Radio national , Margret Riley , Eye witness interviews , from 1891 Shearers Strike , DOCO part one

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1. Date: 2009-07-04 07:04:27
Subject: Radio national , Margret Riley , Eye witness interviews , from 1891 Shearers Strike , DOCO part one
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2. Date: 2009-07-04 07:27:30
Subject: Re: Radio national , Margret Riley , Eye witness interviews , from 1891 Shearers Strike , DOCO part one
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Life & Times on ABC Radio National
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifeandtimes/stories/2009/2
616280.htm
Search Life and Times

4 July 2009 Paradise Lost

Saturday at 4pm repeated Sunday at 6am

Programmed and presented by Sue Clark

|

Over the next three week's we will hear a six part series about the
Australian colonists of William Lane's utopian experiment in Paraguay
and their descendants.

It was recorded and presented by Anne Whitehead for the Social
History Unit in August, 1990. Today, part one and two.

Show Transcript |

Part One: A Rebel Flag

The Queensland Shearers' Strike of 1891 was the crucible for the
Paraguay experiment.

We hear an eye-witness account from Margaret Riley, who grew up in
the town of Barcaldine where one of the largest strike camps was
based. Her teamster father, Dennis Hoare, became involved in the
strike. Margaret Riley was interviewed at the age of 105.

Part Two: New Australia Bound
Margaret Riley remembers how her father made the huge decision to
take his wife and seven children and follow William Lane to an
attempted socialist utopia in Paraguay.

She describes their epic journey by sailing ship, river boat, steam
train and bullock cart to a primitive camp in the South American
jungle.

Further Information

Freedom on the Wallaby - Henry Lawson

Dame Mary Gilmore

William Lane

The Tree of Knowledge
Publications
Title: Paradise Mislaid:In Search of the Australian Tribe of Paraguay
Author: Anne Whitehead
Publisher: University of Queensland Press, 1997
ISBN 0 70 2226 51 3
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifeandtimes/stories/2009/2
616280.htm
.
1891 Australian shearers' strike
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1891_Australian_shearer
s%27_strike

Jump to: navigation, search

The 1891 Shearers' Strike is one of Australia's oldest and most
important industrial disputes. Working conditions for sheep shearers
in 19th century Australia were considered by those in the industry to
be less than optimal. In 1891 wool was one of Australia's largest
industries. But as the wool industry grew, so did the number and
influence of shearers.

By 1890, the Australian Shearers' Union boasted tens of thousands of
members, and had unionised thousands of sheds. At their annual
conference in Bourke in 1890, the Union laid down a new rule, which
prohibited members from working with non-union workers. Soon after,
shearers at Jondaryan Station on the Darling Downs went on strike over
this issue. As non-union labour was still able to process the wool,
the Jondaryan shearers called for help. The Rockhampton wharfies
responded and refused to touch the Jondaryan wool. The unionists won
the battle. This galvanised the squatters, and they formed the
Pastoralists' Federal Council, to counter the strength of the unions.
The battle lines were drawn, conflict was not far away; the only
question was where and when.

Many union shearers were outraged when Logan Downs Station Manager
Charles Fairbain asked the shearers to sign a contract that would
reduce the power of their union. On 5 January 1891 the shearers
announced a strike until the following demands for a contract were
met:

* Continuation of existing rates of pay
* Protection of workers' rights and privileges
* Just and equitable agreements
* Exclusion of low-cost Chinese labour (which manifested itself
later as Labor Party policy - the Immigration Restriction Act, also
known as the White Australia Policy)

The strike started and quickly spread. From February until May,
central Queensland was on the brink of civil war. Striking shearers
formed armed camps outside of towns. Thousands of armed soldiers
protected non-union labour and arrested strike leaders. The unionists
retaliated by raiding shearing sheds, harassing non-union labour and
committing acts of sabotage, although the incidents of actual violence
or arson were few.

One of the first Mayday marches in the world took place during the
strike on 1 May 1891 in Barcaldine. The Sydney Morning Herald reported
that 1340 men took part of whom 618 were mounted on horse. Banners
carried included those of the Australian Labor Federation, the
Shearers' and Carriers' Unions, and one inscribed 'Young Australia'.
The leaders wore blue sashes and the Eureka Flag was carried. The
"Labor Bulletin" reported that cheers were given for "the Union", "the
Eight-hour day", "the Strike Committee" and "the boys in gaol". It
reported the march:
"In the procession every civilised country was represented doing duty
for the Russian, Swede, French, Dane etc, who are germane to him in
other climes, showing that Labor's cause is one the world over,
foreshadowing the time when the swords shall be turned into
ploughshares and Liberty, Peace and Friendship will knit together the
nations of the earth."

But the shearers were unable to hold out. The summer had been
unseasonably wet, and the strike was poorly timed for maximum effect
on the shearing season (winter). By May the union camps were full of
hungry penniless shearers. The strike had been broken. The squatters
had won this time, but it had proved a costly exercise.

Thirteen union leaders were charged with sedition and conspiracy,
taken to Rockhampton for the trial, convicted, and sentenced to three
years in gaol on St Helena Island Prison. The 1891 Shearers Strike is
credited as being one of the factors for the formation of the
Australian Labor Party.

Henry Lawson's well known poem, Freedom on the Wallaby, was written as
a comment on the strike and published by William Lane in the Worker in
Brisbane, 16 May 1891.

Banjo Paterson's song Waltzing Matilda, an unofficial Australian
anthem, was also written about this era of shearers' industrial
disputes in Queensland.

.
New Australia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Australia

Jump to: navigation, search
Map of Paraguay, drawn by John Lane, brother of William Lane. New
Australia and Cosme were both south-east of Asunción, the capital of
Paraguay, and close to the town of Villarica.

New Australia was a utopian socialist settlement in Paraguay founded
by the Australian New Australian Movement. The colony was officially
founded on 28 September 1893 as Colonia Nueva Australia and comprised
238 adults and children.[1]

The New Australia Co-operative Settlement Association, known in short
as the New Australia Movement, was founded by William Lane in 1892.
Lane was a prominent figure in the Australian labour movement, and had
founded Australia's first labour newspaper - the Queensland Worker in
1890. A split in the Australian labour movement between those who went
on to form the Australian Labor Party spurred Lane's intent to found a
socialist utopia outside Australia. Lane's ideal was to build a
society based on a brotherhood:

"Come and work as free men for each other, to labour on the common
land for the common good, and not for the self alone, or for the
selfish greed of another! One man by himself is powerless, but men in
a body are strong!"[2]

Lane's was not the only influence urging Australians at the time
towards a socialist community; utopian Edward Bellamy's Looking
Backward was also popular with socialists and led many urban followers
of Lane to expect that they would live in luxury in a socialist
commune like that of Bellamy's fiction.

Paraguay was chosen as the site of the settlement. Lane recruited many
and the first ship left Sydney in July 1893 for Paraguay, where the
government was keen to get white settlers and had offered the group a
large area of good land. There were some able settlers, but New
Australia has been described as a Cave of Adullam to misfits,
failures, and malcontents of the left wing of Australian democracy.[3]
Notable Australian individuals who joined the colony included Mary
Gilmore, Rose Summerfield, and Gilbert Stephen Casey.

The founding of the settlement was of interest to left wing thinkers
worldwide; of the settlement Peter Kropotkin said,

"The fact that men and women, who have made Australia what it is,
are compelled to migrate from it, speaks volumes in itself. 'Make the
land, be the dung which renders it productive, build the centres of
civilisation which render it valuable - and go away!' That is the true
picture of modern capitalist management. The same here, the same at
the antipodes - always the same!"[4]

New Australia, Paraguay

There was conflict amongst the settlers from the beginning over
prohibition of alcohol, relations with the locals and Lane's
leadership, "I can't help feeling that the movement cannot result in
success if that incompetent man Lane continues to mismanage so utterly
as he has done up to the present," wrote colonist Tom Westwood.[5]
Problems intensified after a second group of colonists arrived in
1894. Dissention caused a rift in the colony and in May 1894, Lane and
58 others left New Australia to found Cosme, a new colony 72
kilometres farther south. Eventually New Australia was dissolved as a
cooperative by the government of Paraguay, and each settler was given
their own piece of land.[3]

Some colonists founded communes elsewhere in Paraguay, others went
home to Australia or on to England; some descendants of the New
Australia colonists still live in Paraguay.[5]