Letters to Editor May 11, 1895.

*THE WORKER*

BRISBANE, MAY 11, 1895.

Mail bag.

WANTED – (to prepare way for Socialism in out Time):

One Adult One Vote.

Land Tax.

Income Tax.

State Bank.

Shops and Factories Act.

Eight hours day where practicable.

Referendum and Initiative.

Taxation of every person according to ability to pay.

The State to find work for unemployed.

The State to fix a minimum wage.

Free railways. Free administration of Justice.

The WORKER does not hold itself responsible for the opinions of its correspondents.

H. C. - Rather lengthy.

W.B.C. - Spread out the hide and cover it with ashes. In twelve hours it will be fit to use or fold up.

MACKAY CORRESPONDENT. - Did not receive yours of April 6. May 2^nd and 4^th arrived safely. Thanks. Perfect secrecy guaranteed.

F.E.P. - Too much space would be taken to state that the police, piloted by Bruce Logan, searched your camp for stolen meat and found none.

“FERDINAND” - There was 4d. to pay on your letter, 2d. Deficient postage and 2d. Fine. Please leave open the ends of the envelope containing press copy, or affix sufficient stamps.

W.T. - There were no names mentioned, and if the letter refers to you we advise you not to further advertise the matter by writing to the press. Write to the committee of your branch.

WILL O' THE WISP, - You should refer that matter to the committee of your branch, who will investigate. The publication of personal letters in the WORKER would lead to untold confusion.

CARRIE H. writes that Mrs. Knight, manager of South Comongin, pounded some poor travellers horses, and Messers Officer and Ridley Williams, manager of North Comongin and Hierbank, subscribed the money to release them.

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ED. WORKER, - The notebook in your last week's issue over the non de plume of “Pelican” is inconsistent with truth and is a most uncalled for reflection on gangers particularly. “Pelican” makes assertions of a general character. I now challenge him to give some facts in proof of what he asserts. If he refuses, then you can only put him down as a skilled manufacturer of Tozers. - GANGER.

Ed. WORKER, - In the extract of Mr. Kewley's letter of the 13^th, regarding cane cutting in this district, the cutters for the Homebush mill earnt last year from £1 to £1.10s. per week and tucker, but the £1.10s. was seldom reached. The farmers around here have a fresh agreement this year – namely, for all crops 14 tons per acre and over, 3s. per ton; 10 to 13 tons, 3s. 3d.; under 10 ton, 3s. 6d. Cutters to find a horse to haul the cane to the main train line. The price paid last year was 3s. all round, the farmer supplying horse. - W.M. GAMBLE, cane cutter, Mackay.

ED. WORKER, - I have just received information that a report has been circulated at Westlands station that Mr. Hawkins, of Goodberry Hills, had written in to me to send him shearers to fill up his board and that I had sent out my personal friends. I beg to contradict this false report. The fact is, I did not know when Mr. Hawkins would shear, as he never wrote or told me; and, as far as I am concerned, I have not sent a single man to Goodberry Hills, this year. This can be proved by Mr. Hawkins, his overseer, and the shearers employed at Goodberry Hills. Who the man is who spread such a rumour I do not know; but I think, in all fairness to myself, the men at Westlands should send his name to my committee so that his statements may be inquired into. - W.M. KEWLEY, Sec. A.W.U.

ED. WORKER, - Sir, seeing in the WORKER of April 20^th that in order that friends of the WORKER may not be victimised, no moneys for the Enlargement Fund are acknowledged through the WORKER unless subscribers make a request to that effect. What would be the good of doing so if requested? Every subscriber gets a ticket for the amount he or she subscribes, and at the end of the year balance sheets must be made out in each branch or office and brought before the members at their annual meetings. It would then be sufficient for the WORKER to publish the amounts received from each branch or office. Tickets should be given for all moneys received. No use saying this cannot be done. If the man in the moon would drop a crown down you could not give or send him a ticket, but you could fill out in his name a ticket for the amount all the same. - MODY O. 49.

ED. WORKER, - A few lines from this part of New South Wales (Little Bendigo) may be of interest to some of our members in Queensland who would like to know how mining matters are at this knew rush. The field has been open two months and only payable gold got in the prospecting claim. The reef is small on to a depth of about 14ft. , carrying good payable stone, estimated to go 10oz. to the ton. She is a splendid show, and every appearance of being permanent; two wages men on. Gold has been got in No. 2 North-west in a leader too small to follow down. Also No. 2 North has struck a carrying gold. All the claims are sinking. Some are down 60ft. and no sign of the reef. No one should here unless well provided. A few wages men are put on with money for prospecting purposes. There ins no water nearer than four miles from the workings. No grass for horses as the rabbits have eaten every blade; the country is actually swarming with the pest. I am glad to see that steps are being taken to enlarge the WORKER. I will do my best to collect funds when shearing commences. - J. E. O'FARRELL, Hon. Sec. A.W.U., Queensland.

Later, - Since the above was written No. 2 S.W. of P.C. Struck a new reef carrying splendid gold; depth of find, 45ft. - J. E. O'F.

ED. WORKER, - I am sorry to have to trouble you on a personal matter, but my confidence having been abused by a pressman I have no other choice. Some time ago I wrote a note to the WORKER, as also to “Bobby Byrnes,” re a certain book. To the latter my note was simply civil, as I desired a civil answer; but I never promised him any sketch or history of myself. My life, past and present, is open to the criticism of anyone. I have lived in a glass house as it were, and I intend to do so. But I submit it was bad taste on his part, if even justifiable, to blazon my name abroad in connection with an alias (the right to which I have neither denied or asserted) without previously consulting me. He says he knew me in Burketown in the good old days and that I was a cattle-duffer on the Flinders. Bless the man, I never owned a bullock in my life, not even a worker, either on the square or cross. And although there are some here who remember him when he kept the shanty at the Leaning Tree, I am not one of them, as I never was in Burketown before last year. For an old pressman, which he boasts to be, he shows ignorance of facts-that is very glaring. To those of my relations whose high respectability has been scared by the 'Tozers' of B. Byrnes, and who have written to me on the subject I say, “Let every tub stand on its own bottom.” My principal object in writing these lines is to let my fellow-working and quondam fellow unionists know that I never could be so intensely stupid as to have had anything but a strained connection with such a flimsy rag as the PRO-FAT FIGARO. - JIM M'PHERSON Burketown.