The rioting in the cities of Melbourne and Sydney was promptly abated when the citizen cavalry, 'armed and accoutred proper,' clanked along Collins Street in Melbourne, while Winston Darling led the sons of his old friends and schoolfellows, who drove the high-piled wool waggons in procession down George Street in Sydney to the Darling Harbour Warehouses.
Much was threatened as to the latter demonstration, by blatant demagogues, who described it as 'a challenge; an insult to labour.' It was a challenge, doubtless—a reminder that Old New South Wales, with the founders of the Pastoral Industry—that great export now reaching the value of three hundred millions sterling—was not to be tyrannised over by a misguided mob, swayed by self-seeking, irresponsible agitators.
No doubt can exist in the minds of impartial observers that if the Ministries of the different colonies over which this wave of industrial warfare passed, in the years following 1891, had acted with promptness and decision at the outset, the heavy losses and destructive damage which followed might have been averted.
But the labour vote was strong—was believed, indeed, to be more powerful than it proved to be when tested. And the legislatures elected by universal suffrage were, in consequence, slow to declare war against the enemies of law and order.
They temporised, they hesitated to take strong measures. They tacitly condoned acts of violence and disorder. They permitted 'picketing,' a grossly unfair, even illegal (see Justice Bramwell's ruling) form of intimidation, employed to terrorise the free labourers.
The natural results followed. Woolsheds were burned, notably the Ayrshire Downs; the Cambridge Downs shed, 4th August 1894; Murweh, with 50,000 sheep to be shorn—roll to be called that day. Fences were cut, bridges sawn through, stock were injured, squatters and free labourers were assaulted or grossly reviled.
Everything in the way of ruffianism and disorder short of civil war was practised, apparently from one end of Australia to the other, before the Executive saw fit to intervene to check the excesses of the lawless forces which, well armed and mounted, harassed the once peaceful, pastoral Arcadia.
At length the situation became intolerable; the governing powers, with the choice before them of restraining bands of condottieri or abdicating their functions, woke up.
It was high time. From the 'Never Never' country in remotest Queensland, from the fabled land 'where the pelican builds her nest' to the great Riverina levels of New South Wales, from the highlands of the Upper Murray and the Snowy River to the silver mines of the Barrier, a movement arose, which called itself Industrial Unionism, but which really meant rebellion and anarchy.
It was rebellion against all previously-accepted ideas of government. If carried out, it would have subverted social and financial arrangements. It would have delivered over the accumulated treasure of 'wealth and knowledge and arts,' garnered by the thrift, industry, and intelligence of bygone generations, to one section of the workers of the land—the most numerous certainly, but incontestably the least intelligent—to be wasted in a brief and ignoble scramble.