1893 GENERAL ELECTION

*THE WORKER*

Brisbane, May 6, 1893

The Beginning but not the End.

Baptism of Fire.

Labour in politics in Queensland, the hotbed of corruption and slavery, is for the first time in the midst of a general election. Sorties were made by the Labour Party towards the close of the last parliament, and it received its baptism of fire at three by-elections – in the Barcoo, at Bulimba and at Bundaberg – and in two out of the three skirmishes against the enemies of order, progress and justice Labour came out on top.

FIVE SHORT YEARS AGO.

In 1888, when Griffith and M'Ilwraith wrestled with each other for the flesh-pots of money and power, and made sacred pledges which they broke with the shamelessness of men lost to all sense of political decency, Labour-in-Politics hadn't cut its umbilical cord. When these political mountebanks tumbled over each other for the prizes of office and the opportunity to advantage themselves and the concerns in which they are interested, at the public expense, the Labour Party in the Southern Hemisphere existed solely in the form of trade and labour organisations, with no definite end in view and only a nebulous notion of getting there. When the Liberal and National claptrap of five years ago was flaunted in our faces the Labour Party as an organised Political factor didn't exist; and the workers – unionists and others – ranged themselves under the banner of the boodlers and flew at each other's throats to – secure victory for the enemies of the people. For the men who took oaths that slavery would not be re-introduced; that retrenchment would be made; that Land Grab railways wouldn't be sprung on the confiding people; that Naval Tribute wouldn't be levied, and that our electoral rights would be maintained. Thus the people fought against themselves by taking sides between Tweedledum and Tweedledee – like soldiers who shoot each other to the order of kings who look on while the battle is raging, and grab the spoil at the end of the fight.

THE LIGHT THAT DIDN'T FAIL.

But the day of enlightenment came. The lessons of the maritime and bush workers' strikes and the formation of a Coalition Government put an end to all that. Then arose the sun of New Unionism, with its brilliant rays lighting up the pathway to the Rights of Labour and a higher social state for everyone in the community by means of the ballot box. That conjunction of events brought everything sought by the white workers of Queensland within the range of practical politics; and although there then also arose the forces of capitalism even unto the gatling guns of the Government, it transformed in three short years an aimless body of workers into an army of fiery political warriors, capable of marching to victory with no more explosive missile than a vote.

TRAMPLED ALL RIGHTS UNDER FOOT.

Seeing the inevitability of this march along the line to freedom the Griffilwraith Government sought to block it by trampling all rights under foot. Wage workers were disfranchised wholesale. Plural voting was hedged about with diabolical ingenuity. Standing orders were passed to stifle outside criticism and the closure was introduced to gag honest members within the walls of Parliament. No wonder then with such machinery that loans were floated and paid for at usurious interest to be lodged in a bank in which members of the Government are or have been directors. That a Meat Works loan was effected on security that wouldn't have satisfied on lunatic. That 1000 miles of rabbit-proof fencing was ordered at the people's expense to be used by the class to which M'Ilwraith belongs. That money would be voted to Naval Tribute and denied to corporations for replacing bridges, repairing roads or carrying out necessary public works. That kanaka labour should be reintroduced and inspectors appointed and paid for out of the public purse.

That a meat expert would be appointed at 1000 pounds a year and an agent

for the syndicates sent to England at 1400 pounds a year to do the business of M'Ilwraith and his salary drawn from public funds. All this, too, and more than can be enumerated, while its citizens are unemployed, in receipt of pauper relief and a national beggary fund is opened to save (save the mark!) the sufferers by the floods.

MISGOVERNMENT FINED THE FIRST BATCH.

Seeing that an end was about to be put to this rascality and order evolved out of chaos, the man who is justly “scouted as a liar” fixed the first batch of elections to further his own ends. The stupendous legal land steal had to be perpetrated at all hazards. Consequently all the constituencies that were fixed to be polled on Saturday, April 29, it marked as certain prey for the syndicate cormorants Seeking by that poor trick – the last resort of utterly discredited ministers – to away electors in constituencies in succeeding batches and delude them into the belief that the voice of the people was expressed by plural voting and the operation of the Prevention of Working Men from Voting Act.