid bare the racist threads that linked radical nationalist politics with imperialist jingoism. While his book was a watershed for the writing of Australian history and made it impossible for credible scholarship to deny Australia’s racist past, A New Britannia centred explicitly on plebeian racism with an, as yet, unfulfilled promise that a study of ruling class racism would follow. In fact, McQueen introduced this book with an admission that its major flaw was a failure to examine the influence of ruling class culture while describing the ‘ideological subordination’ of working people to that culture.20 As it stands, his position regarding the petit bourgeois and racist nature of the Australian labour movement created the impression that the principal source of racial vilification was the working class. He, in effect, exaggerated the degree to which the lower classes embraced the ideology of independent proprietorship, promoting competitive, rather than solidaristic, impulses and, hence, allowing bourgeois hegemony to triumph. In his words, high living standards for Australian workers depended on the elimination of the threat of low- waged migrants and that ‘optimists became nationalists via racism’.21

A few years later, in 1974, C. A. Price wrote that, when we consider the outpourings of racial stereotypes and vitriolic opposition to the admission of any non- white group, we must ‘bear in mind the processes of mob psychology’.22 His warning was not, however, directed at the mobs from Colonial or Federal Parliaments or the Melbourne Club. In Price’s view, it was working class agitation that provided the main impetus towards racist exclusion. He did make an occasional disclaimer that the working class clamour surrounding immigration policy could not ‘explain the whole story’, listing other groups that played a role in fomenting racial tension. He even puzzled over the relationship between some well-educated professional men, ‘usually associated with the higher official or wealthy business sections of society’, who were prone to using ‘invective and vituperation’, but concluded that this phenomenon was

19 A. T. Yarwood, Attitudes to Non-European Immigration, Cassell, Stanmore, 1980, pp. 1-2. 20 H. McQueen, A New Britannia, Penguin, Ringwood, 1970, p. 12. 21 Ibid., p. 125.

21 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

beyond the scope of his book!23 Unable to satisfactorily explain why different sections of the ruling class could have diametrically opposing positions on non-European immigration, Price assigned the question to the ‘too hard basket’ and determined that class analysis had little role to play in any understanding of ethnic tension. Echoing Willard’s position, he reserved ‘higher’ motives for the educated elite who supported a White Australia, apportioning blame for the more crude and base motives behind exclusion to the uneducated labouring masses. For him, it was ‘unquestionable’ that working class clamour had forced some politicians ‘reluctantly to toe the anti-Chinese line and support proposals for restrictive and discriminative legislation’.24

Radical members of the New Left adopted a variation on this theme. In the mid- 1980s, Connell and Irving argued that the issue of working class living standards united the labour movement with liberal reformers like H. B. Higgins and Alfred Deakin. They wrote:

By early in the [twentieth] century … the labour movement and liberal reformists had made so obvious their opposition, on racist grounds, to cheap contract labour that it was very difficult for employers to indenture even Southern Europeans without being accused of damaging White Australia.25

Likewise, Andrew Markus argued that it was ‘the people’ who successfully put forward demands for immigration restriction, demands that legislators could ignore only at their peril. His view was that politicians only instituted exclusionary legislation in order to kowtow to public opinion, referring to their decisions as a ‘courting of the constituents’.26

Nor, according to Frank Farrell, was the labour movement particularly troubled by the question of the White Australia policy. Farrell claimed that it was not possible for the Left to protest against White Australia in anything other than muted tones because

22 C. A. Price, The Great White Walls Are Built: Restrictive Immigration to North America and Australasia 1836-1888, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1974, p. 4. 23 Ibid., pp. 114-115. 24 Ibid., p. 226. 25 R. W. Connell and T. H. Irving, Class Structure in Australian History, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1980, p. 130.

22 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

the policy was so obviously successful in protecting workers’ living standards. He argued that non-British immigration restriction was a necessity ‘obvious even to members of the socialist sects’, that the maintenance of Australian workers’ living standards could only be based on social homogeneity, and that the policy’s aims in both these regards had clearly been accomplished. In his words:

It was a tacit admission that the living standards of the Australian workers were considerably above the subsistence level of the Asians, and that Australians had very much more to lose than their chains when it came to questions of applying internationalism to the basic life circumstances of labour.27

Such a position contradicted some of Farrell’s own evidence. He demonstrated that it was within the labour movement that the effects of racism on the social, political, industrial and moral life of working class institutions were debated and the contradictions aired. Without doubt, labour movement leaders propagated racist ideas and working class people espoused them. However, this did not prevent solidarity from being a recurrent question during working class campaigns. Nor did it preclude the prospect of success, albeit temporary, for those arguing for an internationalist perspective. As Farrell detailed, the influence of IWW and CPA activists who argued against racism, the debates surrounding the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ (ACTU) affiliation with the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Movement (PPTUM), the presence of migrant workers within Australian trade unions, support campaigns for workers’ struggles in other countries – all these aspects of Australian labour movement history show that support for racist policies did not pass uncontested.28 For the employing class, however, racism often proved to be a useful tool and it is Farrell who suggested that, while the labour movement struggled with the question of racism, the employing class was not similarly troubled. He detailed the way in which both parties attempted to portray themselves as the most effective defenders of the White Australia policy and argued that, ‘in conservative propaganda even the slightest hint of criticism

26 A. Markus, Fear and Hatred: Purifying Australia and California 1850-1901, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1979, pp. xvi, 43. 27 F. Farrell, International Socialism and Australian Labour, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1981, p. 16. 28 See also V. G. Childe, How Labour Governs, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1964, p. 139; S. Macintyre, The Reds: The Communist Party of Australia from origins to illegality, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, 1998, p. 112; P. Mackie with E. Vassilieff, Mount Isa: The Story of a Dispute, Hudson,

23 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

of the White Australia policy by Marxists in the labour movement was seized on and paraded before the electorate as proof of the ALP’s equivocation on the issue’.29 Farrell’s work also detailed the lengths to which the Bruce-Page Government went to not only prevent overseas unionists gaining entry to Australia for Pan-Pacific conferences, but also its refusal to issue passports to Australian trade unionists wishing to travel to China on trade union business.30

Of late, the debates engendered by such influential works as McQueen’s A New Britannia, Curthoys and Markus’ Who are our Enemies, Markus’ Fear and Hatred and the collection of articles now known as the Markus/Burgmann debate have languished unresolved, leaving open the possibility of theoretical reverses in this area. A relatively recent analysis of the White Australia policy by Sean Brawley took on all the trappings of Myra Willard’s study, published more than seventy years earlier.31 In his book, Brawley argued that politicians viewed opposition to immigration restriction as electoral suicide and only reluctantly acquiesced to its implementation to avert the wrath of predominantly working class electorates. He fully concurred with the views of arch- conservative, John Latham, that no government would remain in office ‘if it tampered with White Australia’.32 Indeed, almost seventy years after the publication of Hancock’s view that the White Australia policy was universally supported, Brawley maintained that the more research he undertook, ‘the more Hancock’s maxim seemed to be vindicated’.33 Brawley’s writings are filled with all-encompassing references to ‘most Australians’ or simply ‘Australians’. For example, we are glibly told that, ‘[p]rior to the Pacific War most North Americans and Australasians saw Asia very much as a whole.’34 One wonders what ‘the Japanese’, demonised around Pacific Rim countries for defeating a ‘white’ nation in battle, would make of this riveting insight!35 To leave

Hawthorn, 1989; R. Lockwood, Black Armada: Australia and the struggle for Indonesian independence 1942-49, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1982. 29 F. Farrell, International Socialism and Australian Labour, pp. 88-89. 30 F. Farrell, ‘The Pan-Pacific trade union movement and Australian labour, 1921-1932’, Historical Studies, vol. 17, no. 69, 1977, p. 450. 31 S. Brawley, The White Peril: Foreign Relations and Asian Immigration to Australasia and North America 1919-78, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1995. 32 Ibid., p. 16. 33 Ibid., p. 2. 34 Ibid., p. 174 35 In 1905, Japan won a war against Russia. This event caused a dramatic turn-around in the attitudes of ‘white’ nations to the rapidly modernising country. Previously perceived as ‘civilised’, Japan was now

24 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

his picture of unanimous support for the White Australia policy unsullied, Brawley disregarded the labour movement debate surrounding support for the PPTUM. He simply stated that the ACTU disaffiliated from the PPTUM ‘rather than be forced to support non-discriminatory immigration policies’. The question of why it affiliated in the first place is left hanging. Equally unconvincingly, Brawley wrote that ‘the American union movement was concerned by the current of immigration’, a statement supported by a single piece of evidence – that workers at a large packing centre in Omaha, Nebraska, resolved to call for immigration restrictions.36 Using mainstream newspaper editorials – hardly a reliable measure of public, let alone working class, opinion – and resolutions from non-labour movement organisations such as the Asian Exclusion League, the Canadian Bible Society and the Army and Navy Veterans of Canada, his argument for working class ‘culpability’ regarding racism was not based on firm foundations.37

In their book, A Divided Working Class, Quinlan and Lever-Tracy provided important examples of multi-ethnic solidarity in the post-Second World War period.38 However, much of their analysis centres on the degree to which arbitration protected workers from the divisive effects of immigration by ensuring that most workers, locals and migrants alike, were paid award wages. In other words, Australian workers might well have resorted to greater levels of racism to protect their conditions, but compulsory arbitration made such a response redundant.39 As the case study chapters in this thesis will show, this conclusion does not explain the situation in the mining industry where the impact of contract labour was considerable. Payment rates were established underground between the foreman and the workers involved, meaning that competition for employment and racial divisions among and between mining teams potentially affected the rate agreed for the job. In 1999, Julia Martinez also provided a sophisticated treatment of inter-ethnic working class solidarity in Darwin between 1911-37, but in a classic example of the entrenched link between White Australia and the labour

portrayed in the press as a dangerous military threat. P. Griffiths, ‘Australian Perceptions of Japan: A History of a Racist Phobia’, Socialist Review, issue 3, Summer 1990. 36 Brawley, The White Peril, p. 57. 37 Ibid., pp. 102-3, 151, 153, 195. 38 C. Lever-Tracy and M. Quinlan, A Divided Working Class: Ethnic Segmentation and Industrial Conflict in Australia, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1988. 39 Ibid., p. 307-8.

25 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

movement, even she could sweepingly state that, ‘[u]nion racism was largely responsible for the implementation of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901.’40

In the early 1990s, Jock Collins remarked that Australia’s transition from an overwhelming state of ‘Britishness’ to one of enormous ethnic diversity took place ‘without serious social turmoil’ and that this happy state of affairs:

has not been because of an enlightened government, public, or trade union movement, nor because Australia is a ‘lucky country’ … Australia has managed to avoid serious racial conflict directed towards migrants more by default than by design.41

In this view, history is simply a collection of accidental and unrelated events, where the role of the labour movement in the struggle against racism is little more than happenstance. Historical explanation is limited to contingency and there is little point in trying to establish patterns that might connect various events. Even if we reject this version of what Alex Callinicos and others have so eloquently called ‘the cock-up version of history’,42 neither can our ability to understand the dynamics of racism be reliant upon slow, patient ‘fact-mountaining’43 until the right balance is struck. As Justina Williams wrote so pertinently of such histories, ‘Masses of facts are shorn of their meaning without the mainspring of motivation – opposing class interests.’44

If lack of attention to such interests has halted analytical progress on racism, contemporary debates have been responsible for analytical reversals. Such was the case throughout much of the 1980s when Geoffrey Blainey spoke sanguinely, and with increasing success, about the White Australia policy, arguing that Australia would not remain a land of perceived racial tolerance if high levels of Asian immigration were maintained.45 Blainey, like Willard before him, was yet another middle class academic

40 J. Martinez, ‘Questioning White Australia: Unionism and 'Coloured' Labour, 1911-37’, Labour History, no. 76, 1999, p. 1. 41 J. Collins, Migrant Hands in a Distant Land, Pluto, Leichhardt, 1991, p. 15. 42 Notes taken by author from A. Callinicos, History from Below, paper presented to Socialist Workers Party’s Marxism conference, London, 1997. 43 See Dunlop’s discussion of Julian Huxley’s view that ‘Mountains of facts have been piled upon the plains of human ignorance’, J. T. Dunlop, Industrial Relations Systems, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1958, p. vi. 44 J. Williams, The First Furrow, Lone Hand Press, Willagee, 1976, p. 2. 45 See, for instance, The Blainey View, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1982.

26 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

who claimed to speak for ‘ordinary Australians’ while making crudely racist comments about the superiority of Anglo-Australian culture in sophisticated language. At the time, his outbursts were criticised by Verity Burgmann and Andrew Markus, although Markus has also played the ‘numbers game’ on occasion, suggesting that the level of racism in a given region corresponds to the level of immigration.46 In his influential book, Fear and Hatred, Markus made a great deal over the number of Chinese immigrants being crucial to the amount of racist hysteria and suggested that their proximity to Europeans on the goldfields inspired efforts to exclude them.47

As Burgmann pointed out, Markus’s original focus on immigration numbers, however unintentionally, reflected Blainey’s position when he wrote that the ‘Chinese came to be seen as undesirable immigrants, primarily as a result of the contact experience’.48 This argument suggested, in a similar vein to Blainey, that it was the actions of the Chinese themselves that inspired the racist attacks against them. At one point, Markus wrote that ‘[t]his is not to say that all officials carried out their duties in accordance with the intention of the law – some officials became brutalised by constant dealings with an alien people.’49 While he felt that initial reactions were not racist, economic competition on the fields led to a hardening of attitudes as time went by. Even so, Markus did provide delightful evidence to show that European miners helped Asian miners under threat of mob violence. He also related the experience of the Buckland field miners, who were invited to spend Chinese New Year with some of their Asian counterparts. Afterwards, one of those who attended the festivities admitted rather sheepishly that his opinions of the Chinese had changed since he and his friends had been so hospitably treated.50 Surely these examples contradict Markus’ belief that proximity of different ‘races’ will arouse racism!

46 See V. Burgmann, ‘Writing Racism Out of History’, Arena, no. 67, 1984; A. Markus, ‘Explaining the treatment of non-European immigrants in nineteenth century Australia’, Labour History, no. 48, 1985, p. 88. 47 Markus, Fear and Hatred, pp. 2, 21, 23. 48 Ibid., p. 240. 49 Ibid., p. 18. 50 Ibid., pp. 25-6.

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In 1973, Peter Corris reviewed the then recently published volumes of Racism: The Australian Experience.51 Although Corris, like Markus, accepted that racial tension was an inevitable outcome of the ‘contact experience’, he made an acute observation regarding the state of historical research into racism. If, he argued, most scholars agree that racism exists at all levels of Australian society, and in people of all political persuasions, surely a continuing focus on labour movement racism and radical nationalism will not allow a full understanding of ‘racialism as a whole’? In a valid critique of the scholarship then, and regrettably now, Corris asked, ‘What about the bosses?’52 Some years later, Burgmann began the process of answering Corris’ question and it is to her work that this discussion now turns.

Burgmann on ruling class hegemony: two steps forward, one step back

Burgmann’s work maintained that racism is an instance of a successful ruling class ideology, one that has accrued industrial benefits to employers by encouraging national rivalries among working people. She also concluded that an overwhelming focus on labour market competition had allowed some historians to ‘whitewash’ the labour movement from the stains of support for the White Australia policy. In her view, this exoneration was based on an assumption that non-European immigration represented a real threat to the wages and employment levels of local workers. As the quote from the AWU’s Ian Cambridge that opens this chapter suggests, it is a still a commonly-held view. From Burgmann’s perspective, McQueen overcompensated for this ‘whitewashing’ by exaggerating the role of the labour movement in excluding non- European migrants, whereas, in her view, ‘the White Australia policy was a victory neither of nor for the labour movement’.53

Although Burgmann’s work showed that ruling elites benefited from racism, in her portrayal, racist ideology appeared to have a life of its own – a self-perpetuating xenophobia that existed in the minds of all white Australians. In a valid attempt to

51 F. S. Stevens (ed), Racism: the Australian Experience, three volumes, Australia and New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, 1971. 52 P. Corris, ‘Racialism: The Australian Experience’, Historical Studies, vol. 15, no. 61, October 1973, pp. 750-9.

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remove the self-justificatory element of the argument regarding labour market competition, she concluded that the only mitigating circumstance for the working class was that they were too politically naive to know that racism was not in their economic or political interest. As she put it: ‘[w]orking class racism exists, therefore, not because it expresses real working class interests but because of the all-pervasive influence of ruling class ideology.’54 However, Burgmann’s reliance on the notion of false consciousness, while providing a valid explanation for working class racism, presents an overly pessimistic view of the prospects for any labour movement challenge to racist politics. Burgmann’s strongest censure fell on various small socialist groups at the turn of the century for taking pragmatic or nationalist responses to racism. While it is no doubt true that socialist organisations were not without influence at this time, it is questionable that any of them were ever large enough to win over working class allegiance from capitalist orthodoxy in any lasting fashion, even when they adopted a more consistent approach to working class solidarity.55 By far the most coherent set of anti-racist politics came from the IWW, but its level of influence was limited and only small numbers were won over to an internationalist position. In place of the economic determinism inherent in the argument over labour market competition, Burgmann posited an ideologically deterministic formulation that workers were always too stupid to realise that the ruling class was pulling the racist wool over their eyes, despite the existence of a relative handful of socialists who had anti-racist views. In her view: ‘the racism of the labour movement was blind and unthinking ... the majority of workers knew not what they were doing in declaiming against foreign workers’.56

Despite Burgmann’s obvious enthusiasm for the way in which the anti-racism of Tom Mann and the IWW gained a hearing among some groups of militant Australian workers, she regretted that there were no ‘indigenous growths’ of anti-racist

53 Burgmann, ‘Capital and Labour’, p. 21. 54 V. Burgmann, Revolutionaries and Racists: Australian Socialism and the Problem of Racism, 1887- 1917, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University, 1980, p. 6. 55 The Boulder Local of the IWW, with its 117 members in June 1915, could hold meetings that would attract up to one thousand people. Crowds at meetings in Sydney in 1917 at the height of the state persecution of the organisation could not fit into a hall which seated 500 and overflow meetings of occasionally three times that number were held at another venue. V. Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: The Industrial Workers of the World in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1995, p. 128. 56 V. Burgmann, ‘Racism, Socialism, and the Labour Movement, 1887-1917’, Labour History, no. 47, 1984, p. 42.

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sentiment.57 While trade union militancy might have held the key to the development of a class consciousness that included workers of all countries, Burgmann felt that ALP nationalism had, to the end of her study at least, prevented the development of a home- grown variety of internationalism. As she put it:

The Australian working class appears to have been incapable of independently throwing up a vanguard bereft of the burden of nationalism. Working class consciousness was insufficiently developed, partly as a result of the strength of labour nationalism.58

Since then, however, studies by Martinez, Small and Griffiths have attempted to reignite historical interest in the dynamics of Australian racism. As already mentioned, Martinez has described the constant intermingling of white and Asian workers in Port Darwin, thereby exposing serious flaws in the assumptions of Blainey, Markus and others that it is ‘contact’ between host workers and ‘alien’ newcomers that inevitably inspires racist responses the locals.59 Small has re-examined the Clunes anti-Chinese riots of 1873, making a convincing case that anti-Chinese racism only flared when employers tried to use Chinese workers as strike breakers, that there were some attempts by white and Chinese workers to make common ground, and that it was only in the aftermath of the dispute that non-labour luminaries and opinion-leaders tried to portray it as a ‘racial’, rather than class, struggle.60 For his part, Griffiths has examined the distinctly ruling class agitation for the White Australia policy in the 1870s and 1880s and, in the process, demonstrated that non-British immigration restriction was actively sought by conservative newspaper editors, large urban and pastoralist employers, and colonial parliaments.61

The work of these historians suggests that there is no reason to follow the speculative path that Burgmann has taken more recently. In her latest book on the IWW, she claimed that the jingoistic response from workers to the outbreak of World War One

57 Burgmann, Revolutionaries and Racists, p. 309. 58 Ibid., p. 46. 59 J. Martinez, ‘Questioning White Australia’: Unionism and ‘Coloured’ Labour, 1911-37’, Labour History, no. 76, 1999. 60 J. Small, ‘Reconsidering White Australia: class and racism in the 1873 Clunes riot’, Marxist Interventions website @ http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/interventions/, accessed 28 January 2003. 61 P. Griffiths, The road to White Australia: Economics, politics and social control in the anti-Chinese laws of 1877-88, unpublished manuscript in the possession of the author, 2002.

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led ‘more sophisticated’ Marxist intellectuals, such as Lukàcs and Gramsci, to reject an assumption that nationalist and militarist ideas were solely products of the ruling elite. Forgetting the ruling class culpability that she herself had so forcefully insisted upon previously, she wrote:

All of them had to find some way of proceeding beyond the axioms of working-class gullibility and passivity; they had to find ways of explaining how these sentiments and attachments were generated from within working class culture [my emphasis].62

These criticisms aside, much of Burgmann’s case is compelling but it would be fair to say that her line of reasoning has generally been ignored by most scholars of Australian history. Its ‘unfashionable’ use of class analysis, the sheer weight of the counterposing arguments regarding the working class stimulus behind racism, and the subsequent dearth of further research in the area of ‘race and class’, have all combined to relegate her important contribution to the periphery. As a way forward from this historical impasse, this study demonstrates that, in the interwar period, Australian workers did, of course, ‘declaim against foreign workers’, but Chapters Five and Seven show that they also found ways through the racist smokescreen to link arms with their migrant counterparts, an important corrective to the deterministic and pessimistic aspects of the existing historiography.

Little of this solidarity is evident in the literature on Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill. As the next section demonstrates, this body of work deviates little from the time- honoured tradition of blaming the workers, and even the victims, for the crime of racism.

Kalgoorlie – explanations of the 1934 race riots

Studies of Kalgoorlie have tended to focus on three race riots that occurred there in 1916, 1919 and 1934, but only Rolf Gerritsen and Patrick Bertola have attempted to

62 Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism, p. 194.

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integrate their findings within a wider analysis of Australian racism.63 Nevertheless, the familiar themes of competition for jobs and ‘natural’ racial antipathy among working people also form the backbone of their analyses. In short, the Gerritsen and Bertola accounts of the 1934 Kalgoorlie race riots offer little variation from the familiar refrain of more generalist accounts that racist workers initiated the riots against southern Europeans in order to protect ‘British’ jobs.

In 1969, Rolf Gerritsen published the results of his search for the causes of the Kalgoorlie riots. While he repeated the common-sense claim that they were fuelled by labour market competition, Gerritsen advanced other contingent explanations for the tensions, such as conditions on the mines, accident rates and the prevalence of work- related disease. More debatable was his suggestion that the hot weather might have played a role as people were ‘generally restless and short tempered’.64 Equally questionable was his focus on a form of ‘frontier mentality’ which, he argued, predisposed Kalgoorlie residents towards forms of direct action as grievance resolution.65 These shortcomings paled into insignificance, however, alongside the frequent concessions to racism that infused Gerritsen’s work. Firstly, he argued that it was ‘defensible’ to insist that no Australian miner should be out of work while ‘non- Australians’ held jobs and that the Depression was ample justification for a racially- inspired strike. In a most blatant version of what Burgmann has identified as ‘whitewashing’, the strike was contrasted favourably with the other more violent actions taken, including ‘indefensible rioting, looting and arson’.66 Secondly, Gerritsen lambasted the deficiencies of migrant workers, in particular, their supposed lack of language and safety awareness skills. He repeated many of the most common racist stereotypes that existed at the time of the riots, corroborated with little more than a ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire’ attitude. His account was littered with racist contentions. As he put it, ‘there are many claims of their young men blocking footpaths and being a nuisance to young women’; ‘some of the young Italian men became infused with fascist ideals, causing them to act arrogantly’; ‘slingbacks were quite normal for

63 R. Gerritsen, ‘The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots: A Western Australian Crowd’, University Studies in History, vol. 5, no. 3, 1969; P. Bertola, Ethnic Difference in Kalgoorlie 1893-1934, unpublished Honours thesis, Murdoch University, 1978 and Kalgoorlie, Gold, and the World Economy, 1893-1972, unpublished PhD thesis, Curtin University of Technology, 1993. 64 Gerritsen, ‘The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots’, p. 43. 65 Ibid., p. 65.

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foreigners in their own countries where labour was exploited’ and ‘a foreigner thought it quite natural to fight with a knife, though it was anathema to the Australian’.67 With such analytical deficiencies, Gerritsen’s work cannot be accepted as an authoritative study. He did, however, point out the important role played by rumour-mongers and ‘active’ racists in the Kalgoorlie riots, and was frustrated by the ‘facelessness’ of the participating crowd, a theme which will receive further attention in Chapter Five.

In 1978, Patrick Bertola took up the cudgels against Gerritsen's interpretation of the Kalgoorlie rioting, arguing that the riots should be placed within the context of industrial capitalism.68 Despite offering a more credible approach than Gerritsen, Bertola’s argument was weakened by a similar ideological determinism, which inferred a particularly uni-directional view of the effects of capitalism on class consciousness. In Bertola’s view, rivalries between migrant groups and host cultures were largely inevitable. As a result, the 1934 riots were portrayed as ‘the logical outcome of a set of factors intimately related to ethnic interaction within the parameters of particular forms of economy and society [emphasis added]’.69 He argued that workers had a ‘naively innate awareness of the realities of labour competition’, that there was a ‘degree of threat which the southern European posed in the labour market and the economic marketplace’.70 While Bertola clearly had no sympathy with racial prejudice, he, like Gerritsen, reiterated some of the common stereotypes that all southern Europeans came to Kalgoorlie to work hard, keep to themselves, send money home and then, eventually, return home themselves.

Notwithstanding his interest in industrial relations on the Kalgoorlie mines, Bertola’s work exhibited a remarkable lack of curiosity about relations between migrant and local workers in trade unions.71 On the contrary, he represented southern Europeans as non-unionist, segregated from other workers. In his words, they were ‘a hardworking, independent ethnic minority ... who appeared to be non-integrative, in a localised

66 Ibid., p. 48. 67 Ibid., pp. 57-63. ‘Slingbacks’ were payments made to the shift bosses in order to secure employment and/or profitable sections of the mine in which to work. This practice will be discussed further in Chapter Four. 68 Bertola, Ethnic Difference in Kalgoorlie, p. xiv. 69 Ibid., p. 58. 70 Ibid., p. xv. 71 P. Bertola, ‘Tributers and Gold Mining in Boulder, 1918-1934’, Labour History, no. 65, 1993.

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community setting where their main contact with the host society was in the marketplace.72 Equally puzzling for someone who argued that industrial capitalism should form the basis of any understanding of the Kalgoorlie riots, Bertola gives scant attention to a possible employer role in race relations, except to claim that local employers were not overtly racist, substantiated only by an assertion that most of his migrant interviewees suffered racial harassment, but felt generally accepted by the business community.73 Of late, his position has come to resemble that of Gerritsen, in that he has recently argued that ‘introverted’ migrant workers themselves inspired the ‘working class racism’ of which they were victims. In this vein, he wrote:

that inferiority was confirmed in the minds of Anglo-Saxons by the lifestyle of the migrants, by their apparent willingness to be used in efforts to drive down wages and conditions, and by their inability to transcend the boundaries that separated them from the host culture. Equally, the tensions highlight the inability of labour to transcend a limited sense of collective consciousness, although that was not helped by the tendency of many Italians, for example, to resist involvement in unions, and to embrace a more radical, collective vision, proposed by groups like the IWW and the OBU movement.74

It would appear that all southern Europeans, scabs or radicals, were doomed to exclusion by their own actions. In addition, this is not an isolated view. Boncompagni, who relied heavily on Bertola’s work, expressly refuted any possibility of unity among host workers and Italian migrants, stating that the newcomers were ‘driven by economic needs and displayed little interest in politics’.75

The above notwithstanding, Bertola did expound some very convincing arguments that directly contradicted his assertion that racism was produced, in the first instance, by working class opposition to increased competition for jobs. He noted the work of de Lepervanche which demonstrated that the admission of southern European

72 Bertola, Ethnic Difference in Kalgoorlie, p. xiv. 73 Ibid., pp. xvii, 18. 74 P. Bertola, Racially Exclusive Provisions in Western Australian Mining Legislation, unpublished paper prepared for the Australian Historical Association Conference, Mining History Stream, July, 1998. 75 A. Boncompagni, ‘From the Apennine to the Bush: ‘temporary’ migrants from Tuscan communities to Western Australia, 1921-1939’ in R. Hood and R. Markey (eds), Labour and Community: proceedings of the Sixth National Conference of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Wollongong, NSW, 2-4 October 1999, p. 30.

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labour directly favoured the employing class.76 Migrants were allotted lowly-paid jobs and were instrumental to the expansion of labour-intensive industries.77 He also outlined the decisive role that successive governments played in this process – allowing migrants entry in the first instance and then legislating restrictions on the areas of employment that were available to them.78 Nevertheless, when immigration restrictions were applied from the mid to late 1920s, Federal and State Governments were only too glad to promote the idea that they supported the exclusion of southern European migrants to reduce the already swelling ranks of the unemployed.79 For Bertola, legislative exclusion of migrants was justifiable on economic grounds and only became racist in character when the essence of this argument was taken up by some in the labour movement.80

In summary, Bertola maintained that the entry of southern Europeans into the labour market ensured that competition for jobs would create continued conflict. He also fell into the theoretical abyss of blaming migrants for ‘ghettoising’ themselves, a process which prompted the host culture to become suspicious and unwelcoming. Cart- like before the horse, this argument failed to prioritise his own evidence about the degree to which State legislation channelled migrants into a narrow range of occupations and, in effect, blamed the victims of racism for their own oppression. It also failed to give full consideration to the difficulties faced by many newly-arrived migrants, such as poverty, language, lack of knowledge of local conditions and pre- existing racist attitudes. Bertola compounded this theoretical impasse by attempting to make the argument work both ways. Concomitantly, he argued that the experience of migrants and locals working together confirmed the locals’ prejudices. In other words, separation ‘engendered’ racism, but then so did interaction.

76 See M. de Lepervanche, ‘Australian Immigrants, 1788-1940: Desired and Unwanted’ in E. L. Wheelwright and K. Buckley, Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism, vol. 1, Australia and New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, 1975. 77 Bertola, Ethnic Difference in Kalgoorlie, p. 17. For a useful warning against the dangers of stereotyping the political views of an entire migrant population, see G. Cresciani, Fascism, Anti-Fascism and Italians in Australia, 1922-1945, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1980. 78 Bertola, Ethnic Difference in Kalgoorlie, p. 17. 79 G. C. Bolton, ‘Unemployment and Politics in Western Australia’, Labour History, no. 17, 1969, p. 82. 80 Bertola, Ethnic Difference in Kalgoorlie, pp. 18-9.

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The work of Gerritsen and, even more so, Bertola, has confirmed the importance of the Kalgoorlie riots to our understanding of the dynamics of Australian racism. Many of the points they have raised, such as the divisiveness of unemployment and poor conditions, are extremely pertinent. However, this thesis will argue that an emphasis on incidences of working class racism portrays only one part of the picture, while simultaneously bypassing a possible employer role in racist division. In addition, although it is not hard to find examples of local workers ‘behaving badly’, especially given the hegemony of racist ideas in Australia, struggles against that hegemony must also be examined. As will be demonstrated in this study, even in the midst of race riots we can see signs of solidarity and sympathy among workers of different nationalities. In short, racist ideas were a much more contested terrain than current explanations have allowed.

Broken Hill – solidarity forever?

While much has been written about the Kalgoorlie riots, until very recently, relatively little had been written about race relations in Broken Hill in the interwar period. As a town fabled for working class unity, it was perhaps considered a poor subject for a case study about racism in the workplace. Nevertheless, not even this supposed bastion of militant unionism was immune from the raging debates about the presence of southern European labour in Australia throughout the 1920s.

Edgar Ross noted that racism began to ferment in Broken Hill in 1927, as unemployment levels began to worsen. He recalled one Richard Gully who, it would appear, almost single-handedly attempted to split the local miners’ union by agitating against the presence of southern Europeans on the mines. Ross recalled that Gully had undermined the reputation for working class solidarity that was widely regarded as the town’s ‘middle name’. Nevertheless, it was Ross who pointed to a resolution passed by the Central Council of the Miners’ Federation that opposed southern European immigration, ostensibly in the interests of the local unemployed. It was this resolution, he argued, which gave Gully the platform he needed. His right-wing rabble-rousing was able to galvanise a considerable level of support among opponents of immigration and

36 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

unionism. According to Ross, this commotion was defeated by local labour movement leaders who successfully propagandised about the dangers inherent in Gully’s ‘splitting action’.81 He also touched upon two issues that are pertinent to an understanding of race relations in Broken Hill, but did not elaborate on them – the importance of political leadership in the fight for and against racial division and the relationship between Gully and noted anti-labour campaigner, F. G. White.82

Almost two decades later, Ellem and Shields put some ‘meat on the bones’ of the Gully story.83 Their research plotted Gully’s energetic activities as a ‘sooler-on’, or conservative agitator, from the time he arrived in Broken Hill in the mid-1920s until the early 1930s, when he faded out of the political spotlight. In so doing, Ellem and Shields sketched the rise and fall of an intense campaign to oust ‘foreign’ workers from the mines and demonstrated the importance of the more left-wing position of some of the Workers’ Industrial Union of Australia leaders, particularly Richard Quintrell, in the eventual marginalisation of ‘Gullyism’. However, important questions remain regarding Gully’s political affiliations. The local labour newspaper, Barrier Daily Truth, campaigned against his attempts to split the union movement and, to this end, detailed Gully’s impeccable history of service to right-wing causes – veteran of the Boer War and World War One, Nationalist candidate, and active campaigner for conscription. Ellem and Shields listed these details but did not raise the question of wider institutional support for Gully. While they noted that Gully galvanised considerable support from young men in the town, and from the racist section of the working class more generally, it remains to be asked whether there were others who may have had an interest in his reactionary agenda, such as the mine managers, their supporters and the RSL. More specifically, Ross’s contention that Gully had links with F. G. White, one of the most fervent and effective campaigners for conservatism in Broken Hill during the period under review, deserves further exploration.

81 E. Ross, A History of the Miners’ Federation of Australia, (2nd ed), Macarthur Press, Parramatta, 1984, p. 330. 82 E. Ross, Of Storm and Struggle, New Age, Sydney, 1982, pp. 40-2, 46-7. 83 B. Ellem and J. Shields, ‘H. A. Turner and “Australian Labor’s Closed Preserve”: Explaining the Rise of “Closed Unionism” in the Broken Hill Mining Industry’, Labour and Industry, vol. 11, no. 1, August 2000, pp. 69-92.

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Most discussions of Broken Hill’s political history note the enormous influence of IWW politics on the local labour movement. Indeed, Broken Hill has rightly been characterised as one of the IWW’s main strongholds, a place where numerous adherents were won to syndicalist political programmes. Ellem and Shields dated the ‘syndicalists’ last hurrah’ as the February 1923 attempt by Ern Wetherell and supporters to launch a mass organisation of unionists, not divided by craft demarcations. While this is an accurate division, this thesis will examine some of the ideological residue of syndicalist influence in Broken Hill. No widely-accepted set of ideas can disappear overnight and, it will be argued, this is demonstrably so in the case of working class internationalism. Against a wider ossification of the union movement in Broken Hill, the continuing importance of mass union meetings of mine workers provides important evidence regarding rank and file attitudes to the presence of southern European workers and the anti-racist legacy of IWW propaganda. They also help to plot the shifting attitudes of the workers who attended, and were influenced by, those debates. Although battered and bruised by constant attacks from without and within, the Broken Hill labour movement managed to adhere to an, albeit damaged, form of international solidarity. Even when the WIUA closed its books to new members in 1931, the shadows of IWW internationalism remained in its non-racially-based form of local preference. The lessons of the past were certainly modified, but they were not fully forgotten.

What role for the RSL?

In 1960, Frank Crowley described the RSL as ‘the most powerful organisation in the community for more than a generation’ and, from his historical vantage point, such a statement was no exaggeration.84 The RSL has enjoyed a considerable, albeit fluctuating, national membership, has intervened in virtually every national debate of any significance and has had the ear of both Federal and State governments at the highest level. As Stephen Garton wrote:

Through effective organisation and leadership, and a clear charter of principles, the League was able to achieve a political influence greater

84 F. Crowley, Australia’s Western Third, Macmillan, London, 1960, p. 238.

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than its membership would warrant, and far greater than some other comparable groups, such as the British Legion.85

In 1965, Ken Inglis penned a convincing, but necessarily speculative, essay on the need for historians to explore the many uncharted gaps between the various official war histories and a more critical analysis of the whole gamut of questions raised by ‘Australia’s’ war experience.86 Although the RSL’s role on the national political stage has been documented to some extent, its influence at a local level has received comparatively little scholarly attention, a somewhat surprising deficiency when considered in relation to the prominent role that the organisation has played in the nation’s history, both materially and ideologically. Only a handful of writers have been drawn to the fascinating period immediately after World War One when ‘digger violence’ became commonplace and equally few have looked at the various paramilitary groups that formed in the 1920s and 1930s to prepare for, and counter, episodes of civil unrest.87 Several studies have looked at the creation of a ‘digger legend’, a project of prime importance to the RSL.88 The work of Kristianson has delved into the lobbying

85 S. Garton, The Cost of War: Australians Return, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1996, p. 54. 86 K. S. Inglis, ‘The Anzac Tradition’, Meanjin, March, 1965, pp. 25-44. 87 See K. Amos, The New Guard Movement 1931-1935, Melbourne University Press, Clayton, 1976; H. McQueen, ‘Shoot the Bolshevik! Hang the Profiteer! Reconstructing Australian Capitalism 1918-21’ in E. L. Wheelwright and K. Buckley (eds), Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism, vol. 2, Australia and New Zealand Book Co., Brookvale, 1978; J. Murray, ‘The Kalgoorlie Woodline Strikes 1919-1920: A Study of Conflict Within the Working Class’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 5, December 1982; M. Cathcart, Defending the National Tuckshop: Australia’s Secret Army Intrigue of 1931, McPhee Gribble, Fitzroy, 1988; R. Evans, The Red Flag Riots: A Study of Intolerance, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1988; A. Moore, The Secret Army and the Premier, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, 1989 and The Right Road? A History of Right-wing Politics in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995; B. Oliver, ‘Disputes, Diggers and Disillusionment: Social and Industrial Unrest in Perth and Kalgoorlie 1918-24’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 11, June 1990 and War and Peace in Western Australia: The Social and Political Impact of the Great War 1914- 1926, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1995. 88 Re the Anzac legend, see R. White, Inventing Australia, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, 1981; D. A. Kent, ‘The Anzac Book and the Anzac Legend: C. E. W. Bean as Editor and Image-maker’, Historical Studies, vol. 21, no. 84, 1985; R. Ely, ‘The First Anzac Day: Invented or Discovered?’, Journal of Australian Studies, no. 17, 1985; A. Thomson, ‘Passing Shots at the Anzac Legend’ in V. Burgmann and J. Lee (eds), A Most Valuable Acquisition, McPhee Gribble/Penguin Books, Melbourne, 1988; A. Thomson, “Steadfast Until Death’? C. E. W. Bean and the Representation of Australian Military Manhood’, Australian Historical Studies, vol. 23, no. 93, 1989; T. R. Frame, B. Roberts, B. Hall, L. McAulay, K. S. Inglis, W. Keys, J. Barrett, J. Ross, G. Page and R. White, ‘ Reflections: A symposium on the meanings of Anzac’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, no. 16, April 1990; P. Cochrane, Simpson and the Donkey, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1992; E. M. Andrews, The Anzac Illusion: Anglo-Australian relations during World War 1, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1993; S. Garton, The Cost of War: Australians Return, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1996; J. F. Williams, Anzacs, The Media and The Great War, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1999.

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methods used by the Federal Executive of the RSL to achieve its political ends.89 Les Louis’ focus on the Cold War period has also shed welcome light on the organisation’s attitude to communism and communists in the post-World War Two period.90

While all these works are very useful, their specific orientations offer only partial insights into the role of the RSL in the interwar period. For instance, we cannot draw too many conclusions from the work on the immediate post-war period, for this was an immensely fluid time in the RSL’s history and cannot be considered typical of what the organisation was to become. Similarly, the fascist organisations of the 1930s were linked to, but distinct from, the day to day operations of the League. Kristianson’s work raised the fascinating question of the tension within the RSL between advocates of ‘constitutional methods’ and those who advocated more ‘direct action’. However, he primarily focused on the lobbying methods of the RSL ‘brass’, with the result that much of what happened outside those lofty forums received little attention. Clearly, there is scope for much further inquiry.

In 1984, Humphrey McQueen cast doubt upon the widely-held view that the RSL had provided a channel through which some Australian Imperial Force (AIF) personnel became members of the fascist New Guard in the 1930s.91 His argument was based on figures which suggest that the RSL was too small to have provided sufficient New Guard members and that the ideology which sustained New Guard membership had longer historical antecedents than that provided by the ‘digger legend’, although the tenets of both were exceedingly similar. He was also concerned to show that a significant number of wounded could, or would, not participate in New Guard activities because of physical disabilities and/or ‘revulsion at all things military’.92 McQueen contended that the most favourable estimate of an RSL/New Guard link was a ratio of one RSL member in every six New Guardsmen, and while he allowed that RSL sub- branches may have been organising centres for fascist recruitment, he argued that the same could have been said of sporting clubs and business organisations.93

89 G. Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism: The Pressure Group Activities of the Returned Servicemen’s League, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1966. 90 See, for example, L. J. Louis, ‘The RSL and the Cold War 1946-50’, Labour History, no. 74, 1998. 91 H. McQueen, Gallipoli to Petrov, George Allen and Unwin, North Sydney, 1984, p. 199. 92 Ibid., p. 200. 93 Ibid., p. 202.

40 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

McQueen’s approach underestimates the important organising role played by the RSL sub-branches in the interwar period. Certainly, McQueen’s glib assumption that the reintegration of working class soldiers with their families and their jobs served to sublimate any residual conservative leanings simply will not do.94 A significant number of RSL members were working class. How do we account for those workers who remained RSL members for the entire interwar period? What should we make of the conservative working class returned soldier – the early enlister, the post-war blackleg, the devotee of King and Empire, the loyal servant of authority? If, despite initial ruling class fears, most diggers were not radicalised by their war experiences, what role did digger organisations have in the interwar period?95 In addition, McQueen’s arguments suggest that the political and social role of the RSL in the interwar years and its unceasing conservative propaganda deserves further investigation, both at the official level and among ‘grassroots’ community supporters. Such an examination might begin with Eric Campbell’s 1931 description of the AIF, cited by McQueen, as a major ‘moral and physical force’ and that ‘the manhood of the State … [is] now pulsing with the spirit of the AIF’. Further, Campbell claimed, New Guardsmen would be able to see themselves as ‘fit comrades of our glorious dead’.96 Far from being passing comments, as McQueen described them, these words may illustrate the key to understanding the relationship between these two right-wing organisations and, equally importantly, their links with the working class. There is no doubt that the image of the returned soldier, lovingly crafted by conservative opinion in the interwar years, was a powerful one. Portrayed as noble and courageous defenders of ‘liberty’ and ‘empire’, the men of the AIF were diligently exalted in schools and churches, and other local groups. RSL speakers were present at countless public functions during this period. As such, they were far more socially integrated with the wider community than the New Guard and could exercise a greater, and more effective, influence over all the groups with which they had links, including the labour movement. In making a worthwhile case for the general lack of working class support for the New Guard, McQueen painted the fascist organisation as a rather more virile and active proponent of bourgeois ideology than the RSL. Indeed, the RSL was unenviably portrayed as an unrepresentative rump of elite

94 Ibid., p. 212. 95 McQueen, ‘Shoot the Bolshevik!’, p. 196.

41 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

soldiers, failed farmers and wounded pension recipients. How then do we account for the subsequent political prominence of the RSL and the comparatively brief life of the New Guard?

Some leads have been provided by Andrew Moore who showed that the RSL played a critical role in Old Guard organising strategies, detailing many branches where the RSL executive and the Old Guard leadership were identical.97 This is a more useful way to appreciate the role of returned soldier organisation in interwar society – while the RSL was something of a ‘public face’ organising respectable activities for the promotion of conservative values, it was not in any way divorced from the clandestine assembly of physical and ideological resources that the Old Guard coordinated. Not bound to the secrecy of the paramilitaries, the RSL could organise more freely because the place accorded it in post-war society allowed for public proselytising beyond its constituency. We might ask what was the effect of RSL propaganda on the young conservative who felt he had ‘missed his chance’ to enlist. Did 1920s school boys, for example, hold their local returned soldiers in high esteem and view the New Guard, and other conservative mobilisations, as something of a second chance to ‘do their bit’ for their country? The case study evidence which follows in later chapters suggests that RSL propaganda was particularly well-received by conservative young men who were, for one reason or another, distanced from organised labour.

The relationship between the RSL and the Old and New Guard is beyond the scope of this thesis. Instead, an assessment of the influence of the RSL at the community and industrial level will shed new light on its political significance during the interwar period, particularly in the area of race relations. Thomson comments on the nature of left-leaning returned soldier groups that largely disappeared in the early 1920s through lack of State patronage. He argued that they attacked women and migrants for taking jobs that should have been reserved for returned men, in a manner that reflected

96 Ibid., p. 204. 97 Moore, The Secret Army and the Premier, p. 113. See also D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, Heinemann, London, 1923; R. Darroch, ‘D. H. Lawrence’s Australia’, Overland, no. 113, 1988 and ‘Kangaroo: The Darroch Thesis’, Meridian, vol. 11, no. 1, 1992; A. Moore, ‘The Historian as Detective’, Overland, no. 113, 1988, ‘Thirroul and Literary Establishment Strike Back’, Overland, no. 120, 1988 and ‘The Old Guard and ‘Countrymindedness’ during the Great Depression’, Journal of Australian Studies, no. 27, 1990; B. Steele, ‘Fiction and Fact’, Meridian, vol. 10, no. 1, 1991.

42 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

the ‘racist and sexist heritage of the Australian labour movement’.98 Surprisingly, no mention was made of the very same attacks made by the RSL. For example, in 1931, Reveille, the official journal of the RSL’s NSW Branch, published a remarkable account by ex-soldier G. Donnellan of an ‘unofficial battle’ that took place in 1918 at a convalescent base in Wimereux, near Boulogne. During this conflict, Australian, British, Canadian and American soldiers fought with tools, knives, sticks, chair legs and stones against Portuguese troops. The Portuguese, Donnellan reported, ‘invaded our estaminets and magasins, drank our beer, tried to “pirate” our girls, and, in short, made themselves a darned nuisance’. He boasted that two men were killed ‘on our side’, while eleven funerals took place on the Portuguese side. More than a hundred other men were hospitalised and/or treated for wounds.99 C. E. W. Bean alluded to this ‘fight’, but gave no details. He reported merely that it was General Haig’s belief that the Australian troops were ill-disciplined and should convalesce separately from other troops.100 Given post-war attempts made by the RSL to sanitise the Anzac legend and to downplay such incidents, the value of printing this story may well have been its inference of staunch returned soldier support for White Australia-style attitudes to southern Europeans, and non-British migrants more generally. Given its ideological access to every corner of Australian society, coupled with its commitment to immigration restriction, it is time that the RSL’s influence over race relations within Australian society was assessed.

Conclusion

Passive acceptance of the argument that workers were ‘natural’ supporters of racist exclusion has had a dramatic effect on studies of working class responses to non-British immigration. It was not until 1980, and Verity Burgmann’s work on the role of ruling class ideology in the dissemination of racist ideas, that this consensus was shaken. While Burgmann's study of Australian racism challenged a number of mistaken approaches, at least one still remains. By insisting that the ruling class has a material interest in perpetuating racist ideas in order to cheapen wages, divide working class organisation and to galvanise support for national projects, Burgmann went some way to correcting the emphasis on working class culpability for the White Australia policy.

98 A. Thomson, Anzac Memories, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1996, p. 122. 99 Reveille, 31 August 1931.

43 Chapter One Workers, Racism and the RSL

Nevertheless, while she made a convincing case against the ‘whitewashers’, her thesis suggested that ruling class racism maintained its solidly hegemonic status and was unchallenged by either the working class or its institutions.101 Hence, we are left with a portrayal of the working class as either active supporters of, and successful campaigners for, racially-based exclusion or unquestioning dupes of a racist ruling elite. Little work has been done since that time to extrapolate from Burgmann’s conclusions. One area which promises to yield results in this area is to examine the way in which ruling class ideology was disseminated among working people and the RSL provides a useful lens through which aspects of this process can be viewed. Its ability to spread ideas about the important place of King, Empire and racial homogeneity in the development of the Australian nation among its working class constituency provides an important example of how a hegemony can be established. Equally important examples of resistance to those ideas can also be encapsulated.

100 C. E. W. Bean, The A.I.F. in France 1918, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1937, p. 31. 101 Burgmann, ‘Capital and Labour’, p. 21.

44 CHAPTER TWO

Plotting the Ebb and Flow of Racist Ideology: a discussion of theory and methodology

History is a continuous process of development, and hence is essentially unpredictable. But this does not mean that 'everything' is unpredictable in the process of development of history; that history, in other words, is the domain of arbitrariness and irresponsible caprice. History is at once freedom and necessity. Antonio Gramsci, L'Ordine Nuovo, 12 July 1919

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid, And the marshals and cops get the same, But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool. He's taught in his school, from the start by the rule That the laws are with him, to protect his white skin To keep up his hate, so he never thinks straight 'Bout the shape that he's in, but it ain't him to blame He's only a pawn in their game. Bob Dylan, Only a Pawn in their Game

Introduction

At the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) Port Botany picket line in Sydney, during the early days of a major industrial dispute on the Australian waterfront in 1998, a debate took place about appropriate strategies and tactics. At one point, someone in the crowd remarked contemptuously that many of the security men used by the employer, Patrick Stevedores, to evict the wharfies from the docks were from Tonga. MUA official, Robert Coombs, responded immediately. His rejoinder made it abundantly clear that unionists should not use racism to attack the non-union labour because it was both morally abhorrent and would weaken the wharfies’ industrial campaign. He warned the picketers that racism could isolate Chapter Two Theory and Methodology

some of the MUA’s most solid members who were also Tongan. This argument was greeted with enthusiastic applause from the large crowd.1

One hundred years ago, such racist derision towards Asian and black workers would have been unexceptional in Australia. Now, however, international revulsion over the Holocaust, the eradication of racist immigration restrictions, union solidarity campaigns, the 1960s civil rights movement and many other developments in this country, have contributed to a significant sea-change in the politics of race. Because of these changes, the story of the MUA picket line is important for three reasons. Firstly, it suggests that, while there have been real and lasting challenges to the hegemony of racist ideas in Australia, virulent xenophobia can still, under certain circumstances, resurface. Secondly, just as workers might unite on the basis of common nationality, the opportunity to divide and rule on the basis of ‘racial difference’ still offers real benefits to employers. As a result, an understanding of racist ideology is not only a question of historical interest, but also an urgent contemporary necessity. Thirdly, while the claim is often made that white workers have benefited from racial exclusion, this example suggests that workers have always had a material interest in fighting the divisions that might weaken their industrial strength – and this is not, by any means, a post-1960s development.

This thesis argues that the tension between racism and industrial solidarity is a fertile area for investigation. While some, but not enough, work has been done on the development of the White Australia policy and its subsequent dismantling some seventy years later, even less attention has been given to the policy’s effects on Australian society while it was in operation. This study examines the effect of the White Australia policy on those southern European migrants who were allowed to enter, despite its strictures, and questions whether ‘white’ workers ever actually benefited from immigration restrictions against non-British workers. Was racism among workers any less damaging to working class industrial solidarity in the 1920s than it would have been to the Patrick workers in the

1 Notes from speech, picket line meeting attended by author, 12 April 1998.

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1990s? While I consistently acknowledge that local workers did on many occasions adopt racist ideas and engage in racist campaigns, my approach has been to submit ruling class racism to much closer scrutiny. Unlike earlier studies, I have directed attention to the reasons why employers, politicians and newspaper editors sought to maintain the White Australia policy and the subsequent oppression of non-British immigrants. This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical framework and methodology used to explore the nature of Australian racism in the interwar period.

Theory: employing a Marxist analysis of racism

Historian of racism, Andrew Markus, has defined modern European racism as the belief that distinct human populations have separate genetic constitutions that determine both individual and group destinies. ‘Put at its most basic’, Markus argued:

racism sees culture as a function of biology: it holds that ‘capacity for civilisation’, loyalty to the fatherland, and capacity for abstract reasoning are as inescapably linked to racial origin as skin colour, hair type and eye shape.2

In his view, one of the major reasons for the existence and continued survival of racist ideology is its facility for serving the ‘material and intellectual needs of dominant groups, at times of subordinate groups’, thereby positing the ability of subordinate groups to employ an ideology in their own interests as roughly equal to that of society’s ruling elites. In contrast, this thesis defines racism as an ideology which systematically attributes negative stereotypes to people of a particular ‘ethnic’ group or religion in order to validate existing material discrimination. When posited as a socially and historically constructed ideology linked to tangible forms of oppression, racism is clearly comprehensible as a weapon in the hands of society’s powerful to bolster their position against the less powerful.3 If people in one ‘racial’ group merely thought of another group of equal power as ‘strange’ or

2 A. Markus, Australian Race Relations 1788-1993, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1994, p. 2.

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‘different’, racism would have had little real sting and would have no doubt gradually faded as the world’s populations increasingly intermingled. In reality, however, racism has burgeoned and spread, providing a useful weapon for dominant elites to justify the often brutal oppression of less powerful populations. Such a distinction is of enormous importance, because it allows us to distinguish between a racism wielded consciously by a particular social elite for its own benefit and a racism unleashed far less advantageously by oppressed peoples; the former offers many rewards to its perpetrator while the latter is a sign of further division in an already weakened group.

This thesis is underpinned by a belief that there are no such things as ‘races’ and that the concept of race is a purely social, rather than biological, construct.4 In the modern era, citizens have been universally encouraged to see membership of their own national group as somehow ‘higher’ or ‘better’ than membership of any other group. Arguments reinforcing ethnic difference have become commonplace and, as de Lepervanche pointed out, where some groups were once damned by physiological differences such as skin colour and eye shape, supposedly innate ‘cultural’ differences with host societies are now commonly wielded to justify discrimination and violence against absurdly-labelled ‘minorities’.5

Many historians argue that racism has always existed in one incarnation or another.6 While much of the international debate on this broad question is beyond the scope of this study, the notion that the history of racism is almost as long as that of humankind has had a resonance in Australian historiography. Burgmann’s work on the role of the capitalist ruling class in the rise of racist ideology argued that racism did not necessarily coincide with

3 S. Clegg, ‘Theories of racism’, International Socialism Journal, vol. 2, no. 37, 1988, p. 94. 4 Prominent Marxist geneticists, such as Richard Lewontin and Stephen Rose, have convincingly demonstrated that the widest range of genetic difference occurs ‘intra-racially’, rather than ‘inter-racially’. See R. Lewontin, Human Diversity, Scientific American Library, New York, 1982; R. Lewontin, S. Rose and L. Kamin, Not in our genes: biology, ideology, and human nature, Pantheon Books, New York, 1984. 5 M. de Lepervanche, ‘From Race to Ethnicity’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, vol. 16, no. 1, March 1980, pp. 24-37. 6 A description of this historiographical trend can be found in A. Callinicos, Race and Class, Bookmarks, London, 1993, p. 21.

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capitalism, but was also a feature of the feudal world.7 Similarly, Andrew Markus has argued that racist ideology is ‘natural’ in human society. In his view, its impetus can be found in people’s instinctive need to justify their violent and exploitative behaviour. As he put it:

The building blocks of racist thought are embedded in most cultures. Thus individuals may independently develop racist ideas without direct access to specifically racial value systems. This explains why racist ideas seem to have existed well before systematic forms of racist thought were established.8

In contrast to Markus’ aforementioned view that racism is a creation of ‘dominant groups’, this formulation suggested that human beings are born racist, live consistently racist lives, and maintain racist assumptions until death for no discernible reason. Racist ideology exists in a vacuum, seemingly impervious to changes in the human society from which it emanates. This is an ideological determinism of a most unconvincing kind, and one that is not difficult to discredit. Take, for example, the case of C. P. Ellis, a former Klansman interviewed by the eminent oral historian, Studs Terkel. Ellis was born in Durham, North Carolina, in the 1920s. Poor, fatherless and bitter, he joined the to ‘uphold the purity of the white race, fight communism and protect white womanhood’.9 His local Klan leaders, ‘city fathers’ one and all, encouraged groups of their poor, white members to attend council meetings and shout down the demands of ‘uppity niggers’, black activists who were organising as part of the civil rights movement sweeping America at the time. When Ellis realised that he was being used to further the aims of his middle-class Klan leaders, and that he, himself, had a great deal more in common with the poor blacks with whom he dealt at the local school, he began to challenge his own racism. At Duke University, where he worked in maintenance, he realised the importance of the union, ran for the position of elected representative and won office on the votes of a seventy per cent black membership. The contract he negotiated included a paid holiday to celebrate the

7 V. Burgmann, ‘Capital and Labour’ in A. Curthoys and A. Markus (eds), Who Are Our Enemies? Racism and the Working Class in Australia, Hale and Iremonger, Neutral Bay, 1978, p. 22. 8 Markus, Australian Race Relations, p. 2. 9 S. Terkel, Race, Minerva, London, 1992, p. 271-2.

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birthday of Martin Luther King. When some of the white workers complained about such a challenge to notions of white superiority, Ellis’ response was ‘Okay, idiots, work.’10 That a Klansman, of all people, could be won to the cause of anti-racism clearly suggests that racism is not a fixed idea in the heads of individuals. The example of Ellis’ workmates also demonstrates that oppressed workers can identify with racist ideas that are often against their own material interests. That other workers were able to overcome their racism and win substantial industrial concessions from their employers also points to issues regarding the material interests behind racial division in the workplace. At a societal level, it becomes even clearer that portraying racism as an eternal human failing cannot help us to account for ebb and flow in the popularity of racist ideology in different societies in different historical periods.

Happily, the notion that racism ‘springs eternal’ has not passed uncontested. Some historians have insisted that, while certain groups have intermittently developed prejudices against ‘outsiders’, this intolerance has not always been based on inherent features. For example, Hugh Thomas has shown that many Roman slaves were fair-skinned Celts, Germans and Saxons. From antiquity, he argued, slaves were taken from all over the known world, but natural biological features, such as skin colour, were not decisive factors in their abduction.11 Callinicos pointed to the religious wars of the Middle Ages where the battle between Islam and Christendom was certainly ferocious, but not ‘racial’ in character. From time to time, slaves taken in battle would convert to their captors’ religion and win freedom.12 The treatment of Jews has been another case in point. While Jews were viciously persecuted in medieval Europe, it was their religious rejection of the Catholic Church that marked them as targets for abuse, not the supposedly inherent and inescapable physical features that became the hallmarks of modern anti-Semitism.13

10 Ibid., p. 279. 11 H. Thomas, The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870, Macmillan, London, 1997, p. 27. 12 Callinicos, Race and Class, p. 21. 13 See A. Leon, The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1970.

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According to some, principally Marxist, historians of racism, an ideology that prescribed certain people as inferior, and irredeemably so, was a much more recent development. They suggest that racism emanated from the bourgeois need for an ideological justification of the slave trade.14 At a time when the forces of capitalism were on the ascendant in Europe, ideas concerning freedom and equality of the individual clashed markedly with the expanding subjugation of black slaves. Acceptance of the notion of ‘natural’ inferiority, in this case based on skin colour, strengthened the claims of the slave traders that Africans could morally be denied the political and legal freedoms that were being sought throughout Europe. While others have called this analysis crude and deterministic,15 it could be argued that seeing racism as indistinguishable from other forms of ‘ancient prejudice’ misunderstands the particular characteristics of racism and its specificity under capitalism. In Hannah Arendt’s words: ‘Jews had been able to escape from Judaism [religion] into conversion; from Jewishness [race] there was no escape.’16 In this light, an analysis that portrays racism as a dynamic and malleable ideology easily supersedes the view that racism is ‘embedded’ in human society and, presumably, cannot be challenged.

From ignominious origins, racist ideology has been reshaped to suit economic and political priorities other than the slave trade. From Britain and Europe, capitalist competitive forces pushed beyond their national boundaries. Ideas of racial superiority justified the actions of the economically successful nations as they subjugated, and extracted great wealth from, those areas that could not repel their superior armed force. The invasion of the Australian continent was part of this process. Reynolds quoted one nineteenth-century settler as saying that it should be ‘looked upon as heroism … for a white man to conquer natives’.17 It was only once Aboriginal people had been defeated by military force and disease that the process of portraying Australia’s development as peaceful could begin. It

14 R. Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery: from the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800, Verso, London, 1997; C. Harman, A People’s History of the World, Bookmarks, London, 1999. 15 See, for example, V. Burgmann, ‘Who our enemies are. Andrew Markus and the Baloney View of Australian Racism’, Labour History, no. 49, 1985. 16 Cited in Callinicos, Race and Class, p. 22.

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was also on this basis that the implicitly racist concept of terra nullius was established.18 These events were not unique to Australia. For example, Worden has shown that had its own version of terra nullius, with the survival, until relatively recently at least, of a myth that British colonists settled on empty land. The assertion was used, Worden maintained, to justify later claims to white ownership of the land.19

In the later nineteenth century, the rise of Social Darwinism was part of an intensification of racist sentiment throughout Europe to match the race for increased imperial conquests. Pseudo-scientific ascriptions of innate ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ characteristics to certain races, or nationalities, not only justified the subjugation of ‘lower’ Asian and black populations; it also overcame any stumbling block presented by the eventuality that some rival nations would both be white Christians. As Alexander put it, racism had a distinct advantage over religion. Whereas religion had a universal aspect, racism and nationalism emphasised the particular.20 Nevertheless, inspiring loyalty among citizens to an entity from which most did not benefit was not an easy task and presented a great challenge to bourgeois interests. Racism helped. It encouraged powerless people to think that they had something of which to be proud – a country to which they belonged and others, by definition, did not. The nation’s leaders became their friends, the nation’s enemies their detested foes. Indeed, Benedict Anderson has argued that what he called ‘nation-ness’ has become ‘the most universally legitimate value in the political life of our time’.21 In Australia, these ideological forces encouraged white Australians to feel pride in the British conquest of Aboriginal land and to unite against any suggestion of a similar invasion from Asia.22

17 H. Reynolds, Why Weren’t We Told?, Viking, Ringwood, 1999, p. 149. 18 Ibid., pp. 92, 135-67. 19 N. Worden, The Making of Modern South Africa, 2nd edition, Blackwell, Oxford, 1995, p. 5. 20 Peter Alexander, Racism, resistance and revolution, Bookmarks, London, 1987, p. 15. 21 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities, Verso, London, 1991, p. 3. 22 Curthoys argued that colonists’ stereotypes of Aboriginal and Chinese people were remarkably similar, although they saw each in a different light. Nevertheless, the fear of having to ‘mix’ with either people was widespread. A. Curthoys, ‘Conflict and Consensus’ in Curthoys and Markus, Who Are Our Enemies?, p. 56.

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This thesis provides evidence that such an ideology can only survive if it is found to be useful to those who control any given class society. In short, as Marx and Engels wrote, ‘[t]he ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: ie. the class which is the prevailing material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.’23 Although they recognised that people holding oppositional views might struggle for recognition – indeed, their belief in the necessity of further social transformation beyond capitalism was based on such struggle – Marx and Engels recognised that the spread of ideas critical of the status quo was hindered by major obstacles. Opposition activists did not have equivalent access to mass-produced newspapers, official religious and educational institutions, and even to armed force, as did established ruling elites. Indeed, no class society could achieve anything like relative constancy and longevity if it was not run by an elite that could successfully peddle a set of ideas to legitimise its ruling position. In the case of contemporary ‘advanced’ societies, the ideas that competition is healthy, that the market is fair, that liberal democratic societies are essentially meritocratic, are widely accepted, despite periodic challenge. From this perspective, the idea that any nation’s working class could maintain racist ideology without the approval and material support of its ruling class, is highly problematic.

Even for those who accept some of the Marxist theoretical insights about the relationship between capitalism and racism, the rejoinder that Marxists can suggest no solution short of revolution is common.24 While some of the more structuralist accounts have adopted a teleological approach, this thesis demonstrates how a Marxist conceptual framework can help to analyse the dynamics of racism within the capitalist system without recourse to determinism. It will also prove that those who argue that racism must be fought

23 K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology, International Publishers, New York, 1972, p. 64. See also A. Callinicos, The revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx, Bookmarks, London, 1983, p. 99. 24 This argument emerges in D. Hollinsworth, ‘The work of anti-racism’ in G. Gray and C. Winter (eds), The Resurgence of Racism, Howard, Hanson and the Race Debate, Monash Publications in History, Clayton, 1997, p. 131. While the issues raised in this article are largely peripheral to this thesis, Hollinsworth’s idealist account ignores the work of Leon Trotsky who wrote a practical and sadly prophetic account of the dangers inherent in the rise of Nazism in Germany and of the material necessity for unity among working people in their own defence. In Trotsky’s view, idealist analyses were not more sophisticated or less deterministic. They were, quite simply, deadly. L. Trotsky, Fascism, Stalinism and the United Front, Bookmarks, London, 1989.

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within the confines of capitalist society do not escape the theoretical impasse of teleology. Idealist assumptions that greater education and enlightenment will eventually make racism redundant are not borne out by the contemporary Australian political landscape where, for example, Muslim people have recently become targets for racial vilification.25

Although a relatively constant feature of modern capitalist societies, racism is not static, but ebbs and flows in a complex and dialectical interaction with other social, political and economic forces. The task is to dissect the myriad of social relations and economic ‘imperatives’ – the ‘freedom and necessity’, as Gramsci described them – that can be seen to accompany changes in racist ideology and practice. This thesis identifies and traces mechanisms by which racism gained ascendancy and, conversely, the strategies that have weakened its influence, in order to demonstrate that such an ideology is neither innate, nor accidental, nor the result of an almost disembodied set of ideas in the heads of unenlightened individuals. By jettisoning both deterministic and idealist explanations, it presents a picture of racism as a complex phenomenon that is, first and foremost, socially and historically constructed.

One Marxist who escaped the charge of determinism was Antonio Gramsci.26 Portrayed as a supporter of parliamentary gradualism, where broad cross-class alliances might seek to educate the masses and gain ideological hegemony without the need for revolution, Gramsci has become the ‘thinking-person’s Marxist’. To be so canonised by his political enemies has been the ultimate indignity in Gramsci’s tragic life.27 In his view, such reformists were ‘like a swarm of coachman flies on hunt for a bowl of blancmange in which

25 See an example of such vilification in J. Albrechtsen, ‘Talking race not racism’, The Australian, 17 July 2002. For a rebuttal of anti-Muslim agendas, see R. Manne, ‘Open season on Muslims in the newest phobia’. Sydney Morning Herald [hereafter SMH], 16 September 2002. 26 John Playford maintained that, ‘The mechanical side of Marxism was Gramsci’s greatest enemy.’ Introduction to Alistair Davidson, Antonio Gramsci: The Man, His Ideas, Australian Left Review Publication, Sydney, 1968, p. II. 27 With Karl Marx in mind, Lenin wrote that revolutionaries were pilloried by the ruling class during their lifetimes. After their death, he argued, ‘attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonise them ... while at the same time emasculating the “essence” of their revolutionary teaching, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it’. V. I. Lenin, The State and Revolution, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1970, p. 5.

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they get stuck and perish ingloriously’.28 In reality, Gramsci, as a young student, joined the Italian Socialist Party, the PSI, a move which began a lifelong struggle against the reformism that was to divide the Italian opposition to fascism. On the Far Left of the PSI, Gramsci played a pivotal role in the factory councils that emerged in the ‘Red Years’ of 1919-1920. He edited an explicitly revolutionary workers’ paper, L’Ordine Nuovo, and argued that the way forward was to build a workers’ organisation so strong that it could challenge, break and replace the capitalists’ hold on power.29 A crucial part of these plans was the need to unite the Northern working class with the Southern peasantry.

Gramsci saw racism as a key barrier to a successful socialist transformation of society, where contradictory consciousness among groups of workers could lead them to take actions directly against their material interests.30 His earliest politics were influenced by Sardinian nationalism at a time when entrenched racism was directed by mainland Italians towards Sardinians, and Southerners generally. When Gramsci’s mainlander father announced that he wanted to marry a local Sardinian woman, his relatives were horrified for this ‘bordered on miscegenation’.31 Sardinia was an immensely poor part of Italy, with a mainly peasant population. Waves of protest periodically swept the island and were met with severe repression from mainland troops. The northern industrialists, with the compliance of the corrupt Southern bureaucracy, succeeded in getting protectionist policies adopted to aid Northern industry. These moves had a catastrophic effect on the Southern

28 C. Harman, Gramsci versus Reformism, Socialist Workers Party pamphlet, London, 1983, p. 8. Bates discussed Gramsci's respect/hatred relationship with liberal Benedetto Croce. He wrote, ‘Identifying himself as a protagonist in his own theory, Gramsci imagined himself locked in fierce ideological combat with the "Lay Pope" of Liberal Italy, whom he regarded as the most important educator of the ruling classes.’ T. R. Bates, ‘Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony’, Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 36, no. 2, 1975, p. 356. 29 So dangerous was Gramsci to Italy’s ruling Fascist Party that they jailed him for what was, in reality, a slow, painful death sentence. Mussolini’s prosecutor announced himself determined to stop Gramsci's mind from functioning for twenty years. A. Davidson, Antonio Gramsci: Towards an Intellectual Biography, Merlin Press, London, 1977, p. 231. 30 A. Gramsci in Q. Hoare and G. Nowell Smith (ed. and trans), Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1996, pp. 444-5. 31 Davidson, Antonio Gramsci: Towards an Intellectual Biography, p. 19.

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economy, now unable to export agricultural goods or afford manufactured goods from the North.32

While studying at university, Gramsci was won to an internationalist perspective, encouraging his fellow Turin socialists to see the political implications of entrenched racism between the Northern and Southern labouring masses of Italy and the gains that this accrued to the Italian ruling class. In his words:

The average northern Italian believed that if the Mezzogiorno had failed to progress after being liberated from the shackles of the old Bourbon regime, this must be due not to external causes, not to objective economic and political conditions, but rather to the innate, internal incapacity of the southerners … to their organic or biological inferiority, their native barbarism. Such ideas were not only widely accepted, by actually cultivated and given theoretical form by positivist sociologists … until they were regarded as scientific truths.33

As he saw it, portrayals of peasants as ‘backward’ and hopeless figures of ridicule were an example of the contradictory consciousness that would weaken the potential strength of both classes.34 Gramsci came to see the unity of workers and peasants as essential to the success of any future Italian revolution. Industrial workers and the peasantry had to learn to stand aloof from ruling class influence and to form an ‘historical bloc’ with each other.

Gramsci’s analysis is extremely pertinent to an understanding of racism in Australia. In particular, three aspects of his rationale call into question widespread assumptions within the historiography of Australian race relations. Firstly, he demonstrated a distinctly ruling class motivation for racial division, outlining the way Italian elites benefited from the cross- class alliances they manufactured. Secondly, Gramsci rejected the notion that racism was an

32 By 1870, Sardinia had a mortgage debt of three thousand lire to the hectare, four times the value of the land. Ibid., p. 11. 33 G. Fiori, Antonio Gramsci: Life of a Revolutionary, Verso, London, 1990, p. 79. 34 The PSI, under the leadership of Turati, was not much influenced by Marxist ideas, instead forming a reformist alliance with bourgeois Northern interests. It had a dismissive attitude towards the ‘Southern

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inevitable consequence of economic competition between the labouring classes. Rather, he suggested that it was an ideology that could be challenged, both materially and politically. In his view, opposition by workers and peasants to the policies of the dominant Northern industrialists would provide object lessons in the benefits of a united struggle. Thirdly, in contrast to those Australian historians who have frequently argued that white workers benefit from the racial oppression of their migrant competitors, Gramsci argued that racism was costly for Northern workers and prevented them from achieving the concrete benefits of class unity. The next section describes how these tensions were played out in Australia, in order to provide a context and framework in which to place the Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill case studies.

Australian immigration policy between the wars

The Immigration Restriction Act (1901) was the first significant piece of legislation passed by the new Federal Parliament. Known as the White Australia policy, it codified and centralised official attempts to control the future ethnic composition of the new nation and ensure its homogeneity. The Act was designed to prevent people of Asian and African descent from entering Australia, but, at various times, it was invoked to place limitations on all but immigrants from Britain.35 Some European immigration was permitted, but was strictly controlled. After the outbreak of World War One, xenophobia against enemy nations intensified and the persecution of, and discrimination against, small groups of ‘enemy aliens’ living in Australia increased markedly. Many were interned for the duration of the war, others suffered harassment at work.36 Sections of the anti-conscription movement argued that the government was planning to flood Australia with cheap labour

problem’. Indeed, Turati called the South, ‘the Vendée of Italy’. Davidson, Antonio Gramsci: Towards an Intellectual Biography, p. 54. 35 Even some Britisher workmen were caught up in the White Australia web, until legislative changes corrected this unintended anomaly. L. Layman, “To Keep Up the Australian Standard’: Regulating Contract Labour Migration 1901-50’, Labour History, no. 70, 1996. 36 See K. Saunders and R. Daniels (eds), Alien justice: wartime internment in Australia and North America, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2000.

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from overseas, leading to knee-jerk restrictions against Greeks and Maltese immigrants that were later lifted.37 After the war, more severe restrictions were placed on immigrants from Germany and other enemy nations, than were applied to those from many other countries. Similarly, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Australian government cast a jaundiced eye over immigrants from the new Soviet Republic. There were concerted attempts to limit arrivals from Russia because such immigrants were potentially radicals or Soviet agents. The Governor-General expressed the view that it was ‘in the interests of the Empire as a whole that every possible precaution shall be taken to prevent alien revolutionaries from gaining admission into any of the British Dominions’.38

The interwar period in Australia was one of enormous political complexity. The immediate post-war years were marked by a polarised industrial relations environment, fluctuating economic indicators and the maturation of two groups that were to become important influences on interwar politics and beyond – the RSL and the Communist Party of Australia [hereafter CPA]. The conservative Nationalist Party was in power federally throughout the 1920s, until James Scullin was elected Prime Minister in late 1929. As Chapter Three will demonstrate, many RSL leaders used their influence in support of Nationalist Party politicians, who emphasised a range of conservative policies based primarily on rural development, the expansion of national infrastructure and the White Australia policy. Loans taken on the London money markets financed heavy expenditure on roads and railways.39 During the shallow boom of the 1920s, trade union membership density increased, but fell sharply with the onset of economic depression in the late 1920s. CPA membership remained small and steady throughout the 1920s, but grew sharply in the early 1930s as thousands of workers were radicalised by their Depression experiences, the

37 C. A. Price, Southern Europeans in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1963, p. 87; B. York, Empire and Race: The Maltese in Australia 1881-1949, University of New South Wales Press, Kensington, 1990; M. Caruana and B. York, Emmanuel Attard: from Gozo (Malta) to Gallipoli and Australia, Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies, Australian National University, 1994. 38 The equation of ‘alien’ and ‘revolutionary’ was an enduring political motif in this period. Confidential memo from Governor-General Stonehaven to British Consul-Generals at Canton, Shanghai, Hankow and Tientsin and the British Consul at Harbin, dated 8 December 1925, NAA: A11804/1, 1926/25 Part 2. 39 I. M. Cumpston, Lord Bruce of Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1989, pp. 52-3.

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influence of the Militant Minority Movement and the Unemployed Workers’ Movement. This radicalisation occurred against a backdrop of increasing pessimism on the part of large sections of the labour movement as a result of political defeats and industrial reversals. As CPA-influenced activists regained employment in the mid-1930s, they began to intervene in trade union activity and, for a period, militant workplace organisation became a feature of key Australian industries, including the mining industry.

From its earliest days, the White Australia policy was an important political target for the CPA in its battle to undermine the class collaborationist politics of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). In an article entitled ‘Fomenting Race Hatred’ which was aimed at attacking the ALP and the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) for refusing ‘our coloured comrades their rightful place in the class struggle because they were not born of white parents in Australia’, the writer praised industrial struggle by Chinese, Indian and Japanese workers that had been able to win concessions from British companies. Further, it was argued:

Ask yourself, fellow-worker, wherein lies your superiority! It is not enough to point to the colour of our hides. Unless we are thoroughly class-conscious and organise with our fellow workers the world over to smash the capitalist system, the capitalist will flay us, if necessary, to make whips for the driving of the other slaves.40

In 1925, the CPA hailed Australian trade union contact with their Asian counterparts as a sign that commitment to the White Australia policy was not an ‘inviolable tradition’ within the labour movement.41

During the 1920s, the population of Australia grew by almost one fifth, from approximately 5.4 million to 6.4 million.42 Political paranoia aside, the Federal Government

40 The International Communist, 1 April 1921. 41 The Communist, September-October 1925. 42 Figures cited in K. Buckley and T. Wheelwright, False Paradise: Australian Capitalism Revisited, 1915- 1955, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1998, p. 51.

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was generally prepared to encourage European migration during the early 1920s, provided that the prospective immigrant was of good health and had relations in Australia who were prepared to guarantee the maintenance of new arrivals. ‘Fair-skinned’ immigrants were clearly preferred – assisted passages were granted not only to migrants from Britain, but also, initially, to nominees from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Finland and Poland. Sir Tom Bridges, the Governor of South Australia, reflected the thinking behind such a policy when he said: ‘I believe that the Germans and people of the Nordic races generally make very good migrants. They are very like ourselves, and … make very fine colonists.’43 Notwithstanding these slight deviations from British preference, immigrants from these places were considered insufficient in number to meet the Federal Government’s defence strategies and its burning crusade to populate Australia’s ‘empty spaces’.44 Nor were local employers satisfied that they were getting sufficient supplies of unskilled workers at the right price. In order to meet their demands for such labour while still protecting the ideals of the White Australia policy, the Government came to regard the immigration of southern Europeans, not as a contravention of White Australia, but as a measure designed to protect it within the wider coordination of Asian and African exclusion. In 1924, Prime Minister Stanley Bruce stressed that the notorious dictation test was only designed to prevent ‘coloured immigrants’ from entering the country and that southern Europeans should not be discriminated against.45 While southern Europeans were not considered equal with Britishers, they were regarded as a lesser and necessary evil. Hence, they were reluctantly permitted entry to Australia in strictly controlled numbers in order to create a pool of workers for low-skilled employment.46 The major proviso for entry was that such prospective immigrants must not become a burden on the public purse and,

43 SMH, 13 December 1927. 44 See P. Griffiths, The road to White Australia: Economics, politics and social control in the anti-Chinese laws of 1877-88, unpublished paper in the possession of the author, 2002. 45 Letter, Prime Minister [hereafter PM] to Premier, South Australia, [no date, circa 1924], NAA: A1/15, 1936/13639. 46 Draft letter, PM to Premiers, All States, [no date, circa 1922], NAA: A1/15, 1936/13639.

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to ensure this outcome, the assisted passage scheme was restricted to nominees of, and by, British subjects in July 1925.47

Evidence of the Federal Government’s attitude on this question can be discerned in its responses to concerns raised by some sections of the community about the level of southern European immigration in the mid-1920s. In this period, agitation against southern European immigration developed something of the flavour of a ‘moral panic’. Stan Cohen described this phenomenon thus:

Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereo-typical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible. Sometimes the object is quite novel and at other times it is something which has been in existence long enough, but suddenly appears in the limelight. Sometimes the panic is passed over and is forgotten, except in folklore and collective memory; at other times it has more serious and long-lasting repercussions and might produce such changes as those in legal and social policy or even in the way society conceives itself.48

All these features of a ‘moral panic’ had a resonance in Australia in the mid-1920s around the alleged ‘threat’ posed by southern European migration. Newspapers ran stories that predicted dire consequences if the current ‘influx’ of immigrants was not stemmed.49 In the NSW State Parliament, members engaged in lengthy ‘debates’ on the immigration question, although neither side of politics disagreed on the matters at hand. Parliamentarians

47 Advice from Deputy Director, Commonwealth Immigration Office, ref no. 26/945, NAA: A1/15, 1936/13639. 48 S. Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: the Creation of the Mods and Rockers, MacGibbon and Kee, London, 1972, p. 28. See also S. Hall, C. Critcher, T. Jefferson, J. Clarke and B. Roberts, ‘The Social History of a ‘Moral Panic” in Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order, Macmillan, London, 1978, pp. 3-28. 49 See, for example, Age, 17-8 March 1926; Argus, 18 March 1926; SMH, 8 February, 22 March, 10-13 August, 9 December 1927.

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representing Broken Hill repeatedly asked for investigations into the large numbers of southern Europeans arriving in the town in search of work. At this time, four politicians represented Sturt in the NSW Parliament. One of them, Labor’s M. A. Davidson, accused the mine owners of deliberately seeking migrant workers by posting signs on the mines in three languages, despite existing high levels of unemployment.50 Another Labor member for Sturt, E. M. Horsington, claimed that, because the southern Europeans were getting employment preference on the mines, many local unemployed had been forced to sell their homes and leave the district.51 In reply, B. J. Doe, a Nationalist member for Sturt, called for an investigation into the amount of money sent out of Broken Hill to southern European countries.52 He also expressed outrage that migrants were able to learn English in night classes run at a Broken Hill school, thereby increasing their chances of usurping the jobs of local workers. His repeated references to this matter resulted in the Minister for Education issuing an instruction that the classes be discontinued.53

A constant theme raised in these debates, by both sides of the House, was the effect that continued southern European migration would have on future levels of British migration. When the Nationalist member for Rockdale, J. G. D. Arkins, asked the Premier to investigate whether British migrants were being excluded by increased levels of southern European migration, his concern was to ensure ‘that equity be done, especially to those of our own blood from the British Isles’. Jack Lang, the Labor Premier, agreed that it was ‘a pity [that the migrants] are not our own people’, adding that ‘persons of this class working underground, and not knowing our language, are a danger to themselves as well as to our own people’.54 In the midst of this furore, Prime Minister Bruce attempted to allay concerns about the level of southern European immigration by releasing the following figures to demonstrate that non-British immigration to Australia was a tiny proportion of the overall total.

50 New South Wales Parliamentary Debates, [hereafter NSWPD], vol. 107, 1926, p. 340; vol. 108, 1926, p. 918. 51 NSWPD, vol. 102, 1925-6, p. 1329. 52 NSWPD, vol. 108, 1926, p. 757. 53 NSWPD, vol. 108, 1926, pp. 1432-3.

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Arrived Left British 94 006 54 175 Greeks 1 366 317 Italians 6 082 1 180 Jugo-Slavs 1 560 432 Maltese 570 169 Total southern Europeans 9 578 2 098 Other Europeans 6 765 3 668 Totals 110 349 59 941

As published in the Argus, 11 August 1927.

Lest Bruce’s responses be seen as evidence of a more benign attitude to the presence of southern Europeans, it should be noted that the Prime Minister was at pains to appease a deputation from the Australian Natives Association that everything possible was being done to prevent ‘undue’ southern European migration. He also assured them that, in his view, ‘the principle of racial purity’ applied to all non-British races, not just the ‘coloured races’.55 Despite these general attitudes, pragmatic concerns regarding cheap labour, ‘peopling Australia’, and agricultural development dominated his policy formulation. As a sop to his Country Party Coalition partners, Bruce’s immigration policy was one which ‘allowed the greatest number of migrants to be placed in profitable primary industries at the lowest cost’.56 Later that year, Bavin, the newly-elected NSW Premier, informed the Parliament that Bruce had met with the Italian Consul-General to ask for his cooperation in restricting Italian migrants to agricultural employment. The Consul-General had agreed to refuse nomination papers to residents living in mining and industrial districts, such as Broken Hill.57

54 NSWPD, vol. 110, 1927, p. 1049. 55 SMH, 16 September 1927. 56 Cumpston, Lord Bruce of Melbourne, pp. 33, 42, 52. 57 NSWPD, vol. 112, 1927, p. 687.

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On the other side of the country, Labor Premier Philip Collier wrote to the Prime Minister in 1926 to complain about an ‘influx’ of southern Europeans to Western Australia. He wrote that: ‘[t]he migrants complained of are largely of the artisan type unsuitable for pioneering in land settlement, and their whole object and intention appears to be to secure employment, amass savings and eventually to return to the land of their birth.’58 Subsequently, Collier advised that a police officer, Detective Sergeant Doyle, had investigated recent arrivals and their employment situation. Doyle had been unable to find evidence that the migrants were being brought to Australia under contract,59 but did ‘believe’ that men were working for under-award conditions. Collier complained to the Prime Minister that the situation would have a serious effect on labour conditions in Western Australia and that, most importantly, the presence of so many ‘foreigners’ would ‘seriously militate against our efforts to absorb British migrants’.60

Bruce attempted to allay Collier’s concerns in two ways. Firstly, while he acknowledged that Western Australia was receiving a disproportionately high percentage of the total ‘alien’ immigration compared to other States, he was at pains to point out that Western Australian unemployment was actually falling and was lower than it had been for the previous six years. He also pointed to the real, and racist, reason for permitting southern European immigration and why the Federal Government was prepared to ignore the clamour from the States – his advice was that ‘both the Australian born and British labourers are temperamentally and physically not so suitable for the monotonous and exceedingly heavy work of clearing virgin and remote country as, say, the Jugo-Slavs and Northern Italians’.61 In short, such migrants were allowed to enter Australia in the expectation that they would do the ‘dirty work’ of developing settlement areas in return for low wages.

58 Letter, Collier to PM, dated 1 March 1926, NAA: A1/15, 1927/15940. 59 Under the Contract Immigrants Act (1905), Ministerial approval had to be sought by employers who wished to employ contract labour from outside Australia. 60 Letter, Collier to PM, dated 23 September 1927, NAA: A1/15, 1927/15940. 61 Draft letter, PM to Collier, dated 15 August 1927, NAA: A1/15, 1927/15940.

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Australian mine managers also kept a keen eye out for such workers, often hiring them for labouring jobs on the mines. That migrants were assigned the dirtiest and lowest- paid work mirrored the Taylorisation of mine work and the belief that it was only the most stupid workers who were suited for it. Taylor patronisingly selected a Dutch man named Schmidt to shovel pig iron in his ‘experiments’.62 As I will detail in later chapters, mine managers in Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill also selected southern Europeans to do the mind- numbing and poorly-paid jobs on the mines, reflecting Taylor’s view that southern Europeans were best suited for tasks like digging, because racist stereotypes portrayed such workers as unintelligent. As Taylor put it, the first requirement of such a labourer was ‘that he shall be so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his mental make- up the ox’. In the process of making an argument that the subdivision of labour enabled some workers ‘to rise to a higher plane of efficiency’, Taylor envisaged no shortage of labour to do the most menial tasks. That work could be done by Italians or Hungarians, he maintained.63

Similar racist assumptions informed responses to southern Europeans among Australian elites, especially those who were prominent in the RSL. In 1923, the Annual Federal Congress of the RSL resolved to advise the Federal Government, ‘that in all cases of foreigners entering the Commonwealth every possible scrutiny be exercised in respect to the language and character tests’.64 The Prime Minister’s office replied that the RSL had nothing to worry about. The language test was effective as ‘an absolute bar to admission’ because immigration officials always adopted the practice of administering the test to unwelcome immigrants ‘in some European language with which the immigrant is not

62 See Braverman’s discussion of ‘scientific management’ in H. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974, pp. 85-137, esp. pp. 103-6. 63 F. W. Taylor, Shop Management, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1947, p. 147 and The Principles of Scientific Management, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1911, p. 59. For technological changes, see B. Ellem and J. Shields, ‘H. A. Turner and “Australian Labor’s Closed Preserve”: Explaining the Rise of “Closed Unionism” in the Broken Hill Mining Industry’, Labour and Industry, vol. 11, no. 1, 2000, pp. 77-8. 64 Letter, RSL Federal Executive to PM, 12 December 1923, RSL Collection, MS 6609, Item 1631, National Library of Australia.

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acquainted’.65 In 1925, the RSL Federal Executive made representations to the Federal government demanding that both Commonwealth and State governments ‘take instant action to see that our country is peopled with British Stock’.66 In August 1927, an RSL conference decided to lobby the Federal Government for the cessation of southern European immigration and restrictions upon such migrants’ ability to buy land. The most serious question, said one delegate, was that Australian women were ‘allowed to marry these foreigners’, a situation that would have dire consequences for ‘the purity of the race’.67 Later in 1927, the RSL informed the Prime Minister that it ‘view[ed] with concern the entrance of undesirables into Australia’ and requested that the Federal Government take steps ‘to strictly control the immigration of such people whose presence is repugnant to Australians’.68 In one response to this fairly constant correspondence, the Minister for Home and Territories, George Pearce, assured the RSL that the Government was keeping a close eye on the situation. However, he expressed reluctance to totally exclude southern European immigrants on the basis that Australia was a ‘comparatively empty continent’ and that implementing a total restriction was likely to cause offence to friendly nations and embarrass the government. In addition, he thought that such a ban would ‘probably give rise to questions which might have a serious effect on the maintenance of the “White Australia” policy’.69

While employers and politicians may have had different strategies regarding immigration policy, the racist nature of their approaches was similar and was not incompatible with fervent commitment to the White Australia policy. Mining employers wanted cheap, unorganised workers for low-skilled labouring on the mines, Federal politicians wanted to direct a highly-controlled number towards lowly-paid agricultural

65 Letter, PM to RSL Federal Executive, 3 January 1924, RSL Collection, MS 6609, Item 1631, National Library of Australia. 66 Letter, RSL Federal Executive to Minister for Markets and Migration, dated 10 December 1925, RSL collection, MS 6609, item no. 2465, National Library of Australia. 67 SMH, 13 August 1927. 68 Letter, RSL Federal Executive to PM, dated 1 December 1927, NAA: A458, KR745/1/296. 69 Letter, Minister for Home and Territories to RSL Federal Executive, dated 24 December 1925, RSL collection, MS 6609, item no. 2465, National Library of Australia.

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development work and State politicians attributed high unemployment within their constituencies to an ‘influx’ of such workers. In all these instances, racist assumptions about the nature and effect of southern Europeans workers drove policy development. As the world slid into economic depression in the late 1920s, restrictions on southern European arrivals were increased by both the Bruce and Scullin Governments and were not relaxed until the mid-1930s. Cheap labour was not such a priority in a period of rising unemployment and implementing tighter controls on southern European migrants allowed the Federal Government to appear to be doing something practical about unemployment. In short, workers who had been profitably stereotyped as lowly-skilled drudges in the 1920s found themselves employed as convenient scapegoats when the political and economic conditions of the 1930s deemed them expendable.

As this account of the Australian context demonstrates, Gramsci’s focus on ruling class racism suggests important propositions for further examination of Australian race relations. In essence, the racist cross-class alliances encouraged by Italian elites were similar in intent to the White Australia policy, endeavouring to bind the loyalties of a group of workers to their own employers. Gramsci’s agitation for the united struggle of workers and peasants was inspired by a recognition that both groups might benefit from a conscious rejection of such elite ideology, in favour of a united class struggle against the political and economic priorities of their rulers. In the same way, Australian trade unionists battled to work out appropriate responses to migrant workers. While influenced by dominant notions of the benefits of ‘white’ unity, some workers recognised that their southern European counterparts were allies, rather than enemies, in a struggle between classes, not races. These themes have not received sufficient attention in Australian historiography but, as this study demonstrates, were constant issues for local trade unionists.

Methodology: research questions and objectives

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Plotting the course of racism in Australia is a mammoth task. I argue that historians have not yet provided a fully sustainable account of the economic, social and political forces that underpin racial division, nor an explanation of the myriad examples of migrant and local workers joining forces against employers. By adopting a Marxist view of racism, attention is shifted away from racial division between workers and towards the hitherto absent employers. Examples of intense racism in the labour movement have in most cases been relegated to the background in this study, in order to give prominence to material that has been neglected in the past, namely worker internationalism and employer racism. To highlight these features of Australian race relations, this study adopts case study methodology. As Yin has argued:

Case studies are an appropriate research method when you are trying to attribute causal relationships – and not just wanting to explore or describe … the major rationale for using this method is when your investigation must cover both a particular phenomenon and the context within which the phenomenon is occurring.70

Yin did not claim that historical predictions could be made on the basis of case study evidence. He did, however, maintain that the identification of trends, and especially seemingly contradictory trends, might reveal the diverse range of responses and outcomes that are possible, a view especially pertinent to the study of racism. Yin also promoted case study methodology as an important way to build up a ‘critical mass’ of evidence, in that information gleaned from case studies ‘form[s] a database for further refining both methodological and substantive issues’.71 Carefully assessed, case studies allow attention to details that might be overlooked using a wide-angled historical lens, while not necessarily negating the possibility of making some comments on the more broad-ranging ramifications of local examples. To this end, Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill were selected as suitable case studies for this thesis. Disputes about the place of migrant labour raged in both towns in the interwar period and, by mapping the ebb and flow of such debates, this study assesses the

70 R. K. Yin, Applications of Case Study Research, Sage, Newbury Park, 1993, p. 31. 71 Ibid., p. 41.

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nature of race relations in each town and the interactions between employers and workers, host and migrant workers on this issue.

At the same time, case study research of towns such as Broken Hill and Kalgoorlie, where geographical parameters are easily apparent, immediately raises the issue of locality. As such, it might be argued that aspects of ‘local identity’ which develop in isolated districts raise problems of exceptionalism for any historian seeking to extrapolate from local findings. While much has been made of Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill’s geographical isolation, and the particular brand of parochialism that their remoteness has engendered, the relevance of this feature has been exaggerated to the point of geographical determinism.72 In particular, such an emphasis has masked the importance of the frequent interactions that took place between these towns and the ‘outside’ world. Far from being politically isolated, both towns were leading industrial centres dominated by the rhythms of capitalism. They were in close contact with their respective capital cities and, at times, with each other. For example, in the aftermath of the Kalgoorlie race riots, a Broken Hill meeting of the Workers’ Industrial Union of Australia passed a lengthy resolution that denounced ‘racial antagonism’ and encouraged goldfields workers to foster working class unity, regardless of nationality.73 Important events in each town were discussed nationally, even internationally.74 The Kalgoorlie riots were reported in the London Times and many locals were aware that they were the subject of international scrutiny.75 As such, both towns provide distillations of wider developments without, in any sense, being divorced from them. As Patmore has written in their defence, detailed studies of local communities are a

72 Howard, for example, argued that Broken Hill’s population ‘became insular in the extreme’. W. Howard, ‘The Rise and Decline of the Broken Hill Industrial Relations System’, Management Paper no. 34, Monash University, September, 1990, p. 3; Gerritsen identified a distinctive culture which he claimed pertained to mining towns and frontier societies – a penchant for direct action and ‘bush justice’. Gerritsen, ‘The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots’, pp. 64-5. 73 Workers’ Weekly, 2 March 1934. 74 Reflecting the success of the anti-racist propaganda of the Militant Minority Movement in the sugar industry, a public meeting in Innisfail, a town with a significant migrant population, unanimously passed a resolution condemning the riots and demanding compensation for those who had suffered losses. Workers’ Weekly, 9 March 1934. 75 See discussions of Kalgoorlie riots in London Times, 30 January-2 February 1934; SMH, 1-6 February 1934; The Age, 31 January-5 February 1934; Bulletin, 7 February 1934.

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window into the myriad of social relationships that are the basis of wider alliances, relationships that might escape attention with the use of a wider historical lens.76 Indeed, a dialectical relationship between locality and the wider world can be viewed, whereby developments in these towns helped to effect changes in the wider world, while the towns themselves were no less affected by those changes. Local studies also provide an invaluable arena for testing theoretical propositions; if a theory does not stand up in a range of local areas, perhaps some qualifications are required before it can logically and productively be projected onto a wider historical stage.

At first glance, a chronicle of the events which took place in Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill suggests histories as incongruous as ‘chalk and cheese’. On three separate occasions, Kalgoorlie residents erupted in anger at the ‘foreigner’ presence on the goldfields, burning migrant homes and businesses in protest while, in contrast, Broken Hill’s history of internationalism and anti-war protests has become the stuff of legend. Nevertheless, beneath the surface, important contradictions to both these images are evident. If, for example, the 1934 Kalgoorlie riots were principally inspired by competition for jobs between local and migrant workers, why was it that the principal miners’ union, the AWU, refused to support demands for migrant exclusion? Similarly, what explanation can be given for the ability of racist activists in Broken Hill to attract considerable support for the exclusion of migrant workers in a town fabled for its industrial solidarism?

While the case studies were not principally undertaken for their comparative value, some features of the history and social organisation of Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill invite analysis of this nature. Some obvious similarities between the two towns can be discerned. Both are urban outcrops situated in the Australian outback, and would not exist but for the vast mineral resources beneath their surfaces. In both towns, workers suffered under similar conditions – high accident rates, critical levels of industrial disease and an array of mine managers who were generally more mindful of shareholder interests than worker welfare.

76 G. Patmore, ‘Labour History and Local History’, Labour History, no. 78, 2000, p. 3.

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Moreover, miner mobility, often essential for economic survival, saw some miners work on a succession of fields, carrying news, political attitudes and industrial traditions as part of their baggage.77 This mobility was no less evident on the other side of the class divide. Some mine managers were part of a peripatetic group, moving from one mine to another, learning and disseminating new mining techniques and industrial relations strategies as they went. Also of importance for this thesis, both towns experienced enormous social and industrial upheaval as a result of Australia’s involvement in World War One. From 1916 onwards, both Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill entertained significant levels of returned soldier militancy, RSL activity and ‘Nationalist’ political organisation. Nevertheless, there were important differences. While Broken Hill residents experienced the full brunt of the 1930s Depression, the Kalgoorlie mines boomed.78 Although both mining workforces had significant levels of unionisation, the Kalgoorlie miners, organised into the AWU, were viewed as something of a weak link in unionism’s chain. Broken Hill, on the other hand, has long been regarded as a staunchly ‘union town’.79

All the aforementioned features of Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill will be analysed in an attempt to understand the dynamics and the outcomes of their respective ‘race debates’, and to build a firm foundation for more general conclusions about racism. In order to plot the course of racism as an ideology, and to make some assessment of the level of its acceptance, this study examines three key groups with ideological and industrial influence in both Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill in the interwar period. In Kalgoorlie, attention is directed towards the Chamber of Mines, as the dominant employer group, the AWU, as the most

77 J. Mouat, ‘Industry and Community: A Comparison of Broken Hill (New South Wales), Waihi (New Zealand), and Rossland (British Columbia)’ in K. Tenfelde (ed), Towards a Social History of Mining in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Verlag C. H. Beck, Munich, 1992, pp. 275-6. 78 See Kennedy’s remarks about the relative strength of the Goldfields union movement during the Depression, and its improving effect on the working conditions of women. S. Kennedy, ‘Segregation for Integration: Women and Work in Factories and Shops in Western Australia during the Great Depression’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 5, December 1982, pp. 44-5. 79 In mid-1934, the Mining Branch of the AWU had 3,118 members from a workforce of approximately 6,000. Branch Secretary’s Annual Report, Australian Workers’ Union (W.A. Branch), for year ended 31 May 1934. Broken Hill unionists, in contrast, were able to successfully maintain a closed shop for long periods. See B. Ellem and J. Shields, ‘H. A. Turner and “Australian Labor’s Closed Preserve”: Explaining the Rise of “Closed Unionism” in the Broken Hill Mining Industry’, Labour and Industry, vol. 11, no. 1, August 2000, pp. 69-92.

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influential union representing the largest and most concentrated section of the goldfields workforce and the local section of the CPA. In Broken Hill, the activities of the Mine Managers’ Association (MMA), as the most important employer group, the Workers Industrial Union of Australia, as the major union on the line of lode, and the various radical groups that had an influence on local race debates are examined. Although not the only organisations possessing powers to sway public opinion, these groups were selected for their deliberate attempts to influence race relations in the industrial spheres of their respective localities. Because the views of the above organisations towards southern Europeans were widely disseminated in newspapers, meetings and through a myriad of other intermediaries, these groups contributed significantly to the fluctuating community attitudes about the presence of migrant workers on the mines. Most importantly, the influence of organised returned soldiers will be assessed, along with the nature of the relationship between the employers and the RSL. Although not originally identified as a key component of this research, the local sub-branches of the RSL kept resurfacing in every aspect of Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill’s respective histories, until they could no longer be considered of peripheral concern. It became clear that, without an assessment of the RSL’s influence in local debates, a complete picture of race relations was not possible.

Issues regarding the historical evidence

The most important sources of evidence for this thesis have been the local newspapers in Broken Hill and Kalgoorlie, although it is acknowledged that these sources present problematic representations of ‘the past’. In both towns, the two most widely-consumed periodicals stood on opposite sides of the political divide. The Kalgoorlie Miner and the Barrier Miner were emissaries of conservative opinion. Their editors supported war and conscription, opposed militant unionism and were fervent advocates of the White Australia policy. From the labour movement emanated the Westralian Worker and the Barrier Daily Truth (BDT or Truth). For the latter, and in contrast with the conservative mouthpieces,

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political commitment to the White Australia policy was not a uniform editorial policy, although Westralian Worker articles about southern European immigration were far more frequently couched in racist terms than those contained in the Truth. In a variety of contexts, labour movement papers promoted racist and internationalist industrial policies, reflecting the ideological contradictions and uncertainties within the movement about attitudes towards the presence of migrant labour in their respective communities. The case studies in this thesis show that the principal value of all these newspapers can be found in the heated exchanges that took place between the editorial teams of these competing right and left wing papers, as they sought to win the political allegiance of local residents. As such, all these papers were examined, not merely as passive reflections of public opinion, but as active participants in societal debate.

The contents of the major Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill newspapers provide an enormously important window into the competing stances taken during the 1920s and 1930s ‘race debates’. Because the newspapers from both camps were so ideologically driven, their offerings have been scrutinised for exaggeration and errors of omission. While editorials generally reflected the views of the newspaper management, letters to the Editor were less predictable, although the frequent use of pseudonyms prevented accurate assessment of the origins of many letters. Some letters, for example, may have been written by staff journalists to promote a particular political position. Nevertheless, most letters played a role in outlining the parameters of the debate, even if their origins were not as portrayed. Generally speaking, the labour movement papers had a better record of publishing letters from all sides of the debate. Indeed, they seemed to do so with the precise intention of encouraging discussion. For example, while the Barrier Miner (or Miner) published very few letters that were not stridently anti-southern European, the Truth published a series of letters from racist agitator, Richard Gully, in order to rebuff his argument and in the process demonstrate to labour movement supporters how Gully and his campaign could be routed.

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Other documentary sources examined in this thesis are of mixed quantity and quality. For the Kalgoorlie study, mine manager records were not abundant, whereas, for Broken Hill, the Melbourne University Archives provided a literal treasure trove of correspondence and meeting minutes. Particular attention should be drawn, however, to the inclusion of material from the Western Australian Chamber of Mines’ Monthly Journal, a most revealing source that, to my knowledge, has not previously been incorporated into the historiography of the period.80 Mining union records were more comprehensive for Broken Hill than for Kalgoorlie, but any gaps in either records were easily addressed by reports in the local labour movement newspapers. Less easy to come by were records pertaining to the ‘scab’ or Nationalist unions of Broken Hill and Kalgoorlie. These unions were set up in direct opposition to Labor-affiliated unions by pro-conscriptionist supporters of Billy Hughes’ prime ministership, and attracted sizeable returned soldier memberships. While mentioned in the records of other groups and occasionally reported in the newspapers, no written records survive from either the Coolgardie Federated Miners’ Union of Kalgoorlie or the Barrier Workers’ Association of Broken Hill. Information about the activities of the CPA was extracted from its publications, because Communist activists consistently promoted an internationalist perspective in both Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill. Unfortunately, copies of the January and February editions of Workers’ Weekly that would have reported the Kalgoorlie riots were missing from all the microfilm and hard copy collections I consulted. In relation to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), State Records NSW holds a fascinating collection of relevant material, including a minutes book of the Broken Hill chapter of this organisation. Records pertaining to the RSL were also not in short supply, except at sub-branch level. However, the more useful documents were located in the records of those organisations with which the RSL dealt, rather than in RSL repositories. For example, the extraordinarily close relationship between the Broken Hill MMA and the local sub-branch of the RSL is revealed in detail in the minutes and correspondence contained in the Broken Hill South collection, held in the Melbourne University Archives.

80 Regrettably, this source is only available as an incomplete set in the National Library of Australia.

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Many studies of racism are the product of a practice that is only gradually becoming superseded in labour history circles – that labour history is best written by examining the written records of labour institutions. Taking Lunn’s advice, we should remember that, ‘[r]esolutions to the TUC [Trades Union Congress] should be the starting point of any investigation of labour attitudes to race and immigration, not the conclusion.’81 Most of the aforementioned sources have been trawled previously. Nevertheless, even well-examined sources can yield markedly different results when subjected to a different theoretical approach and a different set of historical questions. Sometimes, too, shifting attention away from the obvious to the more oblique yielded exciting results because it led to more imaginative use of historical sources. A good case in point is the Western Australian branch of the AWU’s membership lists, held at the Noel Butlin Archives Centre. At first glance, these records appeared to be undifferentiated lists of names, offering little in the way of usable information. I confess that my first response was to put them straight back into the box from whence they came. However, upon further consideration, I subjected the lists to a somewhat crude, but highly revealing, quantitative analysis. Counting southern European names living at certain goldfields addresses, and calculating them as a percentage of the other names at those addresses, provided an indication of the level of migrant union membership among goldfields workers. The results are not perfect, but they challenge the popular assumption that migrants remained aloof from the Kalgoorlie union movement.

In a sense, oral histories form the only ‘new’ material presented here. During the 1980s in particular, many interviews were recorded about Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill by oral historians such as Bill Bunbury, Stuart Reid, Ed Stokes, Barry York and others, but the material has seldom been integrated into the relevant historiographies. Given that many decades had passed between the events discussed and the actual interviews, these dialogues are an extremely mediated source and some of the interviewees have been questioned many times, giving a ‘rehearsed’ aspect to some of their recollections. For instance, in interview,

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Jack Coleman revealed that he had prepared for his interview with oral historian, Stuart Reid, by going the local library to look up the newspaper accounts of the riots to refresh his memory!82 Oral historians are frequently reminded that such time lapses create enormous problems of veracity, but, thankfully, many have not been dissuaded from interviewing subjects with memories of World War One, the Depression and numerous other episodes of interest to historians.83 This thesis would be immeasurably poorer without the insights gleaned from their efforts. If these testimonies were not included, the impressions of contemporary eyewitnesses would otherwise go unheard and a rare opportunity to add a ‘human dimension’ to distant events would be lost. Almost all the oral evidence used in this thesis was elicited from interviewees who have since died.

While this is not the place to replay the largely sterile ‘great oral history debate’ engendered by Patrick O’Farrell’s critical comments of Paul Thompson’s The Voice of the Past and Wendy Lowenstein’s Weevils in the Flour, two comments made in the course of that debate have informed the approach to oral history employed in this study.84 Firstly, amidst his less judicious claims about oral history theory and practice, O’Farrell wisely pointed out that, ‘[n]o sensible historian should ignore it, if it is available.’85 I agree. Secondly, in tandem with the now widely recognised view that it can be unwise to produce oral history in isolation from other sources,86 it must be acknowledged that most written

81 K. Lunn, ‘Race Relations or Industrial Relations?: Race and Labour in Britain, 1880-1950’ in K. Lunn (ed), Race and Labour in Twentieth Century Britain, Frank Cass, London, 1985, p. 3. 82 Interview with Jack Coleman, conducted by Stuart Reid on 19 September 1988, reference no. OH2062. 83 See, for example, P. O’Farrell, ‘Oral History: Facts and Fiction’, Oral History Association of Australia Journal, no. 5, 1982-3, p. 8. For a discussion of this issue, see T. Griffiths, ‘The Debate about Oral History’, Melbourne Historical Journal, vol. 13, 1981, p. 18. 84 P. Thompson, The Voice of the Past, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1978; W. Lowenstein, Weevils in the Flour, Hyland House, South Yarra, 1978. 85 O’Farrell, ‘Oral History: Facts and Fiction’, p. 4. 86 This view could be tempered by Ann Curthoy’s recent revelation that she found her close relationship with fellow ‘freedom riders’ made her a problematic interviewer, because interviewees knew she was familiar with what had happened. Hiring a research assistant to do subsequent interviews, a woman who had not been born at the time of the Freedom Rides, encouraged interviewees to more fully recount their memories. A. Curthoys, Freedom Ride, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2002, p. xix. However, this can be a risky strategy – one interviewer ‘pretended’ not to know about the IWW in Broken Hill. Subsequently, his interviewee appeared to lose heart at the enormity of explaining such basic background knowledge, and the interview terminated shortly afterwards. Interview with five Broken Hill miners, conducted by M. Laver in 1974. Tapes held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 341.

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documents contain inaccuracies and bias. For this reason, oral history should not be singled out as particularly unreliable because the ‘historian’s craft’ is, after all, to carefully evaluate each pertinent and available source in relation to all the others.

Careful evaluation of the interviews conducted with Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill residents suggests that the most valuable information revealed was not the names and dates that could be verified through other sources, but the small details that would rarely be found in newspaper sources or other written records, snippets that might not even be considered ‘history’ by those involved in the interview. Far from confusing “images’ with ‘realities”,87 sensitive interpretation of the more implicit meanings behind certain language usage and ‘word pictures’ can yield important evidence to either confirm or contradict established narratives of a period. For instance, Mr E. Fraser, a witness to the Kalgoorlie riots, vividly recalled his mother’s porch filled with black tin trunks owned by fleeing migrants. While this might seem like an incidental fragment, it was, in my view, far more tangible proof that Britishers had assisted their migrant friends than other unsubstantiated claims of friendly relations.88 Paul Sultana’s almost impatient aside that everybody, not just the Maltese men, played euchre together at crib time in the Broken Hill mines was not a considered comment on race relations, but suggested a great deal about the integratory pressures in large workplaces that may counteract racist ideology to some degree.89 In addition, this example adds weight to Tracy’s view that oral history has particular importance for those who wish to understand labour processes in the mining industry, where worker agency is frequently omitted from the picture, reflecting an erroneous assumption that ‘workers react rather than actively shape workplaces and workplace relations’.90

87 See Peter Spearritt’s answer to this accusation in P. Spearritt, ‘Oral History: The ‘Cult of the Ordinary’?’, Oral History Association of Australia Journal, no. 5, 1982-3, p. 11. 88 Interview with Stella and Evelyn Villa and Mr E. Fraser, conducted by Bill Bunbury on 15 January 1986, reference no. OH1396. 89 Interview with Paul Sultana, conducted by Barry York on 2 November 1984, reference no. TRC 3582/6. 90 J. Tracy, ‘Oral History and the Mining Industry: a discussion of methodological issues associated with using oral evidence’, unpublished discussion paper, Department of Organisational and Labour Studies, University of Western Australia, 1996, p. 2.

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The interviews employed in this study constantly reminded me that I was dealing not only with individual memories, but also with the process of their social construction. As Bodnar explains: ‘interviews can be read not only to discover what people remembered but also to discover how they went about the process of organizing and creating their memories in the first place’.91 For instance, when interviewees recalled events in Kalgoorlie and the course of action taken by the 1934 rioters, every single interviewee related that a tram had been ‘commandeered’ – not hijacked or seized or taken – in order to move on to Boulder. A common discourse grew up around the telling of the riot narrative that seemed to influence all those who had experienced them. Even at the time, Kalgoorlie residents frequently perceived the riots as a ‘shameful’ event in the town’s history.92 Since then, broader societal challenges to racism have had an enormous effect on the way in which witnesses now construct their recollections of the 1934 events. Darian-Smith argues that memory is ‘constantly negotiated … in a process of exchange between the individual and society’.93 This is illustrated by Rip Heyhow’s conflicting descriptions of southern Europeans in 1930s Kalgoorlie as both ‘a very well-respected group of people’ and, on the contrary, ‘flashily dressed’ and ‘pretty cheeky’.94 His recollections of his ‘1930s views’ are all mixed in with the things he knows that he ought to think now.95 It is for this reason that I would rely more on Mr Fraser’s memory of ‘black tin trunks’ than Mr Heyhow’s recollection that southern Europeans were ‘well-respected’, when examining Britisher/migrant interaction. Nevertheless, Mr Heyhow’s contradictory impressions are an important example of the process of ‘memory negotiation’.96 Ted Thompson, a 1934 rioter

91 J. Bodnar, ‘Power and Memory in Oral History: Workers and Managers at Studebaker’, Journal of American History, vol. 75, no. 4, 1989, p. 1201. 92 B. Bunbury, Reading Labels on Jam Tins, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, South Fremantle, 1993, p. 101. 93 K. Darian-Smith, ‘War Stories: Remembering the Australian Home Front During the Second World War’ in K. Darian-Smith and P. Hamilton (eds), Memory and History in Twentieth-Century Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1994, p. 156. 94 Dimensions, ABC Television, episode 5, broadcast 11 March 2002. 95 ‘[M]emory does not constitute pure recall; the memory of any particular event is refracted through layer upon layer of subsequent experience and through the influence of the dominant and/or local and specific ideology’. Editorial, ‘Oral History’, History Workshop, no. 8, 1979, p. iii. 96 See Blee’s comments on the dearth of oral interviews with right-wing subjects of more ‘unsavoury’ backgrounds and the exciting oral history prospects in this area, given the tendency of right-wing organisations to be more secretive and less well-documented than some other organisations. K. Blee, ‘Evidence, empathy and

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who threw his share of bombs at fleeing migrants, also reflected this process of negotiation when he said:

It was racial and it should not have been because these fellows were pretty fair sorts of fellows. The Italians and Slavs were good workers and fairly good mates, but it just got incensed with the killing of an Aussie bloke and that wasn’t on as far as we were concerned … We got to throwing jam tin bombs at one another and all kinds of things like that. It should never have been but it just ended up like that.97

In assessing all these sources, my foremost concern has been to reveal the cut and thrust of the debates that took place in these towns. This was always going to be a quixotic search in some sense, but not a totally hopeless one. In her study of migrant labour relations in 1920s and 1930s Britain, Tabili argued that historians have exhibited a persistent tendency to assume that official policies represent the views of the whole society. As she put it:

To view racist policies as the state’s response to popular demand or a reflection of union influence promotes [an] unwarranted ‘consensus’ view of a social formation riven by structural inequalities and consequent conflict. The motives of the white rank and file are extrapolated from those of union leadership; local police are held responsible for nationally promulgated policy; and working people are assumed to share and act on the racist and imperialist propaganda promoted by elites … [t]hese conflicts stemmed neither from essential racial or cultural differences, nor from the inherent xenophobia of ordinary people, but from material constraints negotiated among specific historical actors with explicit goals.98

By approaching racism as a debate, instead of a foregone conclusion, and placing that debate in its contemporary context, it is hoped that the fluidity of race relations will be more sensitively revealed and portrayed. Similarly, approaching examples of racism as part of a class struggle involving participants with a complex range of motivations, principles and ethics: Lessons from oral histories of the Klan’ in R. Perks and A. Thomson, The Oral History Reader, Routledge, London, 1998, p. 335. 97 Interview with Ted Thompson, conducted by Stuart Reid between July and October 1988. Transcript held in the J. S. Battye Library, Perth, reference no. OH2053, p. 60.

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strategies is more likely to expose racism as an integral feature of a whole society, not as a disembodied ideology floating above the society from which it, in reality, emanates.

Terminology

Throughout this thesis, the terms ‘ruling class’ and ‘working class’ are regularly employed to denote economic and social division in the interwar period. Both terms are used in a Marxist sense to describe those who, by the nature of their connection to the means of production, are identified as members of one or other of the two ‘contending classes’. As Callinicos and Harman describe the connection between these terms:

The Marxist conception of class … treats class as a relationship. A person’s class position doesn’t depend on their place in the social pecking order … but rather consists in his or her relationship, as part of a social group, to other social groups. Secondly, this relationship is antagonistic: it consists above all in the extraction of surplus-labour from the direct producers by the minority ruling class controlling the means of production … Thirdly, this antagonistic relationship is formed in the process of production: exploitation and class struggle arise from the efforts of the ruling class to secure its control over the means of production and the labour itself of the direct producers.99

In this study, the term ‘ruling class’ is used alternatively with terms of similar meaning, such as the ‘bourgeoisie’, the ‘ruling elite’, ‘capitalist class’, ‘conservative interests’ or ‘establishment interests’ to indicate a group of people united by family background, private school and university connections, wealth, position and power.100 The principal section of this class either owns or directs capital and labour in the interests of increased profit- making, while others act as the bureaucratic and ideological arms of the employing section. There is, of course, some overlap here, where governments, newspapers, schools and

98 L. Tabili, ‘We Ask for British Justice’: Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1994, p. 7. 99 A. Callinicos and C. Harman, The Changing Working Class: Essays on Class Structure Today, Bookmarks, London, 1987, p. 6.

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churches are, themselves, employers. While this minority section of society does not always act in concert and will occasionally disagree quite profoundly over the preferred direction of the economy and political policy, it will always act in concert when its mutual interests in the maintenance of the capitalist system are threatened. Its opposition to militant trade unionism is generally unquestioned.

The term ‘working class’ is used in a similar Marxist vein to denote those who, lacking capital and other means of production, are forced to sell their labour power to the ruling class in order to survive. This unequal and antagonistic relationship underpins a relentless effort on the part of both classes to improve their position vis-a-vis their adversary or, as Connell puts it, ‘the struggles of classes and their intellectuals to define the social world in ways that are friendly to their own interests’.101 Among working people, there were some who realised that collective struggle is the only way to improve their bargaining position against employers. In this way, trade union development was both an expression of discontent with the capitalist system and a product of that system. The term ‘labour movement’ is used to denote officials and members of the political and industrial wings of organised labour, or as Turner put it, ‘the whole complex of organizations which claim to represent the interests or the aspirations of the working class, as well as the individuals who belong to them or who speak in their name’.102 Where it is necessary to make a distinction between the officials and the membership, union members and non- union members in this study, it is done in the text.

The case study chapters in this thesis provide some useful examples of the tensions expressed by the term ‘labourism’, even if a complete discussion of the relationship between the ALP, the trade union bureaucracy and rank and file workers is beyond the scope of this study. Labourism was, as Markey put it:

100 See C. Hazlehurst (ed), Australian Conservatism: Essays in Twentieth Century Political History, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1979, p. xi-xii. 101 R. W. Connell, Ruling Class, Ruling Culture, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977, p. 3.

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[b]ased on the assumption that the State could be ‘captured’ by parliamentary means and wielded in an impartial manner, to the benefit of the working class, in association with a strong trade union movement which restricted its operations to the industrial sphere.103

The union movement’s defeat in the 1890s strengthened the impression that union organisation alone was not enough to withstand employer power. Making the system more responsive to workers’ demands would require influence in parliament to ameliorate the effects of capitalism’s excesses. As such, labourism was always an ideology that complemented capitalism, rather than opposed it. Often, in response to conservative claims that Labor only represented a sectional interest and not the whole nation, Labor seemed hell bent on becoming as ‘responsible’ as the more open representatives of bourgeois interests. In their eyes, their task was always one of national, not international, proportions to be achieved through class collaboration, rather than class struggle. In order to avert the full force of capitalist power against them, Labor governments have always pleaded commitment to slow, incremental reform for the good of the society or nation. The coincidence that ‘national’ interests mostly benefited the bourgeoisie, or at least an important section of it, was not explored in any greater detail than the notion that ‘working class interests’ and ‘national interests’ were as frequently counterposed.104

Most importantly, this thesis supports the ‘New Left’ claim that labourism was ‘an expression of ruling class hegemony in the Labour party and therefore an important target for revolutionary criticism’.105 Nowhere is this more apparent and less examined than in the area of the White Australia policy. Hagan argued that Labourism had ‘three distinctive credos: tariff protection, compulsory arbitration and the White Australia policy.106 All these policies were dressed up as part of a ‘protective’ shield for Australian workers, but offered

102 I Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1979, p. xiii. 103 R. Markey, The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales 1880-1900, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, p. 3. 104 R. N. Massey, ‘A Century of Laborism, 1891-1993: an historical interpretation’, Labour History, no. 66, 1993, p. 49. 105 T. Irving, ‘Labourism – a Political Genealogy’, Labour History, no. 66, 1994, p. 3. 106 J. Hagan, The History of the A.C.T.U., Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1981, p. 45.

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far more to employers. The employers who wanted cheap labour were never seriously threatened with its cessation, while the ideology of White Australia encouraged workers to give their migrant counterparts a hostile reception. While racism tended to militate against strong unionism, support for non-British immigration restriction allowed many Labor politicians to project White Australia, not militant industrial unionism, as the answer to working class demands. Although these accommodations were not without their critics on the left of the labour movement, it was the approach that became the dominant rationale of most of the labour leadership.

In keeping with immigration debates at the national level, propaganda claiming the existence of a ‘racial hierarchy’ was widespread. Indeed, the White Australia policy was justified on the basis of such notions. In part, this ideology reflected attempts by its proponents to convince those at the bottom of ‘white’ society that they were actually in a ‘superior’ alliance with their own ruling elite. Jupp argued that an extension of the racial hierarchy can be found in the belief that higher and lower races should not mix. In his view, this idea was a justification of British imperialism ‘where small numbers of British soldiers had conquered vast numbers of Indians’.107 In 1870, German anthropologist, Max Muller, explained the mechanics of this view thus:

The Aboriginal was placed on the bottom of the scale with the Papuan, Malayo-Polynesian and Negro on the three levels above; over these stood the American Indian and then the “Higher Asiatic”. On the three upper rungs were the Mediterranean type, the Semitic, and, at the top of the scale, the “Indo-German” – the Caucasian or Aryan type supreme.108

With minor national variations, this schema was a convenient ‘scientific’ justification for the imperial subordination of those peoples on lower rungs of the racial ladder. As Burgmann pointed out, while racist ideology was used to explain a certain relatively fixed

107 J. Jupp, From White Australia to Woomera, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002, p. 7. 108 Cited in R. Evan, K. Saunders and K. Cronin, Exclusion Exploitation Extermination: Race Relations in Colonial Queensland, Australian and New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, 1975, p. 15.

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view of the world, the actual hierarchy could be altered to suit particular circumstances.109 British interest in Australia was part of that project, fuelled by the knowledge that France was a rival for imperial possessions in the southern oceans. It was for this reason that the First Fleet was heavily armed.110 However, it was armed not only with munitions but with the ideas necessary for building a white outpost of the British empire in Asia. In the decades to follow, Australia would be commonly portrayed as a white outpost in a sea of coloured barbarism and keeping Australia ethnically homogenous was portrayed as essential to national ‘purity’ and security. For the early invaders and their successors, racism proved most useful in justifying the wholesale slaughter of Aboriginal people and the theft of their land in order to benefit the interests of a burgeoning pastoralist industry. As a result, the hierarchy placed all peoples emanating from Britain at the top,111 followed by other white Europeans. Somewhere down the scale came southern Europeans who, in this view, could certainly not be considered ‘civilised’ but who were infinitely preferable to Asians, Africans and the indigenous people of Australia, those who ‘represented the lowest grade in the human family’.112 According to Richard White, the interwar period was characterised by an ‘obsession with racial purity’ that had not weakened since Federation. He summed up the nature of the media offensive on this question with a quote from Smith’s Weekly that described the tiny number of Italian migrants in the country as ‘that greasy flood of Mediterranean scum that seeks to defile and debase Australia’.113

Reynolds argued that such beliefs were still being promoted in scientific circles in Australia during the 1930s, although he could not confirm a link between these ideas and

109 Burgmann, ‘Capital and Labour’, p. 22. 110 The flagship of the First Fleet was the Sirius, a 531 tonne frigate. The ship was refitted for the journey to Botany Bay, with the inclusion of 14 guns that fired 2.7 kg cannonballs. See First Fleet website, http://www.geocities.com, accessed 2 August 2002. 111 An exception, of course, was made for Irish people as a reflection of the dominant form of racism in Britain that was subsequently transported to the Australian colonies. See P. Hamilton, ‘No Irish Need Apply’: Prejudice as a factor in the development of Immigration Policy in New South Wales and Victoria 1840-1870, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of New South Wales, 1979. 112 H. Reynolds, ‘Racial Thought in Early Colonial Australia’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 20, no. 1, April 1974, p. 49. See also R. Evans, K. Saunders and K. Cronin, Exclusion Exploitation Extermination: Race Relations in Colonial Queensland, Australian and New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, 1975

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‘public opinion’. That such ideas had a wide currency can be seen in the common use of the term ‘Britisher’ to denote locally-born descendants of British people and white British migrants in the interwar race debates that took place in Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill. In both towns, people of such Anglo-Australian background were far more commonly referred to as ‘Britishers’, than as Australians, regardless of birthplace. Importantly, the term was frequently used in contradistinction to the term ‘foreigner’, always accompanied by an inference that to be British was to be at the pinnacle of civilisation. In order to accurately describe the contemporary socially-constructed ethnic boundaries, this thesis will also use the term ‘Britisher’, while recognising and rejecting its elitist and racist connotations. The terms ‘foreigner’ and ‘migrant’ will refer exclusively to ‘non-Britishers’, and not to recent arrivals from Britain who would also fit the latter description. Slang terms were also widespread. The label ‘Ding’ was most commonly applied to Italians in Kalgoorlie, but was also directed at people of southern European ethnicity more generally. In Broken Hill, the term ‘foreigner’ was most common, although some of the more vitriolic racists were known to label Maltese migrants as ‘Asiatics’, an opprobrium to link them with those who were forbidden entry to Australia and to lower them on the perceived racial hierarchy.114

Addendum

In each chapter, the first reference to a particular source is cited in full to assist readers. With a Ludditism perhaps appropriate for a labour historian, I was unable to overcome a fault in Word software which, from time to time, placed a footnote on the page following that which contains the relevant superscript footnote number. I apologise for any inconvenience caused. As a measure of respect to the source material, I have avoided the irritatingly superior overuse of the form ‘[sic]’ in quoted material, correcting those typing and spelling errors where to do so did not affect the meaning of the passage. I could not, however, resist being irritatingly superior when Lieutenant-Colonel Fairley of the Kalgoorlie RSL referred

113 R. White, Inventing Australia, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1981, p. 141.

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to the donation of a ‘battle of wine’ [sic] to a hospitalised returned soldier in his report on the sub-branches’ philanthropic largesse. I have also not changed contemporary spellings when it is clear what is meant – in quoted passages, the term ‘Jugo-Slav’ is not replaced with the currently-used ‘Yugoslav’. The only exception to this rule has been in the use of ‘Labor’, ‘labor’ and ‘labour’. ‘Labor’ refers to the ALP and ‘labour’ replaces any now out- moded use of the word ‘labor’.

Conclusion

While there is no ‘new’ theory or methodology used in this thesis, the mere suggestion that employers should be included in the equation of racism presents a range of new historical questions to be addressed. How did employers benefit from racist division among workers? Did they deliberately foster hostile attitudes towards non-British workers? Did workers uniformly oppose migrant labour and, if they did not, how was the argument for internationalism prosecuted and won? Using a Marxist theoretical approach and case study methodology, this study elaborates on these relationships in order to understand the dynamics of racist ideology and its effects on class relations.

114 See, for example, BDT, 19 September 1927.

86 CHAPTER THREE

‘Australia’s Picked Citizens’: the RSL in the interwar years

The RSL would be one of the most conservative in nature of organisations ever in this country. Bruce Ruxton1

Introduction

The RSL was, according to Stephen Garton, ‘a complex institution, shaped as much from below as it was from above’.2 This chapter demonstrates that the opposite was true. Although returned servicemen’s organisations initially displayed distinct signs of disunity along class lines, during the early 1920s the RSL leadership took steps to isolate any radical elements from the organisation. Despite the hopes of many working class soldiers that the League would take up issues of poverty and unemployment, ‘their’ organisation became increasingly associated with conservative politics. Indeed, the League’s members were expected to be ‘reliable types’, at all times ready to defend law and order, White Australia, the Empire and a rather slippery version of democracy and constitutional government. In the years after World War One, the RSL leadership managed to successfully unite significant numbers of returned men into loyalist forces opposed to domestic labour unrest. Contrary to the notion that the RSL worked in the interests of ex-servicemen, its leadership strove to contain working class returned soldier anger at government repatriation policies and to channel RSL members towards conservative electoral parties, at the expense of the Labor Party. Despite the rhetoric of battlefield friendships and protecting the memory of those who had been killed, the League’s leadership was more concerned with the shape of Australia’s national future than with the prosaic concerns of soldiers and their dependants. Instead, the purpose of

1 Warriors, Welfare and Eternal Vigilance: The History and Role of the Returned Services League, produced and presented by Phillip Briant for ABC Radio and Documentaries, 1982. Tape held at the State Library of NSW. Chapter Three ‘Australia’s Picked Citizens’

the RSL was to direct returned soldiers away from Bolshevism, and towards nationalism.

The RSL’s opposition to non-British immigration was part and parcel of its nationalist agenda. In a cross-class organisation dominated by a conservative leadership, the RSL sub-branches provided an important conduit for right-wing ideologies into the labour movement, and the working class more generally. The RSL’s commitment to national chauvinism was at the core of its philosophy and it used the concept of ‘race loyalty’ to sow division within the working class as part of a wider anti-union agenda. Migrant workers were a crucial target in this battle. By encouraging hostility towards southern Europeans, the RSL leadership could feign concern about working class employment conditions, while promoting the White Australia policy. Such a strategy on the part of an elite-dominated organisation calls into question all previous historiographical assumptions that racist immigration policies were predominantly advocated by the working class, for the working class. This chapter focuses on the League’s commitment to capitalist hegemony, employer clamour for ‘free’ and ‘cheap’ labour and RSL opposition to both working class militancy and ‘racial admixture’, on the grounds that these factors provide the context in which the RSL’s effect on the interwar administration of the White Australia policy can be assessed.

‘Digger Violence’ – a pattern emerges

In 1915, wounded service personnel began returning to Australia.3 Unlike of battle carnage and strategic blunders that had been zealously censored as ‘prejudicial to recruiting’, the return of wounded men was openly paraded for political purposes.4 Those in charge of boosting recruitment numbers exploited these symbols of patriotism, bravery, suffering and sacrifice, because it was felt that the ‘heroes of Suvla’ would

2 S. Garton, The Cost of War: Australians Return, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1996, p. 56. 3 The Kyarra was the first hospital ship to arrive in Australia from Egypt in February 1915. J. Duncan, The Origin, Aims, and Achievements of the R.S.L. in Western Australia, unpublished manuscript, 1961, copy held at Anzac House, Perth, p. 6.

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provide a potent stimulus to men who had, thus far, refused to volunteer for war service.5 The conservative push to get young men to enlist was overwhelming. Many men decided to join the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in response to what White called ‘public pressures and private guilts’. As he described it, a sense of urgency was ‘manufactured by later recruiting campaigns, of shame and the departure of mates’.6 Arthur Ponsonby argued that the ‘weapon of falsehood’ was employed wherever military conscription was not introduced. As enlistment was voluntary in Australia, pressmen were under particular pressure to present the war in a favourable, even sporting, light.7 However, while the Fisher and Hughes Governments had promised a warm homecoming for those who had been prepared to bat for the Empire team, lack of administrative preparedness and the sheer enormity of the repatriation project meant that, beyond the welcoming faces at the wharves and the main street parades, many soldiers and sailors were met with a bureaucratic cold-shoulder upon their return.

Even in the rose-coloured view of Loftus Hills, the League’s first official historian, ‘the Defence Department [initially responsible for repatriation] could not stand up to the strain of unusual and unprecedented conditions’.8 Upon demobilisation, many mentally and/or physically wounded ex-servicemen were unable to instantaneously resettle into their families, jobs and communities. Others perhaps felt that, having suffered an extraordinary degree of hardship, they were entitled to a period of rest. For these men, there was the prospect that insult would be added to their injuries, in the form of a rapid transition from being portrayed as ‘our brave boys’ to being labelled

4 P. Cochrane, Simpson and the Donkey, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1992, especially pp. 64, 74-81. 5 See David Day’s description of Bathurst’s ‘Carnival for the Wounded’, where men with head wounds and missing limbs were met at the station and ‘paraded through the streets’. The local labour paper described the event as ‘a pageant with a purpose’. D. Day, Chifley, HarperCollins, Pymble, 2001, p. 103. 6 One soldier accurately described the fervour with which recruitment was undertaken. When asked why he had enlisted, he joked: ‘[t]o stop Billy Hughes from sending my sister’. R. White, ‘Motives for joining up: self-sacrifice, self-interest and social class’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, no. 9, October 1986, pp. 5, 10, 12. 7 See J. F. Williams, Anzacs, The Media and The Great War, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1999, pp. 1-2, 74-87. 8 L. Hills, The Returned Sailors and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia: Its Origin, History, Achievements and Ideals, Part 1, Southland, Melbourne, 1938, p. 14.

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‘welfare dependent’ or ‘work-shy’.9 Veterans who took up the oft-‘poisoned chalice’ of soldier settlement also experienced this paradoxical treatment. Schedvin argued that, by the end of the 1920s, soldier settlement schemes had failed ‘almost completely’, fixing the blame on bureaucrats who had placed ex-servicemen on poorly irrigated land to produce commodities for hostile export markets.10 Indeed, in 1920, the Federal Executive of the RSL was so appalled at the administration of the land settlement scheme that it appealed to the Prime Minister for a Royal Commission.11 Unsurprisingly perhaps, ‘digger violence’ erupted in many Australian cities and towns, expressing an anger partially fuelled by the poor performance of the Federal Government in relation to returned soldier welfare.12

Many authors have commented on the seriousness with which conservative sections of the community viewed the arrival of a potentially radicalised and organised force of trained military personnel.13 Australian soldiers had a reputation for being flippant towards army discipline and had, on many occasions, engaged in mass disobedience.14 According to Gammage, some Australian soldiers in Egypt, uncharacteristically ready to return to camp, ‘would crowd onto a tram, toss off the driver, and career wildly at full speed through the darkened streets, some of them clinging boisterously to the sides and roof of the vehicle’.15 C. E. W. Bean reported that some aggrieved Australian soldiers from the 1st Battalion took the announcement of their

9 Garton, The Cost of War, p. 87. See also W. A. Holman’s belief that the public became tired of the demands of returned soldiers, ‘mainly due to the stridency of a few loud-mouthed claimants’. ‘Society: And the Digger’, Reveille, 30 September 1929. 10 C. B. Schedvin, Australia and the Great Depression, Oxford University Press, Sydney, 1988, p. 64. 11 Letter, RSL Federal Executive to PM, dated 4 February 1920, NAA: A2487, 1920/6129. 12 C. Lloyd and J. Rees, The Last Shilling: A History of Repatriation in Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1994, p. 187. 13 See, for example, F. Cain, The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1983, p. 39; White, Inventing Australia, p. 137; H. McQueen, Gallipoli to Petrov, George Allen and Unwin, North Sydney, 1984, p. 213; A. Moore, The Secret Army and the Premier, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, 1989, pp. 29-30. 14 Several incidences occurred on ships taking Australian soldiers to the war. On one occasion, the men rioted over the price of fruit on board and, in Alexandria, defied orders not to go ashore. They used ropes to climb down to the pier, leaving only sixty men, from approximately two thousand, still on the ship. See B. Gammage, The Broken Years, Penguin, Ringwood, 1975, pp. 34-35. See also Albert Jacka’s reference to shipboard antics. His biographer cited a diary reference which noted that ‘[d]uring the day a lot of fun was caused by Major Steele chasing the troops who had broken ship. Sgt Maj Blainey was threatened with being thrown overboard for drawing and firing a revolver at a nigger plying a boat for hire.’ I. Grant, Jacka, VC Australia’s Finest Fighting Soldier, Sun Books, South Melbourne, 1990, p. 14. 15 B. Gammage, The Broken Years, Penguin, Ringwood, 1975, p. 36.

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imminent departure for France as an opportunity to exact revenge on the inhabitants of the Haret el Wasser district for their ‘unjust’ supply of diseased prostitutes and bad liquor. He detailed the rioters’ methods, recounting that ‘beds, mattresses and clothing from several houses were thrown out of the windows and piled in a bonfire in the street’.16 Crowds of onlookers formed and the local fire brigade was roughly obstructed from extinguishing the fire.17

As war correspondent, and later, official historian, Bean did much to downplay this aspect of soldier behaviour. In The Anzac Book, which he edited in 1916, he carefully constructed an image of brave and upstanding heroism that was to become the mainstay of the Anzac legend.18 However, as Kent has demonstrated, what Bean omitted from this publication was far more significant than that which he finally included.19 One poem written by a soldier at Gallipoli had as its chief protagonist, Jim, a prodigious imbiber and boisterous defender of ‘white superiority’. One stanza read:

And if he did knock out a policeman In Cairo, when full of the dope, By mistakin’ the coon for Jack Johnson, And himself as the white man’s Hope; And if he did let down the guard tent It didn’t hurt anyone much, The things were just done in good nature, And should have been taken as such …20

Given his decidedly less than mythic status, Jim was not permitted to stagger across Bean’s pristine idealisation of the Anzac troops, meaning that his heroic death towards the end of the poem was all for nought. Just as revealing is the easy familiarity with

16 C. E. W. Bean, The Story of Anzac, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1981 (first published 1921), p. 130. 17 For a more detailed account of Bean’s observations, see K. Fewster, ‘The Wazza Riots, 1915’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, no. 4, April 1984. 18 C. E. W. Bean, The Anzac Book, Sun Books, South Melbourne, 1975 (first published 1916). 19 Kent, ‘The Anzac Book’. Winter pointed to some methodological weaknesses in Kent’s article but did not, to my mind, challenge Kent’s central assertion that Bean played an important role in sanitising and mythologising the Anzacs. D. Winter, ‘The Anzac book: A re-appraisal’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, no. 16, April 1990. 20 D. A. Kent, ‘The Anzac Book and the Anzac Legend: C. E. W. Bean as Editor and Image-Maker’, Historical Studies, vol. 21, no. 84, April 1985, p. 384. Re the 1908 Burns-Johnson boxing match and its

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racist attitudes that the author somewhat petulantly defended. Indeed, soldiers identifying with ‘Wazza-style’ xenophobia were far more evident in the AIF than Bean’s upstanding, rural, antipodean Heracles.21

Riotous behaviour also occurred in training camps before embarkation.22 In addition, although hushed up to a large extent, Australian military authorities must have been aware of the post-war soldier strikes and demonstrations rapidly spreading through camps in Britain and France, as Allied troops grew impatient about demobilisation and refused to contemplate fighting against Bolshevik Russia. Indeed, Australian soldiers participated in some of these protests.23 While in Cairo, homefront newspapers could portray these outbursts as part of the Australian soldier’s cheery larrikinism, democratic impulses and ‘natural’ distaste for authority. On Australian soil, however, conservative opinion was far less willing to exhibit any such paternal tolerance.24

As a result of these many and varied outbursts, newspaper editorials exhibited a keen awareness of the soldiers’ potential to become a powerful political force. Their

place in fuelling Jim’s racial antagonism, see J. Wells, Boxing Day: The Fight that Changed the World, HarperCollins, Pymble, 1998. 21 J. Bourke, ‘Swinging the lead’: malingering, Australian soldiers, and the Great War’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, no. 26, April 1995. Bourke sympathetically details the evidence of malingering among Australian soldiers, a subject studiously avoided by proponents of the Anzac legend. 22 See reports of riots at the Casula and Liverpool training camps in 1916. Soldiers protested against extended training hours by marching from camp, commandeering a train and, subsequently, raiding several city hotels for beer and spirits. NSW Premier, W. A. Holman, and Minister for Defence, Senator Pearce, both argued that the trouble was caused by a small number of agitators who were under the influence, and in the pay, of German agents. However, other editorials argued that the Premier’s ‘enemy ringleader’ explanation was unconvincing, that the soldiers had displayed the ‘sheerest cowardice’, and that more harsh penalties should be dealt out to the rioters. Kalgoorlie Miner, 15, 16 February, 1916; Sydney Morning Herald [hereafter SMH], 15, 16 February, 1916. A subsequent NSW Premier, Jack Lang, claimed that prohibitionists used the riots to win early closing of hotels for the duration of the war. J. T. Lang, I Remember, Invincible Press, Sydney, no publication date, circa 1956, pp. 154-8. 23 For a participant/observer account of these protests, see A. Rothstein, The Soldiers’ Strikes of 1919, Macmillan Press, London, 1980. 24 Soldiers from the Blackboy Camp, outside Perth, continually defied railway authority attempts to make them buy train tickets. As a result, it was planned that soldiers would only receive their leave pass after they had paid the appropriate rail fare. The resulting queue of soldiers became impatient and rushed the railway officials. The tickets were thrown in the air and so distributed to all the men. A compromise was reached whereby soldiers in uniform could travel for free, but would have one shilling deducted from their fortnightly pay to cover this ‘concession’. On a far more serious note, on the evening of 20 January 1916 in Perth, soldiers who rioted against the migrant shopkeepers who ran late supper rooms, had to be dispersed by police. The journalist remarked that, unlike similar riots that had taken place on the previous New Year’s Eve, this outburst could not be blamed on ‘visiting Eastern States soldiers’. Kalgoorlie Miner, 1, 21 January, 27, 29 July, 1916; ‘A.I.F. Discipline’, Reveille, 31 May 1929.

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ultimately unrealised fear was that Bolshevik propaganda would inspire a militant response from angry veterans who would be difficult to control. As an example of the trepidation with which the soldiers’ mass return was viewed, one Kalgoorlie Miner editorial expressed the hope that ex-servicemen would play a law-abiding role in post- war Australian society. Rhetorically, it asked whether ‘men who took their part in restoring order to the world [were] likely to return to their own countries to assist in setting local order and authority at defiance?’ The community could feel confident that ‘they will be the last to do so’, opined the editor. To be doubly assured, the paper reminded its readers that ‘if there is one thing above others that the soldier learns it is respect for law and order’.25 However, as noted above, returned soldiers were often not averse to taking ‘direct action’ upon their return.

Part of a concerted strategy to allay the potential threat of returned soldier militancy was the formation of returned servicemen’s organisations to foster ‘that spirit of comradeship which had been created in the camp and on the field’.26 A large number of support groups mushroomed in the years after 1918, organised by unit personnel, soldiers’ fathers and local philanthropists. Although receiving sustenance from many sections of the community, business and government sponsorship was fundamental to the continued survival of such organisations.27 The most prominent and enduring of these groups was the Returned Soldiers’ Association which, after a number of name changes, became what is known today as the Returned & Services League of Australia or, more simply, the RSL. This organisation quickly became pre-eminent among returned soldier groups. That it was viewed in this light by the Federal Government was demonstrated by a discussion between Prime Minister Hughes and members of the Repatriation Commission, where a question was raised regarding whether the RSL was truly representative of returned soldiers. Hughes dismissed this concern, saying that ‘[f]or all practical purposes the Returned Soldiers’ Association has sufficient of the

25 Kalgoorlie Miner, 4 August 1919. 26 Senior Chaplain Dean Talbot, NSW President of the RSL, 1917, cited in P. Sekuless and J. Rees, Lest We Forget: The History of the Returned Services League 1916-1986, Rigby, Dee Why West, 1986, p. 22. 27 Garton, The Cost of War, p. 75; Lloyd and Rees, The Last Shilling, pp. 24-30, 56-7, 151.

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soldiers in it to make it representative.’28 Kristianson concurred with this view, stating that, by 1919, the RSL held ‘an undisputed position as Australia’s major ex-service body’.29

Ostensibly, the RSL was formed to assist ex-service personnel upon their return to Australia. In the eyes of early proponents, its most important function was to provide a means by which the ideals and traditions of the AIF could be reproduced in civilian life, in order to accrue positive benefits for the cohesion of post-war Australian society. Yet, despite a very respectable veneer, the RSL leadership was not always able to resolve the tension between respectability and the appetite for direct action felt by many members.30 Nor, as this thesis will argue, did the leadership necessarily want to quell its more extreme members, especially in relation to their determined opposition to non- British migration. Certainly, RSL officials wished it to appear as if their disapproval of violence and rioting was absolute and their close relationship with the Hughes Government was based on a reciprocal arrangement, whereby the League was granted official recognition in return for keeping returned soldiers under control.31 Any sign that they supported the tactics of ‘direct action’ might irreparably damage their standing in government circles. Nevertheless, as will become clear in later chapters, sections of the RSL did engage in what Evans called ‘establishment violence’; action that ‘flaunts the rules ostensibly to defend them’.32

Moore’s definition of right-wing organisations is extremely pertinent to an understanding of the RSL. In his view, such organisations have four principal characteristics – a more extreme version of mainstream conservative positions, a defined ‘enemy’ that can be used to galvanise organisation, a dual commitment to national

28 Transcript of discussion between Prime Minister and Repatriation Commissioners relating to the Creation of a paid Commission on which the Returned Soldiers’ Association would have a representative, dated 9 October 1919, NAA: A1606/1, D11/1. 29 G. Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism: The Pressure Group Activities of the Returned Servicemen’s League, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1966, p. 23. 30 Ibid., p. 13. 31 M. Lake, ‘The power of Anzac’ in M. McKernan and M. Browne, Australia: Two Centuries of War & Peace, Australian War Memorial/Allen & Unwin, Canberra, 1988, p. 206. 32 R. Evans, The Red Flag Riots: A Study of Intolerance, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1988, p. 1.

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chauvinism and oft-linked xenophobia and racism, and a cynicism towards parliamentary democracy.33 Throughout its history, the RSL has displayed all four of these interrelated features and has been a powerful lobbying force for right-wing policies, both in government circles and in the wider community.34 To understand its conservative policies and practices, it is important to establish how, and on what basis, the RSL was formed. From this foundation, the influence of the national organisation on ‘grassroots’ activities in Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill can be analysed, with a particular focus on the activities of working class returned soldiers who provided a link between the RSL leadership and the wider working class.

The RSL: what it was to become

The RSL was formed in Melbourne in 1916, after a meeting of various state-based associations of returned soldiers. Superficially, the justification used for the creation of a national organisation was that the issues facing returned soldiers were of a federal nature and could not be handled effectively by disparate groups. The resulting Federal Executive of the RSL was to be primarily responsible for lobbying the Federal Government about the need for adequate provisions for returned service personnel. During the war, the Government was anxious about its reputation for looking after those men who had already returned, fearing that to offer poor care would affect recruitment. An open-door policy to ‘loyal’ returned soldier officials was generally applied.35 However, the RSL’s programme embraced far more than the mere practicalities of repatriation. Even the League’s stated objectives gave a clear indication of the organisation’s intended role in post-war Australian society, frequently returning to the theme of unremitting soldier service to the nation. Loftus Hills maintained that the organisation was formed to foster the friendships, memories and traditions generated by war service and to promote returned servicemen as paragons ‘of public spirit and noble-

33 A. Moore, The Right Road? A History of Right-Wing Politics in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995, pp. 2-4. 34 Sekuless and Rees, Lest We Forget, p. ix-x. 35 Lake, ‘The power of Anzac’, p. 206.

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hearted endeavour’.36 It was hoped that, through the League, returned soldiers could be more easily moulded into model citizens and active mouthpieces of patriotic sentiments. In addition, the RSL would oversee the proper memorialising of those who had served, preserving their reputation and providing assistance to those who required financial, medical, housing or employment aid.

In addition to the wounded men who had already returned, there were 167,000 men overseas at the end of the war.37 Membership of the RSL ballooned in 1918-19 as these men arrived back in Australia, with an estimated 150,000 returned servicemen joining by the end of 1919.38 It was argued that war service would gather ‘Australia’s sons together in an unbreakable bond of comradeship’.39 However, the bond did not prove to be as strong as some might have hoped, as only one year later, membership had fallen to around 50,000. By 1924, membership had dropped to 24,000 which was less than nine per cent of those eligible to join.40 Kristianson attributed this decline to the ten shilling membership fee, an imposition beyond the means of many prospective members. He also felt that the conservative politics of the leadership alienated many more left-wing soldiers.41 Lake cited work reasons and a more general desire among some men to put the war behind them. She also detailed the way RSL membership drives were carried out during and immediately after the war, where RSL recruiters were permitted to work on troop ships, on wharves where the ships docked and on long distance trains carrying soldiers to their home towns. Such concessions virtually assured a strong sign-up rate among the concentrated wave of returnees, but did not guarantee that soldiers were committed to the RSL in the longer term, many simply letting their membership lapse in subsequent years.42 Nevertheless, from 1929, membership levels began to increase and, by 1933, had risen to 50,000 and continued to swell, reaching 82,000 nationally by 1939.43 This would suggest that the cost of dues alone was not a significant factor in membership decline in the 1920s if, during the Depression, an

36 Hills, The Returned Sailors and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, p. 11. 37 Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism, p. 26. 38 See Appendix A re RSL membership levels. 39 Hills, The Returned Sailors & Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, p. 9. 40 Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism, p. 36. 41 Ibid., p. 37. See also A. Thomson, Anzac Memories, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1996, p. 125. 42 Lake, ‘The power of Anzac’, pp. 204, 212.

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increasing number of veterans were able to pay the membership fee. It is likely that the economic downturn, coupled with government attacks on pensions, made RSL membership more attractive to some returned servicemen.44 Public outbursts about employment preference and the level of pensions may have improved the profile of the RSL amongst potential recruits, and perhaps encouraged many to believe, mistakenly as it turned out, that the RSL would be a useful ally in harsh economic times.45

An essential part of the RSL project was to organise clubs for returned servicemen where they could socialise, receive information and produce literature promoting the advancement of the League. Formation of soldier clubs was given a high priority in many towns, where local burghers feared soldier demonstrations and were anxious to get soldiers off the streets. As later chapters in this study show, elite support was vital to the survival of returned soldier clubs. In both Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill, the mine manager employer associations provided accommodation for meeting places and the local well-to-do were prominent organisers. As Thomson argued, ‘sub-branches offered carefully controlled meeting places as an alternative to the more threatening gatherings of returned men in pubs and on street corners’.46 These sub-branches, in suburbs, townships and workplaces throughout the country, were at the base of the RSL’s structure. By 1930, the NSW State Secretary could write that ‘[t]he backbone of the League is its sub-branches, and the very life of the sub-branches is the keen enthusiastic returned soldier member.’47 Ernest Scott reported that, by 1935, there were 1,171 active sub-branches and 70,900 financial RSL members.48

These clubs linked a distant and often socially-removed Executive with the wider community. From the sub-branches, delegates were elected to attend an annual State Congress where motions on local matters were discussed and voted on. From the State

43 Ibid., p. 67. 44 The Kalgoorlie RSL made frequent complaints about returned soldiers who were not active in the League, but who called on it to help out during times of sickness and unemployment. See Chapter Four. 45 The RSL ran a ‘Hands Off Pensions’ campaign, arguing that ‘[w]e are confident, despite vague misgivings, that pensions will remain inviolate.’ See Reveille, 30 September 1929, 30 August 1930, 30 June 1931. 46 Thomson, Anzac Memories, p. 123. 47 Reveille, 31 March 1930. 48 E. Scott, Australia During the War, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1936, p. 856.

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Branch, two delegates were chosen to attend the annual Federal Congress, the controlling body of the RSL.49 It was in this forum that decisions were made about RSL responses to Federal government activities, particularly in the area of returned soldier welfare but, contrary to appearances, democratic decision-making structures were not the League’s strong point. Federal Congress met annually, but was limited to two delegates from each State branch. Annual Congresses at State level were delegated meetings, where a single delegate would usually represent a large number of members. In Western Australia, for example, delegates attended State Congress at a ratio of one per 100 members.50

Shortly after the war, it became obvious that the vast majority of eligible men would not play an active role in returned soldier politics. As early as January 1921, delegates to the South Australian branch’s annual general meeting were complaining of widespread member apathy, and the need to deal with the problem of declining interest in League affairs.51 At the 1922 Federal Congress, the RSL President, Gilbert Dyett, gave an opening address that characterised returned soldiers as ‘ungrateful’. He said that Australia had a comparatively good record in the treatment of returned soldiers, but the men had ‘failed to appreciate what has been done for them’.52 Dyett’s speech also gave a clear indication that the RSL leadership saw itself as an economic and political emissary of the Federal Government. In discussions with a delegation from the RSL, Prime Minister Hughes indicated that he was worried about the sheer enormity of the dissatisfaction with the repatriation process, claiming that he daily received 250 letters on the subject. It was, he argued, an anger that he could not afford. With an election looming that most commentators predicted would be a ‘hard fight’, he was aware that returned soldier votes were crucial role to success at the ballot box. Part of his strategy to deflect criticism from his Government’s performance in this area was to court the

49 Hills, The Returned Sailors and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, p. 12. Before 1921, five delegates had been chosen, but the expense of sending them interstate became too onerous. Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism, p. 110. 50 The W. A. Digger Book, compiled by the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League (W. A. Branch), Perth, 1929, pp. 20-1. 51 Diggers’ Gazette, 21 January 1921. 52 Daily Telegraph, 5 August 1922, clipping held in Department of Repatriation file, NAA: A2487, 1922/11616.

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RSL about a reconstituted Repatriation Commission of paid officials – the sop being that the RSL would have a greater level of representation.53

Smith’s Weekly ran a vitriolic campaign against members of what had been named the ‘Cyanide Gang’ – the Repatriation Commission – for failing to adequately provide for soldiers and their dependants. As one of the members of the three-person Commission was a former president of the NSW branch of the RSL, namely Chaplain- Captain Ashley Teece, the paper maintained that the RSL must either attack the Commission or stand accused of neglecting those for whom they were meant to provide. Smith’s editorial maintained:

[I]f Teece does not repudiate the other two [Commission members], and the League condones his silence, both Teece and the League will be in the position of taking money for work which they are not doing. The League is taking subscriptions from Diggers on the representation that it is protecting the interests of Diggers and their dependants. Teece is drawing an annual salary of £1250 … common decency … demands that both Teece and the League should justify the receipt of these moneys.54

Ignoring such attacks, League officials promoted the RSL in terms of its bureaucratic achievements. Dyett, for instance, remarked that the RSL’s ‘prestige and dignity was respected in every place of authority in Australia’, suggesting that criticisms from ‘below’ were unfair and that the leadership was not being given credit for achieving such access to higher echelons. Rumblings in League journals and defensive comments by League officials suggest that many returned soldiers were of the view that the RSL leadership had priorities beyond practical welfare issues. Indeed, the evidence suggests that, in the interests of national unity, a primary function of the League was to contain the anger of returned servicemen and their dependants regarding the inadequacies of welfare provisions. Dyett revealed that, in making representations on behalf of its constituents, the League’s leadership ‘eliminated all representations that seemed unreasonable’ and, by this method, maintained the RSL’s reputation for

53 Returned Soldiers' Conferences with Prime Minister, transcript of meeting, 9 October 1919, NAA: A1606/1, D11/1. 54 Smith’s Weekly, 16 April 1921.

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temperate dealings with the authorities.55 When pension entitlements to many dependants of returned soldiers were cut in 1931, the RSL was prepared to couch this defeat in terms of a willing sacrifice for the good of the nation. Indeed, as Lloyd and Rees have argued, returned soldier organisations participated in instituting the reductions by cooperating with the government on the conception of an ‘acceptable’ plan.56 One RSL journal argued:

The surrender of our soldier[s] to a cut in pension again affords proof of their readiness, in National emergency, to give a lead where others waver. In peace, as it was in war, the soldier bears the greatest burden of sacrifice … The voluntary contribution of the soldiers, from their meagre pensions, towards the financial rehabilitation of their country, brings into bold relief the selfish and mercenary spirit which has animated some other sections of our community.57

When the RSL was criticised by members for capitulating to the Federal Government, its leaders argued that its concessions had prevented a worse outcome and that there had been no alternative when ‘The Ship of State was threatened with wreckage on the Financial Rocks’. They attacked what they called ‘the stand and deliver weapon’, advocated by some in the movement, arguing that a militant approach would ‘only antagonise and fail’.58

Such attitudes cemented the relationship between the Federal Government and the RSL leadership. It could not, however, silence the critics who believed, with some justification, that working class returned soldiers were being systematically neglected. The Department of Repatriation kept a file containing reports of those who were dissatisfied with its inadequate ministrations. One of the Repatriation Department’s clerks made a detailed report of the grievances that had been aired at a large meeting held at the Sydney Town Hall. Speakers complained that funds had been distributed

55 Daily Telegraph, 5 August 1922, clipping held in Department of Repatriation file, NAA: A2487, 1922/11616. 56 The plan ‘applied a statutory reduction of 22.5 per cent in the pensions payable to parents, children, and wives of returned soldiers, brothers and sisters of deceased members, and certain other classes of dependants’. See Lloyd and Rees, The Last Shilling, pp. 245-8 57 Reveille, 31 August 1931. 58 Reveille, 30 September 1931.

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unevenly and that some training schemes were leading men ‘into blind alleys’ where there were no prospects for employment. They also felt that job preference schemes that included the phrase ‘all things being equal’ were ‘sheer humbug’, if soldiers’ disabilities could still prevent them from gaining employment. In a chilling precursor to Nazi ideology, one right-wing populist ‘advocated the deportation of all interned aliens, and the confiscation of their property in Australia for repatriation purposes’.59

At another meeting in Dubbo, called by the Mayor in response to repeated local calls for the Government to deal with repatriation issues, one soldier remarked that ‘the dilatory methods of officials were disgusting’. Another related that on the way home from the war:

literature was circulated amongst the men on shipboard inducing them to believe that millions of money would be spent in their interests, and as soon as they received their discharge they would walk into prosperity. Forms were handed to the men on the boat on which they were asked to state what work they had been doing before the war, and what they wished to do on return. Since he had come back he had never met a man who could tell him what became of those forms.60

While the Federal Executive of the RSL would, on occasion, mobilise some of this anger to boost its bargaining position vis-a-vis the Federal Government, meetings and lobbying were the only openly-endorsed activities.61

As a lobbying group, the RSL constantly reminded the community of the debt owed by Australian society to returned servicemen. Indeed, it argued that the Australian people were only able to bask in the benefits of freedom and democracy because of the sacrifices that had been made by the AIF. Nevertheless, soldiers were repeatedly told their battle had only just begun. As one headline proclaimed, RSL members were ‘Australia’s Picked Citizens’, a body of men with an important role to play in post-war

59 Transcript of meeting at Sydney Town Hall on 8 December 1918 by Mr E. S. Smith. NAA: A2483, B18/7880. 60 For report of this meeting, see Sunday Times, 15 December 1918. 61 Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism, p. 33.

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society.62 At a League Congress in Brisbane in 1921, in the presence of ‘a large number of distinguished soldiers and citizens’, the State Governor was asked to speak on one of the aims of the League. His Excellency chose to elaborate on the clause that exhorted members ‘as citizens, to serve Australia with that spirit of self-sacrifice and loyalty with which our sailors and soldiers served Australia and the Empire in the war’.63 His remedies for the country’s economic woes were thrift, hard work and clean living. Speaking of the unnecessary divide between employers and employees, he blamed such rifts on the work of a minority of disaffected wasters. What was required, and what RSL members could provide, he argued, was:

a rather more sturdy public opinion, which would keep them in the paths of healthy progress, and which would nullify the powers of those who, by the promulgation of revolutionary ideas, not unassisted by the demoralisation of gambling and drink, were endeavouring to pull down the fabric of our institutions and to sap the growth of our morality, with some idea that they might do better under a new order of things that they lacked the capacity to visualise or to explain.64

The RSL leadership was acutely aware that any attempt to galvanise a constituency with diverse class backgrounds and political orientations presented them with a number of problems. While, on occasion, military service created a shared sense of identity among some of those who fought, questions of socialism, temperance, religion and race, amongst others, remained a potential source of division within the RSL’s dominion. Generally, RSL leaders tried to avoid mention of difficult issues, instead concentrating on political ideals that were seen as universally supported, such as the welfare of returned service personnel and the extension of patriotic service and imperial loyalty on the home front.65 In particular, they continually eschewed involvement in party politics, while claiming the right to criticise any party that espoused principles contrary to the interests of returned soldiers. Kristianson concluded that the League’s reluctance to form a returned soldier party, or to openly support the

62 Diggers’ Gazette, 21 August 1921. 63 See Hills, The Returned Sailors & Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, p. 11. 64 Diggers’ Gazette, 21 August 1921. 65 One of the principal aims of the newly-formed Returned Sailors and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia was ‘to inculcate loyalty to Australia and the Empire and secure patriotic service in the interests of both’. Hills, The Returned Sailors & Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, p. 11.

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conservative side of politics, reflected a desire to avoid involvement in the political fall- out from the Labor split and an attendant belief that the concerns of ex-veterans should be above sectional interests.66 Thomson also cited the RSL’s aspiration to be an influential lobbying group, regardless of whether Labor or conservative governments were in power.67 In order to steer clear of possible political disagreements between members and governments, the South Australian RSL leadership confirmed that politics would be barred from official publications ‘as vigorously as one would the plague’.68 On the surface, this led to open flattery of all governments, regardless of political hue. The RSL leadership in New South Wales argued that:

In general, the vicissitudes of party government leave the League indifferent and untroubled. It has no concern in whether a Government stays or goes. All governments, irrespective of party, have been generous on the whole in their recognition of the splendid work of the League, and have given material help towards its advancement.69

While they were prepared to work with Labor governments, preference for the Nationalists was barely disguised. However, the most important part of any explanation of the RSL’s ‘non-political’ stance is Lake’s view that it proscribed members of the RSL from supporting labour movement disputes. The ‘mateship’ of the trenches and the perceived egalitarianism of the AIF were ideologically counterposed to the nasty divisiveness of trade union campaigns for better wages and conditions. In 1919, when the labour movement was on the move to recoup some of its wartime losses, the RSL leadership attempted to divert returned soldiers from supporting those campaigns.

The RSL leadership’s public protestations of an ‘apolitical’ stance were more akin to a wolf donning sheep’s clothing. While attempting to quarantine members from infectious radical influences, the outwardly ‘non-party’ face adopted by the League did not limit its leaders’ ability to intervene in the political sphere. Because of their self- proclaimed special status as defenders of the Australian way of life, they frequently

66 Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism, p. 6. 67 Thomson, Anzac Memories, p. 121. 68 Diggers’ Gazette, 7 January 1921. South Australian RSL publications have been examined, because, in this period, the Broken Hill RSL was a sub-branch of the South Australian branch. This reflects the geographic and cultural links that Broken Hill residents maintained with Adelaide, rather than Sydney.

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offered opinions on issues of ‘national importance’. Their conservative stance on issues such as immigration, defence, education, family life and labour questions was forcefully outlined in League journals and promulgated through the media, public speaking engagements and written communications. Below this veneer, however, working class disaffection could not be helped. Protestations of political neutrality could not mask the fact that League officials were publicly committed to a ‘do-or-die’ battle against Communism, an ideology that they inextricably linked with Labor and union politics.70 To this end, countless League journal editorials championed the Nationalist and Liberal sides of politics, whose policies the leadership commonly shared. As will be demonstrated in the case study chapters, the Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill sub-branches were focal points for anti-Labor election campaigns. During election campaigns, RSL activities galvanised support for anti-Labor candidates and, in the process, identified and weeded out intractable ‘red-raggers’ and ‘malcontents’ that the League leadership felt better off without.

Beyond the question of party political allegiances, the RSL purportedly refrained from interference in the industrial sphere in deference to its working class membership. One editorial in the Diggers’ Gazette stated:

There is a division, but there is no definite line, between what the League may, and should, touch industrially and what it should not. That is one of our danger spots, one of the matters on which we must be particularly careful. We must run no danger of a split.71

Despite such protestations, the RSL leadership actively organised against labour movement militancy. As later chapters will demonstrate, RSL officials organised strike breakers, spoke vehemently against industrial action and repeatedly prioritised national and business interests over the welfare of working class people, even those who were RSL members. For example, during the waterfront dispute in Port Adelaide, Nationalist, pastoralist and prominent RSL patron, Camillus Sinclair Wood, organised a small party

69 Reveille, 30 September 1929. 70 K. Richmond, ‘Reaction to Radicalism: Non-Labour Movements, 1920-9’, Journal of Australian Studies, no. 5, November 1979, p. 52. 71 Diggers’ Gazette, 15 July 1920.

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of strikebreakers from Broken Hill.72 It did not take long for labour movement activists to realise that the RSL was not simply a benign protector of returned men, but an industrial enemy. For their part, RSL stalwarts viewed even the mildest forms of industrial action as ‘disloyal’ and closely akin to Bolshevism.

While the RSL’s role in the class struggle of the immediate post-war period is a thesis topic in itself, the following case illustrates many of the industrial tensions of the interwar years. In July 1920, L. E. Hansford contacted the League’s South Australian branch for advice on his industrial situation and whether he should take a ticket in another ‘union’, besides the RSL. He was working at Jervois Swamp and had been asked to take an AWU ticket. When he refused to do so and added that he was already in the RSL, he was told that the RSL was not a union and would not fight for wages. The AWU members thereafter refused to work with Hansford as a non-unionist. The Gazette informed him that the RSL was not an industrial body and that it could not advise members whether to join a union or not, but that the matter would be discussed at the next Council meeting.73 A delegate to this meeting remarked that, if they were to depart from their policy of non-partisanship in industrial matters, ‘it might mean the end of the League’. However, in the same article, it was pointed out that returned servicemen were not gaining employment preference in a number of areas throughout the State and that there was currently an attempt to oust returned soldiers from the stevedoring industry, where they were being employed in preference to unionised labour.74 The Council resolved to ask the Federal Executive to use its influence to press for employment preference provisions to be included in the Industrial Peace Bill.75

In order to disguise their anti-working class agenda, League officials portrayed their industrial stance as one of opposition only to the menacing, radical, and therefore ‘foreign’, minority. In January 1921, the President of the South Australian RSL

72 Barrier Daily Truth, 4 October 1928. 73 Diggers’ Gazette, 1 July 1920. 74 G. T. Powell, Uncertain Frontiers: A Study of the Waterside Workers’ Federation in South Australia 1917-1922, unpublished BA (Hons) thesis, University of Adelaide, 1966. See also E. I. Curnow, Shall We Strike: An account of the 1928 strike struggle of the Waterside Workers in Port Adelaide, unpublished BA (Hons) thesis, University of Adelaide, 1958.

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delivered an emotive address that warned of revolutionaries who had ‘succeeded in worming themselves into the trade unions, with the intention of propagating their insidious teachings amongst loyal workmen, and eventually disrupting our Empire’.76 Again, the South Australian RSL leadership expressed its determination not to step on the toes of the labour movement, declaring its intention to abstain from participation in any industrial dispute. However, their ‘guarantee’ contained the proviso that they would maintain this position only while industrial disputes were conducted ‘along constitutional lines’.77

This ‘foot in both camps’ approach was by no means universally effective, particularly since many returned soldiers perceived the leadership to be dominated by members of society’s elite. For instance, the Gazette publicly criticised one digger who had failed to pay his dues to the RSL on the grounds that he was not going to pay his subscription ‘so long as a member of the State Board draws a big screw out of the League’.78 A similar case was reported in Sydney. On a hospital visit, Charlie Wilson, a member of the NSW State Executive, gently prompted one patient to become a member of the RSL. ‘Me join; no, not on your life – at least, not while all you ‘brass hats’ are running the executive’ was the reply. The author pointed out that, at the time, none of the NSW Executive had been officers. Nevertheless, no doubt inspired by the League’s political orientation and by the members of the establishment that it openly courted, many of the RSL’s rank-and-file felt that it was dominated by ex-officers.79 In 1921, a column in the Gazette attempted to counter criticism from ‘inside and outside the League’ that its leadership was an ‘officer caste’, by taking umbrage at the implied suggestion that an officer was not a real Digger. The author whined:

Not only in this State, but elsewhere, is the accusation made that the League is run by “brass hats” ... It can be taken as granted that those who

75 Diggers’ Gazette, 1 October 1920. Re the Industrial Peace Act (1920), see L. F. Fitzhardinge, The Little Digger 1914-1952, Angus and Robertson, London, 1979, pp. 444-5, 451-2, 550-1. 76 Diggers’ Gazette, 21 January 1921. 77 Diggers’ Gazette, 7 April 1921. 78 Diggers’ Gazette, 21 July 1921. 79 Reveille, 30 April 1929.

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attempt to ‘throw off’ at the so-called “officer caste” were unable to receive promotion themselves.80

In 1928, Colonel Collett, President of the Western Australian State branch, remarked that he had made enquiries regarding charges of elitism within the RSL. He found that there was ‘a good deal of prejudice’ amongst the general membership towards the presence of officers in the RSL leadership. In reply, he stated that promotion within the AIF had been distinctly merit-based. He said that the ‘great majority of officers … were promoted from the ranks, not because of social status or claims, but because they were good soldiers’.81

In trying to weld together the interests of the ‘brass hats’ and the working class returned soldier, the RSL was attempting to reproduce largely invented battlefield relations – class collaboration and deference to leadership. Robson has demonstrated that, although the vast majority of World War One personnel were of working class origin, very few men from labouring and mining occupations became officers. The AIF leadership, according to his survey, was overwhelmingly Protestant and primarily drawn from a narrow range of occupations – ‘commerce, clerical, professional and pre-war army’.82 Even a cursory glance at the list of the RSL’s most prominent leaders demonstrates that the officer caste were disproportionately represented.83 In short, those who attained commissions were far more likely to gain a leadership position in the RSL.84 In later chapters of this thesis, evidence will be provided of a similar trend at the local level. Although ‘brass hats’ were far more numerous in the Federal echelon, the

80 Diggers’ Gazette, 7 April 1921. 81 Presidential speech to the Western Australian State Congress, reported in Reveille, 31 October 1928. 82 L. L. Robson, ‘The Origin and Character of the First A.I.F., 1914-1918: Some Statistical Evidence’, Historical Studies, vol. 15, no. 61, October 1973, pp. 748-9. See also J. McQuilton, ‘Enlistment for the First World War in rural Australia: the case of north-eastern Victoria, 1914-1918’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, no. 33, 2000 and Rural Australians and the Great War, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2001. 83 For example, see list of Federal office holders in Sekuless and Rees, Lest We Forget, p. 228. 84 In 1931, Reveille published a ‘who’s who’ of Federal congress delegates. Of the nineteen men listed, eleven were officers. Among those whose rank was not mentioned were a barrister, a chairman of directors, and a statistician. The descriptions of the other five men did not indicate rank or occupation. Reveille, 30 November 1931.

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leadership of the local sub-branches in Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill, particularly after the radical element had been isolated, displayed a distinctly middle class character.85

Every time the RSL leadership performed public duties, their elitist sympathies were clearly apparent as ‘brass hats’ were paraded and eulogized. In 1921, Smith’s Weekly drew readers’ attention to an Anzac Day ceremony, organised by the NSW Branch of the RSL and held at the Sydney Town Hall. According to one description, it was all ‘glitter and brilliance’ inside the venue. While high-ranking officers spoke from the platform, outside a vast crowd of people gathered who had not been able to gain entrance for want of tickets. The Daily Telegraph described their bitter resentment, reporting that ‘there were mothers and wives of dead men, exasperated to the point of tears. There were Anzacs, a lot angrier than they were on Anzac morning.’86 Far from promoting the League to working class soldiers, events such as these served as catalysts for criticism of Australia and the League as riven with class inequality. In response, the RSL leadership frequently used League journals to promote a different view. For example, in 1921, the editor of the Diggers’ Gazette, H. V. Millington, questioned whether there was, as Labor claimed, a division of society into two distinct classes – capital and labour. In his view, most capitalists were indistinguishable from working men. ‘The majority of so-called working men are actually capitalists’, he argued, because most had some savings in the bank or had sometimes won money gambling on the races, through which they obtained an ‘unearned increment’. Similarly, he maintained, the capitalist may work twelve hours per day running industry and was entitled to be considered a working man. Millington was clearly trying to convince left- leaning members to reconsider their allegiance to the labour movement, to accept capitalists as their much-needed allies and to discourage working class members from the view that class position commonly determines life chances.87 Particularly when the

85 Recent work by Augustine has attempted to cast doubt on perceptions of an officer-dominated RSL. However, his argument relied on a tiny number of working class soldiers who gained positions in the Victorian State Branch over a very short and early period. While there is no doubt that officer-domination was less conspicuous at the branch and sub-branch level, and that some sub-branches were not cast in the Federal RSL’s conservative image, this is certainly a case where the exception does not prove the rule. See L. Augustine, Guardians of the ANZAC Legend: A history of the RSL (Australian Returned Service League) Victorian Branch 1915-1923, http://ehistory.freeservers.com, accessed 22 January 2003. 86 Cited in Smith’s Weekly, 30 April 1921. 87 Diggers’ Gazette, 21 August 1921.

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League’s policies were inimical to working class living conditions, RSL leaders had to tread very lightly and outlandish political contortions were necessary to convince working class ex-soldiers that a healthy capitalism was what they had risked their lives to defend. In 1921, the Gazette warned RSL members who had hoped to receive a pay rise that it was going to be necessary for workers to tighten their belts in the interest of the economy. Deflecting anger onto a minority of employers who were ‘avaricious skinflints’, the Gazette expressed the belief that the government’s promotion of wage restraint would deliver long-term advantages that were in the national interest.88

Promotion of returned soldier employment preference was couched in similar terms. Veterans were encouraged to believe that opposition to conscription had betrayed those who fought, even though members of the AIF had themselves twice voted against compulsory service.89 In the battle for employment in the post-war period, it was frequently stated by League officials that ‘cowards’, ‘stay-at-homes’, ‘shirkers’, and worst still, ‘foreigners’, had been able to take jobs that rightfully belonged to the returning men. Such an outlook encouraged working class soldiers to view those ‘less deserving’ workers as their main enemy, rather than the employer who had not kept a job open or who was unwilling to employ a wounded man. The RSL acted as an employment bureau for unemployed returned soldiers and, during the 1930s Depression, it was condemned for not doing enough to defend preferential treatment for its members. In one attempt to deflect such criticism, the League advised that long-term unemployed ex-soldiers, who were still suffering from a disability as a result of war service, were generally unsuitable employees. Instead of championing the right of the wounded to an appropriate job, one employment officer made it clear that the RSL leadership had to give its primary loyalty to the employers. He wrote that it was ‘obvious that the employers’ interest has to be most carefully safeguarded by sending out the man deemed to be most suitable to the job, and not necessarily the one next in order of registration’.90

88 Diggers’ Gazette, 21 July 1921. 89 Gammage, The Broken Years, p. 172. 90 K. W. Mackenzie, ‘Unemployment and the Returned Soldier’, Reveille, 31 December 1929.

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While the RSL displayed a variety of elitist practices, this should not suggest that working class soldiers were not able to play a prominent part in the League – they were, as long as their attitudes were politically conservative. According to Garton, sub-branch meetings generated a sense of power and influence, emanating from the process of debating motions on a wide range of political topics.91 Successful resolutions would be forwarded to the relevant government department or to the Federal Executive, with a reply almost certainly forthcoming. In this way, the League’s leadership could prevent genuine challenges to its national political programme. While many in the League leadership would surely have recognised the limited efficacy of such motions on government policy, the process of debating and passing resolutions at sub-branch level provided an invaluable semblance of democracy and a sense of inclusion for working class veterans. The debates were also a useful device for sub-branch leaders, in that they promoted conservative politics and trained rank and file members how to prosecute such arguments. In August, 1927, at the monthly general meeting of the Broken Hill RSL, the eighty members present debated a motion regarding future policies on conscription, much like members were then doing elsewhere around the country. The controversy centred around whether, in the event of another war, the government should be empowered to conscript wealth as well as manpower. The Broken Hill sub-branch resolved that government control of wealth was essential for the prevention of profiteering.92 The response of the RSL’s mine-owning benefactors to this resolution is not recorded, but motions like these helped to sustain the loyalty of working class members while posing little threat to the status quo. Yet such moves did not entirely prevent dissatisfaction with the RSL’s lack of practical initiatives to address the financial stress suffered by many working class returned soldiers. At an RSL smoke social at the height of the Depression, the President of the Broken Hill sub-branch, remarked on distinguished Anzacs, such as Sir John Monash, Sir Arthur Onslow and Captain Jacka

91 Garton, The Cost of War, p. 56. 92 Barrier Daily Truth, 31 August 1927. See also Humphrey McQueen’s discussion of the links between anti-profiteering and anti-Bolshevism in ‘Shoot the Bolshevik! Hang the Profiteer! Reconstructing Australian Capitalism, 1918-21’ in E. L. Wheelwright and K. Buckley (eds), Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism, vol. 2, Australia & New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, 1978.

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VC, who had died in the preceding year. Clearly unimpressed, a voice from the crowd was reported to have called out, ‘If we don’t get a job, we’ll all die.’93

For those working class soldiers who could prove they were cast in the appropriate political mould, RSL membership offered the potential for a certain degree of upward social mobility. At least socially, working class returned soldiers were able to mix with people outside their milieu. Albert Jacka was undoubtedly one of the most prominent examples of this process, gaining both greater social prestige and a replacement political ideology to match his elevated position. From a rural working-class background, Jacka had seen enlistment as a chance for advancement based on merit. Upon his return to Australia, Jacka went into business. He later became the mayor of St Kilda and was active in philanthropic activities. There is evidence to suggest that Jacka, like most AIF members, was opposed to conscription while on active service, but became a pro-conscriptionist upon his return to civilian life. Powell ascribed this change to a desire to avoid controversy.94 However, in all likelihood, Jacka’s membership of the staunchly pro-conscriptionist RSL had a far greater influence on his post-war attitudes. Previously a shy and socially ill-equipped man, Jacka’s biographer attributed his post- war ‘public confidence’ to a keen participation in RSL activities.95 Jacka’s example also demonstrates that upward social mobility was not always permanent. Failed business dealings with the notorious John Wren resulted in his return to an impoverished working class existence as a travelling salesman, and a premature death.96

93 Barrier Daily Truth, 25 April 1932. 94 D. Powell, ‘Albert Jacka VC and the 1916 Conscription Debate’, La Trobe Journal, no. 63, Autumn 1999, pp. 31-5. 95 Grant, Jacka, VC, pp. 164-180. 96 Social mobility in the 1920s and 1930s in Australia is a neglected area of study. Few have questioned the view that Australia, in common with other industrial societies, offered greater opportunities for each succeeding generation. Indeed, Van Krieken et al. argued that sociologists who have looked at this question have generally been ‘engaged in a broader argument against a Marxist interpretation of capitalist societies’, convinced that class was not a determining factor in an individual’s life chances. R. Van Krieken, Sociology: themes and perspectives, Longman, Sydney, 2000, p. 80. However, Connell and Irving suggest that, although the number of self-employed rose between 1911 and 1921, it gradually declined during the interwar period. Given that self-employment was one of the few avenues out of the working class, a contraction of such opportunities would suggest that social mobility, at least for the working class, concomitantly diminished in this period. R. W. Connell and T. H. Irving, Class Structure in Australian History, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1980, p. 318. A more recent study by Erikson and Goldthorpe concluded that, despite the vision of Australia as a ‘young’ land of equal opportunity being an integral part of the national culture, actual rates and patterns of mobility did not differ widely from the industrial

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Had RSL propaganda remained within the closed doors of local sub-branch meetings, it would have had little effect on post-war society. However, one of the main purposes of such meetings was to groom cadre for the propagation of conservative ideology in the wider community. As the Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill case studies herein show, local sub-branches of the RSL played a crucial role in the distribution of such propaganda and those who refused to recite the official RSL ‘line’ were excluded. Oral historian, Alistair Thomson, recalled an interview with a returned soldier – one of only two Anzacs left in his town – who, even in the 1980s, was denied a public platform on Anzac Day because the RSL leadership disapproved of his pacifist views.97 During the interwar period, there were many community organisations where the voice of an Anzac was treated, outwardly at least, with deference and respect. Returned soldiers were frequently invited to speak at schools, fund-raisers, sporting events and other public affairs.

Most notably, the RSL used such community interest to promote its ideology to the very young. After the NSW Executive of the League gave ‘consideration to the matter of keeping in the minds of Australian school children the services of the A.I.F.’, it resolved to cement the links between RSL sub-branches and their local schools by distributing photographs of prominent soldiers and Australian flags for the edification of the children.98 Local Empire Day celebrations provided similar opportunities for RSL speakers to spread the message of white superiority and Empire fealty. In Broken Hill, for example, the editor of the local Labor paper was moved to protest that Empire Day was probably the most sinister of the capitalist system’s rituals because of the role it played in inculcating class propaganda in the minds of impressionable children.99 In one example, a parent related the story of a student who had been asked the definition of an island, to which the child had dutifully replied ‘a piece of land surrounded by Great

European societies that they studied. R. Erikson and J. H. Goldthorpe, The Constant Flux: A Study of Class Mobility in Industrial Societies, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1992, p. 308-337. 97 A. Thomson, ‘A Past You Can Live With: Digger Memories and the Anzac Legend’, Oral History Association of Australia Journal, no. 13, 1991, p. 17. 98 Reveille, 8 August 1927. 99 Barrier Daily Truth, 26 May 1927.

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Britain’. The parent approvingly remarked that, in Australia’s case, this was true.100 The following year, the RSL initiated an essay competition on the meaning of Anzac Day for local school children, so that later generations would not treat that special day ‘as a regular holiday’. Instead, they would not fail to recognise ‘the day on which Australia took her place among the nations of the world’.101

The RSL and racism

One of the most important tools used in RSL attempts to promote national unity was racism. If many ex-servicemen treated RSL claims of a classless bond between returned soldiers with some scepticism, there was no doubt that the AIF was predominantly white.102 One of the early objects of the League was ‘to perpetuate in the civil life of the nation the principles for which we have fought’,103 and this object frequently found its expression in a vigorous defence of the White Australia policy, often cited as one of the primary motives for enlistment. One early resolution from the Western Australian branch of the RSL insisted upon continued Federal Government vigilance over prospective immigrants, insisting that those soldiers who had been killed in World War One had forfeited their lives to keep Australia ‘white’. The motion insisted on ‘the retention of the “White Australia” Policy’ and ‘emphatically’ protested:

against any suggested amendments of our Commonwealth Immigration Restriction Act so vitally necessary for the future welfare of Australia. Remembering that over fifty thousand of our comrades have voluntarily made the supreme sacrifice for their country’s liberty and race purity.104

Against the claims of some anti-conscriptionists that the war had threatened to weaken the White Australia policy, the RSL promoted the achievements of the AIF as

100 Barrier Daily Truth, 25 May 1927. 101 Barrier Daily Truth, 18 April 1928. 102 For a brief discussion of Aboriginal servicemen in World War One, see R. A. Hall, The Black Diggers, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1997, pp. 1-7. 103 Rules and Objects of the RSSILA, Department of Repatriation file, dated 12 November 1917, NAA: A2483, B18/1267. 104 Letter, Western Australian branch of the RSL to Acting PM, dated 12 March 1919, NAA: A1/15, 1919/4097.

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integral to the maintenance of the Empire, democracy and the ‘Australian way of life’. In its view, the arrival of southern Europeans in Australia in the 1920s was a betrayal of those ideals. Every year, at both State and Federal level, the RSL passed motions to limit or end southern European immigration, to enforce more strict language tests and to scaremonger about the social dangers of non-British immigration. Typical of these motions was one passed at the League’s 12th Annual Federal Congress, which read:

Congress views with alarm the influx of Southern Europeans and considers that an undue proportion of such migrants creates unemployment amongst Australians; tends to lower the standard of Australian living conditions and to weaken the ties of Empire. Therefore, it affirms the desirability of the Commonwealth being populated with British stock; furthermore, it requests the Federal Government either to considerably reduce the present influx, or better still, to suspend it entirely.105

That the RSL saw itself as an agent of such ideology is evidenced by the keen interest the leadership took in the promotion of nationalism and Empire loyalty in any possible arena. At the same Congress, it was resolved:

that the League should take the lead in and co-operate with all other bodies which aim at promoting the circulation of existing British films and which stand for the encouragement of the production of new films which show the history, the tradition and the industries of the British Empire to advantage.106

During the 1922 Federal election campaign, The Digger ran advertisements for the Liberal and National Party candidates, but no Labor election notices were allowed to grace its pages. Both Liberal and National candidates placed commitment to the White Australia policy at the top of their programmes, claiming that they, unlike Labor, were its only faithful guardians. Indeed, the National Party urged voters to ‘Vote National and avoid the Liberal bleat for a piebald population’.107 For their part, the Liberals urged a

105 Resolution sent to Prime Minister’s Dept, 6th December, 1927, RSL Collection, MS 6609, item 3622B, National Library of Australia. 106 Reveille, 21 January 1928. 107 The Digger, 24 November 1922.

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vote for a more modest platform – simply to ‘smash the Labor extremists’.108 Major G. D. Treloar, who acted as a voluntary speaker for the Nationalists in the 1927 NSW State Election, reported that he had faced considerable opposition from the Left because he was a returned soldier. His response was to try to drive a wedge between his working class opponents and their more left-wing political affiliations on the basis of racism. He was quoted as saying:

it seems a very strange thing that so many people are prepared to be friends of foreigners and enemies of their own kith and kin. Men who preach class consciousness here are creating a spirit which if allowed to grow will mean the death of patriotism and all the people’s finer feelings towards their country.109

Such an outburst was in complete accordance with the RSL policy. From the earliest RSL Congresses, a delegate would move a motion, always unanimously passed, expressing ‘unswerving adherence to the White Australia principle’ and opposition to southern European immigration, accompanied by the usual demands for government action to halt the detested ‘influx’.110 By 1931, this position was no less strident. At the Federal Congress that year, a resolution was passed to protest ‘against employment of foreign labour to the exclusion of Australian and British workmen’.111 So numerous were these missives that an irritated tone can be discerned in many of the government replies to these resolutions, as various bureaucrats assured the League that stringent immigration checks were in place. Also in 1931, the League advised the Department of Home Affairs that it intended to propose a resolution at its forthcoming Federal Congress that aliens convicted of criminal offences should be deported, along with all southern Europeans who were not naturalised. The government’s reply attempted to reassure the League that there was ‘no laxity’ in dealing with the deportation of

108 The Digger, 8 December 1922. 109 SMH, 14 October 1927. Such views fully accorded with Treloar’s subsequent leadership role in the indomitably anti-Labor New Guard. See Moore, The Secret Army and the Premier, pp. 144, 148. 110 Report on 7th Annual Congress of the RSL, Department of Repatriation correspondence file, NAA: A2487, 1922/11616. 111 Reveille, 30 November 1931.

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convicted criminals and rejected the proposal to deport unnaturalised southern Europeans as ‘unreasonable’.112

It might be argued that RSL opposition to southern European immigration was a point of disagreement between the RSL on one hand and the Nationalist Government and the employers on the other. However, all three groups were dominated by pro- White Australia politics, but had different views on how it should operate. The Federal Government and rural and mine employers were tempted to refine the tenets of White Australia because of the tantalising prospect of an increased supply of unorganised workers at the right price. As the following case studies suggest, the RSL’s opposition to the arrival of migrants for ‘the mines or the bush’ encouraged a hostile welcome for such workers, without ever seriously threatening their continued arrival. The RSL propagandised about non-British immigration among its working class members because it was one of the few ways to feign concern about working class living standards without supporting campaigns for higher wages. As a result, its propaganda was a welcome corollary to employer hopes that the migrants remain non-unionised, by encouraging local workers to identify migrant workers as the principal source of workplace problems.

Conclusion

Far from being shaped from below, the RSL was sponsored by the ruling class, led by the ruling class and furthered the interests of the ruling class. While its public role was to promote the well-being of returned soldiers, its true purpose was to garner a small, but loyal, section of an otherwise fractious AIF for continued service to the nation and to deflect returned soldiers away from militant labour activities. As a cross-class organisation, RSL officials, many of them drawn from the Protestant, middle and upper class AIF officer stratum, played an important role in manufacturing conservative ideology and attempted, through working class League members, to influence the labour

112 Letter, Department of Home Affairs to Federal RSL, RSL collection, MS 6609, item 5756B, National Library of Australia.

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movement from which they were otherwise politically, industrially and socially removed. As a result, conservative working class soldiers were groomed for the tasks of union-busting, right-wing electioneering and migrant scapegoating.

117 CHAPTER FOUR

Kalgoolie in Context

Rather rowdy, Dingy, clowdy, Dusty, dirty, dim and dowdy, Thirsty throats to mock. Can’t mistake her, Good drought slaker, Six pubs to the bloomin’ acre, That’s the Boulder Block. Casey & Mayman, The Mile that Midas Touched

Introduction

Australia’s Western Third by Frank Crowley and Geoffrey Bolton’s A Fine Country to Starve In are prominent works on Western Australia’s history and include large sections on the interwar period.1 Until relatively recently, their view that Western Australian society was characterised by conservatism was widely accepted. From 1990 onwards, however, studies which challenge that thesis have been growing in number; these accounts instead portray interwar Western Australian society as one of ‘both consensus and conflict’.2 Historians such as Jenny Gregory and Bobbie Oliver have argued that the conservative element of ‘Australia’s western third’ has been grossly exaggerated.3 Consequently, a great deal of invaluable work has been done to bring into sharper relief the myriad oppositional currents that developed in the interwar period.

1 F. Crowley, Australia’s Western Third, Macmillan, London, 1960; G. Bolton, A Fine Country to Starve In, University of Western Australia Press, Churchlands, 1994. 2 J. Gregory, ‘Western Australia Between the Wars: The Consensus Myth’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 11, June 1990, p. 1. Chapter Four Kalgoorlie in Context

Published in 1960, Frank Crowley’s work painted Western Australia in the classic mould of a frontier society gradually taking on the trappings of ‘civilised’ society.4 In his view:

Pastoralist and pearler, farmer and miner, employer and factory hand, politician and churchman – all had every right to experience an overwhelming feeling of achievement and optimism as the State entered into the third decade of its history in the twentieth century.5

Crowley portrayed the Western Australian working class as wholly supportive of social and industrial changes. His view was that successive governments bestowed benign legislation on the working class for its own good. Ignoring the fierce, five-week lumpers’ strike of 1899 that provided the political context for State intervention into industrial relations and which almost resulted in the picket line homicide of the Acting Premier, Crowley portrayed the rushed introduction of arbitration thus:

This method of governing labour relations was one of the great social gains of the boom years, and it is significant that it was the gift of a non-Labour Government to a trade-union movement which had not had a hard struggle either for official recognition or for legislative controls to curb the excesses of private enterprise.6

Geoffrey Bolton made similar attempts to portray Western Australian society as characterised by seamless acquiescence. Yet, even his own accounts of unemployed protests, spurred on, as Bolton would have it, by Communist troublemakers and eastern states’ radicals, showed that the unemployed were fighting against a State Government ruthlessly prepared to bludgeon protesters in order to quell criticism. Ludicrously, Bolton claimed that baton usage against demonstrators was evidence of the police’s intention to

3 B. Oliver, War and Peace in Western Australia: The Social and Political Impact of the Great War 1914- 1926, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1995. 4 For a critique of the work of Crowley and others, see G. C. Bolton, ‘Western Australia Reflects on its Past’ in C. T. Stannage (ed), A New History of Western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1981, pp. 676-691. 5 Crowley, Australia’s Western Third, p. 198. 6 Ibid., p. 142.

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‘incapacitate with a minimum of harmful violence’.7 In the introduction to a new edition of his book released some twenty years after its first publication, Bolton stood by many of his initial assertions. Western Australia was, he argued, a convincing example of Gramsci’s concept of hegemony: ‘the techniques by which the ruling classes maintain a hold over public opinion by presenting a mythology or upholding a tradition which the majority of people can be brought to accept and even internalise as their own’.8 While it does seem that the Western Australian ruling class was particularly successful in promoting a sense of accord, Gramsci did not suggest that lack of overt struggle indicated a widespead acceptance of ruling class ideas and aspirations. In other words, hegemony could be powerful, but never absolute.

Oliver has argued that Western Australia was no more conservative than other parts of Australia and that historians such as Crowley, Bolton and the stalwarts of the Western Australian Historical Society have painted a false picture of the class struggle in the West.9 However, while the ‘new histories’ are certainly more compelling than those supporting the ‘consensus thesis’, it might be argued that the pendulum has swung a little too far in the opposite direction. It might now be pertinent to question whether conservatives in Western Australia were perhaps more successful in overcoming challenges from below than were their counterparts in other States. It is surely not mere flippancy to suggest that even the longevity of the consensus thesis speaks, a little, for itself and that it might now be time to argue over questions of dialectics and degree. While the respective roles of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and the Labor Left are an essential component of any convincing explanation, an assessment of their relative strength and influence against that of their conservative opponents is also required to understand the degree to which class struggle ruffled Australia’s ‘western third’.

7 Bolton, A Fine Country to Starve In, p. 156. 8 Ibid., p. xviii. 9 Oliver, War and Peace, pp. 16-7.

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The history of the twin cities of Kalgoorlie and Boulder is integrally linked to the trends evident in Western Australian history more generally. Therefore, any study of racism in the area must account for the wider political and ideological background that has influenced local events. Developments on the goldfields provide a valuable opportunity to focus on racism in a local context, Kalgoorlie and Boulder having been the site of three separate instances of race rioting – in 1916, 1919 and 1934. In order to understand how such a series of riots might eventuate, the economic, political, industrial and social context of the locality will be described as a foundation upon which to mount the case study material that follows in Chapter Five. To this end, this chapter will outline the activities of four groups that had a major influence on race relations on the ‘Golden Mile’ – the Chamber of Mines, the predominant employer organisation; the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU), the largest union of goldfields workers and its political counterpart, the Australian Labor Party (ALP); the local organisation of the Communist Party of Australia; and the local sub-branch of the RSL. While not the only groups that might be considered, these four were selected on the basis that they had a significant influence on the industrial life of the town. This necessary concentration does mean, however, that the activities of local churches and schools, while also important in race relations, are mentioned only in a peripheral manner.

Capital meets labour

Kalgoorlie, and nearby Boulder, mushroomed into one of the most renowned goldmining areas in the world during the 1890s. Like any town built in the middle of a desert, migration formed a vital part of its history. Thousands of people travelled massive distances from other parts of Australia and, indeed, the globe to reach the ‘Golden Mile’. Investment capital, primarily from Britain, was raised in its millions and speculative ventures abounded.10 However, the ‘Champagne Charlies’, as Casey and Mayman called them, were soon overtaken by more consolidated forms of capital and by approximately 1910,

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Kalgoorlie had become a predominantly ‘wages town’.11 Conditions on the mines and in surrounding areas were extremely unhealthy; deadly accidents and diseases were commonplace. The local cemetery, established in Kalgoorlie in 1894, provides a graphic illustration of this – five years after its opening, it contained 1,200 graves.12

Many of the earliest miners to arrive in Kalgoorlie came from Victoria and brought with them strong convictions about the rights of the alluvial miner. It was these traditions that helped to spark ‘miners’ rights’ disputes on the Golden Mile and galvanised moves toward trade unionism in the mid-1890s.13 In 1896, Kalgoorlie miners joined with ‘diggers’ from other fields to form the Amalgamated Miners’ Association, using rules adopted from its Broken Hill counterpart. Approximately thirty unions were formed on the goldfields by 1899.14 As in other industries, the formation of mining trade unions led to closer organisation of mining employers. It was also in the mid 1890s that mine managers formed the local Chamber of Mines, which became the dominant employer voice on the goldfields.15 In 1917, the Kalgoorlie miners became part of the Mining Section of the Western Australian branch of the Australian Workers’ Union, an arrangement that would have secretly pleased the Chamber of Mines.16 To them, a union that openly supported arbitration, non-militancy, parliamentary reform and, importantly, open hostility towards the IWW syndicalism that was winning a significant number of adherents at the time, was a welcome development towards peaceful industrial relations. In Boylson’s view, the

10 See R. T. Appleyard and M. Davies, ‘Financiers of Western Australia’s Goldfields’ in R. T. Appleyard and C. B Schedvin (eds), Australian Financiers: Biographical Essays, Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1988, p. 163. 11 G. Casey and T. Mayman, The Mile that Midas Touched, Rigby, Adelaide, 1964, pp. 94, 135. 12 Ibid., p. 51. 13 See M. Webb, ‘John Forrest and the Western Australian Goldrushes’, Early Days, vol. 10, no. 5, 1993, pp. 483-6; I. H. Vanden Driesen, ‘The Evolution of the Trade Union Movement in Western Australia’ in C. T. Stannage (ed), A New History of Western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1981, p. 368. 14 L. B. McIntyre, Trade Unionism and Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration – W.A., 1900-1914, unpublished MA thesis, University of Western Australia, 1972, p. 25. 15 See A. Porter, ‘Richard Hamilton and the East Coolgardie Gold Mining Industry 1896-1927’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 5, December 1982, p. 1. 16 Casey and Mayman, The Mile that Midas Touched, p. 97; M. Hearn and H. Knowles, One Big Union: A History of the Australian Workers Union 1886-1994, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1996, p. 157.

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Kalgoorlie mines’ subsequent industrial record was ‘impressive’ because open conflict was rare. As he continued:

While this does not necessarily mean an absence of other forms of industrial unrest, it does indicate that good workable labour-management relations [were] established over the years. The view is supported by representatives of both parties. When compared with the industrial record of other Australian mining and metal mining industries, the absence of persistent open conflict seems more than mere coincidence.17

As Chapter Five will illustrate, Boylson’s bright depiction of industrial relations in Kalgoorlie dramatically understated the tensions evident within the mining industry in the interwar period. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the town’s industrial history was deeply affected by developments in other parts of the state, with the conservative nature of labour movement organisation in Western Australia, in particular, acting as a wet blanket on militancy.

The Western Australian ‘wet blanket’

For many of the years under consideration in this study, Western Australia had a Labor government in the Lower House.18 Frank Crowley reiterated the widely-held view that being unable to have a majority in the Legislative Council did not unduly bother Labor-controlled Assemblies.19 Often legislation that had been drafted as pragmatic attempts to appease Labor’s more radical supporters could be safely sent to the Upper House without the slightest risk of being passed. Pervan stated that the constant rejection of Government bills by the Legislative Council ‘was not entirely unwelcome’ and that Labor politicians preferred the Council to take the blame if popular legislation failed to pass through both Houses. Despite vociferous criticism from Labor supporters of the restrictive role played by

17 B. J. Boylson, Industrial Relations in the Western Australian Gold Mining Industry, unpublished B.Ec (Hons) thesis, University of Western Australia, 1967, p. iii.

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the Council, as far as the Labor government was concerned, ‘the action taken with regard to the Legislative Council was at all times cautious and moderate’.20

The industrial and political wings of the labour movement were combined into the Australian Labor Federation (ALF). At the 1902 Congress of the Political Labor Party, it was resolved that ‘every union in each electoral division [would become] a branch of the Party’.21 This meant that trade union branches became branches of the ALF and a worker who took out membership of a trade union automatically became a member of the Political Labor Party as well. Headed by a General Council, the ALF was set up with a State Executive and ten District Councils of union affiliates, of which the goldfields organisation was one of the most influential. While McIntyre argued that unity between political and industrial demands guaranteed that the Party remained in union hands, others, like Pervan, were certain that the AWU, the ALF’s largest affiliate, was always dominated by concern for the electoral fortunes of the Labor Party and was industrially hamstrung as a result.22 Pervan and Mitchell argued that Labor in Western Australia was conservative from the outset and was determined to promote ‘community concerns’ above labour movement ‘sectionalism’. As compelling evidence of this trend, they recounted the actions of Labor parliamentarians in 1901, who condemned the wage demands of striking railway employees, claims that even the Minister for Railways had conceded were fair.23

Although political nepotism was not a uniquely Western Australian phenomenon, the relationship between the political and industrial wings of the Western Australian labour movement was uncommonly close. Two thirds of the eighteen Cabinet ministers who held

18 The Scaddan ministry held power from 1911 to 1916. With Phillip Collier as Premier, Labor was in office from 1924 to 1930 and from 1933 to 1947. 19 A prohibitive property qualification thwarted the aspirations of many Labor politicians to enter these lofty ranks. Crowley, Australia’s Western Third, p. 230. 20 R. F. Pervan, The Western Australian Labor Movement, 1933-47, unpublished MA thesis, University of Western Australia, 1966, pp. 105-7 and ‘Leadership Influence on the Nature of the Political Party: The Case of the W.A. Branch of the A.L.P. in the ‘Thirties”, Labour History, no. 19, 1970. 21 McIntyre, Trade Unionism and Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration, p. 79. 22 Pervan, Western Australian Labor Movement, p. 2. 23 R. Pervan and D. Mitchell, ‘The Changing Nature of the Australian Labor Party’ in R. Pervan and C. Sharman (eds), Essays on Western Australian Politics, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1979, p. 130.

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office in Labor Governments between the Depression and the aftermath of the Second World War maintained formal links with the AWU.24 At the 1935 Labor Party General Council meeting, this single union commanded more than one fifth of the total number of votes.25 Pervan calculated that:

[i]n the period between the 1932 and 1935 General Councils, AWU membership almost trebled, while overall union membership rose only by 30%, that is, the union’s voting strength rose from 37 votes out of a total of 389 at the 1932 conference to 100 votes out of 490 at the 1935 conference.26

The road from union hierarchy to political office was exceptionally well-trodden in Western Australia, especially by ex-AWU officials. John Curtin, who progressed from a job as an AWU official in Victoria to the editorship of the Westralian Worker, was perhaps the most prominent example of this phenomenon. His work with the union movement eventually led to a place on the ALP State Executive27 and, in due course, to the Prime Ministership.28

The Westralian Worker was the principal newspaper of the Western Australian labour movement. It first hit the streets in 1900 and was financed and controlled by the AWU. More often than not, the Westralian Worker was a forthright advocate of the White Australia policy and, when war broke out, the paper came down firmly on the side of Australia’s involvement, vehemently promoting conscription and anti-German hysteria. When the Prime Minister, W. M. Hughes, made an appeal for 50,000 volunteers for the war effort, its Editor proudly published the Prime Minister’s ‘Call to Arms’.29 However, the executive of the Westralian Worker was predominantly anti-conscription – they moved to sack the pro-conscriptionist editor, J. Hilton, and replace him with a like-minded opponent of conscription, namely John Curtin. Curtin took up the role in early 1917, further

24 Pervan, Western Australian Labor Movement, p. 13. 25 Ibid., p. 115. 26 Ibid., p. 123. 27 The ALF was renamed the ALP in 1919. 28 Hearn and Knowles, One Big Union, p. 141. See also D. Day, John Curtin: a life, HarperCollins, Pymble, 2000, pp. 212-252.

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cementing a personal rightward political shift that had begun with his appointment to the secretaryship of the Timber Workers’ Union in 1911. Although nowhere near as bigoted as his predecessor, Curtin, the former internationalist, promoted the racist justification for anti- conscription, claiming that conscription would herald the importation of cheap, foreign labour and jeopardise Australia’s defence interests.30 A few years after Curtin’s departure to Canberra, his replacement described the White Australia policy as an expression of a ‘noble national ideal’.31 Certainly, Australian nationalists were not challenged by Curtin’s presence in Western Australia. On the eve of Anzac Day in 1925, Curtin published an editorial that would not have seemed out of place in a returned soldier magazine. He wrote:

Tomorrow we will commemorate that day in 1915 on which our soldier representatives blazoned forth the fact that another nation had arrived at the stage when it was prepared to take a militant part in the affairs of nations … reverential pride must predominate … it is a fact that the manhood of this island continent generously responded and played their parts nobly, risking everything for what they considered was duty’s call.32

Many non-British migrants to Western Australia suffered the full brunt of state- regulated racism during World War One. Oliver commented on two studies that revealed a proportionally higher number of ‘enemy subjects’ interned in Western Australia, with particular mention made of the ‘mass internment of Austrian Slavs from the goldfields’. She concluded that, in comparison to other State governments, the Western Australian Government had been ‘particularly zealous’ in the administration of its internment powers.33 After the war, Western Australian governments on both sides of the political fence promoted immigration as essential for the State’s development.34 During the 1920s, a significant level of southern European immigration was permitted. However, as economic

29 Westralian Worker, 24 December 1915. See also L. F. Fitzhardinge, The Little Digger 1914-1952: A Political Biography of William Morris Hughes, vol. 2, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1979, p. 59. 30 Day, John Curtin: a life, pp. 243-4. 31 Westralian Worker, 10 February 1933. 32 Westralian Worker, 24 April 1925. 33 B. Oliver, ‘‘All-British’ or ‘Anti-German’? A Portrait of a Western Australian Pressure Group during World War I’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 7, April 1991, p. 30. 34 D. Black, ‘The Era of Labor Ascendancy 1924-1947’ in C. T. Stannage (ed), A New History of Western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1981, pp. 410-11.

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recession began to bite in 1927, Premier Collier lobbied the Federal Government for greater restrictions on immigration.35 As unemployment rose, Labor in government was anxious to institute such measures as a placebo to deflect anger onto migrants for the problems caused by the economic contraction.36 As an example of government scape-goating, more than three hundred unnaturalised Yugoslavs and Italians, many of whom were owed wages by bankrupt farmers, were refused welfare by the State in 1931. When some local and overseas-born workers pledged to fight together for improved rations at a mass meeting, their protests were met with harsh action by mounted police who ‘restored order’.37

With such official endorsement of racism from politicians and labour movement leaders, it is not hard to imagine why some workers believed that migrants per se were the source of their problems. In Kalgoorlie, the ‘official’ racism of both Labor and conservative politicians was reflected in frequent claims that southern Europeans were disrespectful to women, scabbed on the job, caused mine accidents, lived in filthy conditions and sent all their earnings out of the country. However, at this grassroots level, the logic of racist ideology faced a number of contradictions. On the one hand, the claims of labour movement officials that migrants took jobs might have seemed commonsensical to many workers in the face of relentless job competition. On the other hand, both Britisher and southern European workers were obliged to congregate in workplaces and union meetings, simultaneously facing daily struggles against their employers. Such circumstances made possible the realisation that migrants were a substantial part of the mining workforce and that organising them into a union was essential for the maintenance of industrial muscle.

35 See Collier letters to Home and Territories Department, Correspondence File, ‘Alien Immigration to Western Australia’, NAA: A1/15, 1927/15940. 36 Bolton, A Fine Country to Starve In, p. 59. 37 Workers’ Weekly, 19 June 1931.

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‘Golden Mile’ Industrial Relations: the AWU, the CPA and the Chamber of Mines

The AWU, and particularly its Mining Division, was the most influential trade union on the goldfields. In Western Australia, the union was organised in a similar fashion to its counterparts in other states; AWU officials cynically espoused the rhetoric but not the ideals of the ‘One Big Union’, in order to make their organisation simply big.38 Arbitration and amalgamations were the preferred modus operandi by which the AWU gradually encompassed a large membership based primarily in rural industries, mining and railroads.39 By the early 1920s, the union administered fourteen awards in Western Australia and further growth seemed inevitable.40 Hearn and Knowles estimated that the union represented six thousand mine workers on the Western Australian goldfields in the mid- 1930s.41 While this figure represented a significant level of union organisation, it must be set against the immense resurgence of gold mining during the 1930s and a sharp rise in the size of the workforce to 16,174 men by 1936.42 As Boylson explained:

the Eastern Goldfields District Council was less effective during the ‘thirties than it had been. Vast numbers of workers were non-unionists, several groups of workers were unorganised and some unions, such as the Kalgoorlie Engine Drivers, had disaffiliated from the [P]arty. Part of the apathy stemmed from the overwhelming strength of the AWU which absolutely dominated the Council.43

The principal industrial opponent of the AWU on the goldfields was the Chamber of Mines, an organisation that represented mine management and shareholders by promoting any policy that would increase mine profits.44 In Kalgoorlie, the AWU leadership occupied a contradictory position between the Chamber of Mines and its own membership. Although it

38 See, for example, ‘Rise of the A.W.U.’, speech to members by E. Grayndler, general secretary of the AWU, reprinted in Westralian Worker, 24 December 1915. 39 See W. G. Spence, History of the A.W.U., The Worker Trustees, Sydney, 1961 (first published 1911). 40 Hearn and Knowles, One Big Union, p. 147. 41 Ibid., p. 179. 42 B. J. Boylson, Industrial Relations in the Western Australian Gold Mining Industry, pp. 14-5. 43 Ibid., pp. 14-5. 44 See R. Hartley, ‘Bewick Moreing in Western Australian Gold Mining 1897-1904: Management Policies and Goldfields Responses’, Labour History, no. 65, 1993.

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sought peaceful and bureaucratic negotiations with management, it also sought to build a union in an industry where management denied any concessions, using every possible means to reduce wages and conditions and to weaken trade unionism. The union had been unable to resist the Chamber of Mines’ push towards greater employment competition on the mines, and widespread blaming of migrants for lack of jobs and poor conditions either went unchallenged or became a convenient scapegoating exercise. In 1916, Broken Hill union official, George Kerr, visited the goldfields to raise money for the Broken Hill hours dispute. Kerr praised the local unionists but wrote that their officials were ‘a lot of rotters’.45 He felt that they had ‘one eye on Parliament, both hands flapping a flag, and both feet on militant unionism’.46 However, Kerr saved his greatest censure for a recent decision made by the goldfields miners not to work with enemy subjects, remarking on how much the employers must be enjoying the industrial division among the mine workforce and its effect on union strength.

Under pressure from investors to maintain massive dividends, the Chamber of Mines consistently ‘cried poor’ and resisted demands for wage increases and improvements to facilities. Little consideration was given to further investment in technology to improve yields and lengthen the life of the fields. However, after stinging criticism of industry management by two government inquiries in 1925 and 1927,47 some mine managers implemented changes to improve productivity. The subsequent re-organisation of gold production incorporated the use of more efficient technology and a greater concentration of capital. In 1930, these efficiencies received practical encouragement from the Scullin Federal Government, with its agreement to pay a gold bounty of one pound per ounce in order to guarantee as much production as possible, as the gold was urgently required to meet overseas loan obligations. The rate of the bounty was halved in July 1931 and then suspended in September 1932, but it had been sufficient to revitalise the flagging industry.

45 Kerr’s letter to a friend was published in Barrier Daily Truth and, as a result, came to the attention of the goldfields labour movement. 46 Kalgoorlie Miner, 11 March 1916.

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The price of gold doubled between 1930 and 1934 and production reached its peak in 1939.48 While the rest of Australia was deeply mired in economic depression, the Kalgoorlie mines boomed.

The most divisive management tactic introduced on the mines was tributing, which saw some miners performing waged labour on award rates, others were paid contract rates, and others became tributers who sub-leased sections of the mine and paid the mine management a percentage of all ore extracted. During World War One, tribute mining was instituted on the goldfields as costs rose and labour shortages became acute. Miners competed to lease the most profitable sections of mines, resulting in a deeply divisive employment relationship. Payment rates were altered arbitrarily and daily hire became endemic.49 Tribute miners felt that the mine managements, because they controlled the treatment of ore and the price that was charged for this service, were not paying the tributers a fair return for their labour. In response, the companies pursued a ‘freedom of contract’ line, arguing that local unemployment rates meant that tributers should accept the conditions on offer as there were plenty of others waiting for a similar chance.50 Despite management’s rudimentary endeavours to restructure labour relations, the 1920s have not been viewed as a propitious time for mining on the ‘Golden Mile’. One company history claimed that a ‘black depression hung over the mines’ in this period.51 However, during the early 1930s, a sharp rise in the gold price and new gold treatment techniques encouraged management to phase out tribute mining.52 While mining profits soared, this era was not

47 Report of the Royal Commission on the Mining Industry, Minutes and Votes and Proceedings of the Parliament, vol. 1, paper 3, 1925; Western Australian Development and Migration Commission, Interim Report Relating to the Gold Mining Industry of W.A., Government Printer, Melbourne, 1927. 48 For example, the Perseverance mine dividend rose to 25 per cent in 1936 and then rose further to 40 per cent. The North Kalgurli mine paid a dividend of 62.5 per cent in 1935, 100 per cent in 1937. G. Blainey, The Golden Mile, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1993, pp. 134-139. The ‘Kalgurli’ spelling derives from a different English spelling of an Aboriginal name for a wild pear that grew in the region. 49 P. Bertola, ‘Tributers and Gold Mining in Boulder, 1918-1934’, Labour History, no. 65, 1993. 50 Ibid., p. 60. 51 Fifty Historical Years 1910-1960, Lake View and Star, Limited, London, 1960, p. 4. 52 Bertola pointed out that by 1930 tributers on the two largest leases in Boulder produced 40% of the gold mined on the entire East Coolgardie Gold Field. P. Bertola, ‘Tributers and Gold Mining’, p. 54. Layman noted that one tributer float in the 1911 Eight Hour Day procession proclaimed contract miners as the ‘Salvation of

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described favourably by miners. Much of the relevant oral history records high unemployment, low wages, few facilities and an extremely onerous, dangerous working environment. In Kalgoorlie alone, with a population of 6,815, the 1933 male unemployment stood at 16.7 per cent while the female rate was 11.8 per cent.53

From the earliest days, management had attempted to sow racial division within the goldfields workforce. For example, future American President, Herbert Hoover, the then trend-setting manager of the Bewick Moreing-owned Sons of Gwalia mine, situated north of Kalgoorlie, began to import Italian miners at the turn of the century and threatened the newly unionised workforce that many more Italians would come if new work arrangements were not accepted. Nash quoted Hoover thus: ‘We are introducing several Italians, who are in every way superior workers to the men formerly employed.’54 Hoover’s determination to increase the efficiency of the Bewick Moreing workforce was not accompanied by mere idle threat. McCarty stated that he ‘sacked up to 30% of the workers in some mines’.55 Colin Turnbull recalled the ‘divide and rule’ tactics of the mine managers and the local newspaper when Bewick Moreing controlled the Sons of Gwalia mine. He maintained that the Gwalia Post Office had a State record for overseas remittances and that these figures were published in the newspaper from time to time, serving to inflame ill-feeling between Britishers and the predominantly Italian workforce. He also recalled that management defended its decision to hire Italians ‘because Italians were the only ones prepared to do this sort of work, this underground work, which was very rough and rugged and pretty awful conditions’.56 In 1909, Hoover published some lectures he had composed on the principles of sound mine management. These provide significant insights into the views he developed

the Goldfields’. L. Layman, ‘Labour’s Annual Holiday: Eastern Goldfields Eight Hours Demonstrations, 1900- 1914’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 10, April 1989, p. 99. 53 P. Spearritt, ‘Depression Statistics’ in J. Mackinolty (ed.), The Wasted Years? Australia's Great Depression, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1981, p. 211. 54 G. N. Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, the Engineer, 1874-1914, W. W. Norton & Co, New York, 1983, p. 72. 55 J. W. McCarty, ‘British Investment in Western Australian Gold Mining, 1894-1914’, University Studies in History, vol. 4, no. 1, 1961-2, p. 21. 56 Interview with Colin Turnbull, conducted by Michael Adams between December 1980 and May 1982. Transcript held in the J. S. Battye Library, Perth, reference no. OH406, pp. 304-5.

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while working at the Sons of Gwalia mine and attest to his belief in the notion of a racial hierarchy. On the subject of labour hire, he argued that white labour was the most profitable, while ‘Negroes’ and Asians were useful for unskilled labour, as evidenced by ‘the breaking-in of savages of low average mentality, like the South African Kaffirs’.57 However, non-white workers were unable to master complex machinery and required high levels of direct supervision. White workers, in contrast, were able to apply improved technology and were, hence, more profitable per ton extracted. His only qualification to this claim was the chilling observation that ‘in white-manned groups, the stopes are supported, while in the others no support is required’.58

With such views prevalent among influential ‘opinion-makers’, it is hardly surprising that ideas of white superiority achieved a certain dominance in the thinking of many ordinary people. In Kalgoorlie, the most common slur on migrant miners in the period under review was the accusation that they routinely bribed the shift bosses to obtain work.59 In 1934, when race rioting broke out, this pre-existing prejudice converged with the sharp contraction of the tributing system and the restructuring of employment relationships by the mine managers which had been taking place since 1931. While the AWU failed to take up the questions of racism and the alleged ‘slingbacks’, its inaction served the interests of the Chamber of Mines inasmuch as blaming foreigners shifted attention from the competitive labour situation in the mines, marginalising attention to this fundamental corruption of the employment contract. Indeed, the belief that foreigners were getting preference was indirectly fuelled by members of the Chamber of Mines. During World War One, the mine managers had continually complained about labour shortages, claiming that they were forced to employ foreigners because Britisher miners were unwilling to do the work. The Westralian Worker pointed out that Britishers would only refuse certain types of

57 H. Hoover, Principles of Mining, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1909, p. 162. 58 Ibid., p. 164. ‘Stopes’ result from the step-like excavation of ore from vertical or inclined veins. Supported stopes were those that were ‘timbered’ in order to offer workers minimal protection from falling rocks etc. However, as Asian and black workers were clearly expendable in Hoover’s view, they required no such protection. 59 See, for example, C. Gamba, The Italian Immigration to Western Australia, unpublished MA thesis, University of Western Australia, 1949, pp. 28-32.

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work if they were dangerous or unhealthy. Rhetorically, the paper asked, ‘do the managers wish to infer that they take advantage of the ignorance of the foreigner to get him to undertake what better informed and more experienced men refuse to do?’60 Ignoring this point, the Chamber of Mines made specific reference to the undesirability of Britisher miners who would work only one shift and then fail to report for work the next morning. They also claimed that they could not be expected to employ workers who had been classed by the mine managers as ‘undesirables’. It was alleged that these men would not ‘do a fair day’s work’ or ‘work more than a shift or two in between drinking spells’. If this was the only type of Britisher labour available, argued the mine managers, ‘it is not surprising that foreigners who are both able and willing to undertake the necessary work should be engaged’.61 They made it abundantly clear that the foreign-born miner was an example that Britisher miners would do well to emulate. By selecting a labour force that they hoped would be hard-working and uninfected by trade unionism, the mine managers were adopting a familiar ‘divide and rule’ policy.62 Ante Ravlich related this story of his involvement with a Kalgoorlie foreman, which suggests that mine managers avoided stipulations that underground workers be able to speak and understand English in order to build a contingent workforce, but had little regard for the welfare of the migrant workers they employed. Ravlich said:

I can’t get a job, can’t talk. I go to ask [foreman] for job. Manager come up and say, ‘I [would] give you job, but you can’t talk.’ I say, ‘plenty of Yugoslav here working, no talk at all.’ He say, ‘You’re right. I put you with Yugoslav on the mine, if you like. If the inspector come here to see that you talk, if he put you off, I put you off the mine for a day or two ... Then’, he says, ‘I put you [on] again.’ He do that, too. He put me off.63

From 1917 onwards, the Kalgoorlie union movement had another industrial opponent to add to the Chamber of Mines. In response to perceived ALP ‘disloyalty’

60 Westralian Worker, 28 January 1916. 61 Westralian Worker, 4 February 1916. 62 P. Bertola, Ethnic Difference in Kalgoorlie 1893-1934, unpublished Honours thesis, Murdoch University, 1978, pp. 26-27.

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during the war, the previously defunct Coolgardie64 branch of the Federated Miners’ Union (FMU), was revived as a Nationalist union. Its organisers intended that the FMU would provide an industrial home for conservative workers and anti-Labor returned soldiers. Their propaganda labelled AWU activists as ‘Bolsheviks’ and ‘foreign agitators’.65 In particular, the ‘new’ union lobbied those workers who were hostile to a levy that had been struck among miners to support the Fremantle lumpers, but it was not able to win high levels of support on the goldfields for its position, even among many returned soldiers. The Chamber of Mines supported the FMU, describing it as a union ‘in which liberty of conscience, and some self-respecting freedom of individual action was possible’.66 In the immediate post- war period, members of this bastion of freedom and liberty were active in opposition to the presence of migrant labour on the mines. While the FMU’s influence faded in the years after the war, it remained a haven for industrial pacifists – even more so than the AWU!

Geoffrey Blainey maintained that, despite falling wages and the hazards associated with working at great depth in dusty mines, the Kalgoorlie workforce was never militant.67 In his view, ‘The strike was a rarity. A communist in Kalgoorlie was as rare as a very wet day.’68 Although he acknowledged that some tributers were forced to organise against the high prices charged by the companies for use of the mine and its equipment, Blainey argued that the reason for a general lack of militancy was the widespread adoption of tribute mining. This, he concluded, encouraged miners to have not dissimilar aims to the mine owners. Some saved enough to purchase farming land in one of the many areas being opened up under government settler schemes. Others invested their ‘high’ earnings in local businesses and no longer saw themselves as workers. The last thing many of these miners

63 Interview with Ante Ravlich, conducted by Ed Stokes on 2 August 1982. Tapes held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 1873, Tape 85. 64 Gold was discovered in Coolgardie in 1892. However, by the turn of the century, the town’s importance had faded as much larger deposits were discovered in Kalgoorlie, 37 kilometres to the west. 65 J. Murray, ‘The Kalgoorlie Woodline Strikes 1919-1920: A Study of Conflict Within the Working Class’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 5, December 1982, p. 25; J. Williams, The First Furrow, Lone Hand Press, Willagee, 1976, p. 78. 66 Chamber of Mines of Western Australia (Incorporated), Monthly Journal, vol. xviii., parts x, xi, xii, 31 December 1919, p. 121. 67 G. Blainey, The Golden Mile, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, 1993. 68 Ibid., p. 119.

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wanted, according to Blainey, was a long strike that would close the mines and dramatically reduce local spending. As he saw it:

[t]he tributer was the equivalent of the proprietor of a corner milk-bar. He was an independent miner who worked hard and took risks and occasionally made good money from veins that the big company had missed.69

However, despite Blainey’s rosy view, conditions in the mining industry did galvanise a small but active branch of the Communist Party in Kalgoorlie. Jack Coleman was, for a time, the Secretary of the East Coolgardie section of the CPA and he estimated that there were sixty members in the section, with approximately half living in Kalgoorlie and Boulder. Although he admitted that some were just ‘book members’,70 he remarked that the CPA had more bona fide members than the ALP, where union membership automatically conferred Party membership.71 Communists were active in goldfields unions and the CPA produced a paper, the Red Star, which argued for a more militant response to the terrible conditions on the mines. When asked to describe the state of the labour movement in Kalgoorlie, Bronc Finlay, a leading Communist Party member, provided evocative descriptions of the Labor politicians and right-wing union officials, saying:

Well, you know how the right-wing worked ... they opposed any improvement in the conditions there. They say that the company can’t afford things like that ... They just point-blank refused to make any stand against the companies paying a bit more and the same applied to the four ALP members for the area. They used to come to the goldfields and come knocking round ... Hannan’s Club. That’s the exclusive club. They used to wine and dine with the managers.72

After the CPA’s District Party Conference which was held during the Christmas break of 1934/35, it was reported that the Party had grown both in membership and organisation,

69 Ibid., p. 108. 70 ‘Book members’ were those who maintained a formal membership, but were not involved in Party activities. 71 Interview with Jack Coleman, conducted by Stuart Reid on 19 September 1988. Transcript held in the J. S. Battye Library, Perth, reference no: OH2062. 72 Interview with Bronc Finlay, conducted by Stuart Reid on 16 November 1988, reference no. OH2071.

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that eighty per cent of those who attended the conference were trade unionists and that members had been involved in a number of strikes throughout the district.73 As the next chapter details, the Communist Party was also an important anti-racist influence during the 1934 race riots.

The Kalgoorlie sub-branch of the RSL

Of all the Australian states, Western Australia sent more men per head of population to fight in World War One and those who remained on the homefront gave majority support for conscription.74 In all, 32,231 men volunteered in Western Australia, almost nineteen per cent of the total male population.75 More than six thousand were killed.76 For Kalgoorlie and surrounding areas, I have been unable to find a reliable enlistment total, but Welborn’s figures suggest that as much as twelve per cent of Western Australia’s recruits enlisted on the goldfields and Oliver cited Ernest Scott’s view that the ‘Western Australian goldfields were outstanding in furnishing recruits’.77 Indeed, one recruitment poster emphasised the importance of the Kalgoorlie ‘contribution’. On a map of Australia, the poster displayed the names of only six places – Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide (all capital cities) and Kalgoorlie.78 While the vast majority of those working class soldiers who returned to Australia were able to rejoin the labour movement, they faced an extremely different industrial environment. Nationalist unions like the FMU mentioned above galvanised a small but significant membership among anti-Labor workers, thereby facilitating an organised political and industrial role for conservative returned service

73 Workers’ Weekly, 25 January 1935. 74 Bolton, A Fine Country to Starve In, p. 11. 75 Introduction, The W. A. Digger Book, compiled by the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League (W. A. Branch), Perth, 1929. 76 West Australian, 27 June 1919. 77 S. Welborn, Lords of Death, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 1982, p. 191; Oliver, War and Peace, p. 32. 78 J. Mordike, ‘The Story of Anzac: A new approach’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, no. 16, April 1990, p. 4.

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personnel. In addition, the ALF and the AWU were temporarily pushed to the left by the threat of the Nationalist unions, creating an intensely polarised political situation.79

Because the RSL membership was initially divided on a range of political questions, the conservative leadership took steps to mould a minority of the more conservative returned soldiers into a ‘loyal’ organisation.80 At an early Western Australian RSL Congress, the State President asserted that division among returned men was ‘unfortunate’. However, leaders like Colonel Lamb had little orientation towards building a strong organisation under the control of a large rank-and-file membership. Instead, RSL leaders aimed to become well-regarded by politicians and employers and to marginalise the claims of rival organisations. As the State President continued, the officials’ main task was to make their organisation ‘the only Returned Soldiers’ Association in Western Australia, and the only association recognised by the Government’.81 Part of this project involved the RSL leadership taking action to isolate those radicals who agitated for more left-wing demands. While some returned soldier activists pushed for the League to lobby on the cost of living, unemployment and repudiation of the national debt, the RSL leadership opposed all motions that smacked of opposition to ‘responsible Government and the safety and security of the Australian people’.82 At a meeting of the left-leaning East Perth branch, a number of anti-Executive resolutions were passed. One asserted that working class issues were ‘left to a small number of fighters in the movment; the Tory section always offering the most bitter opposition to any motion of returned men’.83

79 For a description of this period, see B. K. de Garis, ‘An Incident at Fremantle’, Labour History, no. 10, 1966. 80 B. Oliver, ‘‘The Diggers’ Association’: A Turning Point in the history of the Western Australian Returned Services League’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, no. 23, October 1993. 81 West Australian, 1 May 1918. 82 West Australian, 20 January 1919. 83 West Australian, 28 March 1919.

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Moves to isolate the radicals by the RSL Executive were ultimately successful.84 Looking back, one prominent leader of the Western Australian branch noted that, after 1921, ‘there was a marked falling-off in the membership returns’,85 which the State Executive attributed to returned soldier apathy. Later, it would become the official orthodoxy that it was the radicals who had been responsible for declining membership. Collett remarked that the League’s troubles were ‘in part, due to the intrusion of loud- voiced demagogues … whose very presence kept many decent people away’.86 It is easy to imagine their sagacious nods as they read the words of W. A. Ross, secretary of the Kalgoorlie sub-branch of the RSL, who argued that:

we have people in our ranks who are trying to break the only organisation that has won so much for Diggers and their dependants. Those ex-Soldier scoffers who are too “superior” to join the RSL … should be heartily ashamed of themselves.87

Similar political battles also took place at the local level in this formative period, and Kalgoorlie was generally no exception to wider trends. The AWU and the FMU fought over employment preference on the mines. While the Kalgoorlie RSL had a few members who tried to speak out in defence of labour struggles, they were quickly silenced – the Kalgoorlie RSL would not provide a forum for such ‘disloyal utterances’.88

During the war, soldier send-offs in Kalgoorlie had occasioned militant speeches, rousing band music and much fanfare, but preparations for the men’s return were far less systematic. Indeed, in May 1916, the ALF felt sufficiently moved to send a letter of protest to the State War Council regarding the neglect of returned soldiers.89 The numerous

84 For a discussion of the influence of the RSL in interwar Western Australia, see M. Brown, Western Australians and the World: Anti-War Organisations as a Case Study, 1919-1939, unpublished MA thesis, University of Western Australia, 1981, pp. 73-8. 85 Colonel H. B. Collett, ‘The R.S.S.I.L.A. in Western Australia’, The W. A. Digger Book, compiled by the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League (W. A. Branch), Perth, 1929, p. 17. 86 Presidential speech to the Western Australian State Congress, reported in Reveille, 31 October 1928. 87 Listening Post, 20 January 1922. 88 See West Australian, 8 November 1919. 89 Kalgoorlie Miner, 2 June 1916.

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complaints from returned soldiers alone suggest that the authorities’ responses to the needs of returned men were piecemeal and contingent. For instance, rather than properly address the men’s concerns, there was a push to repatriate soldiers in regional centres, demonstrating the authorities’ apprehension regarding the prospect of a large body of aggrieved and militarised men congregating in the city centre. In the words of the War Council, the plan would ‘overcome the difficulty of an accumulation of men in the city, and result in getting them out to the country districts, which is much to be desired, both in the interests of the men and country as a whole’.90

Towns outside the metropolis were no better equipped than the city to deal with the enormous problems facing returned soldiers. The Kalgoorlie Council called a public meeting to discuss the issue of returned soldier employment, in response to a State War Council circular urging the creation of employment opportunities for returned men. These jobs were necessary, it was felt, ‘to keep them from getting into the habit of loafing about the town’. The same circular stated that only ‘[a] limited number of employers have been found who have been willing to take such men on and give them light duties, paying them the current minimum rate of wages.’91 For wounded men who were unable to return to their former occupations, retraining was to begin, in some instances, before the wounded man’s medical treatment had even been completed.92 Clearly, there were to be no ‘undeserving wounded’ stalking the streets of Kalgoorlie! In addition, bureaucratic buck-passing developed into an art form. For example, in 1921, an appeal was forwarded to the Minister for Repatration for a modest £25 to cover the salary and travelling expenses of a lecturer who would deliver a University Extension course for returned soldiers in Kalgoorlie.93 The Minister noted on the Department’s file that, while the lectures would be ‘most desirable’, there were no funds to meet such a request and that the matter should be dealt with by ‘non-departmental enterprise’. The applicant, Mr Foley, was duly advised that accession to such a request

90 Kalgoorlie Miner, 22 July 1916. 91 Kalgoorlie Miner, 18 July 1916. 92 Kalgoorlie Miner, 22 July 1916. 93 Letter, G. J. Tracy, Honorary Secretary of the Returned Soldiers’ League Polytechnic Society, to George Foley, MP, dated 19 October 1921, NAA: A2487, 1921/18046.

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might cause an avalanche of similar entreaties and that, anyway, education was the State Government’s responsibility.94

In 1916, a Letter to the Editor by a self-described stranger to the town noted that the facilities of the Mechanics’ Institute were hardly sufficient for the many and varied needs of returned men, particularly for those who were wounded. The writer proposed that the patriotic citizens of the town get together to provide a properly fitted-out soldier’s meeting place – ‘a club house without the beer’, as he primly described it.95 A few weeks later, another article alluded to the consequences of leaving returned men with little to occupy themselves, arguing that ‘the lads [were] hardly to blame’ for getting up to mischief if the town did not repay their debt to the men in the form of diverting amenities.96 Under the supervision of the Red Cross Society and its Honorary Secretary, Mrs H. N. Curle Smith, a Soldiers’ Club was set up on the second floor of Mackenzie’s Buildings, on the corner of Hannan and Maritana Streets in Kalgoorlie.97 A sub-committee was formed to organise the facilities for the new club and, after it was officially opened, control passed to a house committee comprising nine returned soldiers. A committee of women was given ‘the privilege of organising the catering’.98 Lists of requirements for the new club were published and the townspeople were asked to contribute furniture, food, reading material and the like. Concerts, competitions and card nights were held to raise money to cover day-to-day expenses.

94 Tracy’s letter was forwarded to Senator Millen, Minister for Repatriation, on 19 October 1921. Millen’s note on file dated 16 November 1921. NAA: A2487, 1921/18046. 95 Kalgoorlie Miner, 24 February 1916. These attitudes mirror those of anxious ‘do-gooders’ around the country. See, for example, T. King, ‘Saving the Returned Men: The Soldiers’ Lounge, St Paul’s Cathedral’, Victorian Historical Journal, vol. 65, no. 2, 1994. 96 The Sun, 26 March 1916. 97 Kalgoorlie Miner, 21 March 1916. Mrs Curle Smith was the wife of the town engineer. She reflected the middle and upper class nature of the leaderships of such benevolent organisations. Mrs Curle Smith was simultaneously the Honorary Secretary for the Red Cross and the Soldiers’ Institute. See M. McKernan, The Australian People and the Great War, Nelson, West Melbourne, 1980, p. 67; Western Australian Post Office Directory, Wise’s Directories, Perth, 1916. 98 Kalgoorlie Miner, 28 March 1916

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A ceremony to officially open the Soldiers’ Club was held in April 1916, with seventeen returned soldiers becoming members that afternoon. A shortfall of £60 between expenditure and donations was announced by the Mayor of Kalgoorlie, with a concomitant exhortation that ‘it was incumbent on the people of the fields’ to fully support the returned men.99 Shortly afterwards, the Boulder returned servicemen refused to attend the local Anzac Day commemoration concert in protest at the scanty disbursement of funds for their benefit, demonstrating a more proletarian orientation than their Kalgoorlie comrades. Soldiers were quoted as saying: ‘These concerts are promoted for the purpose of raising money in our interests, but we never see any of it.’100 Some evidence for the veracity of their complaints can be found in a request put to Senator Pearce during his visit to the Kalgoorlie RSL in 1922. The local leadership suggested that undisbursed patriotic funds collected during the war should be handed to the RSL, a suggestion that echoed similar propositions made at the Federal level, and implied that there were considerable funds at stake.101

In 1919, the executive of the Soldiers’ Club requested that they be able to use the Kalgoorlie Chamber of Commerce building for their clubrooms, as the stairs in their current premises were proving too difficult for some of the wounded men. The Chamber of Commerce approved the request.102 Acting Prime Minister Watt visited the goldfields briefly in 1919 and took time to visit the new Soldiers’ Institute in Dugan Street. He remarked on the pleasant nature of the facilities, which he thought ‘would promote feelings of good fellowship among returned men, and tend to keep them within the ranks of useful, loyal citizens’. He also felt sure that those who ‘lived under the kindly influence of institutes like the one in Kalgoorlie would be the very last to become Bolsheviks’.103

99 Kalgoorlie Miner, 13 April 1916. In 1918, the War Council authorised the production of an Anzac Day commemoration postcard that could be sent to soldiers on active duty to demonstrate that Kalgoorlie’s citizens were ‘doing their bit’. All proceeds were to go to the RSL. Copy of card held in the National Library of Australia. 100 Kalgoorlie Miner, 28 April 1916. 101 Letter, Senator Pearce, Minister for Home and Territories Department to Senator Millen, Minister for Repatriation Department, dated 31 May 1922. NAA: A2487, 1922/8111. 102 Kalgoorlie Miner, 8 August 1919. 103 Kalgoorlie Miner, 22 August 1919.

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Initially, however, class tensions were clearly visible in the Kalgoorlie RSL, although such dissension was rapidly suppressed. In August 1919, the Kalgoorlie RSL organised a street march and public meeting to promote the organisation’s aims. The last to speak was W. A. Ross, DCM, the then secretary of the Kalgoorlie sub-branch. Reflecting the political disagreements that dogged the RSL in its early years, Ross remarked, reportedly to much laughter, that he would not stray into political questions.104 He did, however, express his personal view that returned soldiers would not scab on unionists, nor work for non-union wages. In his opinion, it was the high cost of living that was responsible for the current social unrest. In response to this speech, Harry Axford, president of the Kalgoorlie sub- branch and chair of the meeting, reportedly told Ross to ‘cut it out’ and announced the meeting closed.105 Ironically, the conservative Sun newspaper argued that this event demonstrated the fundamental unity between returned soldiers, that the ‘order and discipline’ on display were most commendable and that returned men on the goldfields were clearly not seeking to ‘have [their grievances] redressed by playing up and breaking things’, a prophesy not borne out by subsequent events.106

There was no ‘fundamental unity’ in the early years of the RSL, but it was gradually achieved by the leadership through a process of conversion and/or expulsion. Shortly after this meeting, two radical RSL members from East Perth, Gorman and O’Neill,107 visited the Kalgoorlie RSL to urge them to break a contract that was putting AWU men off the job and

104 This statement reflected the official view, alluded to in the previous chapter, that engaging in party politics would split returned soldiers. Early in 1919, Mr Brodribb, its president, had vowed that the Kalgoorlie members ‘would stand out against politics to the last, whatever the people on the coast thought’. Later, he remarked that returned soldiers were being forced to participate in party politics because ‘both sides were trying … to make use of soldiers’. However, the censure of Ross suggests that the RSL was much more concerned about possible returned soldier involvement in labour movement struggles. West Australian, 23 January, 2 June 1919. 105 Kalgoorlie Miner, 4 August 1919. 106 The Sun, 10 August 1919. Ironically, in the very next issue of this newspaper, the Editor was forced to lament that the soldiers had, indeed, played up and broken lots of things, as Chapter Five shows. However, with the headline – The Dago Must Go – complete sympathy was given to the mostly returned soldier rioters. The Sun, 17 August 1919. 107 For an account of Gorman and O’Neill’s attempts to link returned servicemen with the labour movement, see Oliver, ‘The Diggers’ Association’.

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had cut existing rates for the carting of sandalwood. The visit was not appreciated and the approaches of the men were rebuffed. The Kalgoorlie sub-branch meeting defended the principle of ‘freedom of contract’ and resolved to protest to the State Executive of the RSL for ‘doing their best to cause dissension and agitation among our members’.108 By November 1919, Ross, too, had become a staunch critic of the AWU and its campaign to get FMU labour off the mines.109 After surviving at least one expulsion motion, O’Neill was finally expelled by the State Executive for sending an ‘offensive’ telegram to the Federal President of the RSL regarding cash payments to returned soldiers.110

From the RSL’s inception, its leadership promised to make every effort to find jobs for returned soldiers. Despite official insistence that jobs were a ‘right’ that returned soldiers should be able to expect, its less stated intention was to contain the discontent of returned men and to turn them into ‘useful’ citizens. However, the nature of its efforts demonstrated that the RSL leadership’s primary loyalty was to employers and workplace efficiency. For example, in 1919, the Secretary of the Kalgoorlie sub-branch wrote to the Commissioner of Railways to express appreciation for the policy of returned soldier employment preference on the Transcontinental railway line. The letter assured the Commissioner that:

we hold no brief for the incompetent, or negligent employee, whom it may be the bad luck of the Department to obtain from our ranks … we are not asking for preference without being able to supply men with credentials and references to carry out the duties he may be applying for.111

During the 1930s Depression, pressure again mounted on the Kalgoorlie RSL to find jobs for unemployed returned men through its employer connections. The sub-branch journal would frequently thank local businesses for their support, and would return such favours by

108 Kalgoorlie Miner, 6 August 1919. 109 Kalgoorlie Miner, 12 December 1919. 110 West Australian, 9, 17 April, 10 December 1919. O’Neill was indicted under Clause 42 of the RSL’s Constitution which rendered a member liable for expulsion if, among other things, they were ‘guilty of conduct unbecoming a gentleman or subversive of the objects of the League’. Rules and Objects of the RSSILA, Department of Repatriation file, dated 12 November 1917. NAA: A2483, B18/716.

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exhorting all loyal citizens to buy locally-made produce. In the middle of 1933, the Boulder sub-branch was pleased to report that, since the previous October, eighty-six jobs had been found for ex-soldiers. The majority of these men were placed in jobs at the quarries and at ‘one of the few places where the ex-soldier does get absolute preference’ – the Transcontinental railway line. ‘Grateful thanks’ were also extended to the manager at the Lake View and Star mine, who had proved to be ‘a good friend to the ex-soldier’.112

However, the League could offer little comfort in harsh economic times. By 1934, it was placing advertisements to the effect that there was little work on the fields, despite rumours to the contrary, and that the RSL’s Distress Fund was ‘almost exhausted’.113 Indeed, in some cases, non-member constituents became a convenient target for condemnation at this time. The secretary of the Boulder sub-branch pointed out that one hundred ex-soldiers had gained employment on the Transcontinental Line but, despite many promises to the contrary, only fifteen of those had joined the sub-branch. It was bitterly noted that many of these recalcitrants, if unemployed again, would turn to the League for further assistance.114

The relationship between the RSL leadership and the mine managers was far more cosy. The attendance at the 1933 Kalgoorlie RSL’s annual Anzac smoke social indicated a clear community of interest between the RSL leadership and the ‘respectable’ section of Kalgoorlie’s population. During the formal part of the evening, a toast to the mining industry was made. F. G. Brinsden, manager of the South Kalgurlie mine, Mr Blackett of the Boulder Perseverance and Mr Thorne of the Lake View and Star responded and ‘paid excellent tributes to the work of the RSL’. For his part, Inspector Spedding-Smith made favourable comments about the cooperation between the police department and the

111 Letter, W. A. Ross, Secretary of the Kalgoorlie sub-branch of the RSL to Mr Bell, Commissioner of Railways, Melbourne, dated 19 January 1919. NAA: A2487, 1919/2020. 112 The Listening Post, 23 June 1933, p. 20. 113 The Listening Post, 24 August 1934, p. 25. 114 The Listening Post, 23 November 1934, p. 8.

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League.115 In returning the compliments of these men, RSL executives were not acting as grateful beneficiaries of official support; they were participating in the mutual back-slapping of social equals. In that year, the President of the local sub-branch was Captain R. R. Gibbs, a bank manager, while its Secretary was Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Fairley, who was also Country Vice President of the Western Australian branch and the nephew of General Leane.116

Having an elite leadership directly affected the type of work deemed appropriate for the League. Indeed, the RSL sub-branches on the goldfields undertook activities on behalf of worker members that more closely resembled bourgeois philanthropy than an effort to improve the ‘rights’ of returned soldiers. In a similar way to church groups, the RSL used charitable works to help spread conservative influence. During the 1933 Christmas period, the Kalgoorlie and Boulder sub-branches took it upon themselves to dispense a little Christmas cheer laced with social control. They visited the Children’s Ward at the Government Hospital bearing gifts of slippers, followed by a trip to the Maternity Section to dispense rattles to all the prolific mothers – special mention was made of the star performer who had produced twins. Next, they descended upon the General Ward and the St John of God Hospital ‘where ten returned men, most of them not members of the League, were each given a Xmas parcel containing a battle of wine [sic], some fruit, smokes and sweets’. They then made a ‘straight track’ for the Soldier’s Institute for a drinking session. Toasts were made to ‘those who had made the event possible’, to ‘Father Xmas’, to ‘the local governing bodies’, to the ‘Matron and staff’, to the ‘Mother Superior and staff’, to ‘the medical profession generally’, and to round it all off, the ‘Toast of the Chairman’ and to ‘a delightful morning’s good deed’.117

115 Kalgoorlie Miner, 24 April 1933. 116 Letter, Australian War Memorial to RSL Sydney, Australian War Memorial, reference no. 12/4/57/33, AWM93 12/11/2230. 117 Kalgoorlie Digger, January 1934. The Kalgoorlie Digger was a typed news sheet, distributed to all members of the sub-branch. This article contained so many typographical errors that I have corrected all but one to assist legibility.

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Anzac Day in Kalgoorlie was always an occasion of particular pomp and ceremony, with commemorations held at various memorials. These events were always used as a chance to drum up membership for the League, but many ex-soldiers seemed to be resistant to the notion, perhaps as a result of the close links between it and the employers. School children, too, felt the full force of RSL rhetoric. Local League officials were active in spreading national sentiment and supervising loyal conduct in the area. At the Eighteenth Annual State Congress, a motion moved by Lieutenant Colonel Fairley from Kalgoorlie was passed that:

Congress recommends to the Minister for Education that the saluting of the Australian flag be part of the curriculum for all State Schools and that the rite be observed on the first day of every school week.118

The RSL was at the forefront when the Duke of Gloucester visited Kalgoorlie. It arranged for 1,500 school children to present themselves to ‘H.R.H.’ and ‘the good behaviour of the children was freely commented upon’.119

In the League’s view, Australia was to become a classless, indivisible, cohesive, white entity and the leadership was determined to play an authoritative role in the dissemination of such ideology. That the RSL was a nation-building organisation was evident during the 1933 Western Australian push to secede from the rest of the country, and to be ruled directly by the British government.120 Prominent secessionists had always been able to tap into a widespread sense of aggrieved localism, blaming chronic Federal Government indifference for Western Australia’s problems.121 Sizeable numbers of Western

118 The Listening Post, 26 October 1934, p. 9. 119 Ibid., p. 28. 120 Despite lack of support from the Nationalist Premier and the Labor Party, sixty-eight per cent of Western Australians voted in a 1933 referendum to secede from the Federation. See G. Bolton, ‘The Civil War We Never Had’, Proceedings of the Third Conference of The Samuel Griffith Society, November, 1993, p. 89. 121 ‘The Case for the People of Western Australia (Western Australia) 1934’, presented to the British Government in 1934 to support the secession of the State from the Federation, ‘made the discriminatory effects of national policy on the residents of Western Australia a central component of its case’. C. Sharman, ‘Secession and Federalism’, Proceedings of the Third Conference of The Samuel Griffith Society, November, 1993, p. 100.

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Australians harboured suspicions about the dubious benefits associated with distant eastern states alliances, as demonstrated by the continuing popularity of the secession debate. This sentiment had also been reflected in the Western Australian RSL’s diffident entry into the federal body. With seventy sub-branches in 1918 and a degree of influence at all levels of government, the Western Australian branch argued that they were independently successful and were reluctant to authorise expenditure to a detached body that might offer little to local veterans. The Western Australian branch eventually affiliated in 1918 after obtaining a promise that joining the national body would not be financially detrimental.122

Such a parochial attitude on the part of the Western Australian RSL members contradicted the Federal Executive’s systematic promotion of Australian nationalism. The Federal President of the League, G. J. C. Dyett, became alarmed that the Western Australian Branch was not taking a firm position against secession. Indeed, its leaders were not. They sensed that if they spoke against secession, sufficient numbers of rank-and-file returned soldiers supported secession to cause a split in the Western Australian RSL. A stern letter from Dyett argued that it was the ‘duty’ of the League to show ‘courageous leadership’ on the question of national unity, and that it was ‘desirable that the necessary psychology be created at the earliest possible date’. He issued an unveiled threat that, if the State Executive would not spread the appropriate propaganda against secession and stand up to demands for ‘states rights’, then the Federal Executive would appeal directly to Western Australian ex-servicemen and women through the press. Dyett closed his letter by saying, ‘let the League guide the people of West Australia in their hour of doubt and thus vindicate its claim to being a great National Empire-building organisation’.123

Despite misgivings about secession, the national implications of the White Australia policy were heartily endorsed by the Western Australian Branch of the RSL. As Chapter Five details, returned soldier harrassment of migrants was a recurrent feature of wartime

122 G. Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism: The Pressure Group Activities of the Returned Servicemen’s League, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1966, pp. 11-12.

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xenophobia and, while leading citizens and newspaper editorials ‘tut-tutted’ about ruffian behaviour and the need for law and order, perpetrators were often treated leniently by the court system. For example, in October 1916, two such cases were brought before Mr Walter of the Kalgoorlie Police Court. One eighteen year old soldier had stolen a watch, a gold nugget, a pocket knife, cigars and coins from a man named Siegfried Christian Larsen. Captain Corbett, an officer from Military Intelligence, was at the court hearing in a personal capacity and offered to become a bondsman for the thief. Although the soldier pleaded guilty, Mr Walter concluded that he had not really intended to steal and so gave him a six- month good behaviour bond. The other soldier had been found on the premises of a Richard Krahn and had been charged with intent to steal. The magistrate lectured the soldier that his actions were a discredit to the army he had served, that his behaviour smacked of ‘a trick caught from the Germans’, and then allowed him to go.124

To marginalise migrant workers, the Kalgoorlie sub-branch drafted motions that blamed southern European immigration for employment problems on the mines. They also called for restrictions on immigration numbers, the more strict enforcement of language tests, and made dire warnings about the social dangers of non-British immigration. Evidence of their unceasing efforts in this regard can be discerned in the following motion passed at the 1934 State Congress, which read:

That representations be made to the State Parliament on the question of restriction of alien labour in the mining and other industries in order that the decision of a previous Congress on this matter be given effect to.125

Some members resorted to ‘poetry’ to fan racist sentiment, although even some of their best friends may have wished them not to. In March 1935, the Kalgoorlie Digger waxed lyrical about the sturdy characteristics of ‘The Britisher’. One stanza proclaimed:

123 Federal Executive to State Branch, Perth, 14 March 1933, National Library of Australia, MS 6609, item 6786. 124 Kalgoorlie Miner, 4 October 1916.

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Who carries the flag from Pole to Pole, And does it without a fuss? Who’s made the world what it is today – Whatever the foreign rabble say? The Britisher – old cuss.

In the same issue, a full page was allotted to extolling the virtues of the White Australia policy, which, the article stated, was a ‘real live factor’ to the RSL. Further, it argued:

America with her teeming millions of half breeds due to the intermarrying of all nationals should be a standing example for the world where the White Australia policy is in question. We are a nation, in every sense of the word and the League intends to do its utmost to see that we remain one and not a dumping ground for the unwanted of other nations. Our women are sacred to us – an infringement of our Policy may mean sacrilege there.

The RSL position contained a number of contradictions that should be explained. Apart from the general prejudices that were part and parcel of dominant racist ideology, the RSL portrayed its opposition to southern European immigration as partially motivated by concern for white workers’ living standards. In reality, as Oliver argued, the League’s industrial interventions showed a blatant ‘indifference’ towards award conditions.126 Racism was a way of drawing in working class members by expressing concern about employment levels and working conditions, without appearing to support trade union activity. RSL officials also took an active part in national League debates about the presence of southern Europeans on the goldfields, and in Australia at large. On the surface, its position on immigration seemed contradictory. It supported the employers’ right to search for the cheapest labour while, at the same time, was committed to a ‘White Australia’ and

125 Motion moved by Lt. Col. T. C. Fairley, 18th Annual Congress of the Western Australian RSL, The Listening Post, 26 October 1934. At this time, Fairley was Secretary of the Kalgoorlie sub-branch and editor of its newsletter, the Kalgoorlie Digger. 126 Oliver, War and Peace, p. 143.

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encouraged opposition to all but British immigration. As a result, their stance helped to marginalise southern Europeans in Kalgoorlie, while not effectively limiting their arrival.

Conclusion

In Kalgoorlie, the Chamber of Mines, the ALP, the AWU and the CPA occupied important strategic positions in local race relations. While the Chamber of Mines clearly did not welcome industrial stoppages over the presence of migrant labour on the mines, they were prepared to risk employing migrant workers on the most ‘unskilled’ work. If racism further isolated such workers and protected continuing low wages, so much the better. The ALP and the AWU, operating as middle-men in the class struggle, strongly identified with Australian nationalism and racial solidarism. However, this political position contradicted a more fundamental requirement among the organised workers they ‘represented’ for industrial unity as a basis for successful trade unionism. While commitment to White Australia may well have been politically expedient, it did not help them to recruit migrant workers. The CPA’s formal commitment to opposing the White Australia policy offered a political way forward for those members of the labour movement who recognised the debilitating effects of racial disharmony among workers, but its ability to actively promote this position was hampered by its size and influence. An assessment of the interaction between all these organisations raises important questions about just which groups benefited from racial division.

During the interwar years, the Kalgoorlie RSL sub-branch was extremely active in containing any signs of radical politics. The Soldiers’ Club provided an important avenue for bringing together a group of returned soldiers who were committed to conservatism and who, just as Watt had predicted, were the ‘very last to become Bolsheviks’. The local sub- branch made common cause with local employers, town burghers and conservative political parties. Certainly, whenever workplace efficiency was at stake, the RSL leadership sided

149 Chapter Four Kalgoorlie in Context

with employers over returned soldier employment preference. One important avenue for appealing to its working class constituency was on the basis of racism, representing support for a ‘White Australia’ as a demonstration of concern for the living standards of white workers. As the next chapter will demonstrate, this position was not universally endorsed by Kalgoorlie unionists, as sections of the labour movement began to realise the political, industrial and social costs of endorsing the racist strategies of their workplace adversaries.

150 CHAPTER FIVE

Kalgoorlie between the Wars: a mine of racism?

The bloody foreigners were attacking Australians in their own country. Tempers flared: volunteers were called for. Manning Clark on the 1934 Kalgoorlie riots, History of Australia1

Introduction

On three notable occasions, the gold-mining town of Kalgoorlie was the scene of anti- southern European rioting – in 1916, 1919 and 1934. While the existing historiography of both the 19162 and 1919 riots3 has acknowledged the role of returned soldiers in these violent outbursts, the 1934 riots4 have predominantly been explained in terms of industrial tension, with little attention directed towards the possibility of RSL involvement. Indeed, Gilchrist recently distinguished them from the earlier outbursts by

1 M. Cathcart, Manning Clark’s History of Australia, (abridged), Penguin, Melbourne, 1996, p. 609. 2 See C. A. Price, Southern Europeans in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1963, pp. 208- 9; A. Markus, Australian Race Relations 1788-1993, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, 1994, p. 150; J. Yiannakis, ‘Kalgoorlie Alchemy: Xenophobia, Patriotism and the 1916 Anti-Greek Riots’, Early Days, vol. 2, no. 2, 1996; H. Gilchrist, Australians and Greeks, vol. 2, Halstead Press, Rushcutters Bay, 1997, pp. 23-28. 3 See J. Murray, ‘The Kalgoorlie Woodline Strikes 1919-1920: A Study of Conflict Within the Working Class’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 5, 1982; B. Oliver, War and Peace in Western Australia: The Social and Political Impact of the Great War 1914-1926, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1995, pp. 156-158, ‘Disputes, Diggers and Disillusionment: Social and Industrial Unrest in Perth and Kalgoorlie 1918-24’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 11, June 1990 and ‘“For only by the OBU shall Workmen’s Wrongs be Righted’’. A study of the One Big Union Movement in Western Australia, 1919 to 1922’, in C. Fox and M. Hess (eds), Papers in Labour History, no. 5, April 1990; T. Vanderwiel, The Goldfield Riot of August 1919, unpublished manuscript, Battye Library, 1959. 4 See P. Bertola, Ethnic Difference in Kalgoorlie 1893-1934, unpublished Honours thesis, Murdoch University, 1978 and Kalgoorlie, Gold, and the World Economy, 1893-1972, unpublished PhD thesis, Curtin University of Technology, 1993, pp. 229-232; B. Bunbury, Reading Labels on Jam Tins, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, South Fremantle, 1993, pp. 100-27; G. Casey and T. Mayman, The Mile that Midas Touched, Rigby, Adelaide, 1964, pp. 187-97; T. Docker and R. Gerritsen, ‘The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots’, Labour History, no. 31, 1976; R. Gerritsen, ‘The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots’, University Studies in History, vol. 5, no. 3, 1969; D. Hancock, ‘Murder and Mayhem in Kalgoorlie’, This Australia, vol. 5, no. 1, 1985; J-M. Volet, ‘Some of the Reasons which led to a Night of Terror in Kalgoorlie and Boulder on Monday 29 January 1934’, Early Days, vol. 9, no. 4, 1986. For a literary reference to the riots, see K. S. Prichard, Winged Seeds, Virago, London, 1984. Chapter Five Kalgoorlie: A Mine of Racism?

claiming that there had been ‘no military element’ in the 1934 disturbances.5 Instead, the most prevalent explanation for the explosion of racist sentiment in Kalgoorlie in 1934 has been that ‘it all started on the mines’, with racist workers demanding southern European exclusion to protect ‘British’ jobs. In order to assess these riots in context, this chapter begins by recounting the events in 1916 and 1919, before proceeding to an account of the 1934 Kalgoorlie riots. An examination of these incidents provides an important window into the rise and fall of racist ideology in the Kalgoorlie area over two decades, a perspective that cannot be achieved by treating each of the riots as individual events. In particular, attention is given to the industrial alliance between the Kalgoorlie sub-branch of the RSL and the local Chamber of Mines, appraising its role in the course of the riots and the direction of local ‘race debates’. From this vantage point, attention is shifted from the traditional paradigm of racist workers and their attempts to protect employment standards. It is argued that, although some miners undoubtedly participated in the 1934 riots, there were equally important, and hitherto ignored, signs of solidarity between Britisher miners and their southern European counterparts that should be assessed. The chapter concludes with an account of a six-week strike which took place on the mines just one year after the 1934 riots. When the riots and the strike are analysed together, race relations in Kalgoorlie can be viewed as much more fluid than has previously been assumed. It is demonstrated that such instances of workers uniting across perceived racial barriers provide an important corrective to the wider historiography of race relations in Australia.

The 1916 campaign against ‘enemy subjects’

In December 1916, inflammatory reports in the Kalgoorlie press blamed the King of Greece for the deaths of British and French soldiers at the hands of Greek troops.6 In revenge, some Kalgoorlie residents, led by returned soldiers, damaged and looted more than twenty Greek-run businesses. As Gilchrist described, ‘the ringleaders, including soldiers from a nearby training camp, accompanied by forty or fifty civilian youths,

5 Gilchrist, Australians and Greeks, p. 358. 6 Kalgoorlie Miner, 8 December 1916.

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gathered near the Town Hall and, led by a soldier with a whistle, smashed the windows of three Greek shops in Cassidy Street’.7 From this beginning, the violence escalated until every Greek-owned business had been smashed and looted. Other rioters travelled to nearby Boulder on the tram, continuing the destruction of Greek shops in the main streets. The Kalgoorlie Miner reportage gave a detailed description of the riot and the subsequent court appearances of those arrested. However, it did not once mention that the ringleaders of the violence had been returned soldiers. More than forty arrests were made and, although some charges were for the relatively serious offences of escaping from legal custody, assaulting a policeman and wilful and malicious damage, those found guilty were, most commonly, fined. Only two men charged with theft were given prison sentences because, in the Magistrate’s opinion, such a crime was much more serious than xenophobic rioting. Only the destruction of Greek-owned property could be construed, and presumably excused, as a display of patriotic passion.8 Returned soldier involvement in the riots was also downplayed by government authorities who were anxious to avoid responsibility for compensation claims, but the Acting Premier of Western Australia, Henry Lefroy, admitted that returned soldiers had been ‘the ringleaders in almost every case of disorder of this nature’.9 Yiannakis’ analysis of the riots suggests that the xenophobic and patriotic responses of Kalgoorlie returned soldiers were crucial to the direction of the riots. He cited one member of a deputation to the Minister for Works and Railways, who pointed out that ‘soldiers had not only taken part in the riots, but that men in khaki were seen directing the raiders and were observed throwing out goods from shops to the crowd’.10

This dramatic outburst represented the climax of a concerted campaign to oust ‘enemy subjects’ from Kalgoorlie, a struggle that had begun soon after the outbreak of World War One. From 1914 onwards, the Miners’ Union in Kalgoorlie11 sent numerous appeals to the Minister for Defence, Senator Pearce, requesting the internment of all

7 Gilchrist, Australians and Greeks, p. 23. 8 Ibid., p. 25; Kalgoorlie Miner, 11-12 December 1916. 9 Yiannakis, ‘Kalgoorlie Alchemy’, p. 207. 10 Ibid., p. 208. 11 In 1916, the Kalgoorlie and Boulder miners amalgamated into the Federated Mining Employees’ Association of Australia. Locally, they were simply referred to as the Miners’ Union, until the FMEA merged with the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) in 1917.

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enemy subjects on the goldfields. By February 1916, all such calls had appeared to go unheeded and the Kalgoorlie and Boulder miners subsequently resolved not to work with enemy subjects. The Australian Labor Federation (ALF) supported their decision and similar resolutions were taken in other mining centres throughout Western Australia. One report suggested that the Australian miners could not bear being taunted about the recent retreat from Gallipoli.12 James Cunningham, secretary of the Miners’ Union, was quoted as saying that:

The feeling against enemy subjects is practically general throughout the whole of the members … [and] … has grown considerably during the past couple of months. Numbers of these men make no secret of their national sympathies when underground, and expressions of disloyalty have frequently been made during crib time, when the newspapers are generally read … disloyal sentiments expressed were reported by members to have been almost unbearable, more particularly for those who have relatives fighting at the front. The union realises it will be difficult to arrive at who are enemy subjects, as its members have no grievance against members of the Croatian-Slavonian Society who are working on the mines, and who have no sympathy with Austria. They do not desire that any unnecessary hardship should be inflicted upon these men, as evidence of their loyalty is forthcoming in the fact that some twenty of them have joined the Australian Expeditionary Forces.13

The day before the ban was due to come into effect, Miners’ Union officials met with the Chamber of Mines and the two parties unanimously agreed to make a joint representation to the government regarding the internment of enemy subjects from the mines. Representatives of the two organisations jointly signed a telegram to the Minister of Defence and promised to cooperate with each other in any subsequent investigation of individuals.14 From 7 February 1916, when the Minister’s response was found to be unsatisfactory, the union imposed the ban. A vigilance committee was empowered to question all enemy subjects regarding their citizenship status. If those so challenged could not produce naturalisation papers, the Britisher miners would refuse to work until all unnaturalised enemy subjects had been dismissed.15 Many of the migrant workers affected by the ban chose not to attend work, unwilling to provoke a strike on the mines

12 Kalgoorlie Miner, 9 February 1916. 13 Kalgoorlie Miner, 29 January 1916. 14 Kalgoorlie Miner, 5 February 1916.

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and, ironically, subsequent reports reflected union approval of the attitude of the enemy nationals who had shown a ‘commendable spirit’.16 The mostly Slav workers were not offered relief payments by the union, despite the fact that many were union members. Instead, union officials deflected responsibility for the growing financial stress suffered by the ousted workers onto the alleged laxity of the Defence Department.17 Subsequently, the Miner reported that many ejected workers were relying on the support of the Slav community and that some families were ‘on the verge of starvation’.18

The Miners’ Union decision put the enemy nationals in an impossible position. They were barred from the Kalgoorlie mines and, because of the restrictions imposed by the War Precautions Act, were unable to move around freely in search of work elsewhere and were forbidden to leave the country.19 Even the prospect of receiving internment food and board was withheld, as the government expressed a somewhat uncharacteristic unwillingness to incarcerate this group of miners unless an act of disloyalty could be proven. Such a development was unlikely, explained Captain Corbett from the Defence Department to a mass union meeting, because all the enemy subjects on the fields were known to his Department and were not considered a risk to security.20 This information did not weaken the determination of the Miners’ Union and subsequently, the Westralian Worker, still under J. Hilton’s pro-conscriptionist editorship, commended their resolve, stating that it was ‘highly gratifying as evidencing the patriotic feelings and common sense of the community’.21 As the effect of the ban on the operation of the mines became more apparent, Kalgoorlie employers tried to get the Miners’ Union to rescind its decision. The Chamber of Mines denied ever supporting what it now called the ‘precipitate’ action of the Miners’ Union, a decision that threatened serious economic losses and the continued viability of some mines. Likewise,

15 Kalgoorlie Miner, 7 February 1916. 16 Kalgoorlie Miner, 9 February 1916. 17 Kalgoorlie Miner, 14, 30 March 1916. 18 Kalgoorlie Miner, 22 March 1916. 19 War Precautions Acts (1914-16) and War Precautions Regulations (1915), Official Yearbook of the Commonwealth of Australia 1901-1914, no. 8, Commonwealth Bureau of Statistics, Melbourne, 1915, p. 1093. 20 Kalgoorlie Miner, 8 February 1916. 21 Westralian Worker, 11 February 1916.

155 Chapter Five Kalgoorlie: A Mine of Racism?

the Chamber of Commerce expressed the view that the decision had been an error of judgement with serious ramifications for the war effort. To continue the ban, it argued, would turn a mistake into a crime.22

The mine managers accused the union of pursuing its ‘old stalking horse’, claiming that the anti-Slav campaign was part of a general crusade to remove all non- Britisher migrants from the mines.23 The Westralian Worker unapologetically viewed the campaign in this light, expressing consternation that migrant exclusion was causing any debate. This newspaper also expressed the view that no sympathy should be wasted on the Slavs because ‘[f]rom all accounts the enemy subjects who have in the past been interned showed absolutely no gratitude for the humane treatment they received at the hands of the department.’24 One satirical Letter to the Editor under the pseudonym ‘Tony Dagovich’ purported to be from a hardworking Austrian who had been made unemployed by the Miners’ Union ban. His intention was to get support from the authorities until the end of the war, and then take his savings and go home. Many instances of the common racist stereotyping of migrants were present in this letter – being dishonest, living on the ‘smell of an oily rag’, not spending money in the town, not paying tax and amassing huge savings to take home.25 However, while some individuals undoubtedly agreed that the departure of any non-Britishers was cause for satisfaction, the Miners’ Union did not challenge the presence of other ‘non-enemy’ migrants on the mines, praised the enemy subjects for their cooperation and assisted the mine managers by advertising mine employment through union channels.26 Indeed, it was the union that located a pool of available labour from Meekatharra that could have replaced the excluded workers, but the Chamber of Mines refused to employ them on principle – because the Meekatharra men were on strike at the time.27

22 Kalgoorlie Miner, 28 February 1916. 23 Kalgoorlie Miner, 1 March 1916. 24 Westralian Worker, 31 March 1916. 25 Kalgoorlie Miner, 14 February 1916. 26 Kalgoorlie Miner, 8 February 1916. 27 This uncomfortable fact did not stop the editor of a Chamber of Mines publication from categorically stating that ‘[f]or the alarming shortage of labour that the mines of the Golden Mile have experienced this month those who own and control them are in no way to blame; the responsibility for it rests entirely upon

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Richard Hamilton, President of the Chamber of Mines, used the dispute to publicly question whether the constant drain of recruiting on the mine workforce, coupled with the Miners’ Union campaign, was in the best interests of the war effort. While he was anxious to avoid the impression that he was putting his own sectional interest before the national imperative, he maintained that Kalgoorlie miners were better left to ‘do their bit’ underground.28 As Fischer pointed out, the mine managers promoted a simple and convenient equation – that production plus profit equalled patriotism.29 In no way could employer support for migrant labour be viewed as evidence of a more racially egalitarian approach. The Chamber of Mines was only too willing to support the ‘principle’ of Britisher preference, until mine profits were threatened by that policy. Equally, its generally successful portrayal of shovelling and trucking work as fit only for foreigners earning low rates of pay was an obvious boon for company balance sheets. Indeed, while the Miners’ Union viewed enemy migrants as the main problem, its ability to wage a united battle against the mine managers was compromised.

While not siding with the mine managers, there were signs that some union members were not as solid on the question of exclusion as their officials might have wished. One observer blamed Messrs. Daw and Bradley, officials of the Miners’ Union, for pushing the question of enemy subject exclusion. Bruce McGay, a shop steward for the union, argued that the members would have ‘let the matter drop’, if not for the incitement of these two men.30 In another Letter to the Editor, ‘Britisher’, while reflecting a great deal of Empire loyalty, expressed disgust at the effects of the Miners’ Union decision. As he continued:

It is indeed hard for me to conceive that a body of Australian working men, claiming to be among the most enlightened people on earth, and

the mine workers’ unions.’ Chamber of Mines of Western Australia (Incorporated), Monthly Journal, vol. xv, part 1, 29 February 1916, p. 5. 28 Kalgoorlie Miner, 22 March 1916; Presidential address to the 15th annual general meeting of the Chamber of Mines, reprinted in Kalgoorlie Miner, 29 March 1916. 29 G. Fischer, “Enemy Labour’: Industrial Unrest and the Internment of Yugoslav Workers in Western Australia during World War I’, The Australian Journal of History and Politics, vol. 34, no. 1, 1988, p. 11. 30 Kalgoorlie Miner, 24 March 1916.

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whose motto is “Justice for all” can stand calmly by, trying to hide behind the back of the Minister for Defence, while women and children are wanting bread … Perhaps the war has given some of us the “jumps” … Don’t let it foster in us an ugly spirit of race pride and domination, nucleating in that spirit which we condemn in the Prussian mind – megalomania.31

Another union member wrote that he was the only man who spoke against the motion to refuse to work with enemy subjects. He argued that many of the men were married to Australian women and were bringing up Australian children. What would be the effect of the union decision, he asked, on the future attitudes towards Australia of people so harshly treated? He felt that unionists should offer friendship to ‘any man who has to earn his living in dirty smoky holes’ and that he felt ‘ashamed to meet men who are suffering by this one-eyed policy of the union’.32 Others had sympathy with his position. A subscription list in support of the women and children affected by the dispute was taken along Burt Street, Boulder, from the Recreation Hotel to the Metropole. In less than thirty minutes, £22/10/- was collected.33

Of the two hundred enemy subjects prevented from working, the overwhelming majority were shovellers and truckers, a result which clearly demonstrated that the existing division of labour was based upon racist hiring practices. The Chamber of Mines reinforced the ethnic segmentation of the workplace by arguing that to find replacements for the dismissed workers would be difficult, as only foreigners were ‘willing’ to do this type of work.34 Indeed, it argued, the ‘class of work … is one from which the British mine worker is peculiarly averse. It means steady, hard, physical work, which he either cannot or will not do; in many cases he refuses to attempt it: and, consequently, a foreigner gets the job.’35 As the mine employers saw it, they were often prevented from applying their preference for Britisher labour because:

31 Kalgoorlie Miner, 25 March 1916. 32 Kalgoorlie Miner, 27 March 1916. 33 Kalgoorlie Miner, 30 March 1916 34 Kalgoorlie Miner, 9 February 1916. 35 Chamber of Mines of Western Australia (Incorporated), Monthly Journal, vol. xv, part 1, 29 February 1916, p. 5.

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A number of men are making a practice of applying for work, going below, doing little or nothing, accepting their discharge with cheerfulness, and the next morning making application for work at another mine, where they repeat the same programme with a similar result, and these tactics, carried out from day to day, enable such men to obtain practically full pay without doing a day’s honest work.36

The Miners’ Union did send Britisher labourers to take the jobs of the foreigners, but the Chamber of Mines described the new workers as ‘both insufficient and inefficient’. Its representatives claimed that Britisher labour was capable of removing less than half the ore that had been shifted by the expert foreigner labour and that the ‘slackness’ with which the new workers went about their work ‘amounted to a ‘lazy strike”.37 They explicitly stated that the Britisher labour on offer was ‘found to be hopelessly incompetent as compared with the foreign’.38 However, in a Letter to the Editor, one trucker described the appalling working conditions of shovellers and truckers and maintained that the mine managers would have no trouble getting workers if they improved the labour process. He argued that it would not cost very much to properly lay, clean and repair lines to obviate the need for ‘a modern Samson to push a truck on them’. He also criticised the inspection system which relied on busy contract miners to check that safe work practices were employed. Bad conditions were not the fault of the foreigners, he reasoned, because many were denied employment elsewhere and were forced to take mine labouring jobs with poor conditions.39

The Kalgoorlie Miner attempted to paper over the divisions regarding the employment of enemy subjects on the mines by maintaining that a distinction had to be made between miners of German and Austrian descent and those of the subject nations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In this way, the Miner could advocate ‘universal support’ for the bigoted nationalism of the Miners’ Union while, at the same time, offering a solution to the mine managers’ labour shortage problems.40 The Sun

36 Westralian Worker, 3 March 1916. 37 Chamber of Mines of Western Australia (Incorporated), Monthly Journal, vol. xv, part 1, 29 February 1916, p. 7. 38 ‘Alien Enemies Commission’, The Chamber of Mines of W.A. (Incpd.), Kalgoorlie, 31 October 1916, pamphlet held in the National Library of Australia. 39 Kalgoorlie Miner, 14 February 1916. 40 Kalgoorlie Miner, 25 March 1916.

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demonstrated a similar attitude but, in an attempt to deflect the attention of the Miners’ Union away from the Slav workers, it suggested that more attention should be paid to the Germans – both naturalised and unnaturalised – who lived on the goldfields.41 When the question of working with ‘enemy subjects’ was reviewed by the Miners’ Union at the end of March, several speakers argued that the current course of action was indefensible. Their view was not widely shared; the majority position was to continue the ban.42

While the ‘grassroots’ activities of the Miners’ Union and the returned soldiers became the public face of racism in Kalgoorlie, the events of 1916 must be seen in the context of wartime xenophobia, Government attacks on hapless migrants throughout the country, and a racist media frenzy sustained by both labour movement and conservative newspapers. The Prime Minister, W. M. Hughes, had, for some time, been leading a vicious campaign against the IWW, branding their migrant members as ‘German agents’ and denouncing Wobbly internationalism as a foreign and seditious ideology. Under the auspices of the War Precautions Acts 1914-16 and its accompanying set of regulations, ‘enemy subjects’ were removed from the share listings of Australian companies and land transfers to them were blocked.43 Both Federal and State Governments, as exemplars of the ‘loyal’ employer, placed restrictions on enemy nationals gaining public service employment.44 Under the Aliens Restriction Order 1915, ‘enemy aliens’ and naturalised subjects of enemy origin were forbidden to change their names without permission. In one example of such repression, a naturalised hairdresser by the name of Baur, was fined £15 plus costs for operating under a trade name, rather than his own surname.45 Similar measures included the banning of the sale of goods produced in enemy countries and encouraging proprietary clubs to suspend the

41 The Sun, 5 March 1916. 42 Kalgoorlie Miner, 1 April 1916 43 The War Precautions (Land Transfer) Regulations (1916) and The War Precautions (Enemy Shareholders) Regulations (1916) cited in Official Yearbook of the Commonwealth of Australia, no. 9, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Melbourne, 1916, p. 1004. 44 Oliver, War and Peace, p. 64, 70. See also E. Scott, Australia During the War, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1936, pp. 112-3. 45 This is probably a misspelling of the more common ‘Bauer’. Kalgoorlie Miner, 9 February 1916; Official Yearbook of the Commonwealth of Australia, no. 11, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Melbourne, 1918, p. 1040.

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membership of any enemy subject – naturalised or otherwise.46 As McKernan described the situation, the scapegoating of such migrants was an integral part of ‘manufacturing the war’ on the homefront.47

In Western Australia, internment of enemy nationals was carried out with extraordinary zeal and, at a local level, the Kalgoorlie Miner was not slow to whip up racial hatred against the Empire’s enemies.48 Its editorials raised the spectre of ‘foul deeds’ perpetrated by enemy subjects, categorically stating that the ‘Teutonic nature’ could not be trusted. In one article, it cited an unidentified ‘expert’ who described German manners as ‘beastly’ and claimed that mendacity was taught in German schools as being clever and virtuous. Even those who had become naturalised were suspect, claimed the Miner, arguing that ‘when the crucial hour of trial comes, the microbe of Kaiserism which has been growing and asserting itself for centuries may outweigh all previous resolves’.49 In response to German newspaper reports decrying the use of asphyxiating gas in warfare, the Miner leaped to the defence of the British and their allies. One editorial hypocritically argued that:

The Germans may lawfully torture and kill their enemies with … poison gas; but when the allies are forced to retaliate in kind, they are guilty of a breach of the Hague Convention. Vainglorious racial arrogance … when exalted into a creed, with a thousand material interests based on it and backed by great armies to further its fanatical teachings … becomes a dangerous mania. [W]hen with a crazy belief in their divine mission, they regard themselves as superior to all obligations of morality and law; when they trample upon the rights and ideals of every other people, and would make all other nations subservient to their good pleasure; then they become a pestilential danger and must be suppressed at all costs.50

46 Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 12 January 1916, pp. 39-51; Official Yearbook of the Commonwealth of Australia, no. 11, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Melbourne, 1918, p. 1042. 47 M. McKernan, The Australian People and the Great War, Thomas Nelson Australia, West Melbourne, 1980, pp. 150-177. 48 Oliver, War and Peace, p. 64. For a personal account of the period by an internee from Western Australia, see A. Splivalo, The Home Fires, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 1982. 49 Kalgoorlie Miner, 23 March 1916. For similar editorial messages, see Kalgoorlie Miner, 16 August 1916. 50 Kalgoorlie Miner, 7 July 1919.

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No kettle had ever been denigrated by a blacker pot! In such a heightened atmosphere, it may have behoved the Kalgoorlie Miner’s editor to exercise some journalistic restraint. However, this was not to be the case – Gilchrist blamed the Kalgoorlie Miner’s impassioned editorial regarding the German sympathies of the Greek King Constantine for the ensuing torrent of racist violence against local Greek businesses.51 Indeed, after the riots had subsided, the Miner report contained a Machiavellian disclaimer that no-one could have possibly ‘imagined for one moment that it would resolve itself into an affair of huge proportions’.52

Towards the end of August, the campaign against the migrants took a new turn. Until then, the Miners’ Union had refused all entreaties from the Federal and State Governments and from the Chamber of Mines to make a distinction between loyal and disloyal enemy subjects.53 When some mine managers began to re-employ Slav workers, 2,700 miners walked off the job. Predictably, once production had stopped, more serious attempts to resolve the dispute took place.54 The Minister for Mines, R. T. Robinson, proposed that a five-member Royal Commission be established to investigate each of the workers to whom the Miners’ Union objected, in order to determine which of them were enemy aliens. The suggestion was acceptable to the Federal Government, the Chamber of Mines and a mass meeting of unionists. Mr J. Darbyshire, a supervising engineer on the Trans-Australian Line, was designated chairman.55 Other men appointed to the Commission were Lloyd Bloxsome and R. Varden, representing the Chamber of Mines, alongside George Callanan and J. Cunningham, MLC, representing the Miners’ Union. During nineteen days of hearings, the Commission examined the status of 138 people, hearing nineteen witnesses in the process. In all, thirty-three men were classified as ‘enemy aliens’ and were subsequently interned. The Miners’ Union representatives issued a minority report, stating that, in their view, only two of the men were not alien enemies. For their part, the employer representatives issued an addendum stating that, in eight cases, they did not feel that sufficient evidence had been presented to warrant the

51 Gilchrist, Australians and Greeks, p. 23. 52 Kalgoorlie Miner, 11 December 1919. 53 A loyal enemy subject was any migrant from an area forcibly incorporated into the Austrian Empire. 54 Kalgoorlie Miner, 25, 29 August 1916. 55 Kalgoorlie Miner, 1 September 1916.

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men’s exclusion from the mining industry. They felt that some witnesses had made vexatious accusations that were ‘prompted by other than disinterested patriotic motives’.56

As a device to get the miners back to work, the Royal Commission was a complete success. The investigation allowed the re-employment of most of the banned workers and, at the same time, reinforced the Government’s policy regarding the persecution of ‘enemy subjects’. Kalgoorlie was to be racked by race rioting on two further occasions. However, while in each of these riots, returned soldiers demonstrated their continued commitment to an ‘ethnically-cleansed’ Kalgoorlie, the labour movement was to display a far more tractable attitude to migrant labour in the 1919 and 1934 events. Small signs of opposition to migrant exclusion were isolated in 1916, but in later riots they became official union policy.

The 1919 Kalgoorlie race riots

In 1919, there was a considerable level of street violence in Australia, as returned soldiers expressed their dissatisfaction regarding the political and industrial situation they found at home.57 Migrant workers who were deemed to be taking returned soldier jobs particularly angered them. In one such incident in Kalgoorlie, a 22 year old returned soldier, Thomas Northwood, was fatally stabbed in an altercation with an Italian man. A bell-ringer was sent through the streets to summon a general roll-up of returned soldiers.58 Although Northwood and his companions had instigated the altercation, returned servicemen led riots against southern Europeans. They organised a march of townspeople to various Italian-owned businesses in the area, which were ransacked one by one. The protesters demanded that all non-Britishers be ejected from the goldfields in

56 Kalgoorlie Miner, 3 November 1916. 57 See, for example, D. Hood, ‘Adelaide’s First ‘Taste of Bolshevism’: Returned Soldiers and the 1918 Peace Day Riots’, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, no. 15, 1987; D. W. Rawson, ‘Political Violence in Australia’, parts 1 and 2, Dissent, Autumn and Spring 1968. See also Thomson’s summary of the Melbourne Peace Day riot and the anti-Bolshevik riots in Brisbane in A. Thomson, Anzac Memories, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1996, p. 17. 58 West Australian, 13 August 1919.

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order to ensure that sufficient jobs would await those returning from military service. Single Italian men were given an ultimatum to leave the town or face ejection and, as a result, many migrants fled.59

These riots had industrial ramifications. While some returned soldiers had gravitated towards the newly-formed Nationalist union on the goldfields, the Federated Miners Union (FMU), most Kalgoorlie returned soldiers supported the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU).60 The AWU, allied with the Official Labor Party, recruited returned servicemen and anti-conscriptionists alike.61 As Murray has argued, a ‘clash of interest definitely existed’ with two key issues at the centre of the struggle.62 Firstly, the FMU demanded preference for returned soldiers, while the AWU sought preference for its members and recognition as the sole representative of mine labour. Secondly, the AWU leadership was prepared, albeit in a half-hearted fashion, to support the mostly migrant woodline workers who were, at this time, engaged in an industrial campaign for better wages and conditions.63 The FMU opposed migrants having jobs, especially while returned servicemen were unemployed. Although many miners would have experienced little contradiction between membership of both groups, for some within the AWU, the question of southern European labour raised competing political priorities between the poles of migrant exclusion and working class internationalism.

59 Kalgoorlie Miner, 13 August 1919; West Australian, 13, 15 August 1919; Murray, ‘The Kalgoorlie Woodline Strikes’, p. 25; Oliver, War and Peace, pp. 156-7. 60 At the time of the 1919 strike against non-union labour on the mines, it was reported that only seven returned men were not members of the AWU. However, W. Howell, acting secretary of the FMU (Boulder Branch) stated that its membership totalled more than three hundred, and of this number, over fifty were returned soldiers. Westralian Worker, 28 November 1919; Kalgoorlie Miner, 13 November 1919. 61 It should be noted that, between these antagonistic political positions, were many who stood somewhere between the two poles. For example, Alf Wilson, a propagandist for the OBU, indicated that he knew an RSL member who was in sympathy with the OBU, but who ‘was compelled for certain privileges to remain with those who fought and thought the country was theirs.’ See extracts from A. Wilson, ‘All for the Cause, being the experiences of a socialist propagandist’, Labour History, no. 65, 1993. See also A. Reeves, ‘Yours ‘til the war of classes is ended’: OBU Organisers on Western Australian Eastern Goldfields’, Labour History, no. 65, 1993. 62 Murray, ‘The Kalgoorlie Woodline Strikes’, p. 27. 63 Woodline workers or wood cutters produced the timber that was used for mine construction and safety. Whenever the woodline workers engaged in a strike of any duration, the mines ceased operation. For an evocative account of life on the woodline, see B. Bunbury, Timber for Gold, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 1997.

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The RSL and the FMU had an overlapping membership. As has been demonstrated in Chapter Three, the RSL’s allegiance to a homogeneous ‘white’ society prompted repeated calls for migrant exclusion. Moreover, its headquarters in Kalgoorlie became a focal point for anti-labour campaign coordination. Unlike some other returned service organisations and other sub-branches of the nationally-recognised RSL, where attitudes towards the labour movement were initially something of a contested issue,64 the Kalgoorlie sub-branch was, from the start, an anti-Labor force. Its often violent actions were officially sanctioned by the police, the conservative press, the government and the employers. When the Kalgoorlie RSL members indicated their determination to get Italians off the mines, the Police Commissioner in Perth cryptically advocated ‘lawful compulsion’ to get the Italians to leave.65 At an RSL meeting held to discuss the Northwood stabbing, the Resident Magistrate of Kalgoorlie, Mr Walter, sympathised with the returned soldiers’ desire to get Italians off the goldfields, but cautioned them to use ‘constitutional methods’. Whilst threatening to oust all Italian men, Kalgoorlie RSL executive members, H. Axford and W. Schwann, urged that such expulsions should be carried out by ‘peaceful means’. Members should try to avoid damaging the property of Australians, they conscientiously advised.66 When the riot erupted, the President of the Kalgoorlie RSL was in Perth. He cabled the following message to his Secretary: ‘Wire me particulars of trouble with foreigners. Hold men in hand. Help police to trace culprit. Use no unlawful means.’ Despite the almost immediate arrest of the man who had stabbed Northwood, the reply sent by the Secretary suggested that the executive endorsed the membership’s actions. The message read: ‘Returned soldiers moved all foreigners leave Goldfields by Saturday night or be deported. Rank and file have position in hand. Hell itself will not bluff them. Don’t worry.’67

The General Secretary of the Western Australian RSL advised the Kalgoorlie sub-branch that representations had been made to the Government to legitimise the

64 Those who fought within the RSL for more radical demands were frequently ostracised from the nationally-recognised organisation. See, for example, B. Oliver, ‘‘The Diggers’ Association’: A turning point in the history of the Western Australian Returned Services League’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, no. 23, 1993 and, in the post-World War Two context, L. J. Louis, ‘The RSL and the Cold War 1946-50’, Labour History, no. 74, 1998. 65 Oliver, War and Peace, pp. 156-60. 66 Kalgoorlie Miner, 13 August 1919.

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deportations and that the police had been told to advise the Italians to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Kalgoorlie. He passed on assurances that special constables were only being recruited to protect private property and the well- being of citizens, not to ‘protect the Italians in any way’. ‘I may state’, he wrote, ‘that the Ministers and the Commissioner of Police are sympathising with us in this matter.’68 Returned soldiers in Brisbane responded by sending a congratulatory telegram to their Western Australian counterparts, complimenting the Kalgoorlie men on ‘the workmanlike manner in which they acted’ to expel the Italians.69

While some miners followed the lead provided by the RSL, the AWU leadership denounced the rioting and subsequent moves to deport Italians from the goldfields. The Mining Division held a meeting in the aftermath of the riots and promised solidarity to all those foreigners and their families who were union members. The delegates also passed resolutions attacking the government for its failure to protect citizens and demanded measures to prevent further harassment and deportations from the fields. The resolution put before the meeting stated:

[t]hat we enter an emphatic protest to the Government for the spineless manner in which they have acted in not providing protection for citizens of this community, and that we advise the government to withdraw immediately the instructions given for the Italians to leave the district.70

AWU officials promised that union ‘vigilance committees’ would be formed for the protection of unionists. They also protested against the deportation of Louis Francis, accused of being a Communist by the RSL, and demanded that those who had forced him to leave town should be prosecuted.71

Murray has argued that the AWU leadership took up the cause of the migrant workers in order to build the union’s membership and, in the process, strengthen its case for sole representation of mine labour against that of the FMU. While she indicated that

67 West Australian, 13, 15 August 1919. 68 West Australian, 15 August 1919. 69 West Australian, 21 August 1919. 70 Westralian Worker, 22 August 1919.

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the resolutions supporting the woodline workers must have been supported by the majority of officials and delegates who voted for them,72 there were clearly mixed feelings among those who voted. The motions were passed ‘emphatically’ while the miners reportedly ‘possessed no greater liking for the foreigners than anyone else’.73 The wording of an Intelligence report sent to Melbourne in the aftermath of the dispute also suggested pragmatism on the part of the AWU. It read:

The A.W.U. (Miners’ Union) had vigorously protested against the “deportation” of Louis Francis and had threatened to side with the Italians if the soldiers tried to forcibly expel them from Kalgoorlie. They also advised the Italians to resist the pressure put on them to go away. Their action however was dictated not so much by any regard for the welfare of the Italian as by a hatred of the returned soldier … [my emphasis]74

Most local newspapers consistently fanned enmity between Britisher and migrant workers – distancing themselves from support for the riot but openly sympathising with the claims of the returned soldiers. For instance, before the riot, one newspaper exhorted the State government to scab on the woodline workers because, instead of paying relief to miners thrown out of work by the dispute, it would be cheaper for the government to ‘haul the wood for nothing’.75 After the riot, the same newspaper argued for the expulsion of the Italians. Its editor lamented that ‘[t]he fate of the community … depends on the goodwill of the Dagoes’, maintaining that ‘while the Italians remain on the goldfields they render the preservation of conditions of peace impossible’.76

Later that year, AWU miners struck to get non-AWU labour (specifically, ‘bogus’ unionists in the FMU) out of the mines and serious scuffles between the rival

71 Vanderwiel, The Goldfield Riot of August 1919, pp. 12-16. 72 Murray, ‘The Kalgoorlie Woodline Strikes’, p. 30. 73 Westralian Worker, 22 August 1919. 74 The Italian Aliens on the Kalgoorlie Goldfields, report dated 18 November 1919, Australian Federal Police, Western Division, Intelligence Section, NAA: PP14/1, 16/1/290. 75 The Sun, 3 August 1919. 76 The Sun, 17 August 1919.

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groups took place at several shaft heads.77 Again, a bell-ringer was sent out into the streets to advise all returned soldiers to meet at RSL headquarters.78 In this way, the police galvanised opposition to AWU militancy, forming a force of ‘special constables’ with returned servicemen prominent in its ranks. Indeed, these police reinforcements were sworn in at the Soldiers’ Institute, not at the police station.79 There was no doubting which group had the support of the Chamber of Mines. Its report stated:

Like a fiery cross the news of the happenings on the mines was carried through Boulder and Kalgoorlie exciting … the righteous rage of returned soldiers. Comrades … had been wounded, not on the field of battle … but in pursuit of their lawful avocations by degenerates among their countrymen. The tocsin sounded in the streets of Kalgoorlie, calling the returned men to enrol to safeguard the interests of themselves and the community threatened by a lawless mob.80

Not all returned servicemen answered the conservative call. One argued that the RSL executive was ‘reactionary and unrepresentative’ and that it was ‘one of the channels through which the Chamber [of Mines] hopes to sail to a complete victory’.81 A Boulder meeting of returned soldiers censured the Kalgoorlie RSL executive for ‘fighting the battle of the Chamber of Mines and acting in a manner which is detrimental to the best interests of ourselves as workers’ and passed a motion that returned soldier workers should ‘link up with the AWU’.82 This evidence supports McQueen’s distinction between the two sub-branches. He argued that the Kalgoorlie sub-branch was more representative of, and controlled by, its extensive commercial and management

77 For a detailed account of these altercations, see B. Oliver, Arrested in their beds at Midnight: An account and analysis of the events at Fimiston, 6 November 1919 and their aftermath, unpublished paper presented to the Australian Historical Association conference, University of Sydney, 7 July 1998. 78 The Sun, 9 November 1919. 79 Murray, ‘The Kalgoorlie Woodline Strikes’, p. 27. Jack Coleman remembered his father’s participation in union meetings at the time. He said, ‘The trouble was then that the companies were trying to form a company union called the Coolgardie Miners’ Union and the ... AWU ... were opposing it very strenuously to the extent that ... you realise this is 1919. They were just returned boys from the First World War. Strangely enough, the Boulder RSL wouldn’t be in any activity to take a stand against the miners but they marched them out from Kalgoorlie RSL.’ Interview with Jack Coleman, conducted by Stuart Reid on 19 September 1988, Battye Library ref. no. OH2062. 80 Chamber of Mines of Western Australia (Incorporated), Monthly Journal, vol. xviii, parts x, xi, xii, 31 December 1919, p. 124. 81 Westralian Worker, 14 November 1919. 82 The Sun, 9 November 1919; West Australian, 8 November 1919. A. H. Panton, Labor MLC and member of the Kalgoorlie RSL executive, stated that his fellow executive members had overstepped the mark by intervening in an industrial dispute and that the majority of returned soldiers supported the AWU.

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constituency, whereas the Boulder sub-branch had a far higher concentration of proletarian members – ‘in other words, it was a class division’ that separated the attitudes of the two groups.83 While the Chamber of Mines refused to grant preference to either the AWU or the FMU, it was content to encourage the strike breakers and to portray itself as champions of employment impartiality. It claimed that members endorsed the policy of preferential hiring of Britishers, with the proviso of ‘all things being equal’. In reality, this policy expressed preference for the cheapest, most unorganised labour. Richard Hamilton, President of the Chamber of Mines, argued that AWU intolerance of the Nationalist union would drive away capital and turn Kalgoorlie into another Broken Hill.84

The strike ended without the main issue fully settled – the FMU continued to exist as little more than a rump and considerable enmity between supporters of the FMU and the AWU remained a feature of the Kalgoorlie industrial landscape for many years. The mine employers strengthened their bargaining position against the AWU by encouraging racial division. A few days of lost production was worth little in comparison to the opportunity to manufacture a workforce permanently divided on the basis that the foreigner was the enemy, not the employer. In this campaign, conservative RSL members became useful allies, because the migrant presence on the mines challenged the ideals for which they believed they had fought, ‘race loyalty’ being high on their list of priorities. The anti-Labor returned soldiers could sow racial division among Kalgoorlie workers, but they did not have the social power to effectively remove foreigners from the mines. Nevertheless, their propaganda encouraged the alienation of southern Europeans from their Britisher counterparts, without preventing their employment. While the attitude of organised workers towards migrant labour was still somewhat grudging in 1919, a distinct shift from the politics of the 1916 campaign can be discerned. No longer did organised miners deny the right of ‘foreigners’ to a job; instead, they offered a range of support mechanisms to all those who were members of the union, in an albeit selfish recognition that solidarity would offer industrial benefits.

83 McQueen, Gallipoli to Petrov, p. 214. 84 Chamber of Mines of Western Australia (Incorporated), Monthly Journal, vol. xviii, parts x, xi, xii, 31 December 1919, p. 123.

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At the very least, the dispute highlighted to AWU members that RSL policy was anathema to their industrial interests. Returned soldier scapegoating of migrants as ‘imagined’ competitors for jobs could not disguise the very real ‘scabbery’ of the FMU. Together with the clear relationship between the RSL and the Chamber of Mines, particularly in the recruitment of special constables, such an industrial outlook rang warning bells for many AWU members. The AWU expelled any members who had been special constables in 1919 and, even in 1928, Labor officials were still investigating charges that certain persons had ‘served’ in this capacity.85 As Justina Williams recalled:

With the resumption of work … there was no diminution of hostility towards the “special bastards” as the scabs were called. Their lives were made such a misery that many of them left the industry. Hatred of the Coolgardie Union was long handed down among workers on the Golden Mile.86

The 1934 Kalgoorlie/Boulder race riots

Fifteen years later, a third riot erupted against southern European migrants in Kalgoorlie. During the Australia Day weekend of 1934, an inebriated Britisher miner, Edward Jordan, instigated a fight with an Italian barman, Claudio Mattaboni, outside the Home from Home Hotel where Mattaboni was employed.87 The two men were well known to each other and the fight appeared to be Jordan’s attempt to settle a minor dispute over a cracked window in the bar. In the course of the ensuing scuffle, Jordan fell and cracked his skull on the pavement and died several hours later in hospital. Afterwards, even his friends described Jordan as ‘a good man sober but very different with the drink in him’.88 Justina Williams, who knew Jordan well, thought him ‘a fine type of worker … popular and a fine sportsman’. Given Williams’ commitment to anti-racism, it is

85 Westralian Worker, 14 November 1919; Bertola, Ethnic Difference in Kalgoorlie, p. 31. 86 Williams, The First Furrow, p. 81. 87 For detailed descriptions of the riots, see the references listed in Footnote 4. See also file of correspondence, claims for damages, newspaper clippings etc. in connection with riots. Boulder Police Station records, acc. no. 430, item no. 700, State Records Office of Western Australia. 88 Bunbury, Reading Labels on Jam Tins, p. 108.

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unlikely that she would have described him in this way if Jordan had been an habitual racist towards migrants.89

However, Jordan’s drinking partners, Dillon and Martin, were not prepared to let the tragic incident rest. They spread rumours that the popular firefighter and tributer had been murdered by Mattaboni. Jordan’s funeral was attended by hundreds of ‘mourners’. One local resident, Nancy Crisp, described her sister’s impression of the funeral procession which accompanied Jordan’s coffin.

I’m not suggesting that there wasn’t the usual grief and sorrow amongst his own family and friends but ... Norah told us when she came home that the cars going along at the tail end of this cortege were [full of] sightseers and almost merrymakers and she was rather disgusted about it.90

Many of these ‘merrymakers’ went from Jordan’s funeral to a number of wakes being held in local hotels.91 In the evening, a crowd began to gather in Hannan Street outside several migrant-owned businesses. A youth threw a stone through a window of the Italian-owned Kalgoorlie Wine Saloon. After looting much of the hotel’s contents, rioters burned the building to the ground. Subsequently, several other migrant-run establishments suffered the same fate. A large group of rioters then ‘commandeered’ a tram and rode to the nearby town of Boulder, where the destruction continued.

In the morning, meetings were held at several pit-heads, where it was resolved that the miners would not work until unnaturalised miners were ejected from their jobs. In Boulder, side-stepping the AWU leadership which did not support the idea of striking, a street meeting was organised from the back of a lorry. One reporter described how several speakers ‘harangued’ the crowd of approximately three hundred people to elect a committee of representatives from each of the principal mines to demand the dismissal of all foreigners, regardless of their naturalisation status. The selection process for this committee was rather informal. Someone in the crowd would shout out their

89 Williams, The First Furrow, p. 143. 90 Interview with Nancy and Jack Crisp for ‘A Bad Blue’ (The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots) ABC Social History Radio feature, 1986, producer Bill Bunbury, Battye Library ref no. OH1396.

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nomination. ‘Let’s have a look at him’ was the response. After some nominations were voted down, seven men were selected.92 A photograph showing six members of the Unofficial Miners’ Committee appeared in , listing their names as H. B. Charteris, R. Fletcher, J. J. Baker, M. Gilbert, J. Thomas and T. Brozam.93 While very little is known of these men, we might assume from the method of their selection that they were representative of the cross-section of views present at the meeting and were united on the need for migrant exclusion. Their selection also suggests that they were known in the town, although not necessarily as mine workers, as the name of their committee suggested. Certainly, Bob Fletcher worked as a pipe fitter on the Ivanhoe Mine, was shop steward for the AWU and a Labor member on the Boulder Council.94 Likewise, Joe Thomas was described by the Premier of the day, Phillip Collier, as ‘an out and out red ragger of the very worst type’ and was later blacklisted from the mines on Collier’s express recommendation.95 However, J. J. Baker was a champion cyclist, sports commentator and promoter. Postal records describe him as a hawker from Kurrawang.96 Harry Charteris appears to have lived in Kalgoorlie only during 1934, and his attire in the photograph does not suggest that of a working miner. Indeed, his medical records imply that he spent most of the interwar years in the merchant navy, while his wife, Angelina, resided in Perth.97 At least two of the group, Joe Thomas and Harry Charteris, were returned soldiers.

91 D. Casey-Congdon, Casey’s Wife, Artlook Books, Perth, 1982, p. 112. 92 Sunday Times, 4 February 1934. 93 West Australian, 31 January 1934. J. J. Baker is the man featured third from the left, not M. Gilbert as noted in the West Australian. This information was relayed by John Terrell from the recollections of his father-in-law, Alan Deas, who knew Baker. Letter to author, 21 August 2000. 94 Interview with Robert Fletcher, conducted by Stuart Reid on 27 July 1988, Battye Library ref no. OH2054. 95 See Gerritsen, ‘The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots’, p. 75. If Collier’s ‘red-ragger’ reference meant that Thomas was a member of the CPA, this makes the ideological mix of the committee even more remarkable, given that the local branch of the CPA actively opposed the riots. It seems more likely that Thomas was a ‘fellow traveller’. Justina Williams did not recall mention of his name among the many interviews she undertook. Letter to author, 23 September 2000. 96 Alan Deas described Baker as ‘a good talker and very friendly person, who soon fitted in very well’. Letter to author, 21 August 2000. See also newspaper description of Baker as ‘well-known in the cycling world of Kalgoorlie and as a broadcast speaker from 6KG’, Sunday Times, 6 January 1935; Western Australian Post Office records, William Grundt Library, Kalgoorlie. 97 Charteris’ service record indicates that he was born in India of British parents, enlisted in Melbourne in 1915 and served in Egypt and France. Due to a family matter, he deserted in 1918 and was court-martialled and discharged from the army in 1920. See H. Charteris, service no. 3073, World War One Personnel Records, National Archives of Australia, Canberra; Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA), Medical Records file no. 31576, held at DVA, Perth office. I am indebted to Victor Oates, DVA, Canberra, for this information. Also see Western Australian Post Office records, William Grundt Library, Kalgoorlie.

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When the rioting broke out, the local branch of the CPA produced a leaflet which argued that migrant workers were not the enemy. Members spoke at the daily miners’ meetings to argue for international solidarity.98 Bronc Finlay recalled that members spoke in favour of turning the strike into a campaign against the mine managers for better wages for all the miners, although Ted Docker, a leading CPA member, later reported that attempts to quell the ‘misdirected’ campaign were howled down by the crowd.99 Later that day, a meeting was called by AWU officials and Labor parliamentarians in an attempt to end the strike. It was an open-air, rowdy affair and not restricted to union members. When explosions were heard coming from Boulder’s predominantly southern European residential area, known locally as Dingbat Flat, the rioting flared for a second time and migrant residences became the mob’s main target. Two men were killed in the ensuing battle – Charles Stokes, a young Britisher rioter, and Joseph Katich, a migrant miner. Many residents of the Flat were forced to hide in the surrounding bushland.

Although the rioting ceased that night, it took several days of meetings and negotiations to end the strike. The Chamber of Mines insisted that they followed a policy of Britisher preference, but would not consider removing southern Europeans from their jobs as such a move would create an untenable labour shortage.100 They also refused to grant an AWU delegation’s request for employment preference to AWU members as a resolution to the dispute. One newspaper reported that the Chamber of Mines ‘would not relent, even when it was pointed out that, from 1898 to 1919, when preference to unionists had been the rule, there had been no serious industrial dispute on the Golden Mile’.101 Mr J. Lynch, President of the Eastern Goldfields Tributers Association, was quoted, in the same edition, as saying that the AWU executive had let

98 Interview with Jack Coleman; Interview with Bronc Finlay, conducted by Stuart Reid on 16 November 1988, Battye Library ref no. OH2071; Williams, The First Furrow, pp. 144-5. 99 Interview with Bronc Finlay. See also Communist Review, June 1934, p. 15. 100 Ironically, in some quarters, this stance was portrayed as a principled position. In one mining periodical, the editor argued that: ‘[i]n declining to be bullied by barbarianism, unblushing and undisguised, into becoming tools of barbarians and sanctioning causes of tyranny and injustice, the Chamber of Mines has done something real in the way of cleansing and defending the reputation of State.’ Industrial Australian and Mining Standard, 15 February 1934. 101 Goldfields Observer, 4 February 1934

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the membership fall to the point where members were forced ‘to take things from the Chamber lying down’. At a subsequent Mining Division meeting, Mr J. Cunningham, MLA, reminded the members that they had not won preference in the 1919 dispute and, in his opinion, they would not do so again. He argued that the union could not afford a dispute on the question and that the proper place for gaining employment preference was through the arbitral system.102 By the end of the week, the miners agreed to go back to work on the AWU officials’ assurances that an English language test would be more carefully administered to migrant workers.103

In time, eighty-six people were arrested on a variety of charges in connection with the riots – twenty-two charges of stealing, fifty-five for unlawful possession, four for vagrancy, seventeen for rioting (one absconded from bail) and four for possession of unlicensed firearms. The police were able to secure eighty-three convictions and fourteen men received gaol sentences.104 Eight of those charged with rioting were found guilty. The arrest records indicate that the riot participants had a wide range of occupations and that there was a preponderance of young men among those charged.105 The records do not, however, support the common contention that the rioters were predominantly miners.106 Alongside the thirty-seven miners who were charged were listed several women domestics, a housewife, two building contractors, an upholsterer, a billiard marker, a salesman, a clerk, a gardener, a storekeeper and a 73-year old hawker named Juma Khan. Volet has argued that some rioters who were listed by police as miners, could have been more accurately described as itinerant workers. He cited the example of one unemployed man whose last job had been in railway line construction.107 Similarly, James Bursill was described by police as a miner, but, in court, gave his occupation as ‘barman’.108

102 West Australian, 5 February 1934. 103 Kalgoorlie Miner, 5 February 1934. 104 Return of arrests and charges and results in connection with the Kalgoorlie Riots, 19 February 1934, Police file, acc. no. 430, item no. 700, State Records Office of Western Australia. 105 Ibid. Police records show that the vast majority were under the age of 30. 106 See Gerritsen’s comment that ‘[a] familiar refrain around Kalgoorlie when the riots are mentioned is, “it all started on the mines”.’ Gerritsen, ‘The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots’, p. 57. 107 Volet, ‘Some of the Reasons’, p. 110. 108 Kalgoorlie Miner, 16, 24 March 1934.

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At the inquest into their friend’s death, Dillon and Martin were prepared to perjure themselves to the effect that Mattaboni had thrown stones at Jordan and had hit him with a large object which, unfortunately for their credibility, they could not describe. Mattaboni’s defence lawyer, Eric Heenan, deduced that Jordan’s friends had deliberately inflamed the rioters.109 Mattaboni was subsequently charged with the manslaughter of Jordan, but was acquitted.110 Upon Heenan’s death in 1998, his son remarked that most people in Kalgoorlie had opposed the riots and supported his father’s defence of Mattaboni. Certainly, acting for the Italian man did not appear to harm Heenan’s electoral fortunes. Two years after Mattaboni’s trial, he was elected as a Labor member of the Western Australian Upper House and held his seat for 32 years.111 Heenan’s principled decision to represent Mattaboni stood in stark contrast to the actions of Felix Cowle, solicitor and close associate of the Chamber of Mines, who was offered the case but refused to act in Mattaboni’s defence. While Mattaboni remained in gaol, cowardly Cowle wrote to his wife that, despite being joint proprietor of the Home from Home Hotel,112 he had ‘promptly retired from all connection with “Charlie” [Mattaboni]. His reasoning was that ‘the crowd ... are so irresponsible that it only needs some woman to cry out “That’s Cowle’s shop; he’s appearing for the murderer; down with all Dago sympathisers” & a bur-bottle would be through my £50 plate glass window in half-a-minute’.113 Ironically, Cowle, an outspoken conscriptionist, had acted as counsel for the Slav miners at the Alien Enemies Commission in 1916. Clearly, fulfilling the wishes of the Chamber of Mines inspired in him a greater sense of duty.114

What role for the RSL in 1934?

Although diffuse, snippets of evidence suggest that the RSL played a practical and ideological role during the 1934 rioting. Further, the 1934 outburst sheds light on Kristianson’s argument that the tactics of the League have always been subject to

109 Goldfields Observer, 18 February 1934. 110 Kalgoorlie Miner, 16 March 1934. 111 The Australian, 15th July 1998. 112 Cowle was the executor of Mr Gianatti’s will. Mrs Gianatti operated the hotel after her husband’s death and was Mattaboni’s employer. 113 Private papers of Mary Augusta Cowle, letter dated 30 January 1934, MN1027, acc. no. 2981A, State Records Office of Western Australia.

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internal dispute, with one section endorsing ‘respectability’ and ‘responsibility’ and the other advocating more militant, and sometimes violent, agitation.115 Indeed, the secrecy surrounding those involved in the riots, in many senses, suited a ‘respectable’ RSL leadership that pontificated about the violence, but surreptitiously supported the methods and objectives of the rioters.

Indeed, the 1934 Kalgoorlie race riots bore an uncanny resemblance to the Wasser riots of 1915, in which Australian soldiers had played a leading role. Just as had happened in Egypt almost twenty years earlier, rioters commandeered a tram to take them on their rampage. Hotels and businesses were ransacked and set alight; the owners’ possessions were hoisted into the streets to be carried away by looters. Members of the Kalgoorlie Fire Brigade, of which Edward Jordan had ironically been a member, had their fire hose severed so that they were unable to douse the flames. Gavin Casey, a reporter who witnessed the rioting, wrote evocative and detailed articles that gave a building-by-building account of how the rioters destroyed one migrant establishment after another in a systematic fashion, clearly emulating the pattern established in previous riots. He described how the ‘ringleader of the mob’, a man ‘possessed of a military whistle, and by a code which effectively led the rabble, proceeded up Hannan Street, to the blare of a cornet which had been ransacked from the ruins’.116 A spokesperson for the Slav community confirmed the use of a whistle to orchestrate events. Mr Steve Bozzekovich said that inflammable material that had been used to ignite non-Britishers houses was conveyed ‘in motor cars, which moved systematically in response to whistles’.117 As the International Club was set alight, Casey reported that he heard one observer exclaim, ‘Christ! This is worse than the Battle of the Wazzir!’118 Rather belatedly, at the end of the night, one of the leading rioters appealed to his comrades-in-arms for restraint. ‘We have done enough’, he said, urging them not to do anything they might regret in the morning. Using words typical of RSL

114 Kalgoorlie Miner, 12 September 1916. 115 G. Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism: The Pressure Group Activities of the Returned Servicemen’s League, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1966, p. 13. 116 Sunday Times, 4 February 1934. 117 West Australian, 2 February 1934. 118 Sunday Times, 4 February 1934.

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terminology,119 he shouted, ‘Let us use constitutional means. Let us go in the morning, and tell the mine managers that we won’t have any but British workers on the mines and that the ____ Dings have got to go.’ The youth with a military whistle ‘blew a few blasts on the early morning air’ and the rioters moved on, but not before venting some final spleen on the Slavonic Hall flagpoles.120

Of the meeting that occurred later that day, the Kalgoorlie Miner described how the rowdy crowd of about 1,000 people on Richardson Reserve was beginning to listen to a suggestion from Labor officials that miners report for work the next day, with another meeting to be held if foreigners were found to be working. At this point the meeting was interrupted by the sound of explosions coming from Dingbat Flat but, initially, there was little unified response from the crowd. When the rioters’ effort to raid the ironmongers and the police station for guns proved unsuccessful, another group ‘led by a tall elderly man and followed by a dozen youths left hurriedly to raid the Returned Soldiers’ League hall in Boulder’.121 From this juncture, the riots escalated, with the ‘tall elderly man’ providing both the impetus and the practical assistance that the rioters needed. Mr E. Fraser described organised and armed Australians who appeared to be patrolling the perimeter of the residential area and remembered hearing from Joe Hocking that Hocking’s brother had been ‘on the Fimiston Road ... [and] was stopped there by armed Australians [who] told him not to go any further’.122 It also seems likely that the timing of the explosions on nearby Dingbat Flat to coincide with the miners’ meeting was not accidental. Whereas the conciliatory statements of the union officials and Labor parliamentarians were having an effect, the explosions within earshot of the meeting seem rather too timely.

119 See D. W. Rawson, ‘Political Violence in Australia’, p. 21. 120 Sunday Times, 4 February 1934. 121 Kalgoorlie Miner, 31 January 1934. Several days after the riots it was reported that there were persistent rumours that the machine gun parked outside the Boulder RSL had been used in the rioting, although the gun was almost certainly for ceremonial use only. Police records, acc. no. 430, item 700, State Archives, Perth; Goldfields Observer, 4 February 1934. Consideration should also be given to the fact that it was the Boulder sub-branch which supplied the guns. This suggests that the earlier radical orientation of the Boulder group did not survive the immediate post-war period. 122 Interview with Stella and Evelyn Villa and Mr E. Fraser for ‘A Bad Blue’ (The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots) ABC Social History Radio feature, 1986, producer Bill Bunbury, Battye Library ref no. OH1396.

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In addition, RSL influence can be detected in the symbolism of Edward Jordan’s funeral. Jack Coulter, a local newspaper reporter, described Jordan’s burial as ‘a full- scale fireman’s funeral, with the coffin carried on a fire engine, permanent and volunteer firemen in full uniform and George Jordan’s fire helmet on top of the Union Jack framing the casket.’123 Coulter’s observation that Jordan’s casket was covered with a Union Jack suggested that some who took part in the procession were prompted more by nationalist than personal sentiments. Aged 29 when he died, Jordan would have been far too young to have participated in World War One, but it is clear that the organisers of his funeral wanted to emphasise his ‘Britishness’. For those Kalgoorlie residents who had lived in the area in 1919, the connection between Jordan’s death at the hands of an Italian barman and the 1919 death of Thomas Northwood would have been clear. Descriptions of Jordan’s funeral suggest that it served as a political event, galvanising racist and nationalistic hatred, particularly among the many drunk and disorderly attendees. Indeed, Gavin Casey went so far as to argue in the Sunday Times that Jordan’s funeral was the cause of continued rioting.124

Jordan’s burial provided a stark contrast to the one of Joseph Katich, the Yugoslav miner killed during the riots, who had reportedly left a will indicating that he did not want a funeral with any form of religious observance and would prefer one consistent with his ‘worker ideals’. Newspaper reports indicate that many mourners came from their hiding places in the bush to attend Katich’s funeral and that people of many nationalities, including Britishers, spoke at the ceremony. All the speeches were met with cheers. A Britisher said that Katich had been one of his best friends, that most were very sorry about what had happened and that help would be given by the people of Boulder to rebuild homes that had been destroyed.125 Fred Mayman, a Communist activist, remembered the differences between Jordan and Katich’s funerals. He said that Jordan’s funeral was given ‘an enormous amount of publicity’ and attracted a huge line of cars out to the cemetery. Katich’s funeral, on the other hand, attracted no cars, but a

123 J. Coulter, By Deadline to Headline, Access Press, Northbridge, 1997, p. 34. 124 Sunday Times, 4 February 1934. 125 Kalgoorlie Miner, 2 February 1934.

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‘cortege of marchers’ that he said was ‘over a mile and a half long of miners’.126 The other funeral to result from the Kalgoorlie riots was that of Charles Stokes, the Britisher rioter who was wounded on Dingbat Flat. His funeral was described as a fairly subdued and poorly-attended affair and, as the West Australian remarked, some of the men by the graveside would almost certainly have been fellow rioters.127 The large crowds who had participated in the riots, purportedly to ‘avenge’ Jordan’s death, did not attend Stokes’ burial.

In the aftermath of the rioting, the Kalgoorlie Digger ran a full page article on ‘The Alien Question’. The wording made it quite clear that the leadership of the Kalgoorlie sub-branch wanted to distance itself from the more overt violence while still lauding the ideas that underpinned it. Dissembling, the Editor argued that ‘[d]irect action is always dangerous and although it would appear that some demonstration was necessary it does not seem to have been necessary to wage war on the women and children.’128 The League leadership did, however, claim a ‘pioneering role’ in toughening the language test. It argued that RSL diligence had been inspired by concerns for mine safety, the purity of Australian speech and the potential build-up of ‘foreigner colonies in the midst of our cities’.129 Nowhere did the League leadership acknowledge that their consistent propaganda against the presence of migrant labour might have played some part in motivating and justifying the deeds of their more ‘direct actionist’ members. In addition, while never admitting that League members had played a role in the riots, the Digger offered the weak excuse that ‘the men who probably started the affair had no idea of looting [emphasis added]’.130 Counteracting ironic suggestions from some in the community that an organised soldier contingent ‘should have assisted to quell the affair’, an aggrieved tone was adopted to make reference to the events of 1919 and the unpopularity of soldier intervention at that time. The writer argued that, although the soldiers had ‘tried to assist the public’ and had ‘saved the mines’, their actions had not been appreciated. ‘The mine people have forgotten our work’, he whined, ‘but our

126 Interview with Fred Wayman, conducted by John Clements in 1984. Transcript held in the J. S. Battye Library, Perth, reference no. OH1313, p. 47. 127 West Australian, 2 February 1934. 128 Kalgoorlie Digger, February 1934. 129 Kalgoorlie Digger, March 1934.

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friends never neglect to throw up ‘specials’ on every occasion.’131 In short, the last thing on the RSL agenda was to quell any anti-migrant sentiment, but they were keen to be viewed as respectable nationalists, rather than disreputable rioters. Although the League had been stung by criticism of its direct action in 1919, there were still some members who were prepared to fan anti-foreigner sentiment, just a little more covertly than before.

The West Australian also alluded to returned servicemen’s involvement in the rioting. Its editorial expressed the view that:

[W]hen the present frenzy has died down most of the small minority of those responsible for the outrages and the looting will be sick with what they have done. Kalgoorlie miners have the reputation of being a body of men decent and reasonable beyond the average. Those who knew them on active service respected them, not alone for the fighting qualities which they shared with other Australians, but for their essential decency and intelligence. It remains only for the sober-minded among them to assert their qualities of leadership, and put the hot-heads under the control of public opinion.132

Again, this line of argument was reminiscent of the attitude taken by many mainstream editorials in the aftermath of World War One when digger rebelliousness was more widespread. Returned servicemen were excused as impetuous, slightly mischievous, but fundamentally honourable, men who could be led astray by ‘outsiders’ and ‘troublemakers’.133 In 1934, the evidence clearly suggests the opposite – that the older RSL members provided both political and covert leadership to the mostly younger rioters. These impressions were backed up by my recent dealings with the octogenarian Secretary of the Kalgoorlie RSL, George ‘Rip’ Heyhow. During a research trip in 1998, I asked him for details of the sub-branch’s activities during the 1930s. Using his sturdy frame to block my view of the filing cabinet contents, Mr Heyhow handed me copies of the 1933 and 1935 editions of the Kalgoorlie Digger but would not part with the 1934 editions, firmly stating that there was nothing of importance in them.134 He was similarly

130 Kalgoorlie Digger, February 1934. 131 Ibid. 132 West Australian, 30 January 1934. 133 D. W. Rawson, ‘Political Violence in Australia’, p. 22. 134 Fortunately, copies of this revealing volume are held in the Battye Library, Perth.

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reticent to let me view volumes of the sub-branch’s minutes, saying that I would find this unique series, dating back to the 1920s, equally uninteresting. Upon returning to Kalgoorlie in 1999, I asked again for access to the RSL minutes, only to be told by Mr Heyhow that they had ‘disappeared’. At that time, George Heyhow was also president of the Eastern Goldfields Historical Society. More recently, Mr Heyhow appeared on the ABC’s Dimensions programme, as the narrator of an item about the 1934 riots. As a young man of twenty, he was resident in Kalgoorlie in 1934 and was able to give an ‘eyewitness’ account of the period. Interestingly, almost seventy years after the event, he sympathetically reiterated the justifications made by the rioters for their actions. He said:

There were a lot of foreigners in the town – mainly southern Europeans, Italians, Yugoslavs – and they were a very well-respected group of people. But something was going wrong … they were getting far better money on the mines than what the average Australian underground miner was getting – and they were very flashily dressed and some of the young foreign element were starting to get pretty cheeky. The women would have to step off the footpath and walk around them when they were coming up the street. 135

Industrial opposition to the riots

In 1934, notoriously anti-union publisher, Critchley Parker, denounced any suggestion that trade unionists were not responsible for the riots as ‘verbal whitewashing’, claiming that their failure to quell the violence demonstrated that unionism had not ‘honestly opposed’ it.136 However, while some miners undoubtedly participated in the 1934 riots, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the vast majority did not. Instead, they held meetings, took votes, denounced the violence and organised to prevent further outbreaks of rioting. Chief Inspector Hunter of the Kalgoorlie Police stated in his report that he was ‘convinced that few if any of the real miners took part.’137 While we might debate what being a ‘real miner’ might mean, newspaper reports indicate that the real afternoon shift

135 Dimensions, ABC Television, episode 5, broadcast 11 March 2002. See transcript on http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions. 136 Industrial Australian and Mining Standard, 15 February 1934. 137 Report to the Commissioner of Police, Police file, acc. no. 430, item 700, State Records Office of Western Australia, Perth.

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went underground as usual on the Monday and was oblivious to the turmoil above.138 In the midst of the ensuing strike, the conservative newspaper, the West Australian, reported that few of the older miners could be seen on the streets.

In line with the official attitude of the union [AWU], they seem to be holding aloof from the anti-foreigner campaign and some of them are not slow to express their abhorrence of the lawlessness.139

In an article entitled ‘Miners are Blamed for Work of Irresponsibles’, the Goldfields Observer emphasised the youth of the majority of demonstrators and pointed out that many miners dissociated themselves from the riots. It was stated that the miners ‘scoff at the idea of the gathering [on Richardson Reserve], which virtually howled down the Minister for Works, being classed as a miners’ meeting and contend that it was a gathering of irresponsibles who had no right to speak for, or act on behalf of the genuine miners’.140 The Kalgoorlie Miner report of the AWU meeting held on Friday, 2 March, stated that:

The general feeling of the meeting was against any association with the element which ran riot and caused such havoc and distress. It was mentioned that they had burned out some fine members of the community. The homes of boys who had given their all in sport for the entertainment of the public and who had been popular citizens, had been destroyed.141

AWU records suggest that a tiny number of their members were in the forefront of the riots, although some of the arrestees listed their occupation as ‘miner’ or ‘labourer’. Of the sixteen charged specifically with rioting, only one, Alan Pereira, was an AWU member. Of the eighty-six persons charged in total, only eight were listed on AWU membership rolls.142 It is possible that some rioters were members of the

138 West Australian, 31 January 1934. 139 West Australian, 1 February 1934. 140 Goldfields Observer, 4 February 1934. 141 Kalgoorlie Miner, 3 February 1934. 142 At his trial, Pereira revealed that he had been accused of being a ‘ding’ and that his brothers had been subjected to the language test. The prosecutor suggested to him that he took part in the riots to prove he was Australian. Pereira denied participation. Kalgoorlie Miner, 24 March 1934. Three other men, Dwyer, Gilbert and Kelly, were possible AWU members, but the surviving details are inconclusive. AWU (WA

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Federated Miners’ Union or the Eastern Goldfields Tributers Association. If so, FMU members would have been far more exposed to RSL ideology than to labour movement influence. In addition, the Tributers Association appears to have had significant migrant membership (approximately thirty per cent) and, during the strike, its executive resolved to interview management with a view to ‘protect[ing] the interests of those tributers who may be absent’. This resolution was a recognition that some migrant members had fled into the surrounding bushland to escape the rioting and were not immediately confident to return. As tributing contracts contained clauses which stipulated that abandonment of the tribute could result in the issuing of termination notices, the Tributers Association was concerned to ensure that the tributes of their migrant members were not forfeited.143

Because the early mass meetings had undoubtedly included a great many non- unionists, AWU officials took steps to limit attendance at subsequent meetings to those with union tickets. By the end of the week, the unofficial miners’ committee had agreed to leave negotiations with management to the AWU leadership. Despite the AWU’s constant refusal to support a stopwork over the presence of migrants on the mines, the outcome of the dispute revealed the ambivalent attitude of the union leaders towards the explosion of racism on the fields. For them, it would appear that the main issue was the strike, not the racism. By playing on the common stereotype that foreign miners were dangerous underground because they lacked English skills, the officials were able to reach a deal with the Chamber of Mines for a more rigorous application of the language test. On the Sunday, by an almost unanimous vote, the miners agreed to return to work on the understanding that the language regulations would be strictly enforced. This arrangement was little more than a cheap ploy to get the miners back to work, because the AWU leadership had no real interest in scapegoating migrant miners. In fact, they organised a defensive force of some three hundred miners to patrol Boulder on Wednesday evening to prevent further trouble. In addition, a deputation of AWU miners met with the Mayor and demanded that the violence be stopped. The West Australian reported that ‘[t]he Mayor said that many had told him that they were in sympathy with

Branch) Membership Roll, 1934-35, file no. N117/1129, Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University. 143 Minute Book and Record of Membership Fees and Levies Paid, 1934-35, Eastern Goldfields Tributers Association, acc. no. 1730A, item 5, State Records Office of Western Australia.

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the stricken foreigners, and deplored the fact that no provision had been made for their housing and care during the day.’144 Moreover, the AWU leadership expressed its ‘determination to give the union ticket to all members irrespective of nationality’.145

When leaving the fields, Minister for Works, Alex McCallum, was reported to have said, ‘The dispute was created outside the ranks of the union and was handed over to irresponsible individuals who had no experience and were not even known in union circles’.146 AWU miners at the Sons of Gwalia mine censured Labor Premier Collier for not visiting the fields and taking a firm stance on the need for unity among all workers, which was especially significant given that many migrant miners were employed on that mine.147 Collier, for his part, blamed foreign communists for the riots, a claim that was eagerly repeated by the Sydney Morning Herald in its palpable anxiety to protect Australia’s international reputation.148 For their part, Communist Party leaders castigated an unnamed Western Australian member for failing to see the difference between supporting the right of migrants to have jobs and getting behind the mine managers’ position. On the contrary, one editorial argued, employers wanted to retain migrant workers ‘as a fruitful source of division among the workers’.149 Jack Crisp suggested that it was the employers who acted to maintain racial divisions in the workforce in the aftermath of the rioting. He recalled:

There was a great deal of bitterness. I was working underground at the time and ... the Australians, Italians and Slavs were a mixed workforce underground and things were very unhappy for quite a while. The mine staff did the very best to segregate the Australian[s] from the southern Europeans.150

The Westralian Worker, the AWU-run weekly paper, somewhat cynically denounced those union members who took part in the rioting as having displayed ‘an inexcusable

144 Ibid. 145 West Australian, 2 February 1934. 146 Ibid. This was not entirely true, of course. Bob Fletcher, one of the members of the Unofficial Miners’ Committee, was prominent in ‘union circles’. However, it can be confirmed that more than half of the members of the committee (Charteris, Gilbert, Baker and Brozam) were not members of the AWU. 147 Red Star, 2 March 1934. 148 Kalgoorlie Miner, 31 January 1934; Sydney Morning Herald, 1 February 1934. 149 Communist Review, April-May 1934.

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lack of solidarity’. However, its articles did explain that the main factors leading to the riots were speed-ups, graft and high youth unemployment, maintaining that all workers, regardless of nationality, faced the same conditions and that racism only played into the hands of the Chamber of Mines. One writer pointed out, ‘We cannot, as workers, afford to quarrel with the workers of any other country ... [W]e need their assistance in our struggles against a common enemy.’151

Many decades later, Jack Coleman movingly described the terrible toll inflicted by the conditions on the mines which served to divide the workforce and deflect anger away from the employers, towards the migrant workers. In his opinion:

The animosity was always there, this racist sort of an outlook. But as one old fella made it clear when he got up on the stage … the night they carried the motion they would go back to work but they had to learn English. He could hardly speak. He was silicotic. His lungs had gone in the mines. And he had a boy, a bit younger than me and couldn’t get in the mines and this was everybody’s attitude. You see, if there’s unemployment, you look around for someone that’s different and say ‘Oh they’re doing it.’ The real unemployment on the mines came from the avalanche of people who crossed the Trans line ... farmers’ sons, farmers’ unemployed. They weren’t growing wheat, their wheat was one and six a bag or something. And there were droves of them. There used to be a saying on the Lake View and Star … that if you wanted a job on the Star, tell him you were five foot eight at a minimum, you know, weighed twelve stone and a farmer’s son and you got on because [of] no industrial experience and there was some truth in that too. You just think. You are there. You’re dusted. You’re dying and your kid can’t get a job. Well, who’s taken my kid’s job. Those foreign bastards, they’re taking my kid’s job. And that’s the thing that made it possible to develop … some disagree with me and say ‘No, it’s just inherent in people, that they don’t like others’ but it wasn’t true because we worked with ‘em and played with ‘em.152

For his part, Richard Hamilton, President of the Chamber of Mines, expressed the view that it was a deficient education system that had led to the riots. Sanctimoniously, he said:

150 Interview with Nancy and Jack Crisp. 151 Westralian Worker, 2, 9 February 1934. 152 Interview with Jack Coleman.

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It shows that secular education alone, without a sufficient police or moral force, will not keep some people from becoming savages when acting under mob impulse. Let us hope that we shall never again see such a display of cruelty, hatred and destruction.153

While little credence can be given to Hamilton’s analysis, the 1934 Kalgoorlie race riots do show that, despite the contradictory position taken by some union leaders, the union movement potentially provided the classrooms where anti-racist lessons could be learned. In addition, while racism was certainly widespread in Kalgoorlie, forces which drew working class people together could also be identified. At school, in sporting competitions, at social events and at work, there were many opportunities for Britishers to meet and mix with their migrant counterparts. Although this interaction did not automatically challenge racist ideas, it did provide as many opportunities for fraternisation as for friction. It is to these examples that this discussion now turns.

Signs of integration

An examination of the role of unions and workers in the 1934 Kalgoorlie riots illustrates important incongruities in previous interpretations of the empirical evidence on this period. Other scholars have indicated that a significant degree of social, economic and political division existed between the Britisher community and the various groups that comprised the ‘foreign’ population. While it is perhaps predictable that studies of race riots highlight racial division, such a focus should not distract attention from countervailing undercurrents. Gerritsen, for example, claimed that ‘[t]he basis of the social problems that came to the fore in the ‘twenties was undoubtedly the foreigners’ separation from the local Australian community. The foreigners had their own clubs, hotels, sports … social habits and living areas.’154 If ethnic segmentation was as strong as Gerritsen suggested, why were Jordan and his Britisher friends socialising in an Italian-run hotel? Certainly, many establishments attracted regular customers on the

153 President’s Address, Annual General Meeting, The Chamber of Mines of Western Australia (Incorporated), Kalgoorlie, 27 March 1934, copy held in the National Library of Australia.

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basis of nationality, but this division was always somewhat elastic. At the inquest into Jordan’s death, Rena Gianatti, the co-proprietor of the Home from Home Hotel, said that the deceased had been a regular at her establishment. Claudio Mattaboni, the barman who threw the fatal punch, concurred by saying that he had known Jordan for at least twelve months because the fireman was a frequent patron of the Italian-run hotel.155

Wally Dawes, a resident of Kalgoorlie during the riots, spoke of the integration that existed between the Britisher and foreigner communities. As he put it:

[T]here had been Italian families there from quite early days and they were well integrated into the community. They were fairly well thought of ... and their boys mixed with the Australian boys and all that. And although they invariably went to a different school [from Wally], meaning they were mostly predominantly Catholics. Well, there was quite a lot of Australian boys and girls went there too.156

In a similar vein, Anthony Splivalo, a Dalmatian immigrant, recorded that his early school experiences were very welcoming. Even after being rounded up and interned during the First World War, he explicitly differentiated the state-sanctioned racism of his internment from the often welcoming response he received from many ‘ordinary’ Australians.157 Evelyn Villa, whose father was Italian and mother was Australian, recalled a woman whose business had been destroyed in the riot. She said ‘the lady that owned the hotel [Mrs Furia, formerly Osmetti], she had four boys [who were] very good sportsmen; they were in everything’.158 Descriptions of local Australian Rules matches are littered with tales of the sporting prowess of the Osmetti brothers and members of other migrant families, playing alongside their Britisher team mates. In one game in 1935, ‘Jacko’ Osmetti opened the scoring, while Diorites dominated play in the final quarter. In another match, Marchesi replaced the injured Forrest while Tomich and the Osmetti brothers were named, alongside Laffin, Spence and Gibson, as the best players

154 Gerritsen, ‘The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots’, p. 62. 155 See transcript of inquest, Goldfields Observer, 18 February 1934. 156 Interview with Wally Dawes for ‘A Bad Blue’ (The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots) ABC Social History Radio feature, 1986, producer Bill Bunbury, Battye Library ref no. OH1398. 157 Splivalo, The Home Fires, pp. 15, 26, 29, 36, 52-3, 57-8.

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for the Mines Rovers team.159 This ‘ethnically-integrated’ line up was the team for which Edward Jordan had played before his death. Marjorie Henderson mentioned that she was in the same class as one of the Osmetti boys and that they were ‘very well known, very well respected and liked’.160 In the memoirs of a Kalgoorlie local, ‘Blue’ Nelli, also the child of an Italian father and Australian mother, recalled that he played in a schoolboy team which represented the Goldfields in Perth.161 In fact, three years after the riots, Tomich, Dellaca and Charlie Osmetti were selected to play in a goldfields team that defeated South Australia on the Kalgoorlie Oval. Also selected for that team was Frank Jordan, Edward Jordan’s brother.162 Indeed, Jack and Nancy Crisp both felt that such integration was widespread. Nancy said:

But in the tennis clubs and football clubs, they’d been to school together and ... there was general friendliness in the district ... up our way, support was entirely with the southern European element ... I knew of no support for the rioters.163

Evelyn Villa recalled that her father played an important role in the social life of Kalgoorlie. She said:

[W]e were one of the families with a very, very nice car and he was called on such a lot to participate at funerals and weddings and things like that and I think he was a very highly respected man in the community.

When asked to think about whether there were any signs that the riots might occur, she said that there was some social segregation, but that it contrasted with integration in the workplace, where ‘[t]here was a big majority of Slavs and Italians and a few Greeks and that on the goldfields and I think they all worked in harmony with one another’.164 It

158 Interview with Stella and Evelyn Villa and Mr E. Fraser. 159 Kalgoorlie Miner, 17 February 1935. 160 Interview with Marjorie Henderson for ‘A Bad Blue’ (The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots) ABC Social History Radio feature, 1986, producer Bill Bunbury, Battye Library ref no. OH1401. 161 W. Blue Nelli, The Best Battler, no publication details, held in the William Grundt Memorial Library, Kalgoorlie. 162 For the information regarding Frank Jordan, I am grateful for correspondence from John Terrell, author of Goldfields Sport, A Century of Heroes, Heroines and Happenings, Bateman, 1993, letter dated 4 February, 2000, and to John Merritt for bringing Terrell’s book to my attention. 163 Interview with Jack and Nancy Crisp. 164 Interview with Stella and Evelyn Villa and Mr E. Fraser.

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was not only in the mines that the workforce was mixed. The Kalgoorlie Miner reported that many Britisher women had been thrown out of work when the Greek-owned cafes, in which they were employed, were destroyed.165 When asked to recall any incidences of migrant men being disrespectful to local women, Cora Sudlow disputed such a stereotype. She said, ‘we felt so safe … we’d walk home across a mining lease at night, just a couple of girls, and we never dreamt of having to worry about anything.’166

Far from a ‘sense of shame’ that was often mentioned in the aftermath of the riots, the Crisps showed contempt for the rioters and commented on the way in which people gave support to migrants by offering them places to stay, food, clothing and other practical assistance. Jack said:

Amongst my friends in Boulder were quite a number of young men of Italian descent, but Australian-born, and my sympathies were very largely with them. I had no time at all for the rioters.167

It should be noted that Jack specifically mentioned those friends who were Australian- born, as if this was a higher recommendation. Similarly, Sidney Hall, the man who blew on the bugle to rouse the rioters, freely admitted in court that he did not like foreigners but gave evidence that he had gone to the Boulder riots accompanied by a young Italian man.168 These instances suggest that racist ideas and Britisher/southern European interaction were a constant influence on race relations in Kalgoorlie, but were pressures that could produce unpredictable results.

Some migrants who hid in the bush outside town left prized possessions with their Britisher neighbours. Beatrice Wellington recalled that her mother kept cases in her chook pen for southern European friends. Mr E. Fraser described how his family helped fleeing migrants:

165 Kalgoorlie Miner, 31 January 1934. 166 Interview with Cora Sudlow for ‘A Bad Blue’ (The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots) ABC Social History Radio feature, 1986, producer Bill Bunbury, Battye Library ref no. OH1402. 167 See, for example, M. and A. Webb, Golden Destiny: The Centenary History of Western Australia, published by the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Kalgoorlie, 1993, p. 661; Interview with Nancy and Jack Crisp. 168 Kalgoorlie Miner, 24 March 1934.

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I remember the people coming to the house with their tin trunks ... They were mostly people that lived on the Flats below our home and they wanted us to look after their belongings ... Well, our verandah was full of black, tin trunks.169

Lily Larcombe, whose father-in-law owned the Golden Eagle (where, incidentally, Charlie Stokes’ sister, Irene, was a frequent drinker) related how her father-in-law harboured fleeing foreigners in his hotel and turned away rioters at the door.170 Nancy Crisp told of her mother comforting the proprietor of one of the hotels that had been destroyed:

She went up to her and she saw her standing in the street almost in tears and gazing at the still-smoking ruins of the hotel. And she just went up to her and put her arms around her … and she just said well, she was so sorry.

Incidentally, Mrs Crisp remembered the proprietor’s reply, which was also indicative of the degree to which many migrants felt that they had been integrated into community life. She said, ‘I didn’t think they’d do it to me.’171 Stella Villa fondly remembers all the help they received when it became clear they would have to leave their South Boulder home until the rioting had ceased. She recalled that:

[T]hey were all Australian neighbours apart from the one across the road. They shifted any furniture of value out of our homes, put it in different homes and I think the next door neighbours were very, very good. They took Dad’s car up the garage and had it refitted. Saw that the tyres were okay ... they refilled the car and we set sail.172

169 Interview with Beatrice Wellington for ‘A Bad Blue’ (The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots) ABC Social History Radio feature, 1986, producer Bill Bunbury, Battye Library ref no. OH1403; Interview with Stella and Evelyn Villa and Mr E. Fraser. 170 This hotel was purchased by the Larcombe family with the proceeds from the sale of the ‘Golden Eagle’, the largest gold nugget ever found in Australia. Interview with Lily Larcombe for ‘A Bad Blue’ (The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots) ABC Social History Radio feature, 1986, producer Bill Bunbury, Battye Library ref no. OH1403. Bunbury, Reading Labels on Jam Tins, p. 44. 171 Interview with Jack and Nancy Crisp. 172 Interview with Stella and Evelyn Villa and Mr E. Fraser.

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This evidence calls into question claims made by Boncompagni that some migrant groups in Kalgoorlie had a ‘tendency to form group settlements’ and that their own actions ‘worked against rapid assimilation’.173 In a similar vein, Bertola suggested that the riots were inflamed, in part, by the ‘social behaviour’ of the migrants.174 Both writers downplay the effects of racism on migrant behaviour and both analyses, if taken to their logical conclusion, place partial responsibility for the riots on the shoulders of those who had homes and possessions destroyed. In effect, such analyses are little different to that produced by the Age at the time of the riots. In a classic case of ‘blaming the victim’, its editor argued that:

[e]ntirely by their own choice foreign nationals live intensely segregated … [and] … make little or no effort to live up to the economic and social standards which, not without much hard struggle, Australians have contrived to set up … If the latter find these standards imperilled resentment is natural; antipathy towards those responsible is not racial, but economic.175

Certainly, such generalisations are at odds with Stella Villa’s description of life in her street. Her recollections suggest that integration occurred at a number of different levels. Intermarriage was not uncommon, nor was it unlikely that a migrant family would have Britisher neighbours. Sport and other social occasions provided many opportunities for ‘ethnic mixing’. Overwhelmingly, it would seem, people made friends on the basis of proximity, rather than nationality.

The most misleading stereotype of the local migrant community has been the claim that migrant workers continued this process of ‘self-segregation’ by abstaining from labour movement politics.176 With little corroborating evidence, Boncompagni announced that ‘the large majority of them was driven by economic needs and

173 A. Boncompagni, ‘From the Apennine to the Bush: ‘temporary migrants from Tuscan communities to Western Australia, 1921-1939’, Labour and Community Conference, Proceedings of the Sixth National Conference of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Robert Hood and Ray Markey (eds), Wollongong, 2-4 October, 1999, p. 30. 174 Bertola, Kalgoorlie, Gold and the World Economy, p. 230. 175 The Age, 1 February 1934. 176 The dangers of making sweeping political generalisations on the basis of nationality are outlined in G. Cresciani, ‘Italian Anti-Fascism in Australia, 1922-45’ in E. Wheelwright and K. Buckley (eds), Essays in

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displayed little interest in politics, the local Anglo-Australian society or labour organization’.177 In fact, AWU records confirm the degree of Britisher and migrant integration in the miners’ union. The 1933-34 and 1934-35 state membership rolls reveal numerous names of obvious southern European background. To make a numerical calculation of southern European AWU membership on the goldfields and to minimise regional variation, seven common goldfields addresses were chosen – Coolgardie, Wiluna, Kalgoorlie, Boulder, Gwalia, Southern Cross and Fimiston. In the 1933-34 rolls, 2,477 members recorded their address as being in one of these towns and, of those, 569 had southern European surnames. In the 1934-35 rolls, of the 3,123 members living in the aforementioned towns, 643 names suggested southern European birth. These figures indicate that, in stark contrast to descriptions of the migrant community as ‘non- integrated’, more than 20 per cent of the AWU goldfields membership in Western Australia came from southern Europe, roughly analogous to their presence in the workforce. This membership density did not alter in the wake of the riots.178 Indeed, given the tendency of migrants to Anglicise their names, especially in the wake of World War One attacks on migrant liberty, this calculation is likely to have under-estimated the southern European presence.

Moreover, because of the ferocity of the 1934 riots, it might have been expected that migrant miners would suffer greater discrimination in employment, but the evidence suggests that there was little scapegoating. In a report from the monthly meeting of the AWU Mining Branch, Secretary Alf Watts advised that, of 405 men who had undergone the language test, only two workers had failed.179 In addition, while CPA reports of the extent of Communist influence must be ‘taken with a grain of salt’, it is worth mentioning Jack Coleman’s impression that the anti-racist position taken by the local Communist Party branch during and after the rioting had not harmed its reputation and

the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism, vol. 3, Australian and New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, 1979. 177 Boncompagni, ‘From the Appenine to the Bush’, p. 30. While Boncompagni’s study focussed on Tuscan workers, his work suggested that their experiences were not dissimilar to those of other southern European migrants. 178 AWU (WA Branch) Membership Rolls, 1933-34, 1934-35, file no N117/1129, Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University. 179 Westralian Worker, 6 April 1934.

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had, in fact, played a role in getting a leading CPA member, Bronc Finlay, elected to the secretaryship of the AWU Mining Branch in 1938.180

All these indications of integration were to provide the social and industrial basis for a unified struggle in the following year. Indeed, the Chamber of Mines/RSL combination that encouraged racial division among Britisher and migrant workers would soon receive a severe setback. In 1935, the AWU challenged the mine managers over working hours on the mines. During this dispute, the Kalgoorlie mining workforce was able to promote inter-ethnic solidarity as a means of increasing its industrial strength, as the following account demonstrates.

They wanted shorter hours, so they took them!: the 1935 hours dispute

Just one year after ethnic division racked Kalgoorlie, the Chamber of Mines and the AWU entered into a protracted dispute over the length of the working week. During 1934, the AWU Mining Division had served a log of claims on the Chamber of Mines. The new award gave some pay increases but allowed for no reductions in hours and suggested that the existing eighty-eight hour fortnight could be worked using alternating forty and forty-eight hour weeks, instead of the weekly forty-four hours that had been in operation. The AWU agreed to accept the new award but warned the Chamber of Mines that any attempt to implement the new hours clause would be regarded as a ‘hostile action’. Immediately hostile, the Chamber proceeded to implement the new hours, locking out those miners who attempted to work under the old arrangements. The AWU leadership called for strike action.181

It was reported that the strike inspired ‘a wonderful demonstration of solidarity’ throughout the goldfields.182 Around six thousand workers were affected by the dispute, and there was little evidence of dissension within the ranks.183 Initially, pickets were

180 Interview with Jack Coleman. 181 Kalgoorlie Miner, 7, 8 January 1935. 182 West Australian, 18 January 1935. 183 Westralian Worker, 14, 18 January, 8 February 1935.

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placed at the shaft heads but even the West Australian had to admit that they were peaceful affairs. No-one attempted to defy the union’s decision.184 The Sons of Gwalia miners had been working the new hours for some two years, professing a preference for the extra day to make a trip to the ‘city’, but they too agreed to stop work in support of the Golden Mile unionists.185 A deputation from nearby Grant’s Patch came to Kalgoorlie to express their support. Throughout the dispute, the strike committee produced a weekly bulletin to boost solidarity.186 An Appeal Committee swung into action and donations came from all over Australia. A letter was forwarded to the NSW Labor Council, urging financial assistance. Lance Sharkey moved a motion, seconded by , that an appeal be sent to all unions to support the Kalgoorlie miners. Garden reminded delegates that the Western Australian miners had, in the past, forwarded thousands of pounds to support other strikers. The motion was passed unanimously.187

Efforts were also made to overcome the racial division of the past. Slav miners discussed details surrounding their representative who had been sent to the coast to raise support funds. They passed a resolution which indicated that they were ‘quite satisfied with the handling of the trouble by their British comrades’.188 An entertainment committee organised boxing and wrestling matches to raise money for the strikers. Fundraising dances were held, with the Yugoslav Society providing both band and premises for the event.189 The training hall, trashed in the riots of the previous year, became a ‘hive of industry’, with a high level of fraternisation between Britisher and southern European workers.190 The Sparta Soccer Club donated to the strike fund and workers at the Lake View and Star Company, one of the goldfields' largest employers of

184 West Australian, 8 January 1935; Branch Secretary’s Annual Report, AWU (WA Branch), for the year ended 31 May 1935, Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University. 185 West Australian, 7 January 1935; Workers’ Weekly, 11 January 1935; Kalgoorlie Miner, 18 February 1935. 186 Workers’ Weekly, 26 April 1935. 187 Workers’ Weekly, 8 February 1935. 188 Kalgoorlie Miner, 1 February 1935; Westralian Worker, 14, 18 January, 8 February 1935. 189 Kalgoorlie Miner, 14 January 1935. 190 Workers’ Weekly, 15 February 1935.

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foreign labour, solidly supported the strike action.191 Workers’ Weekly was moved to print that:

A steel front of native and foreign workers has been preserved in the struggle, and amongst the ranks of those who fought with rifles a year ago is the most intimate fraternisation in the face of the common enemy.192

Even if the picture painted by the CPA was not so rosy in reality, the unanimity of the strikers suggests that, even after the terrible events of 1934, sufficient mutuality and trust between migrant and Britisher workers existed to accomplish an organised, disciplined and successful strike.

The Chamber of Mines also displayed ‘wonderful solidarity’ during the struggle over working hours. It often refused to negotiate with AWU delegations, even a delegation that included the Minister for Mines, and it was widely believed that the Chamber was prepared to ‘starve the miners back to work’.193 Although the editorial of the RSL’s journal expressed regret at the hardship faced by families, it refused to take sides in the dispute, except to point out that the business owner, ‘who is a working man himself’, was having to carry his customers.194 After six weeks, a return to work was accepted, although a significant level of opposition to this move was reflected in the 320/200 vote. Management and union agreed to abide by the outcome of a ballot to be taken among union members for the purposes of ascertaining which working hours arrangement was preferred.195 On 30 March 1935, AWU members voted overwhelmingly to reject the imposition of a forty-eight hour week. Bertola pointed out that, as a result of the dispute and its successful resolution, ‘AWU membership among the underground workforce rose from about 40 per cent in February 1934 to over 72 per cent’ by the time the ballot was held.196

191 Kalgoorlie Miner, 15, 19 January 1935. 192 Workers’ Weekly, 1 February 1935. 193 Kalgoorlie Miner, 4 February 1935. 194 Kalgoorlie Digger, February 1935. 195 Workers’ Weekly, 1 March 1935.

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At a mass AWU meeting on 7 January 1935, one speaker from the floor had suggested that the union should consult with the Kurrawang woodcutters in order to gain their support. It was stated in reply that the woodcutters (mainly southern Europeans and highly unionised) would support any action that the AWU decided to take regarding the new award.197 However, the response of the woodcutters was more mixed than this statement suggests. In October 1934, the woodline workers had taken their own industrial action in pursuit of claims for an increased price for cutting engine wood, open competition for provision of supplies, restoration of holidays lost in the 1931 award, and the forty-four hour week. A stopwork meeting of all AWU members on the goldfields heard one of the delegates, Mr Graeme, oppose press statements to the effect that the Britishers wanted to resume work, assuring members that all the woodline workers, ‘irrespective of nationality were 100 per cent. strong’ in supporting the strike action.198 After much debate, it was recommended that the woodcutters should resume work and that the matter would be settled at arbitration. Three months later, when the woodcutters were asked to support the miners, the vote was split 80 votes for, 80 votes against, striking. The AWU official presiding over the meeting cast his vote in favour of remaining at work. The miners received word that the woodcutters would assist the dispute financially, and that they would stop work immediately if asked.199 No request was forthcoming.

The woodcutters’ arbitration case was much delayed and it was not until April 1935, that Justice Dwyer handed down an amended award which granted the forty-four hour week and restored the lost holidays. Dwyer chastised the woodline workers for striking and made the following comment:

It is difficult to understand the mentality of the workers at Kurrawang in these circumstances. Some excuse may be made for them in consideration of the fact that fully 75 per cent of the Kurrawang wood cutters are foreigners from Southern Europe and Italy, nearly all of whom do not understand the English language or read our newspapers. They

196 Bertola, Kalgoorlie and the World Economy, p. 239; Branch Secretary’s Annual Report, AWU (WA Branch), for the year ended 31 May 1935, Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University. 197 West Australian, 7 January 1935. 198 Westralian Worker, 26 October 1934. 199 West Australian, 14, 16 January 1935.

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present a fertile field for the sowing and cultivation of subversive industrial propaganda by agents, whose motives and objects are not for the good of the State or the workers.200

At a subsequent meeting of the Kalgoorlie and Boulder section of the AWU Mining Division, a motion was carried extending congratulations to the woodline workers for their victory. The members also resolved to protest to the State Executive about President Dwyer’s remarks, which, they said, would ‘promote racial hatred’.201

Conclusion

A detailed examination of the three Kalgoorlie race riots demonstrates that racism is not an immutable feature of working class politics, but an ideology that can be contradicted, both by the material conditions of workers’ lives and by the practical intervention of those who choose to stand against a racist hegemony. While other historians have tended to study one or another of the riots in virtual isolation, this study demonstrates the importance of linking the three outbursts in an effort to understand the ebbs and flows of racist ideology. While, in 1916, opposition within the labour movement to racist policies was slight, by 1919, sufficient workers were convinced of the need for solidarity to take up the cause of migrant workers in a relatively concerted fashion. Although the 1934 Kalgoorlie riots still stand out as one of the most ugly instances of racial antagonism in Australia, significant evidence exists to show that resistance to racist ideas among workers could emerge even while racism was quite literally ‘running riot’. While not seeking to ‘whitewash’ the degree to which racism did permeate working class consciousness, this case study illustrates that the majority of workers used their union to offer solidarity to the migrant workers. Even among those for whom racism was unexceptional, the experience of living, working and socialising in a town of many nationalities served to cement relationships and sympathies that could not be instantly swept aside by an upsurge of racist violence, nor by a crude calculation of available jobs.

200 Westralian Worker, 31 May 1935. 201 L. J. Triatt, Sec, AWU (MB) to P. J. Trainer, Secretary, State Executive ALP, dated 28 May 1935, ALP WA State Executive correspondence files, State Records Office of Western Australia.

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Although competitive employment relations on the mines undoubtedly created tensions, the collective nature of the workforce offered opportunities for workers to build inter- racial solidarity for their mutual industrial benefit. Far from ‘starting on the mines’, it was the Kalgoorlie labour movement that was able to challenge racial division and promote inter-ethnic solidarity. At the very least, racism was, for workers, a contested issue.

The principal force responsible for racial division in Kalgoorlie was the Chamber of Mines, which consistently sought the most competitive forms of labour hire. In order to further this aim, it promoted ‘white’ solidarity by outwardly upholding a policy of Britisher preference while, in practice, offering the worst and most lowly-paid work to southern Europeans. It refused to take any action against perceived corrupt hiring practices and inflamed racist sentiment by praising southern European miners as hardworking and submissive. The RSL was a useful ally in these efforts to both incorporate and marginalise migrant labour. While it consistently supported the employers’ right to freedom of contract, its constant vilification of southern Europeans fostered greater alienation of migrant workers from their Britisher counterparts, and encouraged the perception among both groups that their most devoted ally was the Chamber of Mines. Because the RSL was cross-class in nature and dominated by conservative sections of society, its members played an important role in the dissemination of nationalism among working class people. For the RSL, internationalism was anathema to its vision of a homogenous, capitalist White Australia. Edward Jordan’s death gave RSL activists an opportunity to capitalise on their long- running campaign against southern Europeans. In 1934, the evidence suggests that RSL members helped to fan latent racist views into active racist turmoil.

For its part, the AWU leadership had a protean record in the defence of solidarity across national divisions. Self-seeking to the end, it sought a larger membership and was prepared to recruit southern Europeans to further that goal. Membership records show that it was at least as successful at recruiting southern Europeans as they were Britisher workers. However, officials were also prepared to sacrifice the interests of southern European members when they became useful scapegoats for poor conditions on the

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mines. While the AWU leadership would not fight racism, it generally had no material interest in perpetuating division, except to cover industrial and political weaknesses. During the 1935 strike, Kalgoorlie unionists were able to challenge racial antipathy, build unity along class lines, and win an impressive industrial victory in the process.

199 CHAPTER SIX

Broken Hill in Context

One minute the Capitalist Press is helping to bruise and baton the workers into submission and the next it is expressing fear that the workers’ lot may be jeopardised by the Chinese and Japanese. Editorial, Barrier Daily Truth, 3 March 1923.

Introduction

E. P. Thompson employed the notion of class, not as a structure to be frozen and examined in isolation, but as ‘something which in fact happens’, a constantly evolving ‘historical relationship’. In this vein, The Making of the English Working Class began with an exhortation that:

The relationship must always be embodied in real people and in a real context. Moreover, we cannot have two distinct classes, each with an independent being, and then bring them into relationship with each other. We cannot have love without lovers, nor deference without squires and labourers.1

Thompson’s approach informs this examination of Broken Hill during the 1920s and early 1930s. While no account of the town’s history would be complete without inspiring stories of tenacious union struggles, these compelling events are only part of a complex whole. Indeed, it is arguable that erstwhile portrayals of Broken Hill as a ‘union town’ have obscured the equally important class mobilisations of the mine managers and their supporters. When scholarly attention has addressed industrial divisions along the line of lode, the lion's share of attention has been directed towards fractures within working class Chapter Six Broken Hill in Context

organisations – the cleavages caused by support for, and opposition to, syndicalist propaganda, the effect of political and industrial divisions among various trade unions, and the enormous political rifts between ALP and CPA activists in the late 1920s and early 1930s.2 Equal attention has not been directed towards local employers. In most accounts of Broken Hill’s industrial history, the mine managers are either hidden from view or portrayed as lifeless caricatures, devoid of complex motivations and strategies.

Exemplifying the wider historiographical trend regarding explanations of racism in the workplace, evidence of a possible employer role in Broken Hill ‘race debates’ has also been neglected. Brian Kennedy’s excellent social history of the town predominantly portrayed local racism as a simple British/foreign dichotomy, although he did note the part played by mine managers, clergy, business people and the Barrier Miner in whipping up pro-war xenophobia.3 Moreover, Kennedy’s study concluded with the Big Strike of 1919-20 and so did not examine the racist campaigns that flared in Broken Hill a few years later. Ellem and Shields have scrutinised this period, providing a gripping account of a crusade waged by a vexatious racist, Richard Gully, to split the Broken Hill labour movement on the basis of anti-southern European agitation.4 However, in Ellem and Shields’ portrayal, Broken Hill’s ‘race debate’ is largely one carried on between the ‘solidarists’ and the ‘exclusionists’ within the labour movement. The employers are relegated to the historical background, merely instituting workplace changes that seemingly inadvertently inspired racist responses from workers. The question of whether Gully was a lone agitator or, as

1 E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, Penguin, Ringwood, 1968, p. 9. 2 In line with Joseph Stalin’s pronouncement that social democratic parties were more dangerous to working class progress than European fascist movements, CPA members were instructed to treat the more moderate reformists in the ALP as ‘social fascists’. For their part, ALP members were encouraged to support anti- working class measures for the restoration of capitalist profitability and ‘national prosperity’. For detailed descriptions of the ‘Third Period’ in Australia, see T. O’Lincoln, Into the Mainstream, Stained Wattle Press, Sydney, 1985; S. Macintyre, The Reds, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1998, esp. p. 143. For a global picture, see D. Hallas, The Comintern, Bookmarks, London, 1985, pp. 123-38. 3 B. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale: A Social History of Broken Hill 1883-1921, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1978, p. 132. 4 B. Ellem and J. Shields, ‘H. A. Turner and “Australian Labor’s Closed Preserve”: Explaining the Rise of “Closed Unionism” in the Broken Hill Mining Industry’, Labour and Industry, vol. 11, no. 1, 2000.

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Edgar Ross suspected, an ‘agent provocateur’ for wider employer interests, is yet to be fully examined.

World War One was a period of enormous political and industrial upheaval in Broken Hill. In the face of considerable support for Australian involvement in the conflict, the local labour movement managed to build significant movements against conscription and militarism. However, such a challenge to the nation’s war effort did not go unopposed. Conservative forces in Broken Hill banded together during the war years, mounting frequent campaigns to discredit local opponents of the war as cowardly, treacherous and irresponsible. Further, members of this close alliance realised that their mutual interests did not end with the Armistice. In the 1920s and 1930s, Broken Hill unionists faced a well organised enemy from within their own town, in the form of a relatively politically homogeneous network of employers, representatives of the Nationalist Party and the local RSL sub-branch. This largely informal alliance worked together to oppose any and every sign of labour unity and militancy. In particular, mine manager activism around the question of race was, I argue, part of a concerted attempt by capital and its supporters to steer debate towards industrial and political outcomes advantageous for employers. Certainly, if Broken Hill was a ‘union town’, local employers gave no sign that they were cowed by, or even acknowledged, such a sobering state of affairs.

Despite a widespread and often deserved reputation for industrial unity, the Broken Hill labour movement was divided over a number of political questions – reform versus revolution, industrial militancy versus arbitration, racism versus internationalism.5 In particular, the labour movement struggled to work out an appropriate response to the presence of southern European labour on the mines. The industrial unity of the mining workforce was vulnerable on this subject and the conservatives knew it. They took every opportunity to split labour ranks on the ‘race’ question, knowing that the more Broken Hill workers saw migrants as the enemy, the greater would be the industrial benefits for

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employers. The ensuing debates within the labour movement, and the struggles between the labour movement and the employers over migrant employment, illuminate the dynamics of racism at close quarters. In particular, they provide an opportunity to assess the class interests that were represented in the local ‘race debate’.

This chapter provides a political and industrial context from which to examine the case study material regarding racism in Broken Hill which appears in Chapter Seven. Firstly, it describes the development of local union and employer organisation and the nature of the relationship between these two contending groups. Secondly, it examines two of the most important ideological influences in the town – the conservative Barrier Miner and the labour movement-owned Barrier Daily Truth (BDT or Truth) to demonstrate that racial attitudes within Broken Hill were a subject of intense debate. Thirdly, it outlines the character and influence of the RSL in Broken Hill, focussing upon the troubled relationship between returned soldiers and the labour movement alongside the much more friendly affiliation between the RSL and local mine managers.

Industrial relations along the ‘line of lode’

Like Kalgoorlie, Broken Hill is an outback city. It is situated in the Barrier Ranges, approximately 1,100 kilometres from Sydney, its State capital. The formation of the town was stimulated by the discovery of a massive lode of silver, lead and zinc and mines began operating from 1884.6 An initial syndicate of seven rural workers developed into the dominant mining company on the field, the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited (BHP).7 Large companies like BHP controlled mining along the line of lode from its earliest days and, consequently, waged and contract labour were always widespread.

5 B. Ellem and J. Shields, ‘Making the ‘Gibraltar of Unionism’: Union Organising and Peak Union Agency in Broken Hill, 1886-1930’, Labour History, no. 83, 2002. 6 G. Blainey, The Rise of Broken Hill, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1968. 7 For a brief summary of the period, see E. Stokes, United We Stand: Impressions of Broken Hill 1908-1910, Five Mile Press, Canterbury, 1983, p. 8.

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Broken Hill miners were first organised into the Barrier Ranges Miners’ Association late in 1884. Shortly afterwards, this organisation became a branch of the Amalgamated Miners’ Association (AMA), linking the Broken Hill workforce with miners from all over Australia and New Zealand.8 Initially, the Broken Hill branch was not militant. Its first executive was made up of men of distinctly middle-class occupations, such as bankers, coaching agents and other businessmen.9 However, the harsh nature of mining rapidly brought grievances over wages, conditions, union preference and health and safety to the fore. Four years after the mines opened, Broken Hill miners had elected a more militant union leadership and organised their first strike – many more periods of industrial disputation were to follow. It was these disputes which kindled the equation of Broken Hill’s name with trade unionism. However, as was the case in so many other industrial histories, a dialectical relationship existed between the strength of local trade union organisation and the subsequent vigour of employer mobilisations.10 While the history of Broken Hill is filled with union struggles, it is, almost by definition, equally entwined with the activities of an highly motivated and organised group of employers and supporters.

In 1889, the miners struck to win the closed shop. In 1890, union labour forced the closing of the Broken Hill mines in protest against the employer-initiated class warfare of the Depression period. In 1892, a bitter eighteen week dispute arose over employer attempts to introduce contract mining, an anti-union offensive that was ultimately successful. The AMA lost its employer recognition and more than half its membership. During 1908-9, BHP and its workforce fought a long battle over wage rates; the workers were able to successfully defend the existing award, but many union members suffered unemployment and employer discrimination upon the resumption of work.11 Out of the strike in 1909 came the Barrier Labour Federation, a permanent combined union representative body. Nevertheless, relations between the miners’ union and the various craft unions were often strained

8 E. Ross, A History of the Miners’ Federation of Australia, (2nd ed), Macarthur Press, Parramatta, 1984, pp. 49-51. 9 Kennedy, Silver, Sin, and Sixpenny Ale, p. 30. 10 See, for example, J. Merritt, The Making of the AWU, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1986.

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because of widely differing viewpoints regarding arbitration, militancy and political action. In 1915-16, miners began walking off the job at lunchtime on Saturdays, in an ultimately successful campaign for the forty-four hour week. During the ensuing strike, the local Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) chapter provided the motto, worn on badges that said, ‘If you want a 44 hour week, take it’. Turner described this dispute as the high-point of IWW influence in Broken Hill.12 Radical influence over trade union activity was not welcomed by supporters of industrial moderation. ‘Breakaway unions’ formed in the aftermath of the hours dispute, expressly organised around the principle of opposition to industrial action. In May 1919, in a climate of intense union rivalry between the militants and the arbitrationists, Broken Hill miners struck in support of their log of claims, little knowing that it would be eighteen months before they returned to work with a thirty-five hour week and improved health and safety measures.13

Throughout the period under review, health and safety were perennial concerns for the miners, but mine management strenuously resisted the implementation of less perilous work practices, preferring to blame employee negligence for high ‘accident’ rates. As Couch argued, technical evidence regarding the injurious effects of underground mining to workers’ health rarely provided the key impetus for change. Instead, mine managers used the maintenance of profitability as an excuse for continued violation of their duty of care and, consequently, the outcome of class struggle became the eventual arbiter of health and safety questions.14 One report stated that:

11 Kennedy, Silver, Sin, and Sixpenny Ale, p. 109. See also G. Osborne, ‘Town and Company’ in J. Iremonger et al (eds), Strikes: Studies in Twentieth Century Australian History, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1973. 12 I. Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics: The Dynamics of the Labour Movement in Eastern Australia 1900-1921, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1979 (first published 1965), pp. 81-8. See also G. R. Le Duff, Factions in the Labour Movement in Broken Hill 1914-1919, unpublished Honours thesis, Flinders University, 1969; G. Dale, The Industrial History of Broken Hill, Fraser and Jenkinson, Melbourne, 1918. 13 See B. Hammond, The Spuds and Onions Strike, The Origin and Course of the Broken Hill Strike 1919- 1920, unpublished Honours thesis, University of Melbourne, 1970. 14 M. Couch, ‘Workers’ Health and Safety in the Broken Hill Mining Industry: The Generation of Competing Rationalities’ in K. Tenfelde (ed), Towards a Social History of Mining in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Verlag C. H. Beck, Munich, 1992, pp. 1136-54.

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[w]hatever may seem desirable from the humanitarian standpoint must be governed by the consideration of remunerative operation of the mines, and [that] shortening of hours, expensive provision of ventilation schemes, and abolition of night shift may mean the partial closing of the industry’.15

Even when compelling evidence from overseas regarding miners’ phthisis was at hand, the mine managers only agreed to a welfarist agenda because, they hoped, a spirit of industrial cooperation might be gained from such an approach. A committee formed to discuss the question advised regarding:

the desirability of improving conditions voluntarily before being forced to do so through union demands, and upon the necessity of making such improvements forthwith by reason of the strong probability that recent theories regarding lead poisoning would subsequently be found correct.16

Mine managers attempted to deflect blame for the unhealthy work environment from themselves by disingenuously claiming that, although the numerous lead poisoning cases might appear to be connected with mine employment, they might ‘just as easily be attributed to the privations endured as a consequence of the strike or that ‘obscure’ cases are simply labelled as lead poisoning in the absence of another diagnosis.’17

In all the struggles against the managers, various groups of left-wing agitators played decisive leadership roles. In the 1892 dispute, four of the seven strike leaders arrested were leading members of the local branch of the Australian Socialist League.18 Bob Ross, who went to Broken Hill in 1903 to work on the Barrier Truth,19 helped to form the Barrier Socialist Propaganda Group. In 1908, it was a Wobbly sympathiser who encouraged the Combined Unions Committee, formed to organise the impending struggle against the mine

15 Underground Managers’ Report on Mining Conditions in Broken Hill, 29 March 1920, Broken Hill South collection, Melbourne University Archives [hereafter BHS/MUA]. 16 Report of Underground Managers’ Committee on ‘Underground Conditions in Broken Hill as Affecting the Health of Employees’, 27 January 1920, BHS/MUA. 17 Underground Managers’ Report on Mining Conditions in Broken Hill, 29 March 1920, BHS/MUA. 18 V. Burgmann, ‘In Our Time’ Socialism and the Rise of Labor, 1885-1905, George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1985, p. 76.

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managers, to appoint visiting British socialist, Tom Mann, as a union organiser.20 Other radicals, such as J. J. O’Reilly and Percy Brookfield were attracted to Broken Hill because of its militant reputation and because, like O’Reilly, they had been ‘blackballed’ for their union activities elsewhere. From 1910, industrial unionism propaganda was disseminated by the International Socialist Club. Although the Broken Hill Left was divided over whether to support the IWW Preamble,21 a measure of the support gained by the IWW can be gauged from the acceptance of dual unionism in Broken Hill, whereby an IWW pence card was, for a time, recognised by the AMA as a union ticket.22 Percy Brookfield, easily the most revered labour movement leader in Broken Hill’s history, had distinct Wobbly sympathies and was indispensable to the campaign to release the IWW Twelve.23 Most importantly, the group’s insistence that racism and nationalism were the ideology of the class enemy was to have a lasting effect on labour movement politics in Broken Hill. Many radical migrant workers were attracted to the fervent anti-racism of the Wobblies and significant numbers of Britisher workers became convinced that internationalism was an essential ingredient of successful union organisation.

In 1886, responding to the growing pressure of trade unionism, a group of leading mine managers formed the Amalgamated Mining Managers’ Association (MMA). Like many employer groups of the period, two of its early concerns were to defend the principle

19 Barrier Truth was first published in 1887. In 1908, its successor, Barrier Daily Truth, became the first daily labour movement newspaper. 20 V. Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: The Industrial Workers of the World in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1995, p. 23. See also J. Laurent, ‘Tom Mann, R. S. Ross and Evolutionary Socialism in Broken Hill, 1902-1912: Alternative Social Darwinism in the Australian Labour Movement’, Labour History, no. 51, 1986. 21 Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism, pp. 11-12. 22 Ibid., p. 158. This was not achieved without a struggle. IWW delegates to an AMA meeting that had been called to discuss the presence of non-unionists on the mines, felt that the union officials were more concerned with the IWW than with the BWA, the openly pro-employer organisation. IWW delegates from Sydney recommended that Broken Hill IWW members should join the AMA. Minutes Book of the IWW, Broken Hill Branch, dated 4, 11, 25 March 1917, IWW papers, reference: 7/5588, NSW Police Service records, State Records NSW. 23 G. Roper, Labor’s Titan: The Story of Percy Brookfield, 1878-1921, W. & A. Scarfe (eds), Warnambool Institute Press, Sherwood Park, 1983. The ‘Twelve’ was a group of IWW leaders jailed on a ‘trumped-up’ charge of conspiring to burn down Sydney. See I. Turner, Sydney’s Burning: An Australian Political Conspiracy, Alpha Books, Sydney, 1969.

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of ‘freedom of contract’ and to administer an effective labour blacklist.24 However, its principal function was to provide an organised employer response to union claims for higher wages, shorter hours and better conditions.25 The question of national allegiance proved a thorny issue for some Broken Hill mine managers. While they actively encouraged the local workforce to identify with the interests of the Australian nation, for their own part, it was a question of which business relationships were most profitable. Carrigan details the high level of German investment in the Broken Hill mines before the war and the reluctance of some sections of mine management to break lucrative economic ties with ‘enemy’ capital. Indeed, he cited the admission of one company director that BHP had more German shareholders than British.26 The outbreak of war inspired cooperative ventures between a number of Broken Hill companies, resulting in the formation of the Collins House Group.27 The Group comprised four major companies – Broken Hill South, North Broken Hill, Zinc Corporation and Amalgamated Zinc. Financiers W. L. Baillieu and W. S. Robinson brought these companies together to cooperate on a number of ‘forward integration’ projects – most notably, the establishment of Broken Hill Associated Smelters (BHAS) and Electrolytic Zinc.28 It was Carrigan’s view that Robinson and Baillieu’s prescient decision to hitch the fate of the Collins House Group to Billy Hughes’ empire-loyal patronage secured its

24 Kennedy, Silver, Sin, and Sixpenny Ale, p. 31. The MMA subsequently dropped ‘Amalgamated’ from its title. 25 D. Palmer, “Too many men on the scrapheap’: Mining Union Struggles over Health and Safety at Broken Hill and Mount Isa between the World Wars’, in D. Palmer et al (eds), Australian Labour History Reconsidered, Australian Humanities Press, Adelaide, 1999, pp. 51-74. The Broken Hill mine management did expend considerable time considering various ‘welfarist’ approaches. Perhaps the best summary of their approach can be found in Sir Colin Fraser’s comment regarding ‘old Captain Hancock’ from Wallaroo. Fraser wrote that many people had laughed at Hancock’s methods, but that he ‘was very close to his workmen, [and] showed a much clearer appreciation of the position when he said ‘tuppence in comforts be worth sixpence in wages.’’ Letter Fraser to Robinson, dated 13 February, 1919, Sir Colin Fraser, personal papers, Broken Hill Associated Smelters collection, file no. 1/37/11/2, held in the Melbourne University Archives. See also M. Robinson, Cap’n ‘Ancock: Ruler of Australia’s Little Cornwall, Rigby, Adelaide, 1978. 26 F. Carrigan, ‘The Imperial Struggle for Control of the Broken Hill Base-Metal Industry, 1914-1915’ in E. L. Wheelwright and K. Buckley (eds), Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism, vol. 5, Australia and New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, 1983, p. 166. 27 J. Kennett, The Collins House Group, unpublished Masters of Economics thesis, Monash University, July 1982, p. 84. See also P. Richardson, ‘Collins House Financiers W. L. Baillieu, Lionel Robinson and Francis Govett’ in R. T. Appleyard and C. B. Schedvin (eds), Australian Financiers: Biographical Essays, Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1988. 28 See E. W. Campbell, The 60 Rich Families Who Own Australia, Current Book Distributors, Sydney, 1963, pp. 104-7; P. Cochrane, Industrialization and Dependence, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1980, pp. 76-102.

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ensuing good economic fortune and the subsequent eclipse of BHP influence in Broken Hill.29 As Robinson recalled in his memoirs:

W. L. said to me: ‘Bill, we’ve got to get to work quickly to replace the German interests with something of our own, something British, within a week’. A few days later Britain and Germany were at war, and Australia immediately joined the mother country.30

The outbreak of World War One and the ensuing disruption of world metal markets resulted in swelling unemployment on the Barrier. As in other parts of Australia, non-British migrants were singled out for State-sponsored discrimination; 600 people were forced to identify themselves under the Aliens Registration Act and many were subsequently interned.31 Local resident, Hilda Ferguson, remembered six Italian men who were taken away in her street alone.32 Initially, the war was greeted with jingoistic enthusiasm and many young men enlisted. The AMA frequently expressed the belief that relief work was unfairly distributed among single men, ‘encouraging’ them to enlist.33 Opposition to war fervour was only kept alive by a tiny number of anti-conscription activists. As Brian Kennedy related, a brigade of socialists who jeered the troop trains as they were leaving for Adelaide only narrowly missed a severe beating from soldier well-wishers by dashing into the Trades Hall building and locking themselves in.34 However, while supporters of the war initially won the day, the effect of continued anti-conscription protests began to yield results. As the hardship of the war ground on, as mine managers pushed harder and harder for military contracts to be met while resisting wage increases, as news of dead family came from the front, many began to openly question military priorities. As a consequence, the 1915 campaign for the forty-four hour week in Broken Hill became one of the earliest

29 Carrigan, ‘The Imperial Struggle for Control’, pp. 181-84. 30 G. Blainey (ed), If I Remember Rightly: the memoirs of W. S. Robinson 1876-1963, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1970, p. 71. 31 R. H. B. Kearns, Broken Hill 1915-1939: New Horizons, Broken Hill Historical Society, Broken Hill, 1977, p. 9. 32 Interview with Hilda Ferguson, conducted by Edward Stokes on 17 July 1981. Tape held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 1873, Tape 3. 33 Le Duff, Factions in the Labour Movement, p. 31. 34 Kennedy, Silver, Sin, and Sixpenny Ale, p. 128.

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Australian industrial struggles to protest, not only against war-time privations, but also against the war itself. Indeed, the town’s soldier send-offs became something of a political barometer. Initially well-attended, in 1916, the secretaries of the Barrier Empire League (BEL) were forced to announce that: ‘[o]wing to the very few Volunteers offering locally, it has been decided to POSTPONE the usual Thursday Evening “Send-off” indefinitely.’35 So effective was the propaganda of the anti-conscriptionists that Broken Hill went from being extremely jingoistic to voting ‘no’ in both the 1916 and 1917 referenda.36 Nevertheless, this mobilisation from the Left inspired a closer alliance between the mine managers and their key supporters – the newly-formed Nationalist Party, the local sub-branch of the RSL, ‘loyal’ workers who joined two ‘breakaway unions’, the Barrier Workers’ Association (BWA) and the Trades and Trades Labourers’ Union (T&TL), and the Barrier Miner newspaper.

Ideological influences: Barrier Miner versus Barrier Daily Truth

One of the most illuminating ways of viewing the progress of the ‘race debate’ in Broken Hill is to trace the ideological war that waged between two bitterly-opposed camps – the offices of the Barrier Miner and the Barrier Daily Truth newspapers. The Barrier Miner first appeared in 1888 and, although not initially a conservative paper, it progressively became a prominent distributor of anti-labour comment. Between 1919 and 1922, the paper was owned by J. E. Davidson, who later founded the Adelaide News and from 1922, it passed into the hands of Sir Keith Murdoch’s News Limited. In 1908, when the labour movement-sponsored Barrier Daily Truth was being planned, it was promoted as a much- needed antidote to the ‘impossible’ Barrier Miner.37 As a young child, Pearl Delatorre

35 Barrier Miner, 15, 28 November 1916. 36 Kennedy, Silver, Sin, and Sixpenny Ale, p. 140. Le Duff argues that the results for the entire Barrier district revealed a 60 per cent opposition to conscription, whereas, in the urban localities, the ‘No’ vote ranged from 65 per cent to 75 per cent of the total, far exceeding the state average. Le Duff, Factions in the Labour Movement, pp. 57, 84. 37 Barrier Truth, 4 September 1908.

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worked with her mother on a women’s committee to raise money for a daily labour newspaper. She said:

we worked hard for that ... We were raising money to help with the printing ... [Mother] was always involved in anything that would help her husband. He thought the Barrier Miner took the part of the companies and they wanted a paper that would give their side of the questions.38

In Truth’s first daily issue, a congratulatory message from Arthur Griffith MLA expressed the view that a daily labour paper was a huge victory for the working class, as ‘public opinion governs the world, and the newspapers create and mould public opinion’.39 Its principal aim was ‘to send forth to the world [the worker’s] protest against a rotten social system.’40 Implacably opposed to such a project was the Barrier Miner. Under the editorship of John Smethurst, a former construction contractor who had built the local Town Hall, the Miner was firmly pro-arbitration, pro-conscription, pro-White Australia and opposed to industrial action.41 During World War One, Smethurst’s editorials pulled every possible heartstring to garner support for the war effort, with eulogistic praise for enlisters and a weekly spread of soldiers’ letters home. So effective was the special Sunday edition containing letters from the front that crowds would gather outside the Barrier Miner offices to await the first copies. Nevertheless, the paper’s pro-militarist stance also provoked an angry response from anti-conscription activists and its offices were bombed twice during the war.42

38 Interview with Pearl Delatorre, conducted by Edward Stokes on 5 May 1982. Tape held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 1873, Tape 37. 39 BDT, 2 November 1908. 40 Barrier Truth, 21 August 1908. 41 One Miner editorial accused the anti-conscriptionists of being a lawless section of the community and that using the Reserve for their own purposes was trampling on the rights of citizens. Barrier Miner, 15 July 1916. The newspaper also became a mouthpiece for every pro-conscriptionist who wanted to wipe the anti- conscription struggle off the streets. See letters from ‘Done My Bit’ and ‘True Loyalist’, Barrier Miner, 28 July 1916; ‘A Soldier’s Daughter’, ‘Anti “Sinn Fein”’ and ‘Direct Action’, Barrier Miner, 4 August 1916. 42 One police report on the second bombing noted that Mr Smethurst had ‘fought the I.W.W. and other disloyal sections in Broken Hill for months, giving them no quarter’. IWW papers, reference: 7/5588, NSW Police Service collection, State Records NSW.

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Although, like most newspapers, both described events that took place in the town and played a role in the dissemination of various political agendas, the principal value of the Truth and the Miner can be found in the heated exchanges that took place between the two papers from their respective ideological vantage points. Both papers battled to win the political allegiance of Broken Hill residents. Truth referred to the Miner as ‘the perplexed organ of vested interest’43 and sometimes, with more colour, as ‘that gramophone of the profit-hunting mob’.44 The Labor paper’s strategy was to expose the Miner’s expressions of concern for working people as inconsistent with its trenchant support of arbitration, the British empire, the Nationalists, conscription, secret ballots and the like. For its part, the Miner portrayed the Truth as anarchistic, disloyal and untrustworthy, with politics that would irresponsibly lead working people into ruinous strikes and the subsequent starvation of their families. In Melba Shannon’s words, ‘only the people that was in positions bought the Miner’. Known locally as the ‘snobs’ paper’, it was more for ‘first class people’, she said.45

The mine managers kept a close eye on what was printed in both major Broken Hill papers. W. Wainwright, of the Broken Hill South mine, described the Barrier Daily Truth as a ‘disloyal, contemptible, scurrilous rag’ and expressed disbelief that the paper had not been suppressed under the War Precautions Act. In his view, the paper was ‘one of the worst sinners in fostering industrial unrest’ and that there should have been ‘some means of keeping it within bounds’.46 In W. S. Robinson’s attempts to have a welfarist agenda adopted in Broken Hill, he recognised a potential role for a sympathetic newspaper. He argued that labour movement suspicion of the ulterior motives behind the industrial welfarist strategies of the mine managers might be ‘allayed by useful publicity’. He advised Colin Fraser that ‘[t]he press men should be used to educate them. Their views should be quietly moulded so that any proposals put forward or action taken will not create suspicion

43 BDT, 4 June 1920. 44 BDT, 1 October 1923. 45 Interview with Melba Shannon, conducted by Warwick Eather on 27 February 1987. Tapes held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 2301/0021, Tape 2.

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which would kill all chances of co-operation.’47 In the battle against the Truth, Fraser expressed approval of the new regime of J. E. Davidson, who took over the Barrier Miner in 1919. He argued that, under Davidson’s tutelage, the Miner was taking some of the wind out of Truth’s sails by ‘preaching the “square deal”, sane economics, reform by constitutional methods, decent citizenship [and] what Australians can make of Australia’.48 The Miner was central to Fraser’s suggestion that the mine managers maintain a publicity campaign ‘to combat the baneful effects [of the Truth] and to keep the Companies’ case placed fairly before the community.’49

The Barrier Miner’s position was one of consistent support for immigration restriction. In the lead-up to the 1916 conscription referendum, its editorials attempted to address the argument that conscription would allow coloured labour to take the jobs of those serving overseas. Smethurst, the then editor, pointed out that the importation of some cheap labour would be an expedient measure to meet demands for unskilled labourers, and to prevent the need for women to take on these unfeminine tasks. However, if readers wanted to grasp the real threat to the White Australia policy, then they need look no further than the IWW-influenced AMA. As one editorial argued:

The rules of the A.M.A. were specially altered to make provision for the admission of men belonging to coloured races, including Chinese. Certain coloured races were excluded from the privileges of membership, but that bar was removed by a special alteration of the rules, apparently because the party running the A.M.A. and the anti-conscription movement believes that the yellow man is as good as the white.50

Certainly, AMA rules concerning membership eligibility make no mention of any racial qualifications at this time. In fact, the main onus of eligibility lay, not on skin colour, but on a prospective member not being an employer of labour. As one official put it, ‘no man

46 W. Wainwright, What is Wrong with Broken Hill?, 8 March 1918, reference no. 1/18/5/11, Sir Colin Fraser collection, Melbourne University Archives [hereafter CF/MUA]. 47 Letter, Robinson to Fraser, 25 April 1917, reference no. 1/37/11/2, CF/MUA. 48 Letter, Fraser to Robinson, 20 March 1919, reference no. 1/37/12, CF/MUA. 49 C. Fraser, What is Wrong with Broken Hill?, CF/MUA.

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holding the position of boss’ could be a member of the AMA.51 In reply to Smethurst’s ‘accusations’ of union anti-racism, one AMA member argued that, while he was no fan of the IWW, AMA members were not as stupid as the Miner seemed to think and were clever enough to see the uselessness of support for the White Australia policy. He said that importing goods made by lowly-paid Asiatic labour undercut the conditions of Australian labour and, therefore, there was no point in keeping Asians out – they should be allowed to enter the country so that they could join unions and get decent conditions.52

So seriously did Smethurst view this letter that he published another long editorial, mounting a spirited defence of the White Australia policy, and again attacking the IWW for having the temerity to challenge such a noble ideal. Unable to hide his contempt, he derided local labour movement leaders as:

The upholders of the equality of all men, of all colours and degree of civilisation or savagery, [who] have apparently succeeded in convincing many former believers in a White Australia that this policy is a wrong one, and that the ports of the Commonwealth should be opened wide to the labour of Africa and Asia.53

He trotted out all the old excuses – that if they were not good enough to marry your daughter, then they were not good enough for Australia; that Australia was better kept ‘for our own breed’ rather than filled with ‘mixed colors’; that the proposed IWW revolution would only bring Australian standards down to the lowest level and that Asiatics would set that level, lowering living standards ‘by their habits’. If this was not enough, Smethurst fulminated, ‘some Asiatics live in Australia under low conditions, with their pockets full of bank notes, gold rings on their fingers and gold chains round their camels’ necks.’54 In short, it was fine to import ‘cheap’ workers as a temporary measure to ease labour shortages, but only if they remained isolated and exploited.

50 Barrier Miner, 25 September 1916. 51 Revision of rules, AMA minutes, 8 July 1917. 52 Barrier Miner, 27 September 1916. 53 Barrier Miner, 28 September 1916.

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Just in case workers were in any doubt regarding the benefits of the White Australia policy, Miner editorials campaigned against Labor as the party of pro-Asian immigration during the 1917 election campaign. One editorial contended that the ALP’s policy could be viewed through the AMA’s industrial approach to migrant workers and that ‘from a worker’s point of view in particular’:

[t]he White Australia principle is one of the foundations on which the future of Australia … must be built. Without any narrow minded prejudice against people who are born a different colour to ourselves, the experience of the United States has proved that it is impossible for those who have sincere regard to the future of Australia to encourage a mixture of blood between Europeans and Asiatics in this continent. And it is especially contrary to the interests of the wage earning classes that thousands of cheap Asiatic labourers should be invited to Broken Hill in accordance with the principle established by the A.M.A. in the alteration of its rules … the A.M.A. policy of a coloured Barrier is undesirable.55

While the Barrier Miner’s description of AMA internationalism rather flattered the miners’ union, the issue of immigration was constantly debated within the Broken Hill labour movement and Barrier Daily Truth’s position on the question owed a great deal to the IWW’s anti-racist stance.

Barrier Daily Truth published frequent articles on the struggles of Asian workers and defended them against the incursions of British and French imperialism.56 These positions were not automatic, but derived from the politics of some AMA officials and activists who recognised the importance of battling against racist ideas within the union movement. Towards the end of the war, the AMA embarked on a campaign to rid the mines of non-unionists and, at one meeting, particular mention was made of ‘foreigners’ who were not in the union. Even in the existing climate of war-inspired nationalism, the union

54 Barrier Miner, 28 September 1916. 55 Barrier Miner, 13 April 1917. 56 See, for example, BDT, 20 November 1922.

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resolution was not to exclude the southern Europeans, but to make contact with migrant workers ‘with the object of bringing them into the union’. One official took exception to the use of the word ‘foreigner’ in the motion, arguing that the term should be replaced with ‘non-unionist’. Recognising the important role that the labour newspaper could play in winning the membership around to a similar position, another official prompted a resolution that ‘all antagonism against foreigners be obliterated from “Barrier Daily Truth”’.57 When the ‘Foreign Workmen’s Meeting’ was held, the AMA operated on the basis that migrant workers should be included in the battle for the closed shop – the recommendation from the meeting simply stated that ‘the rule dealing with the working with and reporting of non- unionists be strictly adhered to’.58 A few years later, Richard Quintrell, president of the Workers Industrial Union of Australia (WIUA), argued that he was fully in support of any moves by the trade union movement to resist the implementation of immigration schemes that would swell the labour market in the interests of the employers. However, Quintrell argued, it was essential that, once in Australia, those migrants should be recruited to the union and offered the same protections as other members. Any attempts to stand against migrant workers would surely drive them into the hands of the employer and turn potential allies into fodder for the ‘non-union army’.59 While this position did not go unchallenged, it remained the official attitude of the union leadership – a leadership that, as will be demonstrated below, was repeatedly endorsed in ballots held during bitter campaigns for migrant exclusion.

Barrier Daily Truth editor, Ern Wetherell, reflected the ideological turmoil over racism in Broken Hill. A former Wobbly, Wetherell had shifted politically rightwards after the demise of the IWW and, during the early 1920s, could best be described as a lukewarm supporter of the internationalist position.60 He would periodically print favourable stories

57 AMA minutes, 20 January 1918. 58 AMA minutes, 12 February 1918. 59 BDT, 22 September 1927. 60 This description might seem harsh when measured against Wetherell’s magnificent role against the racist campaigner, Richard Gully, outlined in the following chapter. Gully, himself, was quick to identify the contradictions in Wetherell’s early responses to the arrival of Maltese workers, and to claim that Wetherell was hiding his real politics from the internationalists in the WIUA leadership. In reality, Wetherell was torn on the

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about eugenics in among articles offering sympathy to the migrant victims of capitalist exploitation. One example was his publication of a largely uncritical review of the work of Dean Inge, a cleric who maintained that the real tragedy of the World War One had been that most of those who died had been ‘white’.61 Yet, the Truth also contained historical analyses of the origins and applications of racist division that placed the blame for the emergence of racism squarely upon the capitalist system. One editorial argued that the ‘alleged Asiatic menace’ was a fiction created by those who wanted to turn Australia into an armed camp in order to reap armament profits. Truth blamed capitalists for making an issue out of ‘racial purity and the menace of the Asiatics.’ It pointed out that migration had an integral place in human history and that no ‘white man’ was exempt from this history. Capitalist development had encouraged immigration to cheapen the price of labour. One article argued:

There was no such protest so long as they remained menials. So racial purity was only the varnish that covered economic hatred ... We hear much about racial pride, and the desire to keep the race pure by not inter-marrying with foreign people, but this is largely national “swank”.62

In short, the Barrier Daily Truth published articles and letters that reflected the gamut of ideas that were being debated within the labour movement and the wider working class but, on balance, its editorial policy promoted an anti-racist attitude. The conflicting content of the newspaper on the subject of racism clearly demonstrates that there was little labour movement unanimity on the question. The Miner, in contrast, argued that while racial equality was a ‘nice-sounding’ theory, White Australia was not to be questioned. Its editor accused the Truth of supporting ‘inter-racial’ marriage and shared political rights with ‘non-whites’, stating that these travesties were simply out of the question. Outraged at their

issue but moved in an anti-racist direction in response to Quintrell’s political leadership, the actions of migrant workers themselves and the obvious industrial ramifications of Gully’s campaign. In one speech, he said that ‘he saw in front of him faces of men, some of whom were Italians and Maltese, with whom he had worked, and he would be disgraced forever as a unionist were he to leave unchallenged the brutal statements of Mr Gully.’ Barrier Daily Truth, 19 September 1927. 61 BDT, 7 July 1925. 62 BDT, 30 June 1924.

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mere suggestion, Smethurst argued that such breaches of the White Australia policy ‘would not be tolerated in practice by even the most rabid advocate of internationalism.’63 In essence, he was appealing to working class readers not to be misled by the anti-racists in the labour movement.

The historiography on Australian racism does not acknowledge that such a race debate within the labour movement was possible. Certainly, none of Willard’s ‘higher motives’ for White Australia emanated from the anointed ‘mouthpiece’ of the Broken Hill ruling class. The Barrier Miner’s crude allusions to the horrors of miscegenation, using the counterpoints of ‘white superiority’ and ‘coloured savagery’, were analogous to the ‘mob’ responses more commonly attributed to the ‘uneducated’ working class. On the contrary, the Barrier Daily Truth contained some of the most theoretically sophisticated anti-racist positions available in Australia in this period. Far from uncritically espousing non-British immigration exclusion, the labour movement paper decried racial exploitation, acknowledged that Asian and Australian workers were engaged in a similar struggle against their employers and struggled towards a set of politics that could simultaneously reject employer attempts to cheapen the price of labour and offer solidarity to migrant workers. Nevertheless, just as the Broken Hill labour movement contained a number of activists who were prepared to promote the cause of anti-racism, the conservative camp had its share of energetic organisers promoting Australian nationalism and cross-class unity through racial homogeneity. The most prominent of these was F. G. White.

The ‘White army’

During World War One, the militant miners of Broken Hill were among the few who had used their industrial strength to oppose, not only conscription, but the war itself. Such formidable organisation was instrumental in cementing political ties between conservative

63 Barrier Miner, 16 May 1924.

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sections of Broken Hill society, as they sought to oppose labour radicals. Just as activists were important to the direction of the labour movement, so conservative campaigners were integral to the political and industrial successes of local employerdom. On this side of the industrial divide, one of the most prominent advocates of establishment interests was a Broken Hill businessman, whose close links to the RSL afforded him significant social contact with a considerable number of conservative working class men and women. Indeed, F. G. White was described in one Truth editorial as ‘the bitterest and most consistent anti- Labor force, as an individual, in Broken Hill’.64 Paddy O’Neill said of White that he had once ‘tried to get a widowed school teacher dismissed from her job because she was an anti-conscriptionist’.65 Born in Britain, White arrived in Adelaide in 1884 and went into the employ of Elder Smith and Company in Adelaide. He moved to Broken Hill in 1895 and became a prominent stockbroker in the town. He acquired a motor vehicle dealership, became president of the Scouts Council, chairman of the Broken Hill Parents and Citizens Council and, later, was an influential ‘booster’ for the shale oil industry as a director of the South Baerami Shale Oil Company. In 1912, business must have been doing well. His brokerage, White and Hosier, financed the construction of new premises in Chloride Street and, just up the road in the most salubrious part of Broken Hill, White had a ‘handsome “Californian bungalow-style” built.66 During World War One, he became an Honorary Secretary of the BEL, a pro-war, pro-conscription organisation that was, according to local labour movement leader, Walter Riddiford, primarily composed of Broken Hill’s small

64 BDT, 26 November 1931. 65 BDT, 5 December 1931. This was Frances Mortimore, an English woman who taught at the Broken Hill Public School. She attracted the attention of the Criminal Investigation Branch in 1916 because of her anti- conscription activities, and for her association with the IWW’s Tom Barker, Adela Pankhurst, and the Labor Volunteer Army with its associated ‘extremists’ and ‘foreigners’. IWW papers, reference: 7/5590 no. 142, NSW Police Service records, State Records NSW. According to Ern Wetherell, it was H. L. Hosier, White’s business partner and co-secretary of the BEL, who attempted to discredit Mrs Mortimer, by reporting to the Minister for Education that she was ‘an evil and disloyal influence’. In retaliation, the AMA ‘blackballed’ the Broken Hill Jockey Club, of which Hosier was Secretary. Under pressure from his colleagues to resign, Hosier capitulated and moved to Melbourne, after a residence of nineteen years in Broken Hill. The confusion over the identity of the informant is probably explained by the popular impression that the two men were cohorts, both equally active and strident opponents of the labour movement. E. Wetherell, The “Stormy” Years of 1910- 1921, unpublished manuscript, Charles Rasp Memorial Library, Broken Hill, chap. 4, pp. 6-7; Barrier Miner, 24 April 1917. 66 R. H. B. Kearns, Broken Hill 1894-1914: The Uncertain Years, Broken Hill Historical Society, Broken Hill, 1976, p. 63.

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business proprietors.67 The BEL’s aims were: ‘To hold out the right hand of fellowship for those enlisting for active service, to assist those returning wounded or sick, and generally to help the Empire in the job it has undertaken.’68 Melba Shannon remembered patriotic marches in Broken Hill during the war, organised by the BEL. Although not a left-winger, Melba said:

There’d be a march down the main street and they used to wave the flag. They had no intentions of going but to send everybody else ... It was none of the heads that went, it was just the common people of Broken Hill that their boys all went away and, of course, a lot of them never come back.69

After the war, White was appointed an administrator of the local War Memorial Trust and was frequently to be found dining at the ‘top table’ at local RSL functions.70

Early in 1917, White formed the National Citizens’ Association (NCA), which ran the local election campaigns for Nationalist candidates.71 As he told a general meeting of the NCA in 1917, the new organisation’s objectives were to provide citizens with a voice in local politics and to enable them to meet and decide which candidates would receive their backing in elections. However, democracy was not a strong feature of the NCA’s constitution and it was White’s voice that clearly dominated proceedings. In his words, the organisation’s members:

would not necessarily nominate anyone, but they [would] consider it their bounden duty as citizens having a stake in the city and the British Empire to combine and work for the return of such candidates who in their opinion would best represent this district from a national standpoint.72

67 Le Duff, Factions in the Labour Movement, pp. 25-6. 68 Kearns, Broken Hill 1915-1939, p. 8. 69 Interview with Melba Shannon. 70 BDT, 25 April 1927 71 For a description of the National Federation, of which the NCA was a part, see M. Booker, The Great Professional, McGraw-Hill, Sydney, 1980, p. 208; P. Cochrane, Industrialization and Dependence, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1980, p. 105. 72 Barrier Miner, 30 March 1917.

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For White, the NCA provided a structure that he, and people like him, could control in the interests of Broken Hill’s establishment and the wider interests of the Nationalists, while still attracting a conservative activist base from which right-wing politics could be organised. In the lead-up to the 1924 State election, A. G. Huie complained about the selection processes of both major parties. ‘Take the National “selections”’, he argued with particular venom:

A few delegates get together, profess to listen to the various aspirants, and then fix up to suit what appear to be the interests of the machine for the time being. The rank and file of National supporters are treated with utmost contempt.73

A Truth editorial remarked that Broken Hill Nationalists were much more open than their Federal and State counterparts in pursuing lower wages and longer working hours for local workers and that White was their ‘local archangel’.74 In the lead-up to the 1931 Municipal election, another editorial warned:

Mr White stands squarely against unionism … he stands for the longest hours of labour, the lowest wages and the most profits … Well alert to his class interests, Mr White attends to politics, State, Federal and Municipal. He is the master of ceremonies in the Nationalist camp in Parliamentary elections, and organiser, guide, director and selector of the so-called Independents in municipal campaigns. [His candidates] are mostly well- known – mine officials, managers of warehouses, a squatters’ official and a business head.75

Indeed, at the 1931 Anzac smoke social, and at a time when unemployment was rife in Broken Hill, White had the effrontery to favourably recall the wage levels of 1895 and to assert that it was essential that current wage levels be reduced.76 White’s children did not

73 Barrier Miner, 30 September 1924. 74 BDT, 1 December 1928, 15 August 1929. 75 BDT, 26 November 1931. In a subsequent article, Truth described the anti-Labor credentials of the team of Independent candidates put together by F. G. White in the following way – F. Johns, an assayer; A. Wadge, an ex-shift boss, conscriptionist and ‘Blue Whisker’; R. Baldwin, shift boss and RSL executive member; J. Wall, local representative for the Rosella Preserving Company; C. Wood, secretary of the Pastoralists’ Association; F. Kerr, surveyor and ‘solid Tory’; R. Watson, surface foreman. BDT, 8 December 1931. 76 BDT, 27 April 1931.

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appear to suffer the privations that he recommended for Broken Hill workers. In April 1931, enjoying the ‘flapper’ lifestyle that her father’s money could provide, Miss Babs White embarked on a year-long cruise around the world on the Niagara and, in 1937, when the Broken Hill Aero Club was founded, she was its first trainee pilot.77

The link between White’s NCA electoral activities and his work in the RSL were recognised by many in the labour movement. One Truth correspondent complained that it was ridiculous to accept the RSL’s ‘non-political’ mantle, since it was clear that the RSL helped only those returned soldiers who were anti-Labor. Further, the correspondent wrote, the RSL called meetings immediately prior to elections at which its leaders promoted the Nationalist platform.78 For the 1917 federal elections, there was some disagreement over the choice of the Nationalist candidate. The NCA supported J. Doe, who had become a ‘Labor rat’ over the conscription issue. The popular choice among returned soldiers, however, was surface worker, AMA member and secretary of the local RSL, H. L. Frusher. ‘A soldier’s sister’ wrote to the Miner saying that the two groups should get together and reach agreement about the most suitable nominee – she was critical of the NCA which was, in her opinion, very small and cost five shillings to join, making membership and, therefore enfranchisement for the purposes of choosing a candidate, difficult for wage-earning Nationalists.79 Shortly afterwards, a compromise on the choice of candidate was announced – the very respectable Lieutenant Montgomery was endorsed as the Nationalist nominee, a man who had the indisputable electoral advantage of conspicuous war injuries.80

While White was busy organising the conservatives, he also took all available opportunities to foment division within the labour movement. During the war, the AMA band had religiously turned up to play at the soldier send-offs organised by the BEL, but

77 BDT, 20 April 1932; R. H. B. Kearns, Broken Hill 1915-1939: New Horizons, Broken Hill Historical Society, Broken Hill, 1977, p. 65. 78 BDT, 20 September 1927. 79 Barrier Miner, 31 March 1917. 80 Barrier Miner, 13 April 1917. For a discussion of the prestige attached to war wounds, see P. Cochrane, Simpson and the Donkey, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1992, pp. 74-81. Doe remained a candidate, but received a very small proportion of the votes. See Le Duff, Factions in the Labour Movement, p. 66.

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when the AMA leadership ordered band members to play at an anti-conscription rally in 1916, the musicians resigned en masse from the union.81 A. E. Haden, former secretary of the AMA Band, wrote a letter to the Miner appealing for funds to support a reconstituted Barrier Citizens’ Band.82 F. G. White responded immediately, encouraging the patriotic unionists of Broken Hill to demand the reinstatement of the band and praising its members for ‘refusing to be associated with any disloyal and seditious body.’ Eager for the band to show its ‘capabilities and patriotism’ and knowing that its performances would be a thorn in the side of the anti-conscriptionist AMA, White forwarded a cheque for the enormous sum of more than £53, which he had collected to assist in the purchase of new instruments.83 A couple of weeks later, a further £10 was forwarded.84

By 1922, however, the band was again in a financially precarious state and appealed to the mine managers for a stipend of 30 shillings per week. The mine managers concurred with White on the importance of the Band’s ‘loyalty’. For them, ‘the question was whether it would not be advisable for the Companies to continue to support the men who in the past had refused to comply with the dictates of a disloyal section of the unionists’. The band’s request was forwarded to the Melbourne Committee with an, albeit unheeded, suggestion that ‘sympathetic consideration be given to the matter’.85 When, several months later, the Broken Hill Band submitted a similar request for financial assistance, they were summarily advised by the MMA that the ‘cupboard was bare’.86 Similarly, in 1929, it was agreed that the MMA would match, pound for pound, a collection for the Citizens’ Band, with their contribution capped at £100.87 Their generosity to the ‘loyal’ musicians should be seen in the context of a request, made in that same year, for the MMA to contribute to a fund for the widow and children of a miner who had worked on the British Mine and who had

81 Barrier Miner, 2 August 1916. 82 Barrier Miner, 7 August 1916. 83 Barrier Miner, 17 August 1916. 84 Barrier Miner, 1 September 1916. 85 Minutes of Meeting of Broken Hill Mine Managers’ Association [hereafter MMA minutes], 7 August 1922, Broken Hill South collection, Melbourne University Archives. 86 MMA minutes, 8 March 1923. 87 MMA minutes, 14 March 1929.

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recently died from pneumonia, a known consequence of miners’ phthisis. The MMA was wary that contributing to such funds might constitute an admission of liability and, seeing no political advantage in contributing to the welfare of the widow and children, replied that it had no funds available for such philanthropy.88

The ‘battle of the bands’ illustrates F. G. White’s willingness to use any and every possible issue to promote conservative politics and to encourage division within the labour movement. Still, organised Broken Hill workers were aware of White’s bitter opposition to labour’s cause, were suspicious of his political machinations and, as a result, had a certain immunity to them. In this context, the RSL provided White with a unique opportunity to meet and connect with working class returned soldiers who, he hoped, would be able to agitate more effectively than he for conservative positions among their fellow workers.

Industrial influences: the AMA versus the ‘breakaway unions’

F. G. White, the Barrier Miner and the MMA were overt supporters of two ‘loyal’ unions – the Barrier Workers’ Association (BWA) and the Barrier Trades and Trades Labourers Union (T&TL).89 Known derogatorily within the labour movement as the ‘Blue Whiskers Brigade’, the BWA organised underground miners, in competition with the AMA, on the basis of opposition to direct action, non-affiliation with the ALP, and support for the continuation of contract mining.90 Consisting of approximately one hundred members, a significant proportion of the BWA were conservative returned soldiers.91 The T&TL organised surface workers and, while not as explicitly ‘returned soldier’ as the BWA, its

88 MMA minutes, 12 December 1929. 89 Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, p. 148. 90 It should be noted that, when reporting on the industrial situation in Kalgoorlie, the BDT identified the loyalist CFMU by the same ‘blue whiskers’ epithet. BDT, 6 November 1919. 91 This estimate of Wally Riddiford’s is the only numerical assessment of the BWA’s strength that I have been able to find. As detailed below, more than sixty BWA members participated in the 1917 Anzac Day march which suggests that more than half of the BWA was returned soldiers. Interview with five Broken Hill miners, conducted by M. Laver in 1974. Tapes held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 341, Tape 3.

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members were openly hostile to militant unionism. Formed in 1916, the BWA was described by labour movement stalwart, George Dale, as ‘a bogus boss-ridden conglomeration of derelicts.’92 In part, this description was induced out by the involvement of F. G. White and his supporters in the formation of this ‘breakaway union’.

In response to a 1916 stop-work day organised by the AMA as part of the forty-four hour week campaign, the Barrier Miner published several advertisements that equated AMA industrial action with disloyalty. Placed by White, the advertisements appealed to conservative workers to closely observe which miners worked and which did not. ‘TO LOYALISTS’, one read, ‘Please take a careful note of all those who STOP WORK on Thursday.’93 The BEL, of which White was an Honorary Secretary, also placed similar advertisements – ‘Workers of the Barrier, Show your loyalty to Empire and Australia and to the boys fighting for you at the front. Work To-day.’94 As a consequence of such support from the ‘loyalists’, the mine managers considered that a sufficient breach existed between the militants and the arbitrationists to call the bluff of the AMA, by threatening to dismiss any miner who did not work the forty-eight hour week. However, the AMA retaliated with a promise to strike if any worker was sacked. As Ern Wetherell described the ensuing resolution of the dispute in the AMA’s favour: ‘The companies’ bomb had fizzed.’95 Despite this defeat, the conservatives were able to organise in the aftermath of the forty-four hour campaign. Advertisements were placed in the Barrier Miner under the pseudonym, ‘Legal’, calling for anti-militant workers to meet.96 Shortly afterwards, the new organisation gained registration under the NSW Trades Union Act (1881).97 Support for local mine managers and hostility to the industrial militancy of the AMA were the foundations upon which the BWA was built. One BWA supporter and RSL stalwart, T. H. Barson, wrote to the Barrier Miner to denounce the AMA. He argued:

92 Dale, Industrial History of Broken Hill, p. 244. 93 Barrier Miner, 6 September 1916. 94 Barrier Miner, 6 September 1916. 95 Wetherell, The “Stormy” Years, p. 10. 96 These advertisements were headed with exactly the same typeface as that of BEL announcements.

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These so-called leaders love peace so passionately that the whole of their energies are devoted ... [to] the open advocacy of sabotage in its worst form; for inciting the men working in the mines to use personal violence against the shift bosses in the dark passages of the mines so that no boss would put his head underground; for advising the use of open and general intimidation; and for teaching that all governments are the enemies of the people, these people have openly declared themselves to be anarchists, traitors and rebels, for the destruction of all law and a reversion to barbarism.98

In a letter to the Miner, ‘Legal’ outlined the aims and objects of the new union. The first aim was ‘to establish a union ruled by the whole of its members, and not by a section’, suggesting that the BWA intended to attract all those who were hostile to the tactics of the industrial militants in the AMA. The second aim was to establish a decision-making system, based upon holding ‘a referendum of the whole of the members of the association on all questions of importance’. This policy reflected ‘Legal’s belief that a section of the miners were hostile to mass meetings as a way of deciding union policy. Thirdly, the new union would ‘abolish the present system of running the paper, “Barrier Daily Truth”’, meaning that it would no longer collect a subscription from all union members for the upkeep of the newspaper and instead support a system of ‘user-pays’. Indeed, many BWA members were expelled members of the AMA, who had become unfinancial for refusing to pay the shilling levy to support the Barrier Daily Truth.99 Lastly, ‘Legal’ called for ‘the disbanding of the benefit section and reconstructing it on a sound and proper basis’, an accusation that the current administration of benefits by the AMA was corrupt.100 Such a policy was explicitly formulated to appeal to unfinancial ex-members of the AMA, because becoming unfinancial rendered miners ineligible for benefit payments.

One letter to the Miner, in defence of BWA members, claimed that the union was made up of ‘a very large proportion of the most respectable unionists of Broken Hill.’101 As such, its links with the Nationalist side of politics were clear. In 1917, sixty BWA members

97 Barrier Miner, 5 February 1917. 98 Barrier Miner, 17 July 1916. 99 Barrier Miner, 20 March 1917. 100 Barrier Miner, 12 September 1916.

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took part in the Anzac Day parade and, at the conclusion of the march, their meeting was addressed by Lieutenant Montgomery, the Federal Nationalist candidate.102 Such open support for the conservative side of politics ensured a political rift between returned soldier organisation and the AMA. When the RSL invited AMA representation at the 1918 Anzac Day commemoration, the AMA resolved to advise the RSL that ‘in view of an objectionable union taking part [the BWA], we object to being represented.103 In 1919, it was McAlister, the Secretary of the BWA, who stood unsuccessfully as the Nationalist candidate against Labor’s candidate, Considine.

In that same year, the BWA and the T&TL offered strikebreakers to the mine managers during the course of the Big Strike.104 Gerald Mussen, the MMA’s adviser on welfarist employment practices, received a visit from the Secretary and the President of the BWA, who proudly reported that there were 3,000 men along the line of lode who were not in any union. Although Mussen expressed disbelief at this figure, the BWA leaders assured him that their men, along with those in the T&TL, were allowed to work in peace, without interference from other unions.105 However, the ‘harmonious’ approach of these bodies did not serve their members well. The next wage rises that these unions received from the NSW Wages Board were so miserly that Mussen felt that many BWA members would be driven into the fold of the more militant AMA, if the mining companies did not grant some extra concessions to ‘loyal unionists’.106 However, despite Mussen’s misgivings, the MMA later received word that the President of the T&TL had 1,000 members who were prepared to unload concentrates, although this was the preserve of striking Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen’s Association (FEDFA) members.107 In short, the BWA and T&TL’s support for the mine managers and conservative politics was a persistent irritation to the AMA.108

101 Barrier Miner, 23 March 1917. 102 Barrier Miner, 29 April 1917. 103 AMA minutes, 26 March 1918. 104 See, for example, BDT, 17 July 1919. 105 Letter, Mussen to Fraser, 24 March 1919, reference no. 1/37/11/2, CF/MUA. 106 MMA minutes, 4 September 1919. 107 MMA minutes, 17 September 1919. 108 For illustrations of the supine industrial position of the BWA and the T&TL, see Appendix B and C.

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During the Big Strike of 1919-20, out-of-town scabs often slept on the mines and had their meals brought to them by the management to avoid the picket lines, but local scabs, many of them BWA members, would sometimes try to sneak out and go home. According to Mr A. Byrne, if such men were caught, they were offered a choice between a beating and a ‘tar and feathering’. He said:

Most of them preferred tar and feathering to getting a belting. So they were stripped naked and there was a pot of tar that was warmed up and they had plenty of feathers there and they tied them to posts or a fence and then they got a brush and painted them all over with tar. [Laugh] ’Course, they were naked, too. It’d stick pretty well. And then they threw feathers at them and they were all over feathers. Well, then they’d let them go. And when they went home, their wives’d have a terrible task, trying to remove the feathers and the tar. And in those days, there was only kerosene really to do it with. We didn’t have petrol and things like that. So, anyhow, it was better than getting a belting, they thought, and ending up in hospital.109

‘Splitters’ such as White and members of the BWA had an enormous effect on Broken Hill trade unionism in the interwar period, providing a right-wing pole of attraction that militated against greater labour movement unity. During the forty-four hour week struggle in 1915-16, the more moderate, arbitrationist surface unions led by the Amalgamated Society of Engineers formed a peak council, the Broken Hill Trades and Labour Council, to which most of the surface unions had become affiliated by 1917. This meant that the AMA was organisationally and ideologically isolated from the other sections of the local union movement.110 As Le Duff pointed out, socialist ideas and IWW propaganda found a much more receptive audience among AMA members than elsewhere in the labour movement.111 Post-war moves to build industrial unionism in Australia saw several unions, including the Miners’ Federation to which the Broken Hill branch of the AMA was affiliated, agree to form the WIUA. This attempt at the One Big Union came to nought, but, in 1921, ‘in a gesture of ironic defiance’, as Edgar Ross called it, the Broken

109 Interview with five Broken Hill miners, conducted by M. Laver in 1974. Tapes held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, TRC 341, Tape 4. 110 Ellem and Shields, ‘Why do Unions form Peak Bodies?’, p. 393. 111 Le Duff, Factions in the Labour Movement, p. 44.

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Hill branch of the AMA became known as the Barrier Branch of the Mining Division of the Workers Industrial Union of Australia.

For a period, the local WIUA remained aloof from the more moderate unions on the Barrier, but its own increasing industrial restraint and tactical considerations eventually prompted closer organisational unity. WIUA officials negotiated a rapprochement with the T&TL. They also developed a policy of ‘mutual assistance’ with the local branch of the FEDFA, an agreement that assisted the move towards a closed shop on the mines. The two unions cooperated on badge show days, the mechanism by which non-union members were identified, and either recruited or sequestered. FEDFA winder-drivers governed all access to the underground mines. On badge show days, these union members simply refused to lower any non-unionist and, given that the BWA was considered a ‘bogus union’, this strategy delivered a mortal blow to the much-detested WIUA rival.112 By the mid-1920s, the BWA had ceased to exist, WIUA/FEDFA badge shows having made it impossible for BWA members to get work on the mines. Arguably, however, the very existence of the BWA had, in the past, further radicalised the decisions of the underground miners, by claiming those supporters of moderation and arbitration, who would otherwise have watered down the decisions of the WIUA militants. Ironically, the subsequent usurpation of the ‘breakaway unions’ coincided with an increasing conservatism in the WIUA. Such industrial unity paved the way for greater organisational unity and, between 1923 and 1925, the Barrier Industrial Council (BIC) emerged to replace the Trades and Labour Council, with the much sought-after affiliation of the WIUA. As one local described the move: ‘When they formed the BIC they dragged in and quietened the WIU of A and also made the ‘blue whiskers’ a bit more active, it cut both ways, suited everybody.’113

Significantly for the shape of future industrial relations in Broken Hill, the BIC gained the recognition of the MMA as the sole bargaining agent for all the local unions and, in 1925, was able to negotiate an inaugural locally-based industry agreement, signalling the

112 Ellem and Shields, ‘Why do Unions form Peak Bodies?’, p. 403.

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beginning of a relatively autonomous industrial relations system in the town that would last almost sixty years. From 1925 onwards, workplace negotiations in the Broken Hill mining industry were not conducted under the auspices of either federal or state arbitral bodies, although certainly affected by them.114 Bill Eriksen suggested that the miners’ distrust of arbitration was matched by that of Cyril Emery, the president of the MMA. Eriksen said that Emery’s off-the-record position was:

Emery sat at the head of the table and he said, “I don’t want any bastard with his horse’s tail on his head to tell me what I can afford to pay my men.” Of course, he never put it on record, but that’s what he said. He was prepared to deal with us straight out and we got along alright with him.115

As Ellem and Shields have pointed out, the bureaucratic moves within the miners’ union were nevertheless accompanied by a continued commitment to participatory democracy and the central place of the mass meeting in WIUA decision-making processes.116 It is these features of Broken Hill trade unionism which supply important windows into local race relations. Through them, it is possible to see that the attitudes of trade unionists to the arrival of southern European workers in the 1920s was enormously diverse – in fact, bigots and internationalists were repeatedly at loggerheads. Their points of view reflected significant nuances or ‘shades of grey’ in the debate about the presence of migrants on the mines that were not always represented in the final wordings of union resolutions. They also provide a context in which the closure of the WIUA’s books can be accurately assessed. In 1931, the WIUA refused to accept new members into the union in an attempt to force mine managers to hire local unemployed. That the Union’s definition of a ‘local’ included long-term resident southern Europeans makes Broken Hill a revealing focus for this study, suggesting that proponents of migrant exclusion faced stiff opposition from

113 Interviewee in Hammond, Spuds and Onions Strike, p. 14. 114 See W. A. Howard, The Rise and Decline of the Broken Hill Industrial Relations System, Management paper no. 34, Department of Administrative Studies, Monash University, September 1990, pp. 719-21. 115 Interview with five Broken Hill miners, conducted by M. Laver in 1974. Tapes held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, TRC 341, Tape 1. 116 Ellem and Shields, ‘Why do Unions form Peak Bodies?’, p. 404.

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those who, at the very least, recognised the industrially damaging ramifications of racial division.

Kimber described politics in 1920s Broken Hill as a “tug of war’ between competing agendas advanced by the Leftists and the Communist party, Labor moderates and localists’.117 Also looking for a contest was the conservative side of town, which pulled out all stops to get the labour movement to let go of its solidarist tendencies. If it is not stretching this effective analogy too far, the rope used for this tug of war might best be portrayed as one frayed at the labour movement end, pulled this way and that by sectional interests and competing political ideologies. At the other end of the rope, however, was a determined and united team of mine managers, Barrier Miner journalists and members of the local RSL.

“Under the flag of British imperialism”: the Broken Hill sub-branch of the RSL

Broken Hill was fertile ground for wartime AIF recruitment officers. In the four years of the war’s duration, approximately 3,250 men enlisted and 365 of those were killed.118 Founded in 1915, what was originally called the Barrier Returned Soldiers’ Association had close relations with the MMA from its inception.119 Fervent patriot, James Hebbard, manager of the Central Mine, became the driving force behind local returned soldier organisation, making it clear to his fellow mine managers that the issue of returned soldiers was an important one for them.120 In 1919, the President of the MMA, Cyril Emery, reported that a

117 J. Kimber, ‘A Case of Mild Anarchy’? The Rise, Role and Demise of Job Committees in the Broken Hill Mining Industry c1930 to c1954, unpublished Honours thesis, University of New South Wales, 1998, p. 44. 118 Barrier Daily Truth, 12 October 1925. 119 This group became a sub-branch of the South Australian branch of the RSL in 1917. 120 In early RSL correspondence, Hebbard signed himself as the President of what was then known as the Returned Soldiers’ Association. It was Hebbard who donated five horses to R. N. J. Resch [more below] to give to volunteers in his Light Horse contingent. Later, however, the Broken Hill RSL would list Oliver Holmes Whitford as its first President. It is likely that Hebbard took the initial steps to set up the local organisation, handing the presidency over to a suitable returned soldier some time afterwards. An officer and an MC winner, O. H. Whitford was certainly suitable – he later became the general manager of North Broken Hill

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delegation from the RSL had visited him. In view of post-war increases in membership, the RSL was anxious to ascertain exactly what the mine managers were prepared to do for returned soldiers, following a report in the Barrier Miner that assistance should be forthcoming. The delegation reported that they currently had a membership of around 200 men and that they hoped to increase membership to 1,000 by the end of the year. The mine managers unanimously resolved to report the situation to their superiors on the Melbourne Committee121 with a strong recommendation that financial support should be given to returned soldiers. Hebbard’s proposal that the MMA donate £10,000 to the RSL, to be spent on a suitable building, with the remainder invested in war bonds to provide future income for RSL activities, was agreeably received.122

Local mine managers reflected the general ruling class apprehension about the response of a large body of organised, militarised men to an increasingly militant labour movement. At war’s end, Barrier Daily Truth made concerted efforts to appeal to returned servicemen to join the fight against capitalism and war. Its propaganda stressed the working class background of most of those who fought in the war and attempted to build bridges between the interests of returned service personnel and the demands of the labour movement. One front page article with accompanying photograph decried the broken promises made to returned soldiers and exposed the terrible conditions facing those who had taken up barren farming land in Soldier Settlement schemes. In many cases, the paper pointed out, the work required was little different from ‘scabbing on horses’.123 Left to themselves, the mine managers feared that returned men might be influenced by such propaganda. Colonel Dyett, Federal President of the RSL, described Broken Hill returned men as having had:

Limited. A public statement that he would like to line up militant workers and shoot them did not endear him to the Broken Hill labour movement. Kearns, Broken Hill 1915-1939, pp. 6, 9. 121 Committee of Representatives of Barrier Mines, Melbourne. 122 MMA minutes, 13 February 1919. 123 BDT, 29 July 1919.

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a particularly hard time in remaining solidly behind the principles for which they went away to fight. They have not fallen in with the wishes of a certain element, but remained aloof and in consequence of strikes and industrial unrest they and their families are acute sufferers.124

Manager of the South mine, W. Wainwright decided that he would financially reward such loyalty. Les Buck recalled bemusedly that he was one of five returned soldiers on the South mine to receive a bonus for his years overseas, which he said, ‘was a very rare thing from the South mine. They didn’t give money away unnecessarily!’125

Local RSL leaders did not appreciate labour movement sympathy for the plight of returned soldiers. When Percy Brookfield remarked in a speech in Adelaide that many of the four thousand Broken Hill men who went to war were ‘starved into going’, G. F. Barson, Secretary of the Broken Hill sub-branch, wrote to the Barrier Daily Truth to reject Brookfield’s suggestion that the interests of the returned soldier were synonymous with the labour movement. Barson reminded Brookfield that he and other returned soldiers had not ‘forgotten many of the railway scenes and street utterances when we [left] for the front, and we know who, of the soap-box orators, are our friends and our enemies.’126 Looking back on this period, one Truth editorial maintained that employers, such as Barson, deliberately attempted to maintain a wedge between returned soldiers and the labour movement. Their aim, according to the Editor, was to guard the soldier from any connection with working class ideals and ‘the field of unbiased thought and inquiry’.127 The employers’ fears were not without foundation. As one of Hammond’s interviewees noted:

When the soldiers were coming back, the middle class of Broken Hill thought they’d sool the soldiers onto the unionists … because they were jack of the unionists who were always striving for some conditions ... at the weekend a monster procession took place of unionists ... there were 5,000 people there and to our surprise the soldiers, the Returned Soldiers’ League,

124 Letter, Dyett to PM, 5 September 1919, RSL Collection, reference no. MS 6609, item 763, National Library of Australia. 125 Interview with Les Buck, conducted by Ed Stokes on 9 March 1982. Tapes held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 1873, Tape 12. 126 BDT, 11 September 1919. 127 BDT, 12 April 1927. To ‘sool’ is to urge or provoke.

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sent a speaker too, supporting the unionism; that took the wind out of the sails of our very best citizens of Broken Hill.128

In short, the MMA took little convincing that returned soldiers needed to be properly managed, lest there were further liaisons between returned soldiers and the labour movement. Unstinting efforts were required to ensure that returned soldiers were kept distant from post-war union militancy. Unfortunately for the MMA, however, predictions that the RSL would attract a large local membership were not well-founded. By 1923, the sub-branch numbered only just over 300 members and such a poor showing suggested that most returned soldiers were not impressed with the League’s activities or its ‘friends in high places’.129 By 1927, membership had climbed to 370, but still represented only a small proportion of those eligible to join.130 For the mine managers, this made it even more important to support the ‘loyal’ core who identified with RSL politics.

In 1917, Colin Fraser returned to Australia after a two-year absence and noted that relations between management and labour had seriously deteriorated. An industrial advisor to the Collins House Group, Fraser alluded to the ‘very large profits’ made during the war and surmised that working people felt that they had not received their fair share of this bounty.131 To garner ideas from the town’s elite about what could be done to rectify the situation, Fraser issued a circular in 1917, entitled What’s Wrong with Broken Hill?, asking for opinions on what most ailed the town. His own opinion was that, in order to avoid industrial disputation, mine managers would have to institute some welfare measures. Many of those who responded agreed with Fraser’s summation, adding that returned soldiers should be the primary recipients of such benefits. James Hebbard recommended that, apart from the merits of having approximately 2,500 returned soldiers mingling among the mine workforce, a meeting place for returned soldiers should be established as ‘such an

128 Interviewee in Hammond, Spuds and Onions Strike, pp. 3-4. 129 Report of RSL meeting in BDT, 20 June 1923. 130 Annual Report and Balance Sheet for year ended 31 December 1927, Broken Hill RSL, held at the Australian War Memorial. 131 C. Fraser, What’s Wrong with Broken Hill?, CF/MUA.

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institution would have a good effect in counteracting undesirable influences in labour matters, and make for industrial peace.’ Hebbard argued:

I need not dilate on the beneficial influence of this Association on the general tone of opinion in Broken Hill as I believe the members have already had ample evidence that the fostering of the opinion there from will benefit employees generally.132

Several months later, Hebbard more strongly reiterated these sentiments, warning that the Barrier Daily Truth was seeking to win returned soldiers to the labour movement ‘by a display of sympathy and ventilation of grievances’. He wrote:

The Bolsheviks of the Barrier Unions will use every endeavour to accentuate the disgruntled feelings which many of the returned men have towards the Government and employers generally, and it seems to me if employers desire to assist the Government in repatriating these men in such a way that the better opinions with which they have returned (in a large measure utterly antagonistic to the Bolsheviks) may be strengthened, it is time the Companies were “up and doing” with a view to preventing the spread of these opinions as well as to prove that they have the welfare of the men who have earned the Country’s gratitude, sincerely at heart. The aggressive attitude of the militant unionists towards the Companies and those workmen who desire to be loyal to the Country by doing their duty in maintaining its industries can only be squelched by supporting the loyal men who will undoubtedly as time goes on, create a more harmonious atmosphere, and it is hoped to render temperate the malcontents who have been in evidence in Broken Hill for years past.133

Clearly, the RSL had an important strategic place in mine management plans.

The Barrier Industrial Association (BIA) was formed to investigate, and implement where possible, measures that would improve the lot of workers in Broken Hill and, it was hoped, their industrial disposition. The BIA’s Secretary, George Nicholson, said that the welfarists were most anxious to secure ‘the confidence of the workers and to disabuse their

132 J. Hebbard, What’s Wrong with Broken Hill?, CF/MUA. 133 Letter, Hebbard to MMA, 19 February 1918, reference no. 1/37/12, CF/MUA.

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minds that there may be ulterior motives in any proposals that may be put forward.’134 To this end, the BIA appointed Gerald Mussen, an American welfarist, who was to play a key role in mine management policy in the post-war period. Mussen met with representatives of the RSL to discuss the responsibilities owed by the companies to their former employees, now returned soldiers. His advice to the mine managers was to curry favour with the RSL and to re-employ all Broken Hill soldiers upon their return. It was advice that was closely heeded. Frank Allen, Secretary of the MMA, felt that the provision of facilities for the RSL ‘would have a good effect in counteracting undesirable influences in Labour matters and make for industrial peace.’135 In private correspondence, W. S. Robinson added the following postscript: ‘I have taken it for granted that the Company takes every man being a returned soldier whatever his condition back into employment.’136 In a similar vein, Nicholson urged that ‘great care must be taken not to segregate returned soldiers, but rather, the sooner the men get back into the general body politic the better for the country at large.’137 Union official, Bill Eriksen, said that when the soldiers returned, they got a good welcome from the mine managers. He said, ‘The companies put them on, whether they had work for them or not. When the returned men came back, particularly those that had been in the industry before they went, they all got jobs.’138 Despite this commitment to returned soldier welfare, the mine managers’ dichotomy was to achieve the maximum ‘improving’ effect from returned soldiers mixing with the rest of the workforce, while placing the least financial burden on the mining companies. For example, in an attempt to defray some of the costs onto the Federal Government, Mussen was part of a committee formed to lobby the Repatriation authorities for returned soldier housing.139

After the Big Strike ended in 1920, the AMA complained to the MMA that, at the Zinc Corporation mine, returned servicemen were being given the jobs of those who had

134 Letter, Allen to Fraser, 9 January 1919, reference no. 1/37/11/2, CF/MUA. 135 Letter, Allen to Hebbard, 20 June 1917, reference no. 1/18/5/11, CF/MUA. 136 Letter, Robinson to Fraser, 25 April 1917, reference no. 1/37/11/2, CF/MUA. 137 Letter, Nicholson to Allen, 9 January 1919, reference no. 1/37/11/2, CF/MUA. 138 Interview with Bill Eriksen, conducted by Edward Stokes on 14 March 1982. Tape held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 1873, Tape 25. 139 MMA minutes, 25 March 1919.

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been employed before the strike. The MMA saw no problem with this policy and cynically advised the AMA that, unlike many Australian employers, the mine managers believed that it was ‘imperative upon the Companies’ to meet the obligations dictated in the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Act (1919).140 In 1920, the RSL suggested that non-returned men be asked to take turns with returned soldiers when relief labouring work was allotted. This request was circulated to all the mining companies and the MMA sent assurances to the RSL that ‘the Companies would do all they could to provide the greatest amount of employment for returned soldiers.’141 Later, the RSL sought to extend its privileged position, requesting that several fathers of returned men be given jobs.142 In July 1922, the RSL wrote to request that the question of giving absolute preference to returned soldiers with necessary qualifications, should be applied in every possible case. The MMA requested that the RSL provide them with a list of unemployed returned men and that the mine managers would endeavour to find positions for them. They also advised that, if the RSL was willing ‘to supply particulars of cases where they thought men had been unfairly treated, such cases would be carefully looked into.’143 To further assist, the MMA funded relief work on the Palace Hotel.144

The Palace Hotel was a concrete demonstration of mine manager support for the RSL.145 The MMA purchased the Palace in 1919 from Emil Resch, one of the principals of the large brewing company of the same name.146 Resch’s nephew, Richard, was a leading RSL member in Broken Hill, where he initially managed his uncle’s soft drink business.147

140 MMA minutes, 20 November 1920. 141 MMA minutes, 2 February 1920. 142 MMA minutes, 8 December 1921 143 MMA minutes, 13 July 1922. 144 MMA minutes, 2 February 1920. 145 BDT, 19 October 1919. 146 Edmund Resch, Emil’s brother, was 67 years old when World War One began in 1914 and his subsequent internment at Holdsworthy provides a clear example of the indiscriminate nature of state harassment of Germans during World War One – he had lived in Australia for 50 years and had been an Australian citizen for 25 of those years. See C. Carr, The Resch Brothers in Australia, unpublished manuscript held in National Library of Australia, 1992, pp. 23-33. 147 Resch married Emma Fletcher and adopted her name in 1916, perhaps wishing to avoid anti-German hysteria to which his uncle would fall victim. For Resch’s change of name, see Barrier Miner, 7 June 1916. Resch’s commanding officer described him as the ‘mainstay of the Citizen Force’ and ‘an indefatigable

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On New Year’s Day in 1915, it was Richard who had led a group of police and Volunteer Rifles to ‘deal with’ two Turkish sympathisers who had fired on a local train.148 In 1919, the MMA made the Palace Hotel available to the RSL for a nominal rental of one shilling per annum. Built in 1889, the hotel was valued at £12,000 and a further £4,000 for renovations was authorised.149 By 1922, the sub-branch report boasted that Broken Hill had the ‘finest returned soldier club rooms in the Commonwealth’. It comprised 63 bedrooms, two bars, a large billiard room, reading and writing rooms, a lending library and a recreation ground with tennis court. The rooms housed returned soldiers at a discounted rate but were also open to the general public. So successful was this venture that Hostel income alone rendered unnecessary any further public appeals for funds.150

Financial assistance from the mine managers to the RSL did not stop at the mere provision of a building. In 1923, the MMA also agreed to pay for the painting of the Hostel and provided a mines engineer to supervise the preparation of specifications for the contract.151 In 1924, the RSL requested permission to sub-let the Palace billiards room, an arrangement that would necessitate the construction of a new entrance to the room. This request was also approved and, again, the Association arranged appropriate supervision of the work.152 By 1927, the Palace had no fewer than 27 staff and was turning a healthy profit.153 In July 1934, the Committee of Representatives of Barrier Mines advised that they had approved a request from the RSL for a loan of £2,000 for additional remodelling of the Soldiers’ Hostel.154 The RSL valued this relationship with the employers and worked hard to protect it. Colonel Jacob, President of the South Australian branch of the RSL, attended a MMA meeting for a round of mutual back-slapping and to personally thank the Companies

Recruiting Officer’. See Department of Defence, file nos. MP84/1 1128/1/16, A2023 A95/5/36, National Archives of Australia, Melbourne. 148 This episode is widely acknowledged to be the only incident where ‘enemy’ shots were fired on Australian soil during World War One. 149 Diggers’ Gazette, 15 December 1919. 150 Diggers’ Gazette, 7 February 1922. 151 MMA minutes, 23 August, 29 October 1923. 152 MMA minutes, 10 July 1924. 153 Annual Report and Balance Sheet, Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, Broken Hill Sub-Branch, for year ended 31 December 1927, p. 5, held in Australian War Memorial. 154 MMA minutes, 2 August 1934.

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for the considerable corporate assistance given to returned soldiers. Jacob was fulsome in his praise, remarking that the RSL had been ‘handed over’ a ‘wonderful building … at a peppercorn rental’ and had been generously lent another sum to make renovations, again ‘at peppercorn interest’.155 In 1946, with membership levels re-invigorated by another war, the RSL sought new premises and bought land upon which to build. The MMA sold the Palace to the South Australian Brewing Company and donated the entire proceeds of the sale to the RSL’s building fund.156

Apart from the Palace Hotel, the BIA suggested that a war memorial would also raise the profile of returned soldier sacrifice in Broken Hill,157 but it was to prove to be a far more contentious addition to the landscape and emblematic of the ideological struggle being waged between the conservatives and the anti-militarists. In 1921, Truth gleefully reported that two guns that had been sent to Broken Hill for memorial purposes had been left in the Railway Town station yard for several months after their arrival.158 Initially, all attempts to have the guns placed in a suitably prominent position came to nothing. Permission was sought for them to be placed outside the local courthouse but consent was not forthcoming. A suggestion that the guns be placed on the Reserve was also quashed as it was felt that ‘the red-rag element might vent their spleen on them.’159 Eventually, it was decided to put the firearms on the tennis court at the back of the Soldiers’ Hostel. This location was an acknowledgement that there was considerable hostility towards memorialising of the war in Broken Hill.

In 1925, a more imposing memorial was unveiled by Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash. A figure sculpted by C. Webb Gilbert, ‘The Bomber’, as it was called, was situated

155 MMA minutes, 9 May 1935. 156 R. H. B. Kearns, Broken Hill 1940-1973: New Horizons, Broken Hill Historical Society, Broken Hill, 1977, pp. 17-8. In what I like to think of as the southern Europeans’ revenge, the RSL Club in Broken Hill ceased operation in 1994, whereas its former premises is now trading under the name of its proprietor, Mario Valentino Celotto, and has been renamed Mario’s Palace Hotel. 157 Letter, Nicholson to Allen, 9 January 1919, reference no. 1/37/11/2, CF/MUA. 158 BDT, 14 June 1921. 159 BDT, 14 June 1921.

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prominently on the corner of Argent and Sulphide Streets. Although its RSL commissioning committee found it to be ‘true in every detail’, the Barrier Daily Truth reporter described it as ‘almost repulsive and bestial in its attitude and expression.’160 The unveiling ceremony, as reported in Broken Hill’s rival newspapers, provided a graphic illustration of the divided attitudes of townspeople towards the war. Inglis compared newspaper reports of the event thus. The Barrier Miner described a large, and visibly moved crowd at the ceremony, while Barrier Daily Truth reported ‘no great enthusiasm’ from the crowd and that, in dispersing, they left the ‘war glorifier … in the perpetual act of hurling a bomb on to the roof of the hotel opposite’. Inglis argued that ‘no other paper reported an unveiling with such irreverence.’161 Clearly, the memorial was not an uncontroversial addition to the Broken Hill landscape for, at the Anzac day smoke social in 1927, Mr F. G. White, in his capacity as a member of the War Memorial Trust, exhorted all those present to be ‘eternally vigilant’ in protecting the memorial from vandalism.162

The labour movement was not immune from the ideological warfare of the conservatives and the ramifications of the war still loomed large in political debates. For example, in 1927, the Labor Mayor, Alderman R. Dennis, made a controversial speech at an Anzac Day event, remarking that one of his ambitions was to inculcate in young people a recognition of the need for soldiers to protect Australia. Barrier Daily Truth reported, ‘He had no time for the man who would not go to the front, and no time for the man who said that men should not enlist when it was necessary.’163 This clear swipe at the anti- conscriptionists provoked a swift outcry. One Letter to the Editor expressed outrage at the Mayor’s pro-war attitudes, alleging that he had ‘out-jingoed the jingoes’, that men had been expelled from the Labor movement for saying less, and asking what action was the Barrier District Assembly of the ALP going to take. Another letter from ‘Disgusted’ called for disciplinary measures against Dennis, arguing that his speech was ‘supporting militarism

160 BDT, 12 October 1925. 161 K. S. Inglis, Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 1999, pp. 223-4. 162 BDT, 25 April 1927. 163 BDT, 25 April 1927.

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and flouting every sentiment that the Labor movement stands for.’164 At a subsequent meeting of the WIUA, the following motion was passed:

That this meeting of members of the WIU of A view with amazement and disgust the anti-working class utterances made by the alleged Labor Mayor … and, further, the delegates from the A.L.P. and Industrial Council be instructed to demand his resignation as Mayor.165

Beyond the MMA’s ostentatious display of support for the RSL as an ideological weapon lay a different story. Requests of relief payments to ease the suffering of individual unemployed returned soldiers and their families were often treated in a much more parsimonious fashion. For instance, the RSL asked the mine managers for wood and coal donations for returned servicemen with large families, and for a horse and cart to deliver these items. The Secretary of the BIA was instructed to reply that ‘present difficulties’ prevented the request from being fulfilled, although the RSL was asked to keep the mine managers informed about returned soldier matters.166 Subsequently, the RSL’s support for the mine managers during the Big Strike did much to fortify employer support for such a loyal organisation. In return, the RSL leadership did their utmost to keep returned soldiers respectful and hard-working. In mid-1919, it estimated that 150-200 returned soldiers were unemployed, but was anxious to avoid any accusation that ex-soldiers would avoid work. While other workers might be ‘shirkers’, the RSL leadership contended that ‘[t]he returned man who is able bodied wants work, and is naturally averse to accepting sustenance money.’167 This was also the line that the Federal President of the RSL, Gilbert Dyett, used when lobbying the Prime Minister for special consideration of Broken Hill ex-soldiers. It was not money, but work, that was required ‘for these soldiers who have behaved so magnificently during days of industrial action’.168 In discussion, Cyril Emery stated firmly that ‘if anything was to be done it should be done for Returned Soldiers’ and although

164 BDT, 26 April 1927. 165 WIUA minutes, 26 April 1927. 166 MMA minutes, 4 July 1919. 167 MMA minutes, 4 September 1919. 168 Letter, Dyett to Prime Minister, 5 September 1919, RSL collection, MS 6609, item 763, National Library of Australia.

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Hebbard felt that giving preference to returned soldiers would antagonise the AMA, it was agreed that the Public Works Department and the Melbourne Committee should be approached to supply extra relief for returned soldiers.169 This was eventually forthcoming but the Melbourne Committee was determined to get value for money, stipulating that the £500 donated was only to be directed towards relief work for returned soldiers and those in unions that were not on strike.170

Returned soldiers themselves were aware that better treatment was accorded to the ‘loyal’ soldier, and that those who wanted to be re-absorbed into the labour movement could not expect any favours from the RSL leadership or local employers. In 1919, one returned soldier wrote an outraged letter to the Truth, in which he referred to a friend of his, a returned soldier and an AMA member, who had been refused relief money from the police. At the same time, he argued, NSW Wages Board proceedings had granted ‘loyal’ T&TL members one pound per week. When he himself had applied to the Repatriation Office, assistance was only forthcoming when he lied and said that he would be prepared to scab during the strike. He predicted that similar pressure to work on the mines would be put on all returned soldiers.171 In the following year, when a deputation approached an MMA meeting to acquaint the employers with the seriousness of the unemployment situation for returned soldiers, A. A. Lawrence thanked the Association for receiving the delegation and respectfully stated that the purpose of the deputation was to ‘get some moral support from the Mining Managers’ Association in any representation which they might make to the Government to start relief works.’172 The MMA were clearly prepared to give the RSL more than moral support and, for the duration of the strike, money for returned soldier relief works was by far the largest recurring expenditure of the MMA.173

169 MMA minutes, 4 September 1919. 170 MMA minutes, 7 October 1919. 171 The letter was signed ‘A.M.A., A.I.F.’ BDT, 6 September 1919. 172 MMA minutes, 23 January 1920. 173 See, for example, Financial Statements, MMA minutes, 12 February, 11 March, 28 April 1920; MMA minutes, 23 January 1920.

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It was not long after the war that the RSL leadership’s ‘aloofness’ towards working class living standards became apparent. Not only were they prepared to undercut the militants in the mine workforce, they were also prepared to undermine the industrial demands of returned soldiers as well. This was borne out by a dispute which took place in Broken Hill in 1920. A group of forty returned soldiers who were engaged in relief work on the road, some distance from the centre of town, refused to work until they were granted paid walking time to the job. As one of the soldier strikers said, ‘[i]f the unionists around the district are allowed this privilege of travelling time, then why is it refused to us? All we are asking is a fair deal.’174 The RSL branch executive thought the demand was just, but heartily disapproved of the men’s ‘unconstitutional methods’ and decided to send a new list of willing employees to the Public Works Department. The strikers returned to work before this plan was enacted, but it was clear that the RSL leadership was prepared to organise scabbing against fellow returned soldiers.175

Racism was one of the means by which the RSL sought to hide its antagonism towards improved worker rights. By masquerading support for White Australia as concern for Australian wage and employment levels, the RSL promoted an ideology that militated against the very industrial strength that was needed to improve working class living standards. The League’s constant agitation for ‘white unity’ encouraged racial division within the labour movement, weakening union capacity and thereby assisting employers to limit wage increases. In 1921, the annual general meeting of the local sub-branch discussed the ‘regrettable fact’ that, while there were many ‘aliens’ working on the mines, ‘returned soldiers capable of doing the same work were unemployed and practically penniless.’176 However, this was an argument that elite members of the RSL could not prosecute among working people, who would be naturally suspicious of arguments made by their industrial enemies. It was in this regard that conservative working class returned soldiers were so important to the influence of the League. As Chapter Seven will confirm, in the mid-to-late

174 BDT, 19 February 1920. 175 Report of Broken Hill Executive by S. W. Barson, RSL Collection, reference no. MS 6609, item 763, National Library of Australia.

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1920s, rank-and-file RSL members actively sought to plant this anti-migrant dichotomy in the minds of Broken Hill workers.

Perhaps the most revealing insight into the relationship between the RSL, the mine managers and racism against migrants was provided by Cyril Emery, President of the MMA. In 1931, at the Anzac Day Smoke Social held at the Palace Hostel, Mr Fisher, a State Councillor of the RSL, toasted the visiting guests. He also drew particular attention to the fact that, if not for the mine managers, they would not have the room in which they were sitting. This was the cue for Emery to make his speech. The mine manager was in a feisty mood and did not shirk the question he knew was uppermost in the minds of RSL members. Emery began brazenly, by stating that he realised that many RSL members thought, ‘Why doesn’t the old blackguard put off a lot of foreigners on the North [mine] and put on Anzacs?’ The Barrier Miner reported that there was much ‘applause and commotion’ in response to this statement. Emery’s provocative reply to his own rhetorical question was to laugh and say, ‘Well, make it rough, boys, I like it that way.’ Then, adopting a more conciliatory tone, the politically astute mine manager reeled out a number of predictable platitudes. He acknowledged that ‘Australia’ was having a difficult time at present, that things were not as they would like, but that there were better times ahead. In closing, Emery repaid Fisher’s verbal obeisance by firmly stating that ‘men who stormed Gallipoli would come through with the right leaders’.177

Emery’s speech was intended to achieve a number of political ends. In bringing up the presence of ‘foreigners’ in Broken Hill, he reinforced in the minds of RSL members that migrants were the main source of their unemployment problems. At the same time, he affirmed that freedom of contract was an inviolable principle that he and his associates would always exercise as they saw fit and that the employment of cheap labour was their prerogative. In exhorting the men to ‘make it rough’, he clearly saw no problem with racism against migrants, as long as it deflected workers from blaming the mine managers for

176 Diggers’ Gazette, 21 January 1921.

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insufficient jobs. In tandem, the latter half of the speech reinforced the idea that the fortunes of Britisher mine managers and workers were integrally linked and that everyone in Broken Hill had a stake in the revival of the mining industry. All that was needed were steady heads and strong leadership.

F. G. White was one of those leaders. Given his well-known opposition to union organisation, it was unlikely that White would get much of a hearing in labour movement circles. However, White was able to cultivate working class supporters in the local RSL. Three such men were returned soldiers Richard Gully, A. A. Lawrence and Fred Rilen who, as Chapter Seven demonstrates, were encouraged by White to stand as Nationalist candidates in elections for the municipal council and to actively promulgate conservative politics within the labour movement. In the 1920s, Gully became known as the leader of a campaign for migrant exclusion. Arthur Anson Lawrence, a Gallipoli veteran and one of the founding members of the BWA, supported Gully in his increasingly shrill campaigns to get migrant workers removed from the mines. Gully and Rilen joined forces to attack the WIUA’s 12½ per cent levy in support of striking coalminers. The RSL was the common denominator between White, a pillar of the local Broken Hill establishment, and Gully, Lawrence and Rilen, three workers who were employed at different mines along the line of lode. While all these men made liberal use of racist invective in their public activities, their racism should be seen as part of a general orientation towards union-busting. However, their racism was not unimportant to the mine managers who, in this period, hired southern Europeans on a racist basis – as cheap labour for unskilled work. The activities of White, Gully and Lawrence were motivated by a desire to drive a racist wedge between the southern European workers and their Britisher counterparts, as part of a struggle to keep the newcomers isolated and cheap.

177 Barrier Miner, 27 April 1931.

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Conclusion

Employers, unions and radical and conservative activists were all involved in debating attitudes towards the presence of migrant labour in the community. The local mine managers adopted a panoply of strategies designed to increase the rate of exploitation of the Broken Hill workforce, reduce costs, and thereby increase profits. They attracted a number of allies – individuals and groups that opposed militant trade unionism and supported a range of conservative agendas. In particular, they galvanised Nationalist supporters, conservative workers in anti-militant organisations and conservative returned soldiers. Unlike sections of the labour movement, all these groups were fervent supporters of the White Australia policy. In response, the Left of the Broken Hill labour movement battled against the divisive tactics of the organised Right and, in the process, waged an argument that racism would weaken the industrial strength of local workers. That sections of the labour movement engaged in a struggle against racial division suggests that important questions can be raised regarding the previous historiographical emphasis on the unquestioning labour movement support for migrant exclusion. At the very least, the progress of this local ‘race debate’ demonstrated that labour movement support for migrant exclusion was never a foregone conclusion and depended on the interaction of a range of often contradictory and unpredictable forces.

245 CHAPTER SEVEN

Broken Hill between the Wars: the RSL in a ‘union town’

Union meetings were systematically disrupted, with divisions on motions presented as “This side for unity!” and “This side for Australia!” … With Gully defeated, Broken Hill’s class integrity and internationalism were vindicated. E. Ross on Richard Gully’s racist campaign among Broken Hill miners, Of Storm and Struggle1

Introduction

Despite Broken Hill’s reputation as a beacon of working class solidarity, the local labour movement was riven with political and industrial tensions in the interwar period. These fissures were not, however, solely the result of political disagreements within the organised working class. In fact, local employers delighted in each sign of labour movement disunity and did all in their power to exacerbate rivalries. Although this general point might not be regarded as terribly contentious among labour historians, the general acceptance of racism as an almost inevitable response to working class competition for jobs has led to a concomitant neglect of employer activism around the question of race. In the absence of further analysis, employer attempts to import migrant labour might be portrayed as evidence of an ambivalent, even hostile, attitude towards White Australia as a policy that inhibited the ‘natural’ free flow of the labour market. On the contrary, as this case study of Broken Hill demonstrates, employers in Broken Hill expressed unswerving loyalty to the ‘principles’ behind White Australia, even as they looked far and wide for the cheapest labour to exploit. These outwardly contradictory positions offered potential industrial advantages to employers seeking to profit from racist division among workers, in the form of cheap labour and industrial rifts.

1 E. Ross, Of Storm and Struggle, Alternative Publishing Co-operative, Sydney, 1982, p. 41. Chapter Seven Broken Hill: the struggle for ‘racial’ unity

In order to highlight employer activity around the issue of racism, this chapter outlines a range of right-wing campaigns that sought to weaken the militant unionism of the 1920s and, through them, assesses the strategies and influence of conservative forces in Broken Hill. Racism, it is demonstrated, was but one item on their divisive agenda. Union responses to employer campaigns are also examined. While concern about the presence of migrant labour on the mines was common, there was no unified labour movement attitude to the new southern European arrivals. Instead, in contrast to local employer tactics, union debates and strategies exhibited a distinct tension between the need to protect available jobs for local unemployed and the wider principle of international solidarity. As happened in Kalgoorlie, the Broken Hill sub-branch of the RSL organised conservative returned soldiers. Members of the local establishment held leadership position in the Broken Hill RSL, beginning with local mine manager, James Hebbard, who was its first president. Mine managers, magistrates, clergy and members of the business community used RSL ‘debates’ as opportunities to propagate conservative politics and to drum up support for Nationalist politicians. Most noticeably, the RSL’s opposition to the presence of southern European labour on the mines became an important adjunct to employer requirements for cheap and unorganised workers.

To demonstrate these links, I present biographies of F. G. White, Richard Gully and A. A. Lawrence who, with their associates,2 had an enormous effect on Broken Hill political life during the interwar period. Although, as a local businessman, White’s social background differed markedly from the other two working class men, all three were linked by RSL affiliation, empire loyalty and an active hatred of militant trade unionism. Primed with the virulent form of nationalistic, anti-southern European racism that was integral to RSL politics, and egged on by White, Gully and Lawrence fought to gain support among fellow workers for a range of anti-union initiatives, such as anti- immigrant crusades, anti-preference clauses and opposition to strike levies. Through these campaigns, racism is presented, not just as a sign of labour movement division,

2 Returned soldiers, Fred Rilen and J. J. Hatch, were key associates, but biographies were not possible due to lack of sources.

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but as one of a range of important employer tools used in the quest for industrial supremacy.

Racism on the mines: evidence from the 1914 Royal Commission on the Broken Hill mining industry

In June 1914, the NSW government set up a Royal Commission into conditions on the Broken Hill mines. The Commission’s terms of reference were based on a premise that southern European immigration was unquestionably objectionable and, in and of itself, posed a direct threat to the health and safety, living standards and working conditions of local workers. The Commissioners were appointed to investigate, among other things, means for the ‘prevention of the wholesale influx into Australia of foreigners unable to speak the English language, with a view to minimising the number who may seek and obtain employment in the said mines in place of Australian miners’.3 A return was prepared by the Inspector of Police at Broken Hill showing that, of the 748 foreigners in Broken Hill, 100 could not speak English and 544 only spoke English ‘imperfectly’. It was estimated that the Maltese, Bulgarians, Germans, Austrians, Italians and others who made up the migrant population were approximately seven per cent of the total population of Broken Hill [see Appendix D].

With war-time unemployment on the rise, the closure of mines in neighbouring Cobar and a perceived increase of new arrivals under migration contracts with local employers, the Amalgamated Miners’ Association (AMA) executive was suspicious that the mine managers were trying to swell the labour market and so cheapen contract rates. Although the Commission found no shortage of workers willing to testify that non- English speaking workers were a danger to themselves and others, this was not the only response that was elicited from union witnesses. Some evidence given at the Commission suggested that AMA miners were reluctant to cooperate with inspectors when they went in search of non-English speaking workers. J. C. James, an Inspector of

3 Report of the Royal Commission on Mining Industry at Broken Hill, [hereafter Royal Commission on Mining Industry] presented to NSW Legislative Assembly, Sydney, 1914, p. iii.

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Mines, revealed that, acting on a letter of complaint he had received from the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU), he had endeavoured to make inquiries about foreign workers on the Broken Hill mines. When asked if there had been any correspondence from the miners’ union, the AMA, about the presence of migrant labour, the Inspector replied, ‘No; we had no complaints from the miners whatever.’ Nevertheless, despite the lack of complaints, he had not anticipated ‘that there would be any difficulty in getting the members of the union to assist us in finding out the places and the mines in which the foreigners were employed’.4 He had been wrong.

The Mine Inspectors were, according to Ern Wetherell, commonly referred to as the ‘Three Blind Mice’ by mine workers.5 W. Eddy, a mine Checkweigher, said in evidence that he thought that the Inspectors should be renamed ‘Government Mining Visitors’. He said:

my experience is they come underground with a guard of honour, perhaps the underground manager on one side and the foreman on the other, and they walk through the mine ... I have only been spoken to by one Government inspector ... I could hear them coming, they were talking tennis; and when he got up to the stope he said, “Good-day, boys; how is the back [of the stope]?” I said, “Not bad,” and he walked on.6

The Chief Inspector of Mines for New South Wales, J. B. Jaquet, testified that ‘there was difficulty in searching the mines to locate such foreigners, and the inspectors consequently had to rely on the information by the management and shift bosses’.7 This suggests that there was no campaign by the miners to get rid of migrant workers. Even if opposition to migrant labour had been official union policy, but the workers had been afraid of giving information to the Inspectors, they could have deputed their Check Inspector, an employee of the AMA charged with taking up the workers’ concerns with management, to identify the non-English speaking workers. They did not do so. When Sam Deed, the AMA Check Inspector, gave evidence, he was evasive about the

4 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 41. 5 Ern Wetherell, ‘The “Stormy” Years of 1910-1921’, unpublished manuscript, Charles Rasp Memorial Library, Broken Hill, p. 139. 6 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 201.

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presence of non-English speaking migrants on the mines. When asked why he did not, as a rule, check the union ‘pence card’ of the foreigners he came across, Deed replied that there was no need to do this because ‘they generally come and join’.8 When the Commission Chairman suggested to Tom Gamboni, a miner, that the AMA play a role in identifying those who could not speak English and informing on them to the mine managers, Gamboni replied, ‘[o]ur rule provides that every man working in the industry shall be eligible to membership.’9 For his part, W. D. Barnett, Secretary of the AMA, made a clear distinction between new arrivals and southern Europeans who had been in Broken Hill for some years, whom he did not class as ‘foreigners’. He was equally concerned about the recent increase in English miners who had been given work in preference to local men.10

The evidence offered by mine managers to the Commission suggests that they incorporated a range of strategies to take advantage of the migrant labour on offer. Some mine managers adopted a policy of placing inexperienced or non-English speaking migrants with more experienced workers or with those compatriots who could act as interpreters. Others hired migrant workers to do only the less skilled work, where there was professed to be little danger but, whatever the particular motivation, racist attitudes were part and parcel of each hiring policy. Consider the position of W. E. Wainwright, Manager of the South mine, who praised the suitability of Maltese labour for loading coal. He said:

I have had some good experience of Maltese on a particular class of job; I find they are very good at loading coal. Loading coal is a dirty job, and the Maltese do well at it; they do not want so much looking after as the Englishmen, and they get paid the same rate.11

Underground Superintendent of the South mine, Andrew Fairweather assured the Commissioners that there were ‘practically no foreigners on mining work; they only

7 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 46. 8 A pence card demonstrated whether a miner was a financial member of the AMA. Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 84. 9 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 133. 10 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 428. 11 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 671.

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occupy the positions of ore-truckers, mullockers, and ore-fillers’. One party of these workers was employed with an interpreter, a migrant worker who spoke sufficient English. When that man decided to ‘pull out’, the foreman simply sacked the rest of the party. In addition, Fairweather insisted that he only employed such men when Britishers were not available. ‘[I]n every case we would rather have a man of English descent than a foreigner’, he said.12

The Commissioners presented wage sheets to T. H. Palmer, Manager of the Junction North mine. These records demonstrated that contract trucking and mullocking parties of foreigners were systematically paid very low returns, lower even than wage rates. Palmer defended these wage rates on the basis that the party was made up of ‘inferior workers’, adding that ‘[a]s a rule we have kept the Englishmen separate as much as possible from the foreigners.’13 Charles Johnston was called before the Commission to give evidence regarding a letter he wrote to the day shift foreman, Charles Lock, requesting that four new workers be hired and that they should not be ‘white men’. When pressed for the reasoning behind such an order, Johnston and Lock both claimed that the men were required for a particular trucking party, that this party was made up of foreigners and that white men refused to work in such parties.14 However, on several occasions, both men stated that it was desirable to keep the work groups ethnically homogenous.15 Johnston justified his request for foreign workers thus: ‘Because I wanted the men of the same nationality to be working together, whether foreigners or Englishmen.’16 Subsequently, the Commissioners produced contract records to show that the party in question did contain British and foreign workers and that contracts where foreigners predominated were paid less than the going rate for the job.17

Nevertheless, such nuances in the responses of Broken Hill workers and managers did not find their way into the final report of the Royal Commission that was

12 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 586-7. 13 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 614. 14 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 167. 15 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, pp. 164, 167, 194, 196. 16 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 167.

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presented in December 1916. Unable to comprehend basic solidarity between Britisher and migrant workers and principled political positions against racism, the Commissioners swiftly surmised that the miners must have been reluctant to make complaints in front of the shift bosses, fearing recrimination. Their subsequent recommendation was that no worker should be employed underground unless that person could read and speak ‘intelligible’ English. They also warned of ‘the grave social danger which may arise from the presence in an Australian town of a large number of aliens, of inferior civilisation and of a lower standard of life’.18

Only divided they were ruled: battling the elite ideological terrain

In the mid-1920s, increased numbers of southern Europeans came to Australia for work, as part of a deliberate policy on the part of the Bruce government to increase the labour market for rural land clearing and other menial work. Unsurprisingly, many of these workers found such isolating, back-breaking work at low pay unattractive and were instead drawn to mining towns like Broken Hill, where better pay and conditions might be obtained. Union accusations that the mine managers were again trying to ‘flood the labour market’ were not unfounded. In fact, the MMA was intentionally, and secretively, organising to attract mining labour to the town, but only of a certain industrial ‘type’. In 1923, the MMA met to discuss methods for increasing the supply of underground workers. It was resolved to recommend to the Melbourne Committee19 that ‘an official be sent from Broken Hill to the capital cities to ascertain what labour supply was available and engage suitable miners for Broken Hill’.20 The Melbourne Committee approved the plan, but advised the MMA to begin by making contact with the local government-run labour bureau. Local mine managers rejected this suggestion because, in the past, the men supplied from this source had been ‘not at all satisfactory’. Instead, they discussed various contact persons who might be asked to act as

17 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 195. 18 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. xxviii. 19 Committee of Representatives of Barrier Mines, Melbourne. 20 Minutes of Meeting of Broken Hill Mine Managers’ Association [hereafter MMA minutes], 19 April 1923, Broken Hill South Collection, Melbourne University Archives.

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representatives for the purpose of interviewing applicants in a range of population centres, namely Sydney, Adelaide, England (specifically, Cornish miners) Bendigo, Ballarat, Wallaroo and Kalgoorlie.21 When the Melbourne Committee again raised the question of the labour bureau, the MMA Secretary advised that use of the bureau was counterproductive, as the unions quickly became aware of employer plans and immediately began to advertise that there were no jobs in Broken Hill. It was also stated that the labour bureau often supplied ‘derelict labour’. The MMA also tried to avoid contact with the labour movement in its search for workers, fearing them to be contaminated by anti-employer propaganda. In 1917, it passed a motion advising members not to place advertisements in the Barrier Daily Truth. By 1923, this motion had been rescinded as impractical, because too few workers read the Miner with its anti- labour bias, making advertising in Truth the only way to reach potential employees.22

During this period, both major Broken Hill newspapers engaged in spirited debate on the question of migrant labour in the town. For its part, the Barrier Daily Truth promoted an equivocally internationalist position; editorial comments championed the plight of destitute migrant miners alongside claims that migration should be more strictly regulated to ease pressure on unemployment levels. In contrast, the Miner claimed that the Workers Industrial Union of Australia (WIUA) was the ‘foreigners’ union’ and that it had traitorously put interpreters in the mines to instruct the newcomers in English. Conservative supporters of the mine managers were in a predicament. While they supported the right of mine managers to employ the best labour, they did not like it when the mine managers chose southern Europeans. One Letter to the Editor of the Barrier Miner from ‘Friend of the Digger’ resolved this dichotomy by insisting that there was no way that Maltese workers could be superior to Britisher workers. Instead of attacking the mine managers however, he chided the WIUA’s inclusiveness. Reflecting eugenicist fears of miscegenation and racial degeneration, the writer argued:

21 MMA minutes, 10 May 1923. 22 MMA minutes, 4 June, 10 May 1923.

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Ever since the armistice … those coloured aliens were having the preference, and were taking the jobs rightly belonging to the returned soldiers and other white workers … Are the unionists indifferent to their own interests? Have they no respect for the future generation, in permitting those hordes of nondescripts into their ranks and homes? If so, I say they are degenerating, and will soon be on the level of a Maltese coolie.23

While supporting employer attempts to choose young, single men who were not likely to be a burden on the compensation system, the Miner reflected a section of ruling class opinion which recognised that Australian nationalism did not come cheaply. Its editor argued:

however desirable unmarried foreigners may be as beasts of burden, and however good they may be as donkey workers, they are very bad citizens as regards helping to make a prosperous town on the Australian standard of working-class culture.24

Truth called the Miner’s bluff, exclaiming:

what does the “Miner” desire the union to do in the matter? Does it propose that the union should declare a strike against working with these men who are coming from foreign countries? ... Meanwhile the duty of unionism is to organise those who are here, come they from the farthest or nearest part of the world. 25

When Dr Finlayson reported that many non-English speaking newcomers were coming to him for medical tests as a precursor to getting jobs on the mines, the Miner attacked the short-sightedness of the WIUA, and especially its check inspector, J. Beerworth, who, when questioned about the situation on the mines, simply replied that he had heard no complaints from the workers about the matter.26 Using some of the invective that had latterly been directed at Chinese workers, the Miner candidly complained that:

23 Barrier Miner, 3 April 1924. 24 Barrier Miner, 28 April 1924. 25 BDT, 8 August 1924. 26 Barrier Miner, 17 May 1924.

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as long as a man is a financial member, and conforms to their rules during working hours, the unions are little concerned with his private life. They prefer men of their own race, who can speak their own language, but as long as the foreigner is a good unionist and knows enough English to understand and be understood he is accepted as a fellow worker, and taken on his own merits off the job. The business people measure by a different standard again. They are not interested in a customer’s industrial views as long as he pays his way. They prefer the man who lives well, dresses well, makes his home in the town, and spends his money locally, and Broken Hill has a well-deserved reputation as a place where money is spent freely. However, it is alleged that many of the later arrivals from foreign parts have no intention of making their homes here, but simply regard the town as a good place to make and save money in and then get out of as soon as possible back to their own country … they live as cheaply as possible, spend no more than absolutely necessary, and herd together in rooms or hovels under conditions which are far from sanitary. These are the foreigners who are objected to, and classed as undesirable aliens, and it is to keep these people from coming in and lowering the general standard of living that the aid of the Federal Government is invoked.27

A few weeks later, the Miner expressed outrage that the WIUA should make scapegoats of the employers and the government for the increased number of southern Europeans in the town. The editorial put the blame squarely at the feet of the union for not protesting strongly enough against the ‘influx’ in the beginning, seeking only to build up the union’s funds by welcoming the migrants ‘with open arms’.28

In State Parliament, debate took place about the arrival of destitute southern Europeans in Broken Hill, sparked by a resolution that had been sent to Premier Fuller from the Barrier Chamber of Commerce, of which F. G. White was a prominent member, ‘objecting to the influx of foreigners which was a menace to the business and industrial life of the community’.29 Not satisfied with simply sending a message to the State Parliament, R. E. A. Kitchen, from the Chamber of Commerce executive, took himself to Sydney to make representations to sympathetic parliamentarians. Insults were traded back and forth from both sides of the Assembly that the other supported the

27 Barrier Miner, 14 October 1924. 28 Barrier Miner, 4 November 1924. 29 Barrier Miner, 9 September 1924. Announcing White’s death, the Barrier Miner, described him as ‘the grand old man of the local business community’ and ‘one of the stalwarts of the Chamber of Commerce’. Barrier Miner, 24 August 1953.

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migrants’ arrival. Fuller remarked that he was ‘reliably informed that Considine [Labor member for Barrier] has set himself out to champion the arrival of men from these revolutionary countries’.30 Labor members denied this was so.

In October 1924, the Barrier Industrial and Political Council31 resolved to call a mass meeting to discuss the issue of foreign labour in Broken Hill. To apprise readers of the different positions being adopted, Truth outlined the three main divisions that existed within the labour movement. On the Left were those who argued that it was not the place of organised labour to regulate immigration and that migrants had as much right as anyone else to live and work on the Barrier. Further, the Left argued that those who supported immigration restrictions advocated a policy which was ‘selfishly national and an abrogation of the basic principles of the Labor Movement – a movement that must be international if it is going to serve the proletariat’. In contrast, the right-wing of the meeting advocated ‘drastic action to prevent workers from foreign countries working in the industry’. In the middle were those, the Truth editor among them, who did not seek to make nationality an issue, but recommended regulation of the ‘influx’ for economic reasons.32 A labourist approach was clearly evident in this position, as the question then became who to lobby for regulation – the government or the employers?

When a motion reflecting the labourist position was put to a mass meeting on 2 November 1924, the discussion ranged far and wide, demonstrating the ideological ferment that existed on the question of immigration.33 Gough, in presenting the first motion, spoke of the American situation in typical racist stereotypes of the time – foreigners lived in squalor, did not spend their wages locally, drove down conditions and then moved on. Lamb questioned this view of American history, arguing that Bill Haywood had told him that organising migrant workers was the key question and that race was a class question. Wetherell attempted to deflect this argument by stating that immigration restrictions were not aimed at ‘creating a conflict of nationalities, but at preventing it’ and that ‘passions would be aroused’ if migration levels were allowed to

30 BDT, 26 September 1924. 31 An organisation of affiliated unions and the local ALP. 32 BDT, 1 November 1924.

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create unemployment. Wood responded by saying that ‘it was impossible to measure a man’s principles by his nationality, the colour of his hair or complexion’. As proof, he used the example of Irish immigrants being used to drive down conditions in America. As each group of new arrivals acclimatised and organised, he said, the employers tried to use a different group of immigrants. Quintrell joined the debate by saying that it was a pity that the meeting was called to discuss disunity, rather than unity. Lord countered with a claim that he was not against foreigners per se, but against an ‘influx’ of any kind. As a rejoinder to this argument, Davey cited the 1892 strike, where it was Australians who had scabbed.34 Finally, moved an amendment to Gough’s motion which read:

That this meeting of Barrier workers deprecates the efforts of the mine owners and other capitalistic agents to create dissension and disunion in the ranks of the workers here by trying to filch from us the hard won conditions now enjoyed by the mine workers; and, further we are of the opinion that only by working class solidarity can such conditions be maintained.

In support of his amendment, Considine argued that the employers encouraged workers to alienate foreigners from the unions, so that they were easier to organise and exploit. ‘The movement today should bring the workers together’, he said. Despite the arguments of the internationalists, the amendment was narrowly defeated. The original labourist motion, put by Gough, won by 117 votes to 83, indicating that a substantial minority supported the internationalist position and that the labourist position received an amalgam of votes from those occupying the ‘middle ground’ and right-wing exclusionists.35

Nevertheless, the arguments continued unabated. In early 1925, Labor MHR, Arthur Blakely, used a public meeting to argue that there was a conspiracy to bring southern Europeans into Australia and that immigration preference should be given to

33 BDT, 3 November 1924. 34 See letter from ‘Old Miner’ advising that he had kept every ‘scab list’ issued in Broken Hill and that ‘practically all of [the scabs were] dinkum Aussies or true-born Britishers’. Barrier Daily Truth, 25 October 1927. 35 BDT, 3 November 1924.

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‘the English-speaking races’.36 On the other hand, Barrier Daily Truth would periodically print snippets describing the plight of the new southern European arrivals and listing the difficulties that they faced, such as having no means of support, nowhere to live, few or no words of English and no work.37 One editorial attacked those with hostile attitudes towards immigrants and suggested that the unions employ men to interview the new arrivals, especially the non-English speakers, to acquaint them with ‘the labour conditions prevailing’.38 Another condemned those who suggested refusing to work with southern Europeans, arguing that ‘such a campaign would insult some of the oldest unionists on the Barrier who happen to have been born elsewhere’.39

In October 1925, Ern Wetherell and the Barrier Daily Truth staff became even more active participants in the Broken Hill ‘race debate’. With the evocative headline, ‘Starving Strangers Imposed Upon and Cheated’, they announced that some mine officials were extorting money from southern European newcomers in return for jobs on the mines. However, unlike the situation in Kalgoorlie, the paper expressed a great deal of sympathy for workers who had been subjected to these hiring practices. The accompanying editorial comment argued:

the poverty of these strangers in a strange land, their lack of knowledge of the customs here, and the needs of their dependants far away, were exploited to enrich those villainous enough to pursue this shocking course.40

The paper identified F. C. ‘Boomer’ Rolfe, a Central mine foreman, as one who took payments in return for jobs. It also stated that Rolfe purposely ‘tramped’ or sacked miners in order to increase the job turnover on the mine and his subsequent ability to extort new payments. Even those who had paid the money to Rolfe were not exempt from this process. The article related how one man had worked only a single shift before being given notice for an allegedly unsatisfactory performance. While the paper never suggested that Australians may also have paid the extortion, it did point out that the

36 BDT, 19 February 1925. 37 BDT, 26 September 1924, 9 March 1925. 38 BDT, 9 February 1925. 39 BDT, 4 September 1924.

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money was exacted from all newcomers until only those who had paid the money to the foreman were retained. However, it is possible that Rolfe restricted his extortion to recent arrivals, believing them to be unfamiliar with the local customs and, therefore, less likely to protest.

Truth staff devised a plan to catch Rolfe in the act. They went to the Central mine with a Maltese man who had complained to them about Rolfe’s practices, giving him a marked £5 note to give to the foreman. Rolfe immediately gave the man work, after depositing the marked note in his desk drawer. When the Truth staff approached the mine manager, Mr Gardner, for permission to search Rolfe’s office, they were refused access. Even when Gardner was told the entire chain of events, he would allow no further investigation of the matter, stating that he had every confidence in Rolfe’s integrity. Wetherell was left with no further recourse but to publish an account of the events and to wait for Rolfe to reply to the charges. While expecting to be charged with libelling the foreman, Truth staff felt sure that the testimonies of numerous witnesses to the effect that Rolfe did, in fact, take bribes and that the charges against him had been published in the public’s interest, would be sufficient to protect the paper from a successful prosecution. They concluded that:

the confidence of the company in this rascal will not screen him from the odium of the masses of people in this town, who hate his tactics and detest his methods that are a danger to every citizen in this community, irrespective of class, creed, colour or nationality.41

The most revealing aspect of Truth’s attitude to the Rolfe incident was its opposition, in true labourist fashion, to an industrial campaign around the question of employment corruption. Advising the Central workers that the matter would be best handled in court, Truth’s reporters were prepared to scapegoat Rolfe for a system of extortion that clearly had the tacit support of mine management. The article concluded:

It was with some difficulty that representatives of this paper influenced the men at the Central mine to continue work at the time, leaving the

40 BDT, 23 October 1925. 41 BDT, 23 October 1925.

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matter to us. The men themselves were at high tension when prevailed upon not to do anything that would cost any man the loss of even a shift, and it was pointed out that the issue did not involve the Company at all – rather, that it was against Rolfe and his practices that the exposure was made. The men at the Central evinced the greatest consideration for “Barrier Daily Truth” in that matter and it is not forgotten.42

Some days later, the expected writ from Rolfe’s solicitor arrived but on the day that the case was due to be heard, Rolfe withdrew and costs were awarded against him.43 A few weeks later it was announced that ‘Boomer’ Rolfe’s house was empty. The Rolfe incident is one of the few concrete examples of slingback payments in the mining industry, as both extortionists and the extorted have been understandably reluctant to speak of the practice. While Rolfe may have been a lone extortionist, it is also possible that his exposure curtailed the payment of ‘slingbacks’ in Broken Hill, by making other foremen reluctant to risk similar opprobrium. In interview, Maltese trucker, Paul Sultana, described some quarrying work that he had done before he came to Broken Hill in 1926, shortly after the Rolfe affair. Sultana said that the work was very hard, the foreman was a tyrant and, on top of this, ‘you had to slingy, sling some money, you see’. Broken Hill was a vast improvement, he said; ‘[w]hen I came here it was a different matter altogether.’44

Clearly, for the labour movement, the question of immigration was contentious and would remain a source of political and industrial tension. In themselves, the strenuous debates regarding appropriate political attitudes and correct tactics provide evidence that the outcome of the ‘race debate’ would depend on the interaction of a number of unpredictable economic and political factors, not least of which were the actions of activists on both sides of the debate and their ability to win adherents to their arguments. Enter stage extremely right, F. G. White, with his RSL protégés, Richard Gully, Arthur Anson Lawrence and their ‘lieutenant’, Fred Rilen.

42 BDT, 6 July 1926. 43 BDT, 27 April 1926. 44 Interview with Paul Sultana, conducted by Barry York on 2 November 1984. Transcript held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 3582/6, p. 56.

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‘Gullyism’

In September 1927, a number of Broken Hill mines closed and more than 1,200 workers lost their jobs.45 Although this was ostensibly due to the low market price of lead, there were rumblings in the Barrier Daily Truth that the managers were attempting to frighten the miners into accepting an unfavourable industrial agreement, soon due for renegotiation. The Minister for Labor and Industry, Mr Baddeley, argued that the mining companies should not have paid a dividend to shareholders in 1926, so that the money could have been used to cover such exigencies. F. G. White quickly put pen to paper, arguing in the Barrier Miner that the Proprietary Company had paid its employees £1,500,000 in 1926, while the shareholders had received only £270,000 for the same period. ‘What does Mr Baddeley suggest?’, he expostulated, ‘[t]hat shareholders get nothing?’46 A number of meetings were held to decide what should be the labour movement response to this crisis, and motions were passed to pressure the State government into funding job creation schemes, such as road works and a water supply scheme. However, some anti-southern European agitators saw these meetings as an opportunity to agitate for migrant exclusion. One of F. G. White’s associates in both the RSL and in Nationalist political circles, Richard Gully, found the ensuing political and industrial situation much to his liking, becoming the leader of an anti-southern European campaign that waxed and waned in Broken Hill throughout the late 1920s.47 Edgar Ross, who was in Broken Hill during this period, named Gully the ‘orator and organiser’ of the racist campaign. ‘His stamping ground was the unemployed ... They were the people who had lost their jobs and so this approach tended to appeal to them. Get rid of the Maltese and I’ll have a job’ was their attitude, he said.48

45 Cyril Emery later estimated that 1200-1300 men had been thrown out of work due to the closure of the Proprietary, Block 14 and Junction mines. Report of conference between MMA and representatives of Broken Hill unions, 10 February 1928, Broken Hill South Collection, Melbourne University Archives. 46 Barrier Miner, 26 September 1927. 47 For a detailed discussion of the Gully campaign and the levy dispute, see Ellem and Shields, ‘Australian Labor’s Closed Preserve’. 48 Interview with Edgar Ross, conducted by Barry York on 24 January 1997. Transcript held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 3557, p. 35.

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Born in Mount Bryan, South Australia, in 1883, Gully served with the 6th Australian contingent in South Africa in 1901, and was mentioned favourably in dispatches.49 In September 1903, he married Olive Watson and they had one son. The family lived in the Yorke Peninsula area and Gully worked on the railways. During World War One, he served with the 27th Battalion in France and was promoted to the rank of Lance Sergeant. In 1917, Gully was wounded in action, evacuated to England, returned to Australia and discharged as medically unfit.50 He was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and, during his period of incapacity, the family was able to draw on benefits from this fund. In 1918, Gully stood unsuccessfully as a Nationalist candidate for the seat of Port Adelaide, supporting the Peake-Barwell Government.51 It was later remarked by one Broken Hill worker that Gully’s only contribution to the course of the Big Strike in 1919-20 had been to ‘run the Broken Hill miners down from the “Nationalist” platform in the Botanical Gardens of Adelaide, Sunday after Sunday, for not going to the Arbitration Court’.52 It was not only to the workers that Gully was ‘treacherous’. In 1920, it appears that Olive Gully became tired of her husband’s womanising and sued for divorce, alleging that Gully had engaged in ‘misconduct’ with Frances Jane Smith, a widow from Croydon in Adelaide. She claimed that her husband had been unfaithful many times and that he had, on more than one occasion, sought medical treatment for venereal disease. Olive was awarded a decree absolute on the basis of her husband’s proven adultery.53 A few years later, this shady personal history was to come back to haunt Gully when he became involved in Broken Hill public life.

49 Gully is listed as serving between April 1901 and April 1902, with the Sixth (South Australian Imperial Bushmen) Contingent. He was promoted to the rank of corporal and was mentioned favourably in dispatches in the London Gazette, 29 July 1902. He was not, as was alleged by one of his political opponents in Broken Hill, one of ‘Morant’s mob’. See Murdoch University website, wwwtlc2.murdoch.edu.au/community/dps/military/bor-sa6.htm#sa6, accessed 6 July 2000. 50 For details regarding Gully’s World War One service record, see personnel record no. 5538, National Archives of Australia, Canberra. 51 BDT, 22 September 1927. 52 BDT, 18 October 1927. 53 Gully vs Gully, Case no. 428 of 1920, Supreme Court Matrimonial Causes Jurisdiction, South Australia, Courts Administration Authority, Adelaide.

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In the 1924 South Australian state elections, Gully announced his intention to stand as a Nationalist candidate for the seat of Wallaroo but did not get pre-selection.54 He stood instead as an Independent, but received an ignominious 109 votes, only marginally more than the number of informal ballot papers.55 In his speech at the declaration of the poll, Gully advised business interests to flee South Australia to escape the Labor government, which inspired one heckler to shout ‘go back to Moonta’ in response.56 Gully was no stranger to mining town crises. His Wallaroo election campaign had been held in the wake of the Moonta mines being placed in receivership; the subsequent closures dramatically swelled the ranks of the unemployed.57 Gully appears to have arrived in Broken Hill late in 1924 and it was not long before his anti- migrant activities attracted attention. In a Letter to the Editor of the Truth, ‘Spaghetti’ referred to Gully as a ‘paid or honorary tool’.58 Another letter from ‘Digger’ argued that the Barrier Miner was ‘planking for him [Gully] right and left’. ‘Digger’ surmised that Gully was aiming to cause a split among the miners and possibly provoke a strike, hence assisting the employers to close the mines and take their pick of the jobless before the industrial agreement expired.59 Edgar Ross concurred, claiming that Gully ‘smelt strongly of the agent-provocateur’ and had been seen in discussion with F. G. White, ‘allegedly seeking financial aid’.60

Towards the end of 1926, Gully and his supporters began to agitate at WIUA meetings for the closure of the union books to southern Europeans and for employment preference to unemployed Australians. Gully argued that the principal solution to the crisis was not to stand by and allow foreigners to work while locals were unemployed.

54 Letter from ex-secretary of the Kadina ALP, BDT, 28 September 1927. 55 The Register, 8 April 1924. 56 Kadina and Wallaroo Times, 9 April 1924. 57 K. Bailey, Copper City Chronicle: A History of Kadina, self published, Kadina, 1990, p. 125. In the wake of these mine closures, a racist diatribe against Maltese workers appeared in the local paper. This letter contained all the political positions which Gully would soon after promote in Broken Hill – opposition to strikes, antagonism towards Labor leaders, and hostility to union recruitment of foreigners. Published under a pseudonym, I have been unable to confirm that the letter writer was Gully. Nevertheless, it was expressed in a recognisably Gully-style and was written during his campaign for the 1924 State election, showing that mining crises, Gully and racism were common companions. See Kadina and Wallaroo Times, 2 April 1924. 58 BDT, 8 October 1927. 59 BDT, 20 September, 5 December, 19 October 1927. 60 Ross, Of Storm and Struggle, p. 40.

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Knowing that influential members of the WIUA Management Committee were against such proposals, requests were made for a secret ballot on the question.61 A motion requesting that the issue be taken up by the Union’s Central Council was passed by one vote, and only after much debate. It became obvious that Gully’s propaganda was having an effect. In mid-1927, officials from the Federated Engine-Drivers’ and Firemen’s Association (FEDFA) advised the WIUA that they had passed a resolution against the migrant ‘influx’ and that, as a result, their subsequent refusal to work with a migrant WIUA member was consistent with that decision.62 The logic of Gully’s propaganda could not have been made more clear to the miners’ union. The WIUA Management Committee castigated the FEDFA decision as one that was ‘against a member of the working class’ and that ‘such action is only playing into the hands of the Boss’.63 However, the Barrier Miner published a letter from ‘Centre Cut’, who praised the FEDFA decision and castigated his own union leaders who, he argued, ‘prate of “international working class brotherhood” and similar fallacies’. In particular, ‘Centre Cut’ felt that returned soldiers had a role to play in migrant exclusion. He called on the men who fought during World War One to:

wake up, and throw into the discard this casual acceptance of a foreign invasion and apply some of the “guts” you devoted to that other cause, to the settlement of this problem which is sitting on your own doorstep.64

In a similar vein, Gully continued to gather steam. He protested that his erstwhile agitation for the union’s books to be closed had been opposed as ‘unconstitutional’. The result was, he said, that ‘Asiatics’ [by this he meant Maltese workers] were now working along the line of lode while men ‘who had given their lives in Broken Hill’ were being ‘tramped’ out of the town. He resorted to a familiar ‘White Australia’ diatribe which asserted that ‘dagoes’ only spent ten per cent of their earnings in Broken Hill and sent the rest of their money overseas. Another heinous crime, in Gully’s view, was the unmarried status of eighty per cent of migrants. His claims became more outrageous as his sense of high dudgeon grew. On one occasion, he exclaimed:

61 WIUA minutes, 21 August 1926, 6, 13, 27 March, 3 April 1927. 62 WIUA minutes, 5 July 1927. 63 WIUA minutes, 19 July 1927.

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I wanted to close the books on the cows. They are the men who scabbed on you. And you deserve to be tramped if you allow it. They’d get a living under conditions you wouldn’t tolerate. They live in hovels with three and four to a room.65

Leading figures in the Broken Hill labour movement castigated Gully for his outbursts. George Dale accused him of ‘tickling the ears of the mob to get limelight’. Ern Wetherell received much applause when he argued that Gully was creating a division that would play into the hands of the mining companies and that workers were all members of the same class ‘whether they were born in Crystal Street, Sulphide Street or the middle of Malta’. Even Alderman Dennis, who was certainly no radical, told Gully that he would not be allowed on the platform again because he did not know how to behave.66 Richard Quintrell made veiled references to the interested parties that might have been supporting Gully and argued that his interference at this juncture might create more damage to industrial unity in a week than could be undone in a decade. He also pointed out that it was an Italian man who gave Gully his job on the Big Mine, that this had meant that Gully ‘went quiet’ on his anti-foreigner campaign, and that the two had worked peacefully together until this crisis had been created by the companies.67

Gully also faced stiff opposition from many migrants. Some wrote letters to the Barrier Daily Truth to protest against Gully’s vitriol.68 At meetings, groups of migrants would interject, attack the stage and generally disrupt his speeches, so much so that Gully frequently needed police protection to leave the area. One migrant interrupted one of Gully’s speeches by insisting that all migrants were fellow workers. Turning Gully’s invective around, he shouted ‘You’re a big dago, more than I am!’69 Agnes Dini, an Australian woman whose husband was Italian, challenged Gully at meetings, and in the pages of the Truth, to answer some difficult questions – did he think, then, that his beloved King George was also from ‘a mongrelised race’? How did Mr Gully propose to

64 Barrier Miner, 14 July 1927. 65 BDT, 19 September 1927. Being ‘tramped’ was being forced to leave town in search of work. 66 BDT, 19 September 1927. 67 BDT, 20 September 1927. 68 BDT, 28 September, 1 October 1927. 69 BDT, 26 September 1927.

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deal with foreigners who had been in Broken Hill for twenty years? What of the many Australian women, like herself, who were married to southern Europeans?70 Gully facetiously replied that he had been too busy looking for a job to answer letters, but that Mrs Dini was welcome to attend his next meeting.71 Mrs Dini replied that she, herself, had no time for Gully’s antics but would happily debate him before a mass meeting of unionists.72

In its coverage of the mine closures and anti-migrant campaign, the Barrier Miner was unquestionably ‘planking’ for Gully. While the Editor had clearly decided not to explicitly intervene in the debate about southern Europeans on this occasion, he was happy to criticise the labour movement-run meetings as ‘too political’ and devoid of practical suggestions, while letting Gully do the racist propagandising. Much was made of a meeting of four hundred unemployed, which Gully chaired and the labour movement boycotted, being ninety per cent in favour of migrant exclusion.73 The Miner journalist caricatured the ‘excitability’ of the migrant protesters in the audience, dismissed the words of every Maltese interjector as incoherent, and praised Gully’s ‘witty’ replies to his detractors. While the Miner had faithfully reproduced all of Gully’s interjections at official labour movement meetings, on this occasion, it was appreciatively reported that any abuse against Gully was met with a stern reprimand from police, who allegedly feared a migrant riot.74 The vast majority of Miner Letters to the Editor were pro-Gully and one letter, signed ‘Caucasian’ and purporting to be from ‘an interested spectator’, made a veiled comment that, ‘what struck [him] forcibly was the well organised foreign element which ought to be a warning to all Australians’.75 Another letter supported Gully’s implied references about the WIUA withholding relief money, an absurd charge given the short duration of the crisis.76

70 BDT, 19 October 1927. 71 BDT, 21 October 1927. 72 BDT, 22 October 1927. 73 Barrier Miner, 29 September 1927; BDT, 29 September 1927. 74 Barrier Miner, 29 September 1927. 75 Barrier Miner, 27 September 1927. 76 Barrier Miner 26 September 1927.

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As in Kalgoorlie, racist campaigners like Gully faced the task of having to undo years of interaction between local and migrant workers, in both the workplace and the wider locality. While racism was not uncommon and affected all aspects of people’s lives and thoughts, there were also many opportunities for fraternisation through shared experiences. Formally, of course, the vast majority of mine workers in Broken Hill in the interwar period were linked by unionisation and, in the workplace, they were brought into daily contact with each other, despite aforementioned attempts by some managers to keep their workforces ethnically segregated. However, in all sorts of informal ways, workers broke down the barriers presented by racist ideology. When Paul Sultana described the euchre games that used to take place at crib time,77 Barry York asked him if it was just the Maltese workers who played. Sultana said, ‘No, no, everybody; all these people. There’s half an hour for crib ... they stay there until they finish the game. Until they know when the foreman’s coming … and piss off.’78 If anyone was ostracised underground, it was not the migrants, but the assortment of managers who wandered past the stopes. In interview, Tom Dwyer recalled, ‘Only the bosses had lamps in them days ... we’d only have to see the light and we’d say “Here comes the blue light”. And everybody knew what that meant.’79

Frank Bartley lived in South Broken Hill and had people from many different countries – Italy, Russia, Yugoslavia – as neighbours. He made special mention of an Italian family who would come around for a cup of tea and whom he counted amongst his close friends. In halting speech, Bartley said:

They were good neighbours ... no arguments around ... people used to get on so well. Especially us people out the South where we were more in [unintelligible] with them, you see. They used to go to our churches and our schools ... treated just the same as everyone else and they used to live as we did. More than one feed I’ve had at an Italian place when I’ve gone up to play with their kids. Then when it come Christmas, one Italian there used to, every New Year, put on a turn-out for people and they come up

77 Euchre is a card game. Crib time is meal time. 78 Interview with Paul Sultana, p. 42. 79 Interview with five Broken Hill miners, conducted by M. Laver in 1974. Tapes held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 341, Tape 5.

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there and he’d have buckets of beer and stuff in buckets and take ’em around a different pannikin and have a drink and some cake.80

Hilda Ferguson recalled similar instances of friendly relations among people of different nationalities. In her words, ‘everybody ... kept to themselves, but you were still friendly’. She particularly recalled an Italian family called Pinciella [spelling not given] who lived behind her house. The husband worked on the mines and the wife provided a boarding house and meals for single men. In the evenings, the Pinciellas and their boarders would gather round and sing together, accompanied by a piano accordion. It was ‘absolutely beautiful’, Hilda said, ‘of course, in their own tongue, but their voices blended so gorgeous’. Hilda also recommended to her husband that he see an ‘Italian quack’ about his recurring stomach pains, word having got around that the man was making numerous ‘wonderful cures’. Subsequently, she came to believe that this Italian man had cured her husband of cancer.81

Anxious to defeat ‘Gullyism’ and its social and industrial consequences, Ern Wetherell challenged Gully to a public debate on the question; ‘Is Mr Gully’s propaganda in Broken Hill in the interests of the Australian-born workers?’82 More than one thousand people attended this forum, which was so ‘lively’ that it had to be abandoned midway through the proceedings, as a number of fights had broken out. President of the Barrier Industrial Council (BIC), E. P. O’Neill, chaired the discussion, threatening from the outset to close the meeting if both speakers were not given a fair hearing.83 Gully opened by stating that his opinions were not intended for any specific purpose, and that nothing was further from his mind than attempting to divide the labour movement. His only concerns were that Australians were not being given employment preference and that Australia might shortly be ‘mongrelised’ and ‘overrun’ by southern Europeans. If, as he and other RSL members believed, ‘eternal vigilance

80 Interview with Frank Bartley, conducted by Ed Stokes on 23 March 1982. Tapes held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 1873. 81 Interview with Hilda Ferguson, conducted by Edward Stokes on 17 July 1981. Tape held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 1873, Tape 3. 82 BDT, 17 October 1927. 83 O’Neill was no internationalist and his insistence on a ‘fair hearing’ was almost certainly an attempt to ensure Gully was not silenced by the crowd. Of itself, O’Neill’s reluctance to openly support Gully indicated that such a position was not dominant amongst local union officialdom.

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was the price of liberty’, then Australians were ‘taking things easy’ and not protecting their ‘great heritage’. He advocated that the WIUA close its books to southern Europeans and that those currently employed should be given three months notice to quit. ‘The fight is on’, he declared, expressing his full support for strike action to expel the southern Europeans from the mines.

Wetherell countered Gully’s arguments by pointing out that the current market price for lead would enable the mine owners to withstand a lengthy strike and that Gully’s strategy would only result in more suffering for the workers. While he did not support mass migration, he felt that workers from any part of the world should be offered solidarity in Broken Hill. Migrants were ‘victims of the same system as the Australian-born workers’; jobs were always the property of the employing class, he said, and any attempts to set one group of workers against another over job ownership would lead to damaging weaknesses in their ability to mobilise industrially. In reply, Gully declared that he would continue his propaganda, even if it meant closing down the mines.84 At a subsequent mass meeting of the WIUA, the union leadership moved a motion which read:

That the agitation being carried on for the purpose of ejecting a section of the workers from the Organisation and the Industry is not in the best interests of the working class, but only tends to disintegration and the smashing up of this organisation, thereby allowing the mine owners to impose their own conditions on the mineworkers at the termination of the present agreement, or later, followed by a stupid and disastrous strike.85

After much debate, a division was taken and the motion was declared carried.

Not to be deterred, Gully organised another meeting which was chaired by fellow RSL member, Arthur Anson Lawrence. In the same vein as Gully, Lawrence argued that there were 800,000 unemployed in Great Britain and that Australia should absorb ‘their kith and kin, rather than allow aliens into the country’. Their principal aim,

84 Full report of this meeting, BDT, 17 October 1927. 85 WIUA minutes, 18 October 1927.

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he said, was to keep Australia white.86 In an attempt to discredit Gully, J. J. Porter, President of the Barrier District Assembly of the Australian Labor Party, said of Lawrence that unionists should note Mr Gully’s choice of chairman – ‘a man it fell my lot to prevent from scabbing at Round Hill in the strike – a “Nationalist” and a blue whisker’.87 Lawrence was born in Wiltshire in 1893 and arrived in Australia aged 18 years. He enlisted in 1914¸ was wounded at Gallipoli and repatriated to Australia in the following year.88 During the 1920s, he was employed as a timberman on the South mine, was a prominent member of the ‘loyalist union’, the Barrier Workers’ Association (BWA) until its collapse, and was then a member of the WIUA until his premature death from pneumonia and typhoid fever in 1930. Lawrence had held a number of executive positions in the Broken Hill RSL and was one of only two Broken Hill members to be awarded an honour medal for services to the League. In the obituary composed by his political enemies at the Barrier Daily Truth, he was described as a ‘rather able opponent’ and ‘a fairly good platform speaker and debater’.89 Throughout the 1920s, Lawrence served as an alderman on the City Council with F. G. White’s team of Independents, or rather, anti-Labor Nationalists.90 In 1928, he appeared in court in support of a case brought by Percy Wilks against the City Council for not giving him returned soldier employment preference for a job at the Burke Ward Hall. From this, it might be seen that Lawrence was an unproblematic defender of returned soldier rights. However, subsequent events detailed below proved that Lawrence had a stronger loyalty to Broken Hill employers.

An accurate estimation of support for Gully’s campaign is difficult to reach. At regular Sunday labour movement mass meetings on Central Reserve, attendees were often diverted to nearby meetings provocatively called by Gully and his supporters. According to the Barrier Daily Truth, one noticeable feature of Gully’s meetings was that groups of noisy, young, often unemployed, men were particularly vocal in their

86 BDT, 10 November 1927. 87 BDT, 12 November 1927 88 For details regarding Lawrence’s World War One service record, see personnel record no. 625, National Archives of Australia, Canberra. 89 BDT, 17 March 1930. 90 BDT, 23 January 1929.

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support for the racist campaigner.91 Because both meetings attracted a fluid mixture of supporters and hecklers, the extent of support for migrant exclusion is not clear. Truth’s reports of these meetings must also be considered too partisan to accurately reflect the balance of forces, although the paper did print letters from both sides of the campaign, including those from Gully’s poisoned pen. Gully ran for president of the WIUA several times and the results of the ballots are perhaps the most reliable indicators of his fluctuating political fortunes. In 1926, he received 148 votes to his main rival Richard Quintrell’s 593.92 In 1927, at the height of his racist campaign, Gully’s support peaked at 854 votes to Quintrell’s 1700, with the increased member participation in the poll suggestive of the political polarisation that Gully’s campaign had engendered. Truth concluded from this result that ‘[e]mphatically it has been decided by the WIUA that Mr Gully must go elsewhere to pursue his anti-union propaganda.’93 In 1928, Gully again sought union office, but received only 270 votes to Quintrell’s 926.94 It should be pointed out, however, that Quintrell’s position was not without its contradictions. In 1926, before Gully’s campaign had gained any momentum, he had moved a motion at a WIUA conference held in Sydney which read that the Barrier District of the WIUA ‘resents and strongly protests against the great influx of foreigners into Broken Hill and asks the Central Council of the WIUA to take immediate action in an endeavour to prevent such influx’.95 However, the WIUA election results suggest that Gully managed to polarise the local immigration debate. While he gained undoubted support from some organised workers, the implications of his divisive diatribes galvanised others in the labour movement, most prominently Quintrell and Wetherell, into stronger opposition to his more objectionable conclusions. Maltese miner, Paul Sultana, was in no doubt that it was the labour movement who prevented his expulsion from Broken Hill, while simultaneously isolating Gully. Sultana said:

One bloke [Gully] was in the union and he wanted to take all the foreigners, Europeans, off the union list. Strike us off the union list. They

91 One report stated that Gully’s remarks ‘were constantly cheered, the big volume of noise coming from a vanguard of youngsters enjoying the fun in the front “benches”.’ BDT, 19 September 1927, 12 November 1930. 92 BDT, 29 April 1926. 93 BDT, 15 December 1927. 94 BDT, 20 December 1928. 95 BDT, 22 December 1926.

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used to have meeting after meeting but the union wouldn’t let him. He finished up in Mount Isa, I think. He went away. We were all frightened, you know.96

While the MMA denied any formal support for Gully, its members relished the resulting division in the Broken Hill labour movement at no cost to management, while Cyril Emery was quick to exploit the contradictions in the WIUA position that Gully had brought to the surface. When union leaders requested a conference on the southern European ‘influx’, the MMA replied by denying that the unemployment level was high, disingenuously claiming that there was no influx in Broken Hill and that, even if this was the case, the MMA did not control labour mobility. Further, each mine had a register of unemployed men and that preference was always given to Australians over foreign labourers.97 The MMA was well aware of claims that the majority of those looking for work were foreigners, and they used the issue in their wrangling with the union, disingenuously asking whether the WIUA wanted the mine managers to ‘discriminate between members of the same union’ to exclude the migrants.98 This rhetorical question both exposed the element of racism attached to the union’s position on immigration and blamed the WIUA for encouraging migrants to stay in Broken Hill by recruiting them. Implicitly, the MMA shrugged off its own responsibility for unemployment by blaming the WIUA for allowing the ‘foreigners’ to gain union membership. As others have argued, Gully’s push for strike action over the presence of migrants clearly alienated him from the majority of organised workers.99 Nor was this a price the mine managers were willing to pay. In conference, Quintrell advised the MMA President, Cyril Emery, that Gully had made a statement on the Central Reserve that he had the MMA behind him. Emery’s reply was: ‘And then he woke up!’100 As Sultana said, ‘The mine wouldn’t follow him. The mine said, “I’ve got nothing to do with this business.”’101 By the end of 1928, with Gully’s campaign to split the labour movement on the question of migrant labour in tatters, backing him was clearly a losing bet.

96 Interview with Paul Sultana, pp. 86-7. 97 MMA minutes, 11 April 1927. 98 MMA minutes, 11 April 1927. 99 Ellem and Shields, ‘Australian Labor’s Closed Preserve’, p. 81. 100 Report of conference between MMA and BIC [hereafter MMA/BIC], 13 December 1930, Broken Hill South Collection, Melbourne University Archives. 101 Interview with Paul Sultana, p. 87.

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Union-busting before returned soldier preference – the Broken Hill Municipal Council strike

Racism was not the only tool that Broken Hill conservatives used to weaken labour movement solidarity. National Party supporters, with RSL members prominent in their ranks, were also involved in a campaign to challenge the principle of union preference. Just as racism was used in attempts to weaken labour movement commitment to internationalism, so, in the 1928 Municipal Employees Union (MEU) dispute, did White, Gully, Lawrence and their ‘fellow travellers’ fight hard to break an employment preference agreement between the local council and its employees, a group of workers that was second only in number to the mine workers in Broken Hill. Indeed, the prominence of conservative aldermen on the town’s Municipal Council throughout the 1920s is an important qualification to the view that Broken Hill was a ‘union town’.

On 1 December 1928, municipal elections were held in Broken Hill; thirteen Nationalist and twelve Labor candidates vied for the twelve available seats on the Council. Among the candidates were the incumbent Labor mayor, Richard Dennis, the president of the WIUA, Richard Quintrell, and Nationalist candidates, William Shoobridge, A. A. Lawrence and Richard Gully. White’s Nationalists promoted themselves on an ‘Independent’ ticket, claiming that the team’s main strength was an ability to operate without ‘outside’, read ‘union’, interference.102 Truth editorials predicted that the Nationalists, if victorious, would begin by attacking the wages and conditions of council workers and that local mine owners would be able to use any concessions won as a precedent for a more generalised assault on employment standards in the town.103 Despite these warnings, the Nationalists won seven of the twelve seats with William Shoobridge topping the poll. Shoobridge was another working class conservative who was typical of the men that White courted. One Truth correspondent described him as a ‘puppet of the Nationalist Association’ and that, as ‘merely a labourer plying for hire’, he could not afford to mix socially with Broken

102 BDT, 1 December 1928.

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Hill’s establishment figures. ‘Besides, the food would be too rich for him. He would be out of place’, the letter maintained.104 Other successful candidates in the poll were a conservative Labor nominee, Dennis, who came second and A. A. Lawrence, who was placed fourth. Richard Gully was placed an ignominious last, in a clear voter backlash against his racist campaign.105 At the official declaration of the poll, some of the Aldermen made speeches. Lawrence expressed satisfaction that electors had ignored party politics and voted for the twelve ablest men.106 He said that the result had proved that ‘extreme Labor’ was not wanted in Broken Hill. ‘Thank God,’ he concluded, ‘that we can claim that Broken Hill is still loyal and British.’107 Henry Kelly, for Labor, replied that the Independents were yet to prove that they were ‘non-party’.108 He did not have to wait long to have his suspicions confirmed.

Early in the new year, the Council provoked a battle with the MEU. The former Labor-run Council had had an agreement with the MEU that if a job became vacant first preference would be given to unemployed former employees or current casuals. When a labouring job at the abattoirs became available, the new Nationalist councillors defended the appointment of A. E. Chigwidden, who had not previously been a member of the MEU. The union leadership and the Labor councillors protested against this violation of the preference agreement and a conference between the councillors and the BIC was held to seek a resolution, with the Nationalist aldermen claiming that Chigwidden was simply the better applicant. Alderman Lawrence then moved a motion declaring that there was to be no preference for unionists and that the merit principle would henceforth be applied. It did not go unnoticed that Lawrence read from a typed motion which had obviously been drafted before the discussions had even begun.109 It was also pointed out that Lawrence’s support for the principle of returned soldier preference had slipped because, in promoting Chigwidden’s appointment, he was overlooking the claim of a

103 BDT, 1 December 1928. 104 BDT, 27 October 1930. 105 Truth argued that the Labor vote had been damaged by the inadequate state of the electoral roll – it was estimated that one in three people who turned up to vote were not on the roll. BDT, 3 December 1928. 106 A minority of electors voted the full ticket of one party, most choosing a mixture of Labor and Independent candidates. BDT, 3 December 1928. 107 BDT, 4 December 1928. 108 Ibid. 109 BDT, 23 January 1929.

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more qualified casual named Crabb, who was a returned soldier but also a trade unionist. Clearly, for Lawrence, breaking the union was a higher principle. The Town Clerk and ardent Nationalist supporter, Mr Jonas, later revealed a similar prejudice when he was charged with ignoring the credentials of the unionist casuals, remarking, ‘I do know all about them. That’s the trouble.’110 When the stand-off could not be resolved, the BIC announced that all municipal workers would strike from the following Friday.

Before the strike began, the local business community met and agreed to press the Councillors to delay Chigwidden’s commencement and to seek the services of an independent conciliator. F. G. White was reportedly a lone voice in this meeting, arguing that it was time for them to fight union control, but the other employers were apparently reluctant to fan open class warfare.111 The Independents and the BIC agreed to the process and the strike was temporarily averted. This retreat on the part of his fellow Independents so incensed Lawrence that he resigned from the Council, arguing that he opposed recourse to arbitration because labour organisations could ‘get things from it’.112 R. C. Atkinson, the local Magistrate, was appointed as conciliator and, after some discussions, advised the Nationalists that the BIC was prepared to trial a system whereby the union would be approached whenever a position became available to provide a list of unemployed and casual union members and that, all things being equal, the successful applicant would be chosen from that list. The Council replied that it was willing to accept the compromise but that Chigwidden’s appointment must stand. They felt, as Alderman Duffy had previously pointed out, that Chigwidden was being victimised by the BIC because, as a former member of the Trades and Trades Labourers Union, he had continued to work at De Bavay’s after the AMA had ceased work during the 1919-20 dispute.113 Both sides argued that the by-election prompted by Lawrence’s resignation would be a clear signal of voter views on the issue. Lawrence did not contest the seat, having clearly displeased F. G. White with his somewhat petulant

110 BDT, 20 February 1929. 111 BDT, 23 January 1929. 112 BDT, 23 January 1929. 113 BDT, 20 February 1929.

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resignation.114 Labor won the subsequent poll, resulting in an equal division of seats on the Council between Labor and the Nationalists.115

The uneasy stalemate between the two groups ended abruptly when Chigwidden was convinced to begin work. He had previously been concerned that he would be blamed for causing a dispute and remarked that he had been ‘between the devil and the deep sea’.116 His doubts were allayed, he contended, after consultations with the Mayor, during which he was assured that he would not be held responsible for any ensuing union action. In the face of this clear provocation, all Municipal Employees’ Union members downed tools, and work at the Council stables, the lightworks, the road maintenance, parks, gardens, baths, libraries, offices, sanitary department and, of course, the abattoirs ground to a halt. Even Chigwidden’s father and brother joined the striking workers.117 So total was the stopwork that all the animals kept by the Council had to be fed by the Mayor and the Town Clerk. Shoobridge petulantly cancelled a planned Council meeting, claiming that nothing could be done while the Town Hall was in darkness.118

The following evening, the electricity supply was restored as part of an agreement between the BIC and the Country Traders’ Association (CTA), pending acceptance of the deal by a meeting of the workers. It was suggested that a worker on the road gang swap places with Chigwidden and that two other workers who were casually employed, Crabb and Coffey, were to continue in relief positions, but were guaranteed work by the CTA in the event that they were retrenched by the Council. As a result of these moves, no MEU members would remain unemployed. Truth painted a very amusing picture of the Mayor’s response to this agreement, remarking that he presented a ‘Gilbertian’ figure as he ran around Argent Street ‘like a clown in a circus seeking information as to why somebody or other had had the audacity to put the lights

114 BDT, 23 February 1929. Some time later, Gully also appeared to fall out of favour with the Nationalist organiser, perhaps when his unpopularity rendered him less politically useful to White. He stood in the 1931 municipal elections as an ungrouped candidate, came last and remarked that he was ‘used to defeats’. BDT, 5 December 1931. 115 BDT, 23, 25 February 1929. 116 BDT, 25 January 1929. 117 BDT, 28 February 1929.

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on without consulting [him]’.119 Clearly miffed that he had been sidelined from the dispute and that his planned showdown with the MEU had been thwarted, Shoobridge was forced to ask BIC officials what exactly were the terms of the agreement. On Saturday, a meeting of MEU members was held to discuss the deal. The main sticking point was that a sizable proportion of the meeting did not want to work with Chigwidden. A ballot was held to decide the issue and the vote was 71/42 in favour of accepting the agreement.120 Again, a sizeable minority supported a more radical stance, but the labourist position held sway.

During the 1928 municipal election campaign, union leader, Bert Speck, had argued that it was important to emphasise F. G. White’s role in the ‘Independents’ campaign because unionists knew that White was on the employers’ side but that the same could not be said for other Nationalist candidates ‘who were used to swinging spawlers or picks, who were traitors to their class, their union and the Labor Movement’.121 This was an important observation. It indicated that White’s strategy was to, where possible, cultivate talented working class associates who could make conservative arguments among their fellow workers. Labour movement fears that the Independents would use their control of the Council to drive down wages and attack trade unionism were well founded. The Nationalist team wasted no time in provoking a dispute with the MEU, in order to break union control over hiring practices. A. A. Lawrence was at the forefront of this dispute and demonstrated that his commitment to returned soldier employment preference was secondary to his support for a job applicant who, as a former member of a ‘breakaway’ union, was considered a ‘scab’ by many unionists. For F. G. White, J. N. Jonas and A. A. Lawrence, the principle of returned soldier employment preference had an important qualification – no trade unionists need apply.

118 BDT, 1 March 1929. 119 BDT, 2 March 1929. 120 BDT, 4 March 1929. 121 BDT, 27 October 1930.

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Fighting against union solidarity – the anti-levy campaign

In 1929, the imposition of a twelve and a half per cent levy by the Central Council of the WIUA on all working members in support of the locked out miners on the northern coal pits, presented the conservatives with another opportunity to attempt union-busting. One letter to Truth argued that Broken Hill workers should look after their ‘own’ unemployed before sending money out of the town. The correspondent expressed the view that coal was becoming a redundant resource, that the strike would be of short duration and hence, the levy was ridiculously high. While not a mineworker, ‘M.V.’ concurred with the sentiment that earnings should remain in the town to benefit the unemployed, urging that ‘if [the writer] was one of the men’, he/she would not agree to pay the levy. Edward Bulling wrote that the levy was a ‘bare-faced imposition’ and challenged the right of the Central Council to take such measures without a mass vote to endorse the decision.122

At one of the semi-regular BIC propaganda meetings on the Central Reserve, Richard Quintrell outlined the urgent need for solidarity with the coal miners. While he spoke, a rival meeting was held on the Reserve with Gully and Frederick Rilen, another returned soldier who was frequently referred to as ‘Gully’s Lieutenant’, as the main speakers. Advertised in the Barrier Miner, the meeting was aimed at galvanising those who were discontented about paying the levy. One correspondent to Truth argued that Gully was far more concerned with the national implications of the coal strike, and quoted him saying that ‘he would rather serve under the flag of British Imperialism than in the cause of the workers’.123 Gully argued that those who opposed the WIUA leadership should form their own union or should approach the AWU about joining up with that organisation. He maintained that the cost of WIUA membership was overburdening the workers and that it was the women and children who suffered. Mr Vinall, secretary of the WIUA, was quick to respond to this charge. Vinall provided details of Gully’s own union membership to show that Gully had actually benefited financially from his union because he had received considerable assistance while

122 All the abovementioned letters were printed in BDT, 28 March 1929. 123 BDT, 1 April 1929.

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unemployed. Vinall claimed that Gully had joined the WIUA in July 1925, and that, while his union dues had totalled £8/5/3, he had received £27/4 in unemployment benefits by 1929.124 According to Gully, his opposition to union militancy was inspired by concern for the families of strikers. Industrial action brought nothing but hunger and want to helpless dependants, in his view. Thus, supporters of the levy were able to expose Gully’s purported concern for women and children, when information concerning Gully’s own family life came to light. Union leader, W. E. Dickson, mounted the stage at a propaganda meeting on the Central Reserve, and denounced Gully, who was in the crowd, as a hypocrite. He read from an alleged report in Norton’s Truth of December 1920,125 that Gully was a womaniser who had carelessly exposed his wife to his syphilitic condition.126

Undeterred, Gully, Rilen and some of their supporters took up a petition on the mines against the levy. However, they soon had to admit that the response constituted only a ‘small number of the total workers’ and that they were therefore compelled to cease their campaign against the levy.127 F. G. White, however, was not prepared to let the matter rest, writing a letter to Truth to claim that the twelve and a half per cent levy was being used to give the coalies a holiday at the expense of Broken Hill workers and that a secret ballot should be held on the issue. He also blamed the union for causing a stoppage on the South mine, where one miner had been accused of inaccurately declaring his earnings for the purpose of reducing the amount he owed to the WIUA. This man, Stephens, continued to present himself for work, despite a decision of the men to refuse to work with him. Naturally, mine management, Gully and F. G. White openly expressed their support for Stephens’ stand.128

For a short time, the campaign against the levy appeared to be defeated, but the anti-unionists rallied. At the hall where the BWA had formerly met, a meeting of approximately forty men resolved to close the mines at the next badge show day in

124 BDT, 3 April 1929. 125 Despite a careful search, I have been unable to locate the article cited by Dickson. 126 BDT, 21 October 1929. 127 BDT, 6 April 1929. 128 BDT, 17-21 May 1929.

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November, knowing only too well that the presence of one non-unionist was enough to close a mine. One observer noted that Gully walked directly from this meeting to report to the office of the Barrier Miner, discreetly using the side entrance to the building.129 However, on the day of the badge ‘show-down’, Gully, Rilen and another supporter, Hastings, lost their nerve. They met with BIC officials and promised not to work that day, to get financial with the union and to advise the other men to do likewise.130 Astonishingly, however, Rilen had another change of heart. With a fellow anti-levy campaigner, Hatch, the two decided to present themselves at the North and British mines respectively, but they did not get very far before they were intercepted and harassed by angry pickets. Rilen was chased into a local hotel where he barricaded himself in. An angry crowd picketed the hotel to make sure that he did not escape or try to work. Later that day, Hatch was apprehended by some unionists and ‘had his head cooled under the tap in front of the Trades Hall’. Bill Eriksen suggested that the mine managers now saw limited advantage in supporting Gully and company. In interview, Eriksen recalled, ‘He got a letter from [Cyril] Emery saying that he was not able to work in harmony with his mates, therefore his job was forfeited on the North mine.’131 The BIC managed to strike a deal with local police that Rilen be kept in their cells until he could be put on the evening train to Adelaide.132

It was not long before Richard Gully’s political activism would be similarly cut short. Part of Gully’s anti-union agenda had always been to attack the labour movement for not doing enough to help the unemployed and, in this capacity, he often acted as a spokesperson on their behalf, even while he was in employment. His platform was the familiar simplistic calculation – too many migrants, too few jobs. In late 1930, Gully became president of the local unemployed organisation but was met with frequent charges of ‘dictatorial methods’ and unfairly distributing relief goods.133 In a statement reminiscent of Orwell’s Napoleon, Gully replied that there was a rule in the constitution of the unemployed organisation that committee men, such as himself, were entitled to

129 BDT, 23 October 1929. 130 BDT, 19 November 1929. 131 Interview with Bill Eriksen, conducted by Edward Stokes on 14 March 1982. Tape held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 1873, Tape no. 25. 132 BDT, 21 November 1929.

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higher levels of relief by virtue of their selfless activity.134 Labour movement supporters made impassioned appeals to the unemployed not to fall for Gully’s brand of racist populism. One Letter to the Editor from ‘Wake Up’ argued that support for Gully would estrange the labour movement from the unemployed, stating that association with ‘a discredited individual like Gully, who has shown himself to be a squib of squibs’ would anger anti-Gully unionists.135 In response, Gully became increasingly bombastic, heightening his attacks on the unions and boasting that threats to run him out of town had come to nought.136 One Sunday afternoon, an intoxicated Gully turned up at a Central Reserve meeting that had been arranged to celebrate the anniversary of the Russian Revolution to heckle the speakers. Shortly afterwards, several trade unionists went in search of their unruly nemesis, and found him presiding over a distribution of food to the jobless. Sent by the Management Committee of the WIUA, Edgar Ross was one of the men who urged the unemployed to get rid of Gully. As a leading member of the Militant Minority Movement (MMM) with its favourable reputation for good work among the unemployed, Ross had an excellent speaking position from which to argue with the unemployed that Gully was a politically bankrupt president. He appealed to those present to remove Gully from his position or risk losing the support of organised labour. Ross recalled that he ‘virtually put to them the alternative of unionism or Gully and the result was that they literally physically chased him out of the meeting’. The deposed leader was forced to run down Beryl Street, with his opponents in hot pursuit. Barrier Daily Truth gleefully reported that Gully had knocked half a second off Rilen’s time as he ran for the protection of the police station.137 New representatives of the unemployed were subsequently elected.

In summary, these three campaigns demonstrate that racism and union-busting were two sides of the same coin tossed by the Broken Hill conservatives. While these examples might appear dissimilar on the surface, the end result of the demands were strikingly similar. In each instance, the case for disunity was peddled by White and his

133 BDT, 8 November 1930. 134 BDT, 24 October 1930. 135 BDT, 10 November 1930. 136 BDT, 10 November 1930. 137 BDT, 11 November 1930.

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RSL supporters. Not only did Gully advocate migrant exclusion, he also proposed that those dissatisfied with the WIUA leadership should break away and/or join the more conservative AWU. In the council workers’ dispute, A. A. Lawrence led the push to break a union preference deal, determinedly promoting the employer’s right to freedom of contract. In the struggle against the levy, returned soldiers Gully and Rilen attempted to lead the charge out of a union solidarity campaign. In each instance, these men promoted division in place of solidarity. Far from being a tower of industrial unity, the Broken Hill labour movement showed signs of vulnerability in the face of these concerted attempts to win workers away from the politics of international and inter- union solidarity.

Nevertheless, while the Right tried to employ racism to deflect worker anger from the real source of their problems, such attempts were by no means always successful. The ideological debates that raged over the issues of internationalism, union solidarity and militancy played a role in shifting the political allegiances of local workers. A majority of local workers knew that RSL-types were more likely to be industrial enemies, rather than allies. They knew that migrant workers could be staunch union members, and often had proud industrial traditions of their own. They knew that disunity would be applauded by the mine managers. They listened to the timely warnings of Quintrell, Wetherell and others when the dangers of support for Gully were outlined at numerous public meetings. Even some racist workers were won over by the arguments of the internationalists. In June and August of 1930, A. R. ‘Flossy’ Campbell wrote letters to the Barrier Daily Truth arguing that there were too many foreigners on the mines. It was useless, he spat, to complain to the union officials because they were all ‘internationalists’. All Gully’s talk was a poor substitute for direct action to get rid of the foreign workers, he argued, before ‘they walk us out like they have done to the men in Queensland’. In addition, he appealed to businessmen to support the anti-foreigner campaign because migrant earnings were not spent in Broken Hill.138 The union books should be closed, Campbell argued. While he was aware of the arguments of his political opponents that such a measure would ‘split the ranks’, force the foreigners to scab and

138 BDT, 23 June 1930.

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weaken the fight against the mine managers, ‘it behoves us all to support our own first’, he wrote.139 Who could have predicted that, four years later, this man would be a leading member of the staunchly-internationalist MMM, successfully elected on its ticket to the influential Check Inspector position?140 It is not known precisely what happened to effect this change in Campbell, but it must be assumed that anti-racist activists played an important part in his ‘conversion’.141

It should also be noted that these sorts of debates about racism and immigration were taking place beyond Broken Hill as well. Early in 1930, for example, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) decided by a narrow majority to disaffiliate from the Pan-Pacific Secretariat.142 Who, in Broken Hill, supported this move? The Barrier Miner editorial crowed that this was a victory for all supporters of the White Australia policy. One of the worst aspects of the Pan-Pacific Secretariat, according to the Miner, was that it had advocated the removal of any ‘colour bar’ and that there were ‘Chinese and representatives of other coloured races among its members: all of course thoroughly imbued with Red ideals’.143 For its part the Barrier Daily Truth’s editorial strongly censured the ‘reactionaries in the Australian Labor Movement’ as having temporarily handed a victory to the ruling class, and urged militant sections of the labour movement to agitate for international labour unity.144

139 BDT, 29 August 1930. 140 J. Kimber, ‘A Case of Mild Anarchy’? The Rise, Role and Demise of Job Committees in the Broken Hill Mining Industry c1930 to c1954, unpublished Honours thesis, University of New South Wales, 1998, p. 48. 141 It should be noted that Campbell volunteered for the A.I.F. in 1918. He contracted influenza before embarkation and was discharged in Australia after the cessation of hostilities. For details regarding Campbell’s service record, see personnel record no. 14836, National Archives of Australia, Canberra. 142 For a summary of this political battle, see F. Farrell, International Socialism and Australian Labour, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1981, pp. 188-200. 143 Barrier Miner, 20 March 1930. The Miner editorial reflected ruling class opinion more generally. The Bruce-Page administration consistently frustrated moves for closer international trade union links, by refusing passports to Australians wanting to attend Pan-Pacific trade union conferences held overseas and by refusing entry to those ‘foreign’ trade unionists who attempted to come to Australia. As Farrell demonstrated, conservative politicians linked internationalism and Communism with treason. F. Farrell, ‘The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Movement and Australian Labour, 1921-1932’, Historical Studies, vol. 17, no. 69, 1977, p. 450. 144 BDT, 1 March 1930.

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From solidarism to ‘international’ localism: the WIUA closes its books

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, conferences between the BIC and the MMA continued to discuss the question of employment preference. The BIC accused the MMA of using the medical examination and preference to southern Europeans to weed out local union members. The MMA denied that this was so. At all times, the employers consistently defended their right to employ the most ‘suitable’ workers for the job and, in their racist views, southern Europeans were physically and temperamentally suited to the most menial tasks on the mines.145 The union representatives, on the other hand, seemed decidedly torn on the question. They knew that the mine managers were deliberately exploiting, even assisting to create, the employment situation along the line of lode and, while some officials were reluctant to make any concessions to their divisive tactics, they found it difficult to prevent their protestations regarding local employment preference from containing a nasty vein of racism.

E. P. O’Neill charged that the MMA was exploiting the current unemployment situation on the mines, citing instances where men had technically been ‘out of the industry’ for more than six months and were, as a result, required to face a medical examination. If the medical examiner found any evidence of ‘dusted lungs’, he would refuse permission for the man to resume work, leaving the worker unemployed and ineligible for compensation for a condition which had, in all likelihood, been contracted on the Broken Hill mines. The BIC claimed that the medical examination rule was not being applied universally and that it was being used to discriminate against local men and union members, citing cases where they felt employment procedures had been unfairly applied. It also complained about inconsistent hiring practices, suggesting that such irregularities appeared to discriminate on a political basis. Some workers were refused employment because of expired medical clearance tickets, while others were put on without any examination. Some appeared to fail the examination for a flimsy reason,

145 Of course, not all southern Europeans were able to fit the mine management’s pigeonholes. Paul Said went to Broken Hill in 1925 but was not able to find work, except for hotel work. Although he spoke some English, he put his lack of employment down to being of small build. In retrospect, he was pleased that he had not risked his health in the mines. ‘Bugger the job there’, he said. Interview with Paul Said, conducted by Barry York on 12 September 1984. Transcript held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 3582/2.

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while others who were clearly sick had passed.146 One BIC representative, Eriksen, reported that he knew of a returned soldier who passed the examination; when his job ‘cut out’ he was examined by the Medical Board and received a full invalid pension.147 Quintrell argued that the union’s case was simple – any man who had been considered fit enough for work when the mines closed should be able to resume work without the examination.

By the end of the year, the situation was even worse for Broken Hill workers. The union estimated that there were 800 unemployed in Broken Hill, with 350 of them local men. In conference, the MMA and the BIC discussed the initiative introduced by the Bureau of Medical Inspection to attach a photograph to miners’ medical clearances to prevent workers from using other men’s tickets. Mr Emery stated that the measure had been adopted to prevent misrepresentation, thereby emphasising that failure to implement union preference was not the fault of the mine managers, but was due to unscrupulous migrant workers. Attempting to create allies among the union leaders, and to involve them in finding measures against the migrant workers, he said, ‘[a] lot of this misrepresentation has gone on amongst foreigners – they were trafficking in certificates ... do you fellows know any better way of preventing it?’148 At first, Quintrell took Emery’s bait, replying, ‘Can you distinguish the foreigners from the photo?’, a racist insinuation that all southern Europeans looked alike. However, Quintrell then asked Emery whether he knew of any Australians who were trafficking in certificates. At first, Emery replied in the negative but then added that there had, in fact, been a certain amount of trafficking amongst Australians, but that it had been worse among foreigners.149

This conversation is important for three reasons. Firstly, it demonstrated that Quintrell could be influenced by racist ideology but, at the same time, might also defend

146 MMA/BIC conference report, 20 September 1933. 147 MMA/BIC conference report, 20 September 1933. 148 MMA/BIC conference report, 2 December 1929. 149 MMA/BIC conference report, 2 December 1929. Later, Emery sought to further emphasise ‘foreigner’ involvement in the trafficking of clearance tickets. He said: ‘We get men working with other men’s tickets, but cannot find out how it happens. We have found that it occurs amongst foreigners; if one goes away another one gets his ticket and gets on.’ MMA/BIC conference report, 4 August 1932.

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international solidarity. Secondly, Emery was keen to emphasise that the illicit trade in medical certificates was a ‘foreign’ practice and to encourage the union representatives to focus on foreign, rather than management, culpability for the lack of jobs. Thirdly, Emery’s admission that some Australians had used deception to get work confirmed that such practices were not the preserve of southern Europeans, but were a product of the desperation caused by high levels of unemployment in the town. Similarly, if Australians were prepared to engage in this deception, it seems unlikely that they would recoil from paying foremen for jobs, another allegedly ‘foreign’ ploy. In 1928, the MMA discussed a case of impersonation where Harris Stanley Jones failed his medical examination but was subsequently found working on the Central Mine as William John Fielder. He was dismissed.150 In fact, such practices were integral to mine employment. At the 1914 Royal Commission, S. C. Robinson gave evidence that he had pulled out of an inequitable contract and had subsequently found it necessary to adopt an assumed name, because he was unlikely to be re-employed under his real name. He had also played a prominent part in union struggles and was convinced he had been blacklisted. Defending his decision to adopt a false name, he said, ‘This sort of thing applies to hundreds of men.’151

Quintrell claimed that some foremen were giving preference to southern Europeans on the basis of job type, citing an example of a particular incident at the South Blocks mine.152 One union member had applied for work, only to be told by the Underground Manager that the particular position was ‘a foreigner’s job’. Subsequently, two southern Europeans were given the work. Quintrell interviewed the Manager, Mr Broad, taking the position that the BIC ‘does not stand for any individual, but what they did stand against was a Foreman or Underground Manager stating that a certain job was for a certain man that happened to be born somewhere else than in Australia’.153 Broad saw no problem with employing southern Europeans for particular jobs and admitted that he had employed the southern Europeans on the request of the foreman. On the same mine, an inexperienced man had been placed immediately into a mining party,

150 MMA minutes, 8 November 1928. 151 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 98. 152 MMA/BIC conference report, 31 January 1929.

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despite union assurances that they had six hundred unemployed men on its books, sixty per cent of whom were competent miners. Quintrell remarked that, ‘there seemed to be something “fishy” about the matter’.154 Bert Speck argued:

We know that some men who come from over-seas may be bigger or stronger men for the time being, but it is only a matter of a few years in the industry when they will be old employees, and we consider that those men who are in Broken Hill today – men who have their homes and families here – should be given preference of employment along the line of lode.

Emery responded that, in general, old hands received consideration and that, if some new men were getting jobs, they were very few in number. Another mine manager attempted to defend the applications of men from Western Australia, contending that the BIC’s concern was only with overseas men. Quintrell replied heatedly, ‘A man may come from Alaska and be as good as a Broken Hill man, but we want preference for Broken Hill men’.155

In May 1931, ‘Australia First’ wrote to the Barrier Miner in an attempt to get Richard Gully to come out of ‘retirement’. The letter writer argued that a body of the unemployed should approach the MMA with a view to ousting the foreigners and replacing them with ‘local’ workers. Further, he/she ‘sooled’:

I think that such a move would get support from the Returned Soldiers’ League. As there are Germans working among these foreigners, is not that a great insult to our returned men who offered their lives fighting in the Great War?156

Curiously, ‘Australia First’ offered Gully the incentive that there were, at that moment, fewer foreigners in the town ‘to join in the hooting with the Reds’ and that, regardless, ‘to suffer defeat is no disgrace’.157 Gully declined the invitation to return to public life,

153 MMA/BIC conference report, 31 January 1929. 154 MMA/BIC conference report, 31 January 1929. 155 MMA/BIC conference report, 31 January 1929. 156 Barrier Miner, 15 May 1931. 157 Barrier Miner, 15 May 1931.

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but encouraged ‘Australia First’ to do so in his place.158 Clearly, Gully recognised defeat and had no wish to repeat the experience. ‘Australia First’ replied darkly, ‘I am sorry to say that I can’t accept Mr Gully’s suggestion to come out on the platform or yet make myself known for reasons of my own.’159 Clearly, by 1931, Broken Hill had become an inhospitable place for would-be racist campaigners.

A few days later, after years of relentless pressure on the question of race, the WIUA executive made a huge concession to the demands of the ‘localists’, by developing rules to insist that members of the union meet a strict residential requirement before they could gain access to mine employment.160 This move was subsequently endorsed by the BIC.161 Barrier Daily Truth explained the rule change as a decision not to work with non-unionists, whether they were willing to join the union or not. If a man was not a member of the union before the closure of the union books, he would have no choice but to leave the industry or force others to down tools. The rule change was ‘based upon the contention that preference to out of work members of the union should be enforced’.162 In this way, the union maintained its income from membership dues, by enforcing continuation of membership for those miners who wished to come back into the workforce when the economic situation improved. However, the manner in which this decision was taken suggests that the closure of the books was recognised as a defeat. In 1928, the WIUA had donated £100 to striking waterside workers, accompanied by a message to the effect that they did not agree with the Waterside Workers’ Federation decision to close its books, as this was ‘detrimental to Unionism’.163 Less than three years later, in a very secretive fashion, the WIUA announced that its books were now closed to new members. The decision appears not to have been minuted by the WIUA and Barrier Daily Truth raised only those matters that arose from the decision, not the decision itself.

158 Barrier Miner, 18 May 1931. 159 Barrier Miner, 21 May 1931. 160 BDT, 25 May 1931. 161 BIC minutes, 25 May 1931. 162 BDT, 26 May 1931. 163 WIUA minutes, 4 December 1928.

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With only the Zinc Corporation, Broken Hill South and North Broken Hill still in operation at the time, these companies requested a conference in order to negotiate reduced costs. In the face of devastating levels of unemployment, labour movement leaders defended the exclusionary policy as one which would limit the mine managers’ ability to exploit the flooded labour market. However, in the course of these negotiations the different political positions of local union leaders became apparent. Staunch localist, O’Neill, stated simply:

Mr. Emery, seeing that there is so much depression, and so many out of work on the mines here, who have been out for such a long time, we contend that the Companies should not employ men who are coming from other parts.

When Emery replied that he didn’t think any newcomers were getting work, Quintrell insisted that there were a few instances where new men were getting jobs. He reported that new men were still arriving in the town and were able to find work on the mines and that such a situation had forced the WIUA ‘to take a stand on the matter’. He outlined the union’s commitment to non-acceptance of new members into the organisation, citing the case of two men who had arrived last week, had attempted to join the union but had been refused. Categorically, he stated, ‘We are going to keep the work for the Broken Hill men.’164

However, the most important factor of the union closure was its ‘non-racial’ aspect. As Ellem and Shields pointed out, the definition of ‘local’ included many southern European men who had not been born in Broken Hill, but who had lived there for some years.165 In the eyes of the WIUA executive, these men were more ‘deserving’ of a job than an Australian newcomer to the town. When Mr Gall, one of the mine managers, stated that a party of Italians had recently taken in a man who had been away for six months, Quintrell replied that this man could not then be considered a newcomer and that the union was not concerned about a man who had merely been away for a while. Later in the discussion, Quintrell reiterated that if the Italian man had gone away

164 MMA/BIC conference report, 17 February 1931. 165 Ellem and Shields, ‘Australian Labor’s Closed Preserve’, pp. 85-89.

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and drawn his clearance he would be readmitted to the union.166 BIC representatives Gough and Eriksen attempted to turn the conference back to questions of racial ‘loyalty’. They attacked the mine managers on the question of British preference, saying that newcomers were more likely to get employment. Again, Quintrell deflected the debate towards the benefits that mine managers gained from employing migrant labour, pointing out that the Workmen’s Compensation Act allowed the companies to dodge compensation payments if a miner was killed and was not from a country with which Australia had a reciprocal agreement.167

Conclusion

In the interwar period, Broken Hill workers were subjected to a relentless array of campaigns aimed at weakening their industrial unity. In this way, the campaign against migrant workers in Broken Hill must be seen in the same context as opposition to the strike levy and attacks on union preference arrangements. The personnel and the politics behind all these campaigns were remarkably similar. The Broken Hill mine managers had much to gain from racial division. In workplaces organised along Taylorist lines, heavy labouring work was allotted by the foremen to those deemed ‘racially suitable’ to the task. Reflecting the current orthodoxy, southern Europeans were deemed especially suited to heavy, repetitive work; jobs that would attract low rates of pay. Newly-arrived southern European workers would be less cognisant of local conditions and were, hence, more likely to remain cheap. However, for such workers to remain in this condition, it was necessary to discourage any moves by the labour movement to fraternise with, and unionise, the ‘foreigners’. Racism, and those who were prepared to peddle it, were important adjuncts to the more general mine manager campaign to weaken trade unionism. As such, the RSL and the local newspaper, the Barrier Miner, acted as conservative ideological forces in the locality. Far from uncritically accepting this propaganda, the Broken Hill labour movement struggled against the logic of racial

166 To ‘draw a clearance’ was to notify the union of a prospective absence from mine employment and to pay all outstanding dues. Upon return to the industry, a worker with a clearance would re-enter the union without paying new member fees.

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division and its concomitant effect on union strength. The albeit limited form of internationalism that prevailed in Broken Hill during the 1930s is a testimony to the energy and commitment of the exponents of solidarity who recognised the racist campaigns of the 1920s for what they were – an employer-led strategy to divide and rule.

Quintrell’s recognition that mine managers were the only beneficiaries of racial division among workers in Broken Hill was vital to the maintenance of a limited form of internationalism within the labour movement. Although not immune to the argument that immigrants caused unemployment and lowered living conditions, he and his supporters were able to insist that any policy other than recruiting migrants to the union was tantamount to industrial suicide. By maintaining this position, Quintrell galvanised many Broken Hill workers to reject the victimisation of southern European workers and successfully stiffened the anti-racist resolve of sufficient labour movement leaders to isolate Gully’s racist campaign. Most importantly, as editor of the most widely-read labour movement newspaper, Ern Wetherell followed Quintrell’s lead. As a result, Barrier Daily Truth can be viewed as an outstanding example of an anti-racist mouthpiece that emanated from the labour movement.

Mine management attempts to harness racism as part of its battle for industrial supremacy were an integral part of the class struggle in Broken Hill; it is impossible to understand the pressures on the labour movement in the interwar period without considering the full extent of this employer offensive. The RSL’s successes and failures in whipping up racism illustrate how ideas within the working class were in constant flux, as voices from the Left and the Right attempted to promote international solidarity and nationalist exclusion respectively. To make racist initiatives palatable, appeals to labour movement nationalism frequently adopted the guise of concern for working class living standards, with attacks on the presence of southern Europeans dressed up as support for local workers. There is little doubt that such a platform provided a pole of attraction for sections of the labour movement and the wider working class, but,

167 MMA/BIC conference report, 17 February 1931.

291 Chapter Seven Broken Hill: the struggle for ‘racial’ unity

contrary to the historiography of Australian racism, such invocations were by no means universally supported within the labour movement. The highpoint of industrial solidarity reached during World War One came under sustained attack during the 1920s and 1930s. Although the miners’ militancy was severely diminished, some political traditions did not evaporate completely. A number of key activists who were prepared to attack racism as a divisive ideology that suited only the interests of the employers, and the majority of rank-and-file unionists who supported their lead, maintained a battered form of international solidarity on the Broken Hill mines.168 Despite the best efforts of the employer camp, racist strategies were by and large rejected by the Broken Hill labour movement but, as in Kalgoorlie, that outcome was never pre-determined.

168 Unfortunately, married women workers were not accorded the same consideration. See Ellem and Shields, ‘Making a ‘Union Town’: Class, Gender and Consumption in Inter-war Broken Hill’, Labour History, no. 78, 2000.

292 CONCLUSION

Racist Ideology: the end of history?

This is a story of a period between two World Wars – an interim in which Insanity cut loose, Liberty took a nose dive and Humanity was kicked around somewhat. Charles Chaplin, The Great Dictator

Histories of mining towns frequently have class struggle over wages and conditions at their centre. In that sense, this history is no different. However, an important part of understanding the dynamics of class struggle is to explore the role of racist ideology within it. As demonstrated in Chapter One, the study of Australian racism has been a blinkered pursuit where racism is more commonly depicted as part of a competitive struggle within classes, rather than as a ruling class tool used by them in the rivalry between classes.1 The racist hiring practices of many employers, the elite connections of RSL race rioters, the sympathetic responses of some trade unionists to their migrant counterparts – all these aspects of Australian race relations have been written out of virtually all historical accounts. The question of why employers might outspokenly support the White Australia policy while, at the same time, search for cheap, southern European labour to hire has similarly received little attention. These omissions mean that the historiography regarding Australian racism contains a large measure of ideological determinism. By this, I mean that there has been broad acceptance of the notion that racist responses from local workers towards migrant ‘competitors’ were an almost inevitable, even rational, feature of employment competition under capitalism.

1 For example, Murray’s article about the racist implications of the Kalgoorlie woodline strikes was subtitled ‘a study of conflict within the working class’. J. Murray, ‘The Kalgoorlie Woodline Strikes 1919- 1920: A Study of Conflict Within the Working Class’, Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 5, 1982. Conclusion The End of History?

To overcome the limitations of this approach, this study has indicated how racism and class struggle are intertwined. It has demonstrated that mine employers had a material interest in promoting racial division among mine workers. A window into the way in which the White Australia policy was maintained has been created through an examination of the experiences of southern European migrant workers who came to Australia after World War One. While never ignoring the extent of working class involvement in racist agitation against these ‘strangers in a strange land’, the contributions and motivations of employers, politicians, conservative newspaper editors and other establishment representatives have been highlighted. The case study chapters have shown that employers in Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill were not benign influences in local race debates. On the one hand, they held out British employment preference as an industrial ‘carrot’ which they hoped would distract local workers from the real source of their employment woes. On the other hand, they openly hired migrant workers on the basis that dirty, low-skilled, poorly-paid labouring jobs around the mines were particularly appropriate for southern Europeans. In this way, employers attempted to isolate southern Europeans from unionised Britisher workers, thereby limiting opportunities for the kind of fraternisation that might lead to united struggles for improved wages and conditions. In the eyes of the employers, this was the ‘stick’ – as long as Britisher workers saw their migrant counterparts as ‘scabs’, ‘slingbackers’ and ‘rate-busters’, the potential for strong unionism might be constrained.

Employer activism around racism is only one half of the required revision. The historiography of racism in Australia must acknowledge the significance of labour movement struggles that, in whatever shape or form, challenged the notion that migrant workers, and not local employers, were the main source of industrial problems. Despite the overwhelming onslaught of racist messages delivered through legislation, newspaper editorials, employer hiring practices and through countless other means, considerable resistance to racial division came from within the labour movement, challenging such management strategies. While workers hurling jam-tin bombs at fleeing migrant families might make good historical ‘copy’ and does not challenge the dominant explanations of racism in the historiography, such incidents must be seen as only part of a fully contextualised explanation of events. An Australian woman minding the possessions of

293 Conclusion The End of History?

her migrant friend might not make for such a sensational story, but it is as much a part of local race relations as more public examples of racist invective and violence.

While instances of racist workers ‘declaiming’ against migrant workers were common, both case studies employed in this thesis show that unionised workers were not unanimous supporters of racist exclusion. Even amidst a bitter campaign for migrant exclusion, Broken Hill miners heard and responded positively to the internationalist arguments made by some of the left-wing leaders of their union. That Gully’s campaign was marginalised, although he was suggesting the very same exclusionary initiatives that are commonly alleged to be part and parcel of working class politics, shows that the majority of labour movement members considered the implications of his arguments and judged them unacceptable. Although the radicalism of the Broken Hill miners faded during the 1920s, official adherence to principled positions regarding union solidarity and internationalism were not easily erased. Even with the arguments of race rioters all around them, a significant number of Kalgoorlie workers appeared to explicitly distance themselves from the racist tide. Goldfields miners witnessed the terrible logic of racial antipathy at first hand. Shortly afterwards, they recognised the need for racial unity in campaigns against the mining employers, increasing their industrial strength as a result.

More than twenty years ago, Burgmann encouraged historians to look away from those falsely conscious workers who did look for racist solutions to their industrial problems. She urged further examination of ruling class interest in racial division in order to understand its ideological ramifications within the working class. Taking up that challenge, this study examined the role of the RSL in local race debates. During the war, a significant number of organised, militarised, ideologically-primed men from the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) demonstrated a keen willingness to patronise, harass and physically intimidate groups of people who did not fit their White Australian ideals. Back on home soil, the reputation of some ex-soldiers for direct action against that which displeased their collective sensibilities, inspired a sense of nervousness among local upholders of law and order. In this atmosphere, the RSL leadership deliberately galvanised a small but important group of returned soldiers for further service to the nation. Part of their role was to propagandise about a range of conservative policies,

294 Conclusion The End of History?

including that of White Australia. The elite-dominated leadership of the RSL made public promises to protect the interests of returned soldiers, while privately working to ensure that RSL members were of the respectful, law-abiding and patriotic type. The RSL leadership used the ideology behind the White Australia policy in the way that it had always been used – as a piece of legislation that purported to defend working class wages and conditions while fundamentally seeking collaboration between white workers and their white employers. In this way, it could mask a concomitant hostility towards militant trade unionism behind calls for immigration restriction in the ‘interests’ of local workers.

By looking at racism as part of a more general class struggle, this study has garnered evidence that calls into question the three strands of explanation that feature prominently in the literature on Australian racism – firstly, the notion that it is the proximity of workers from different, non-British countries that engenders racial discord; secondly, the commonsensical view that workers have an economic interest in immigration restriction because of a ‘natural’ fear of cheap labour and increased competition for jobs; and thirdly, the view that racism towards migrants had a distinctly working class character that employers had no reason to encourage.

Competition for jobs?

Both case studies suggest that unionised workers were less, not more, likely to promote racist responses to migrant labour. Furthermore, union organisation provided a powerful means by which local workers could offer support to their migrant counterparts, as part of a collective effort. Despite a heightened atmosphere of racism and violence, Kalgoorlie workers used their union to oppose race rioting, to prevent further outbreaks and to offer practical support to the victims. In Broken Hill, it was the labour movement that debated the ramifications of a migrant presence on the mines. While a significant minority of workers were attracted by Richard Gully’s simplistic ‘remedy’ for unemployment – ‘tramp’ the migrants and regain jobs – the majority of the labour movement decisively rejected Gully’s overtures and, in so doing, sealed his political

295 Conclusion The End of History?

defeat. No other group in Broken Hill had ‘the will or the way’ to promote anti-racist politics in such a decisive manner. The fact that significant debate around the question of migrant workers on the mines can be discerned in both towns is in itself an indication that the labour movement did not have a universally racist attitude towards southern European workers. Rather, its members were influenced by an enormous range of groups – from the RSL to the IWW – and, in these case studies at least, were won more by the argument that racial division was against their industrial best interests.

The labour movement responded to the arrival of non-Britisher workers in a variety of ways. Often members were motivated, not so much by racism, but by opposition to all attempts by employers to expand the pool of available workers in order to cheapen wage rates. While it is pointless to deny that labour movement opposition to employer initiatives aimed at ‘flooding’ the labour market frequently had a racist edge to it, it is also important to recognise union attitudes towards Britisher newcomers. Jack Coleman registered his disdain for the unemployed farmers who came to Kalgoorlie in search of work, an opposition based on anti-union attitudes among many of these workers that employers found attractive. In addition, farm life was not as debilitating as mine work and ‘farmers’ sons’, as he called them, were often seen as strapping, young and healthy men who would get preference from the employers over seasoned mine workers with ‘dusted’ lungs.2 It was the same in Broken Hill. Southern European workers who had lived locally for a long time and proven their union loyalty were not a problem for Secretary of the AMA, W. D. Barnett. Of more concern were British workers who were recent arrivals and viewed as part of an employer strategy to increase employment competition.3

The preponderant involvement of young, unemployed men in racist campaigns is also worthy of comment. In the Kalgoorlie race riots, the arrest records and subsequent commentaries suggest that young and itinerant workers were overly represented in the mobs that ransacked homes and businesses. As the evidence cited in

2 Interview with Jack Coleman, conducted by Stuart Reid on 19 September 1988, Battye Library ref. no. OH2062.

296 Conclusion The End of History?

Chapter Five attests, the majority of those arrested in the aftermath of the rioting were less than thirty years of age.4 While this fact ought not to mask the covert involvement of other social groups, it does suggest that racist invective struck a particular chord with local youths. Similarly, in Broken Hill, Gully’s meetings were attended by groups of rowdy, young, often unemployed, men who, according to the Barrier Daily Truth, sat up the front cheering Gully and intimidating opposition speakers.5 In both cases, organised workers opposed racist agitation through their union. While often possessing the hegemonic racism of the times in their heads, unionists in both Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill had an industrial history that provided certain object lessons. In Kalgoorlie in 1919, AWU miners were forced to realise, however dimly, that Britisher returned soldiers were the enemies of trade unionism, while migrant workers offered solid industrial support against the employer. Similarly, in 1934, the horrific consequences of the race rioting for migrant families brought home to many miners the logic of racist politics. In Broken Hill, several speakers during the Gully campaign made reference to the fact that many southern European unionists had stood on the picket line during the 1892 strike, while Australian workers had scabbed.6

These object lessons were not available to young men who were yet to build a work, and trade union, history. Far from being unionism that inculcated racism in workers’ minds, in Broken Hill and Kalgoorlie it was more likely to be the pre-unionate, or non-unionate, who provided enthusiastic support for racist RSL agitators like Gully and Lawrence. It was also among this group that conservative ideology potentially had the most influence, as many would have been exposed to considerable RSL manipulation on Anzac Days and Empire Days during their school years.7 To young unemployed men, the neat equation whereby each migrant could be blamed for taking a ‘Britisher’ job, was also more likely to have had a particular appeal. By way of contrast,

3 Report of the Royal Commission on Mining Industry at Broken Hill [hereafter Royal Commission on Mining Industry], presented to NSW Legislative Assembly, Sydney, 1914, p. 428. 4 Return of arrests and charges and results in connection with the Kalgoorlie Riots, 19 February 1934, Kalgoorlie Police file, acc. no. 430, item no. 700, State Records Office of Western Australia. 5 One report stated that Gully’s remarks ‘were constantly cheered, the big volume of noise coming from a vanguard of youngsters enjoying the fun in the front “benches”.’ BDT, 19 September 1927, 12 November 1930. 6 Barrier Daily Truth, [hereafter BDT], 19 September, 24 October 1927. 7 See The Listening Post, 26 October 1934, p. 9; BDT, 25-6 May 1927.

297 Conclusion The End of History?

trade unionists often referred to their organisations as seats of learning, something which new workers had yet to experience. When asked by Commissioner Edwards during the 1914 Royal Commission whether it should be compulsory for mine workers to belong to the AMA, Mick Considine replied, ‘Yes, the same as children are compelled to go to school to learn.’8 What union members learned in such classrooms was, of course, a mixed bag. However, considerably more lessons in anti-racism were forthcoming than has hitherto been recognised.

Proximity breeds contempt?

Against the arguments of Blainey, Markus and others, the evidence from Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill in the interwar period suggests that working class people from many different countries were drawn into these mining cities by the prospect of work and, although the dominant racist ideology of the time was a constant source of friction, integratory forces constantly challenged ethnic division. Each day, mine workers entered enormous workplaces and mingled with each other, huddled together in cages that lowered them to their section of the mine, cooperating to get the job done, eating crib in the stope, perhaps talking or playing cards.9 After their shift, they took showers, went for beers or headed home for meals. On pay days, many would make the trip to the union office to pay their dues. While evidence of social segregation has previously been emphasised, the Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill case studies suggest an enormous degree of co-existing inter-ethnic mingling, in pubs, on football fields, in schools, at political events. During the anti-foreigner campaign in Broken Hill, it was pointed out that even Richard Gully, the committed racist who led the campaign, had recently worked in a mining party run by an Italian man and that he ‘went quiet’ on the migrant issue during that period.10 These were remarkably integrated lives, shared under remarkably similar conditions. When it came to industrial battles against poor working conditions or retrenchments, Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill workers had to face the logic of racist politics

8 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 348. 9 Interview with Paul Sultana, conducted by Barry York on 2 November 1984. Transcript held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, reference no. TRC 3582/6, p. 42.

298 Conclusion The End of History?

and large numbers of them realised that racism was not only not in their interests; rather, it was counterproductive.

The 1914 Royal Commission investigation into conditions in the Broken Hill mines provides important evidence regarding class consciousness, false consciousness and racism. As noted in Chapter Seven, an Inspector of Mines gave evidence that he could not get cooperation from Britisher miners when seeking information about the employment of ‘foreigners’ along the line of lode. Commissioner Kerr insinuated that the Inspector would be unlikely to gain the information he sought while being escorted through the mine by the shift boss, meaning that the men would be unlikely to make complaints that would anger the shift boss and see them lose their jobs.11 While this might well have been the case, it was just as possible that the Britisher miners were reluctant to ‘dob in’ the migrant men with whom they worked, especially to shift bosses and mine inspectors who seemed to be quite widely disliked. Even Britisher miners who objected in general terms to the ‘high’ level of migrant workmen resiled from identifying men with whom they had worked closely, and who were often union members, knowing that this might lead to the dismissal of the migrants.

At the very least, there were junctures where local workers failed to act in the racist image common in the historiography. There were also instances when the southern European workers themselves resisted such treatment. While migrants were almost certainly engaged to do heavy manual work for under-award wages, many resisted such attempts to exploit their labour and keep them isolated by joining large, industrial workforces, taking out union membership and working closely with their Britisher counterparts. Some settled, married and raised families. Others found conditions in Australia unsuitable and went elsewhere. Either way, the existing stereotype of migrants as isolated and easily exploited by their ethnicity fails to address the diversity of their experiences.

10 BDT, 20 September 1927.

299 Conclusion The End of History?

Ruling Class Ideology – Where are the Bosses?

Both Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill employers were attracted by the prospect that a large supply of migrant workers, unfamiliar with local conditions and often unable to speak English, would both cheapen the price of labour for low-skilled jobs and put barriers in the way of successful union organisation. Employers assumed that union officials were quite likely to blame migrant workers for rising unemployment levels and, in so doing, create a potential wedge between migrants and the union. On this basis, they believed that migrant workers treated in this way would remain isolated and cheap. To encourage working class support for the White Australia policy at the same time was an essential part of the strategy. The belief among white workers that they would benefit from immigration restriction and Britisher employment preference diverted their attention from the best way of achieving improvements in wages and conditions – by ensuring that migrant workers were welcomed into union ranks and paid proper wages. The RSL’s propagandising assisted the employers’ cause. Along with a range of other conservative ideas the RSL peddled, its racism was a useful influence in Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill workplaces. RSL activists worked assiduously to marginalise migrant workers and through this means encourage cross-class unity. Their continued opposition to the presence of migrant labour did little or nothing to stem the trickle of arrivals. Its constant harping did ensure, however, that migrants were never allowed to go about their business without continued surveillance, harassment and displays of racial antipathy.

The period between the wars was a time of conservative ascendancy in Australian electoral politics, but Rydon’s argument that interwar conservative politicians ‘built no steady organisation, no continuous electoral machines’12 is an overstatement. The RSL was fostered by elite support and became an important institution for the organisation of right-wing politics, because of its public/private nature. Unlike fascist organisations, its members could openly organise in the community and, at the same

11 Royal Commission on Mining Industry, p. 42.

300 Conclusion The End of History?

time, retreat to a more secluded meeting place where like-minded conservatives could participate in unguarded discussion of conservative strategies. Unlike the Nationalist Association, the RSL leadership could galvanise its membership for grass-roots activism to counter that of the labour movement.

One difference between the Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill sub-branches is particularly striking. The evidence suggests that the level of mine manager support for the RSL in Broken Hill was deliberate and calculated, reflecting the industrial uses to which the mine managers hoped returned soldiers could be put. In Kalgoorlie, by comparison, the mine managers’ support for returned soldiers was much more contingent and ad hoc, perhaps reflecting the lower level of industrial disputation and unionisation on the goldfields. Whereas the Broken Hill Mine Managers Association donated thousands of pounds towards RSL projects, the Kalgoorlie RSL was forced to be far more reliant on public fund-raising. In addition, the generally supportive attitude towards the war in Kalgoorlie, even from anti-conscriptionists, contrasted enormously with the far greater antipathy evident in Broken Hill, where opposition to conscription and the war was frequently on display. This alone suggests that the industrial role to be played by the Kalgoorlie RSL members was far less urgent than that to be played by Broken Hill returned servicemen, and was an indication of the greater degree of difficulty associated with weakening the solidarist attitudes of the Broken Hill labour movement. In neither case were the employers successful, but this does not negate the importance of their attempts. On the contrary, it firmly situates racism as an aspect of class struggle and demonstrates that labour movement resistance to racist ideas is an integral part of Australian race relations.

Future directions

It is hoped that this study, in conjunction with the work of Martinez, Small and Griffiths mentioned in Chapter One, will contribute to a lasting sea-change in future historical

12 J. Rydon, ‘The Conservative Electoral Ascendancy Between the Wars’ in C. Hazlehurst (ed), Australian Conservatism: Essays in Twentieth Century Political History, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1979, pp. 51-2.

301 Conclusion The End of History?

analyses of racism. The complexity of working class responses to migrant labour opens up massive opportunities for further investigation and reinterpretation. Further case studies along the lines of those presented here would make enormous contributions to a wider understanding of the dynamics of racism. Concomitantly, the RSL is only one avenue for investigating ruling class ideology. Limitless openings exist for further analysis of the influence of racist employers, parliamentarians, educationalists, church leaders and newspaper editors. Lastly, like most interesting historical questions, an understanding of Australian racism has many contemporary ramifications. At the very least, an understanding of the labour movement’s anti-racist past may encourage present-day campaigners around war and refugee issues to see the importance of linking with the industrial and social power of trade unions in these struggles.

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Vanderwiel, T. The Goldfield Riot of August 1919, unpublished manuscript held in the Battye Library, 1959.

Wetherell, E. ‘The “Stormy” Years of 1910-1921’, unpublished manuscript, Charles Rasp Memorial Library, Broken Hill.

309 Newspapers and Periodicals

The Age, 1926, 1934

The Argus, 1926

Barrier Daily Truth, 1908-1934

Barrier Miner, 1916-1931

Barrier Truth, 1908

Bulletin, 1934

The Communist, 1925-1926

Communist Review, 1934-1936

The Digger, 1922-1924

Diggers’ Gazette, 1919-1922

Goldfields Observer, 1933-1935

Industrial Australian and Mining Standard, 1934-1935

The International Communist, Sydney, 1921-22

Kadina and Wallaroo Times, 1924

Kalgoorlie Digger, 1933-1935

Kalgoorlie Miner, 1916-1935

Listening Post, 1922-1935

London Gazette, 1902

London Times, 1934

Red Star, 1934-1935

The Register, Adelaide, 1924

Reveille, 1927-1931

Smith’s Weekly, 1919-1923

310 The Sun, 1916-1935

Sydney Morning Herald, 1916, 1927, 1934

Sunday Times, Perth, 1934-1935

Sunday Times, Sydney, 1918

West Australian, 1918-1935

Westralian Worker, 1916-35

Worker, 1891

Workers’ Weekly, 1924-1939

Miscellaneous

J. Albrechtsen, ‘Talking race not racism’, The Australian, 17 July 2002. Boer War website, Murdoch University, wwwtlc2.murdoch.edu.au/community/Dps/ military/bor-sa6.htm#sa6, accessed 6 July 2000.

Phillip Briant for ABC Radio and Documentaries, Warriors, Welfare and Eternal Vigilance: The History and Role of the Returned Services League, 1982.

Chamber of Mines of Western Australia (Incorporated), Monthly Journal, vol. xviii., parts x, xi, xii, 31 December 1919.

Robert Coombs speech, MUA picket line meeting, notes taken by author, 12 April 1998.

Dimensions, ABC Television, episode 5, broadcast 11 March 2002. See transcript on http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions

F. Dunn, ‘Press helped fan the flames’, Sunday Times, 16 July 1995. First Fleet website, http://www.geocities.com, accessed 2 August 2002. E. Grayndler, ‘Rise of the A.W.U.’, Westralian Worker, 24 December 1915.

R. Manne, ‘Open season on Muslims in the newest phobia’. Sydney Morning Herald, 16 September 2002.

J. McIlwraith, ‘True to the law from West’s wild days’, obituary of Eric Michael Heenan, The Australian, 15th July 1998.

W. Blue Nelli, The Best Battler, no publication details, held in the William Grundt Memorial Library, Kalgoorlie.

311 President’s Address, Annual General Meeting, The Chamber of Mines of Western Australia (Incorporated), Kalgoorlie, 27 March 1934, copy held in the National Library of Australia.

Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League (W. A. Branch), W. A. Digger Book, Perth, 1929.

War Council, Kalgoorlie Anzac Day commemoration postcard, Perth, 1918, held in the National Library of Australia.

F. G. White obituary, Barrier Miner, 24 August 1953.

Pamphlets

Chamber of Mines of ‘Alien Enemies Commission’, Kalgoorlie, 31 October 1916, W.A. (Incpd.) pamphlet held in the National Library of Australia.

Harman, C. Gramsci versus Reformism, Socialist Workers Party pamphlet, London, 1983.

O’Lincoln, T. The Militant Minority: organising rank and file workers in the thirties, Socialist Action, Melbourne, 1986.

Oral Sources

Broken Hill

All tapes and transcripts held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra.

Taped interview with Frank Bartley, conducted by Ed Stokes on 23 March 1982, reference no. TRC 1873.

Taped interview with Les Buck, conducted by Ed Stokes on 9 March 1982, reference no. TRC 1873.

Taped interview with Pearl Delatorre, conducted by Edward Stokes on 5 May 1982, reference no. TRC 1873.

Taped interview with Bill Eriksen, conducted by Edward Stokes on 14 March 1982, reference no. TRC 1873.

Taped interview with Hilda Ferguson, conducted by Edward Stokes on 17 July 1981, reference no. TRC 1873.

Taped interview with five Broken Hill miners, conducted by M. Laver in 1974, reference no. TRC 341.

Taped interview with Ante Ravlich, conducted by Ed Stokes on 2 August 1982, reference no. TRC 1873.

312 Transcript of interview with Edgar Ross, conducted by Barry York on 24 January 1997, reference no. TRC 3557.

Transcript of interview with Paul Said, conducted by Barry York on 12 September 1984, reference no. TRC 3582/2.

Taped interview with Melba Shannon, conducted by Warwick Eather on 27 February 1987, reference no. TRC 2301/0021.

Transcript of interview with Paul Sultana, conducted by Barry York on 2 November 1984, reference no. TRC 3582/6.

Kalgoorlie

All tapes and transcripts held in the J. S. Battye Library, Perth. Interviews by Bill Bunbury were undertaken for ‘A Bad Blue’ (The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots) ABC Social History Radio feature, 1986, producer Bill Bunbury.

Transcript of interview with Jack Coleman, conducted by Stuart Reid on 19 September 1988, reference no. OH2062.

Transcript of interview with Jack Costello, conducted by Chris Jeffery in 1976, Perth, reference no. OH187.

Taped interview with Nancy and Jack Crisp, conducted by Bill Bunbury circa 1986, reference no. OH1396.

Taped interview with Wally Dawes, conducted by Bill Bunbury on 10 January 1986, reference no. OH1398.

Taped interview with Bronc Finlay, conducted by Stuart Reid on 16 November 1988, reference no. OH2071.

Taped interview with Robert W. Fletcher, conducted by Stuart Reid on 27 July 1988, reference no. OH2054.

Transcript of interview with S. G. Foxley, conducted by Mollie Lukis in 1970, reference no. OH33.

Taped interview with Marjorie Henderson, conducted by Bill Bunbury, circa 1986, reference no. OH1401.

Taped interview with Lionel Hitchcock, conducted by Bill Bunbury on 2 December 1985, reference no. OH1398.

Taped interview with Lily Larkham, conducted by Bill Bunbury, circa 1986, reference no. OH1403.

313 Transcript of interview with W. (Jock) MacKay, conducted by Chris Jeffery in 1978, reference no. OH321.

Taped interview with Cora Sudlow, conducted by Bill Bunbury, circa 1986, reference no. OH1402.

Transcript of interview with Ted Thompson, conducted by Stuart Reid between July and October 1988, reference no. OH2053.

Transcript of interview with Colin Turnbull, conducted by Michael Adams between December 1980 and May 1982, reference no. OH406.

Taped interview with Stella and Evelyn Villa and Mr E. Fraser, conducted by Bill Bunbury on 15 January 1986, reference no. OH1396.

Transcript of interview with Fred Wayman, conducted by John Clements in 1984, reference no. OH1313.

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334

APPENDIXES

Appendix A: Financial Membership, R.S.S. & A.I.L.A. – 1916-1935 Date QLD NSW VIC SA WA TAS Total 12/06/16 600 5000 ? ? ... ? 10600 31/12/17 2233 1955 6008 2320 ... 872 13388 30/06/18 3051 3375 7000 3261 2000 872 19557 31/12/18 4248 7015 7197 3470 5400 1349 28679 30/06/19 7000 10290 19749 9209 7000 3134 56382 15/10/19 15000 27000 39000 17200 9500 7000 114700 31/12/19 No accurate figures available- Branch claims total 150000 31/12/20 6967 8241 20630 7091 4721 2071 49721 31/12/21 5752 11065 12236 7130 5800 2491 44643 31/12/22 4211 7207 6627 5880 3668 2094 29864 31/12/23 4374 4261 6870 4980 2631 1217 24482 31/12/24 3689 5431 5780 5500 3762 1508 25670 31/12/25 2960 3604 6173 6557 4169 1020 24631 31/12/26 3293 3607 6581 5673 4413 1053 30346 31/12/27 3736 4304 7971 7275 4922 1194 29925 31/12/28 4046 7394 8253 7279 5490 1337 34233 31/12/29 4754 10540 10615 6585 7025 1370 41417 31/12/30 4848 10472 12119 6301 6585 1556 42276 31/12/31 5118 10728 12294 4975 5064 1532 40067 31/12/32 4697 12105 13023 5528 6460 1473 43629 31/12/33 5603 15165 15250 5900 6320 1623 50067 31/12/34 6431 18990 16270 7181 5962 2137 57282 31/12/35 7617 24267 20131 8536 6880 3091 70850

Table taken from G. Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism: The Pressure Group Activities of the Returned Servicemen’s League, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1966. Figures for P.N.G., A.C.T. and Darwin have been omitted for reasons of space and relevance, although they are included in total membership figures. Kristianson pointed out that membership figures before 1920 are not reliable because of poor record-keeping in the hectic years of the League’s early existence.

335 Appendix B:

Transcript of letter forwarded to the Broken Hill Mine Managers’ Association from the Barrier Trades and Trades Labourers’ Union, dated 8 December 1919, as it appeared in the minutes of General Meeting of Broken Hill Mine Managers’ Association, 11 December 1919, Broken Hill South Collection, Melbourne University Archives.

I have been instructed by my Union to bring under the notice of your Association the question of employment on the mines, and to request that you will give every consideration as to the best means of alleviating the present distress.

A large number of our members are out of employment through no fault of their own. As a union we have never been on strike but have in fact, in every way possible endeavoured to terminate the dispute and get the mines working again. After overcoming a number of technical difficulties we obtained our registration under the State arbitration act. We then applied to have the conditions of the mining industry regulated by the arbitration Court and thus bring about a settlement in a constitutional way, and much abuse has been heaped on our heads, by a certain section of Unionists for so doing. We feel justified in asking that some special consideration should be given to us as a Union and that what employment there is available our members should have precedence. When appearing before the wages board we did not ask for preference to members of this union, to be inserted in the Award, although preference to the Union applying for awards has been granted at each application. We took this course to avoid unnecessary friction, relying upon the Mining Companies to deal fairly with us, and recognise our claim in that direction.

Trusting you will give this your immediate consideration and that as many men as possible may be enabled to get in a pay to provide some necessities for the coming Christmas.

[The Secretary was directed to acknowledge the letter from Trades and Trades Labourers’ Union and advise that their request would be given every consideration by the Companies.]

336 Appendix C:

Transcript of letter forwarded to the Broken Hill Mine Managers’ Association from the Barrier Workers’ Association, dated 12 June 1920, as it appeared in the minutes of General Meeting of Broken Hill Mine Managers’ Association, 2 February 1920, Broken Hill South Collection, Melbourne University Archives.

I have been instructed by my Association to ask your Association if you can throw the Mines open for full operations at an early date. The members of my Association believe that some move should be taken to test the feelings of the employees, either by throwing the mines open, or by resuming operations on such surface work that would be productive to the Companies and the employees who are willing to work. Thanking you in anticipation.

[The Secretary was instructed to forward copy of the letter to Melbourne Committee. He was also asked to write to the Barrier Workers’ Association, acknowledging receipt of their communication and advising that the matter contained therein would receive attention.]

337 Appendix D:

Return showing approximate number of Foreigners at Broken Hill

Nationality Occupation Speak Speak Unable Total English English speak On Otherwise indifferently English mines Maltese 46 1 39 6 46 Syrians 7 5 2 7 Bulgarians 57 18 39 57 Russians 49 4 3 42 49 Germans 56 1 30 27 57 Austrians 100 39 8 130 1 139 Spaniards 1 1 1 1 2 Italians 150 61 18 190 3 211 Greeks 9 6 11 4 15 French 4 1 5 5 Egyptians 1 1 1 Turks 1 1 1 Scandinavians 30 5 3 30 2 35 Poles 1 1 1 Dutch 2 3 2 Finns 3 3 3 Not classified 106 11 34 80 3 117 Total 623 125 104 544 100 748 83.3 16.7% 14% 72% 13.4% Total % percentage of foreigners, 7%

Taken from Report of the Royal Commission on Mining Industry at Broken Hill, presented to NSW Legislative Assembly, Sydney, 1914, p. 745.

338