THE GREAT STRIKES
In 1890 the great maritime strike had its birth in Sydney. The original strikers were the wharf labourers, who paralysed all business. The strike spread rapidly to practically all the chief ports of Australia. The Government at Sydney trusted more to the support of the merchants and producers, whose interests were being so assailed, than to the power that lay in their hands to tackle the strikers by the aid of the military forces. The police, under the able guidance of Mr. Fosberry, then Chief Commissioner, did their work splendidly, but the situation became too critical. Bank managers, insurance agents, squatters, architects and others took off their coats and waistcoats, loaded and unloaded the trolleys, and worked like common labourers. The farthest point that the Government would go towards assisting the police in keeping order was to detail a restricted number of mounted riflemen to protect the willing volunteer workers from the assaults of the strikers.
In sympathy with the action taken in Sydney the Wharfmen’s Unions in all the other chief ports of Australia joined their comrades, and Port Adelaide became a head centre. Previous to this the South Australian Government had entered into an agreement with the Government of Western Australia to train some fifty Permanent Force Artillerymen to garrison the newly constructed forts at Albany. This detachment were just completing their time at Largs Fort, so that the little Permanent Force under my command in South Australia numbered some 130, of all ranks. The strikers at Port Adelaide set to work with a good will. Every vessel in the harbour was picketed, every approach to the wharves guarded. Business was at an absolute standstill. Large mass meetings of strikers were held morning and afternoon. The police, under Mr. Peterswald, reinforced by a large draft from the country districts, could do no more than just maintain order. The situation was more than serious. Mr. Peterswald ventured to appear at a mass meeting one afternoon, hoping that he might cast a little oil on the troubled waters. He came out on the balcony of a hotel, facing the huge crowd of strikers. A quaint scene followed. Some wags called out, “Take off your hat, Peter.” They wanted to get authority—as personified by the Commissioner—to bow to them. Peterswald quickly recognized the position and, lifting his hat, said to them: “I am glad to meet you, men. I hope you will go back to your work and put an end to this serious trouble,” and quickly left the balcony. The majority cheered and laughed. But their leaders were on the job. The word was passed on to the strikers that, about twelve o’clock that night, they would receive definite instructions from their section leaders as to their future action. All their pickets and guards were doubled that night, and specially the guard on the railway bridge across the Port River, which connected Port Adelaide with the shore and the forts.
During that afternoon I had given instructions that every available man of our Permanent Force was to assemble at Fort Glanville, with a view to a gun competition next day. Parliament was sitting. I was at Fort Glanville, much occupied in laying down the conditions for next day’s gun practice. In the course of the evening Mr. Playford, the Defence Minister, telephoned me from Parliament House to be ready to march with my men under arms to Port Adelaide. As this was the first time that—as far as I knew—an order had been issued by any Australian Government to its permanent troops to march under arms to assist the police in quelling civil riots, I asked that the instructions should be sent to me in writing. The final words I heard on the telephone were, “Your instructions will reach you by a mounted orderly in plenty of time for you to act.”
At about eleven o’clock that evening the mounted orderly arrived, and at three in the morning—it was summer time, a moonlight night, practically as clear as day—we marched out of the fort on our way to Port Adelaide, where I found close on 400 police, mounted and foot, all armed. The Government had, therefore, some 500 armed men to cope with the strikers if they persisted in carrying out their threats. Half-past five came. It was daylight. The inspector in charge of the police patrols which had been posted the previous evening at all important bridges and approaches to the wharves suggested that I should accompany him to view the situation. We rode out together. Nobody was to be seen; the port was as quiet as if it were Sunday morning. The strike leaders had become fully aware of the determination of the Government to deal firmly with any attempt on their part to disturb the public peace, and had deemed discretion the better part of valour. The strike was virtually over, and, after providing a good breakfast for my men, we marched back to Fort Glanville in peace and quiet. This was the only instance that I am aware of in the history of the Australian colonies when the members of the Permanent Forces were actually called out and marched under arms to the assistance of the civil power. Let us hope it will be the last.
Hardly were these troubles over when another large body of Australian workers held up one of Australia’s chief industries. The shearers, the clippers of the fleeces, struck work. The shearers are a roving crowd, who move from north to south of Australia’s vast territory and back again. Most of them are well known to the squatters who employ them. The same old story—more wages, better conditions of living. My own opinions as to the rights and wrongs of the shearers’ claims may be of no value, but my sympathies were certainly on their side as regarded, at least, the conditions of living at the sheds.
I had had personal experience of how quickly utter ruin falls upon the squatter. It is a question often of living in affluence one day and having not a penny left within nine months. To record the names of the squatters personally known to myself who had thus suffered would be a sad task. They were many. However, their failure was not brought about by the demands of the shearers. The granting of these demands in prosperous times could not have much hurt the interests of their employers. Providence has a special gift of casting ruin at times broadcast, without, as far as we mortals can tell, any reason or rhyme. A few inches of rain, falling at the right time of the year in any part of Australia, ensures a plentiful supply of green feed and prevents the enormous ravages amongst stock of all kinds which a drought causes.
The squatters fought their battle hard against the shearers in 1891. In Queensland they had a sympathetic Government at the time. The maritime strike had left a nasty taste in the mouths of the producers. The export trade had been held up, and the necessaries of life imported from abroad had been denied to the country districts. It was decided to adopt hard, repressive measures.
The Government summoned to their aid the Mounted Rifles. These were chiefly recruited in the country districts, and most of them were producers themselves, and the strike broke down.
It was just about this time that I accompanied His Excellency Lord Kintore, an old friend and neighbour from Aberdeenshire—then our Governor in South Australia—as far as Brisbane. Lord Kintore had, some time previously, arranged to proceed by sea to Port Darwin and undertake the overland journey from there to Adelaide through the northern territory, which was then under the administration of the South Australian Government. It was a big undertaking, and by no means a pleasure trip. We arrived in Brisbane, but, owing to the breaking down of the ss. Chingtu, we had a delay of some days in that fair capital of what will undoubtedly be in the future one of the richest of the Australian States.
We rather taxed the splendid efforts of our hospitable friends by the length of our stay. But they were not to be beaten. Strike or no strike, they laid themselves out to give us as much joy as it was possible to do in the time. I laid the foundation of many lasting friendships within those few days. Then the Chingtu, with Lord Kintore on board, left for Port Darwin, and I made my way backward to Adelaide.
The Melbourne Cup Meeting of 1891 was a fateful one for me, for I had the happiness of becoming engaged to be married. I had known my future wife for several years. She had been born in Victoria. Her father hailed from County Galway, having emigrated to South Australia with his brother, the late Hon. Nicholas Fitzgerald, than whom no public man in Australia was ever held in higher esteem by all classes. The brothers made Burra Burra, then a prosperous copper field to the north of Adelaide, their first hunting-ground. From there they moved on to Victoria, in the days of the discovery of the goldfields—Ballarat, Castlemaine, Kyneton and Bendigo. At the time I married they had prospered well enough. Later on they lost—for want of food and water—some 400,000 sheep on the various stations they were interested in. My wife and I had hopes of buying old Wardhouse, in Aberdeenshire, from my Spanish nephew. These hopes went by the board. Ours was by no means a singular experience in the history of Australian pioneers in the back country. I know of many friends who—if possible—fared worse.
I was married on February 29, 1892. At the conclusion of our honeymoon, which we spent at Gracedale House, close to the Blackspur range of hills, Victoria, we returned to Adelaide, and once again I became a resident at the Largs Bay Hotel.
When I look back to those happy days I feel thankful that my term of office cost me but small worry. I happened to be successful in maintaining quite cordial relations with the successive occupants of the ministerial chair. I was not hampered by any serious reduction in our financial vote. I was not troubled by any especially adverse criticisms on the conduct of the forces, either in Parliament or in the Press. I was able to carry out reforms which led the way to the adoption of the “Universal Service System” now in vogue in the great Commonwealth of Australia.