The Trade Unionist called for opportunity for all, but denied it to those workers who could not afford to pay the entrance fee to the union.
Whilst the Trade Unionist, on the one hand, was getting highest wages from private enterprise, on the other hand, he demanded from the State cheap house rentals—as at Daceyville and other State-controlled suburbs.
The Australian worker, therefore, practically lived upon Government charity, until the Government was beggared and the capitalist "Syndicate" providentially stepped in and saved the country.
It was well for Australia that the capitalists considered the individual, and that it was just as good business to have efficient machinists as well as efficient machines.
It was well for Australia that the capitalists knew the value of human flesh and nurtured it. And Australia understood. In the stress of the German War it had sobered up. It had dropped the Utopian dreams of the impracticable and used its head. It saw an analogy in the system of the "Syndicate," "Organisation and Co-operation," to a similar system that had led them to victory on the battlefields of Europe.
The perfect organisation that military training gave, and the intense co-operation the call of the blood demanded, instilled these two great principles into Australian character.
The great German War was worth while to Australia.
It is evening as I write these concluding phrases. I look across Sydney Harbor from my Cremorne home, and I see the city skyline edged with a glistening fringe.
Beyond the distant hills of purple blue the sun is sinking in a saffron sky.
Into the evening air the homeward 'planes are rising from the city park.