which would have made it too painful for him to be angry or to prohibit. But before closing the door he noted that Bender was keeping his personal special tram going.
Tomorrow, he said, I intend to ride on Freeman’s Palace special. I have told him as much.
So he made his public stand for the opposition, with the clear hope that she would quit the strikers or else suffer an intensified shame among her own kind of people. So, for principle, he was willing to make the surmised rift in his marriage more public still.
8
At the Sunday meeting of the strike committee, I noticed how pale Hope looked. She was worried, she said, for Amelia, who was resting at home from her warrior deeds of Friday. The question now was whether we should march again, in protest against the necessity for police permits. Kelly proposed that marches be suspended for some days but that one be considered for the following Friday, one week after Baton Friday. The membership could vote to decide what we should do – whether to defy the specials and the police one more time. Kelly declared that the prospect of another such march would bring out the resolve in the membership engaged in the strike.
It will mean bugger all, said Billy Foster of the Tramways Union. He seemed quite dejected.
Kelly said that on Monday he would call on Prime Minister Fisher, the Scottish miner from Queensland, to send his troops to protect us. Some of the Labor Party men argued against it, saying that whichever way Fisher jumped it would be used to embarrass him. But there weren’t as many notables of the Labor Party there that day – with one eye on the ballot box, they had read the Saturday papers and decided that the strike was no longer popular. And they could, after all, plead that it was the Sabbath.
Pongrass of the AWU, a big man, told us, I don’t know how I can keep up my members’ enthusiasm without marches.
We’ll have to march! the cry came back from some at the long table on the stage where we sat.
There was a Wobbly there who said mournfully that sometimes the only action left was direct action.
Suvarov shook his head. We had direct action in Russia, he said, and all it did was give Stolypin and Witte a chance to choke us further and shell the factory suburbs of Moscow. For direct action – in the Wobbly tongue – usually meant explosives.
Hope agreed with Suvarov. Let me tell you all, gentlemen, she said, that Sir Digby Denham and Freeman Bender would be very pleased if one cane truck from the north was dynamited ... that would be a real birthday present to them. A march, on the other hand, by peaceful unionists – they fear that the most.
To sustain us in our discussions, we fetched black tea from a large and battered enamel pot at the end of the room, and then we sat around sipping it and talking particularly on the topic of cash for strikers’ families, and whether or not to march. Others of our membership were blunting their doubts with cut-rate beer at the Trades Hall Hotel. I noticed Paddy Dykes, drawing on his tea at the back of the room and taking many notes, though his method of writing didn’t seem as demented as Olive O’Sullivan’s. I had seen him earlier, talking earnestly and jotting in a little notebook.
G’day, Tom, he called. I’ve telegraphed the editor about you. Would you like to write something on Russia for us?
It was an attractive idea; the Australian Worker was fervently read and passed round on the eastern coast of the southern continent. You could help me with my English if I did so? I asked.
No problem. Not that I’m any great stylist. I came on the pen by accident.
It would be an honour, I told Paddy earnestly.
***
It emerged the next day that Premier Digby Denham had also asked the prime minister for federal troops. It was true that the prime minister was in an impossible position of the political variety. Fisher could last in his post as long as he nodded to the unions while winking at the powers of
Tomorrow, he said, I intend to ride on Freeman’s Palace special. I have told him as much.
So he made his public stand for the opposition, with the clear hope that she would quit the strikers or else suffer an intensified shame among her own kind of people. So, for principle, he was willing to make the surmised rift in his marriage more public still.
8
At the Sunday meeting of the strike committee, I noticed how pale Hope looked. She was worried, she said, for Amelia, who was resting at home from her warrior deeds of Friday. The question now was whether we should march again, in protest against the necessity for police permits. Kelly proposed that marches be suspended for some days but that one be considered for the following Friday, one week after Baton Friday. The membership could vote to decide what we should do – whether to defy the specials and the police one more time. Kelly declared that the prospect of another such march would bring out the resolve in the membership engaged in the strike.
It will mean bugger all, said Billy Foster of the Tramways Union. He seemed quite dejected.
Kelly said that on Monday he would call on Prime Minister Fisher, the Scottish miner from Queensland, to send his troops to protect us. Some of the Labor Party men argued against it, saying that whichever way Fisher jumped it would be used to embarrass him. But there weren’t as many notables of the Labor Party there that day – with one eye on the ballot box, they had read the Saturday papers and decided that the strike was no longer popular. And they could, after all, plead that it was the Sabbath.
Pongrass of the AWU, a big man, told us, I don’t know how I can keep up my members’ enthusiasm without marches.
We’ll have to march! the cry came back from some at the long table on the stage where we sat.
There was a Wobbly there who said mournfully that sometimes the only action left was direct action.
Suvarov shook his head. We had direct action in Russia, he said, and all it did was give Stolypin and Witte a chance to choke us further and shell the factory suburbs of Moscow. For direct action – in the Wobbly tongue – usually meant explosives.
Hope agreed with Suvarov. Let me tell you all, gentlemen, she said, that Sir Digby Denham and Freeman Bender would be very pleased if one cane truck from the north was dynamited ... that would be a real birthday present to them. A march, on the other hand, by peaceful unionists – they fear that the most.
To sustain us in our discussions, we fetched black tea from a large and battered enamel pot at the end of the room, and then we sat around sipping it and talking particularly on the topic of cash for strikers’ families, and whether or not to march. Others of our membership were blunting their doubts with cut-rate beer at the Trades Hall Hotel. I noticed Paddy Dykes, drawing on his tea at the back of the room and taking many notes, though his method of writing didn’t seem as demented as Olive O’Sullivan’s. I had seen him earlier, talking earnestly and jotting in a little notebook.
G’day, Tom, he called. I’ve telegraphed the editor about you. Would you like to write something on Russia for us?
It was an attractive idea; the Australian Worker was fervently read and passed round on the eastern coast of the southern continent. You could help me with my English if I did so? I asked.
No problem. Not that I’m any great stylist. I came on the pen by accident.
It would be an honour, I told Paddy earnestly.
***
It emerged the next day that Premier Digby Denham had also asked the prime minister for federal troops. It was true that the prime minister was in an impossible position of the political variety. Fisher could last in his post as long as he nodded to the unions while winking at the powers of
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