Category Archives: The role of the Press

209. The White Australia Policy: always in the background

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Before returning to Rev G Cox and his quest to uncover and present the history of Gippsland, immediately prior to, and in the first few years of, WW1, it is important to consider the reach and strength of the White Australia Policy. At that time, belief in and commitment to this national policy were essential, taken-for-granted realities.

Much has been made of Cox’s commitment to Empire and his determination that Australia had to fight for and with Britain to defend the Empire. Defence of the Empire was the defence of Australia. But within this simple formula, defence of Australia more specifically meant defence of White Australia.

At the time, White Australia was very much a work-in-progress. Much had been achieved and more was promised; but there was always the existential threat that the protective shield of the Empire – or, more specifically, the Royal Navy – could disappear and, left to itself, Australia and its dream of White Australia would fail.

By the outbreak of WW1, it was possible to see signifcant elements of the White Australia Policy in place. To begin, the dispossession and subjugation of the Indigenous population – most commonly simply referred to as the ‘blacks’ – had been achieved. Australia had been made white by eliminating the original inhabitants. As we will see later with Cox, this was a particularly violent process on the frontier in Gippsland. However, at the time, no one was keen to dwell on the violence. It was more a case of simply accepting the end result as an inevitable and desirable outcome. A ‘natural’ process had taken place. What had happened in Australia was not unique, merely another expression of Imperial policy, the economics of colonisation, European theories on race, superior technology and any number of beliefs – many of them religious – to do with manifest destiny and the ‘white man’s burden’. What was unique about Australia was that by the start of the 20C the subjugation, marginalisation and effective removal of the Indigenous population had been so complete and so effective that (white) Australians conceived of their land as one that had been, effectively, unoccupied. In comparison to other nations, Australia was a ‘new’ nation – still in its infancy –  with the promise of true greatness ahead of it.

By the time of federation, the focus of the White Australia Policy had settled on the issue of immigration. The universal political drive was to keep Australia white, even at a time when Imperial support for such a singular focus on race was becoming increasingly problematic, particularly given the rise of Japan. The theories that underpinned the highly selective immigration policy – the natural intellectual and moral superiority of the white (British) race, the inherent advantages of a homogeneous or mono-cultural society, the grave dangers of miscegenation, the industrial threat of cheap, non-white labour … – were reflected across all aspects of society, and Australia entered WW1 fully committed to its White Australia Policy. Moreover, it emerged from the War still committed to the policy. PM Hughes was feted for saving the White Australia Policy.

The critical point is that at the start of WW1, and the time that Cox was writing his history of Gippsland, the ideal of White Australia was uncontested. It was a reality that had been created by the settlers and pioneers and it now needed to be protected and enhanced, principally via a highly selective immigration policy . The dream that Australia could come to represent the ultimate flowering of the British race – in the style of C E W Bean’s writing on national character – was tangible. As a consequence, the defining attitudes to race that were integral to the White Australia Policy were commonplace and accepted as everyday realities. They were as common as people’s identification with, commitment to and belief in the Empire.

The following is a simple exercise intended to highlight such attitudes and world views. It takes short pieces from the local paper – Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative – over the period of WW1 and uses them to reveal just how common the attitudes to race that underpinned the White Australia Policy were. The reporting at the time gave no sense that the attitudes revealed were remarkable, controversial or in any way contested or disputed.

The first is a short article that appeared in mid 1914 (29/5/14). It featured a brief note on the number of “black fellows’ tomahawks” (stone axes) that people had been finding on burned-out ridges in the district (Bulga). The writer noted that the number of such artefacts found were so numerous that virtually every local household had them. They then raised the question of why that particular area had had so many ‘blacks’ and even suggested that the local historical society – this was, of course, the newly established group that Cox had set up – could investigate:

Possibly the local branch of the Historical Society could throw some light on the matter. Information regarding a tribe that has so completely passed away, and left such a number of relics behind, would prove highly interesting.

The Indigenous population – the ‘tribe’ – had ‘completely passed away’. That part of the district’s history had vanished, to the extent that it was just a passing curiosity.

There was another apparently unremarkable reference to former ‘blacks’ in the district in April 1917 (25/4/17). It was as short account about a very tall – 100 ft – tree which had recently been felled on Turton’s Track. People had noted that about 30 ft from its base, ’tomahawk incisions used for climbing’ had been cut in the tree. The question was who had made them: the ‘blacks’ or ‘white settlers’. The writer concluded that the marks were most likely the work of early settlers because they were said to be 20-30 years old whereas the ‘blacks’ had been gone some ‘fifty years’. By this reasoning the Indigenous population had ‘disappeared’ by the end of the 1860s. Again, there is this sense that even though the historical period is relatively short – some ‘fifty years’ – an entire population has simply ‘disappeared’ and virtually nothing is known about them.

Often, an ‘in memoriam’ for an old pioneer would touch on the issue of ‘disappearance’. For example, there was one on 16/6/15 for Mrs Peter Hunter who had died at 95 yo. She had been born in Scotland and arrived in Port Albert in 1858. The detail makes it perfectly clear that the settlers took over ‘occupied’ land. The Indigenous population was dispossessed. The ’success’ of ‘settlement’ saw the ‘blacks’ disappear.

They (the Hunter family) acquired property on the Sale road, where they lived to the end of their days. When first settling on their homestead they lived in a tent, and it was no unusual occurrence to have a visit from the notorious aboriginal King Morgan and members of his tribe. These blacks would come in and make themselves quite at home. The swamp on the property was the common camping ground of the blacks. These hardy pioneers successfully passed through the difficulties of early settlement, and lived to see more peaceful times.

There was another tribute to an old pioneer in the paper on 27/2/18. The deceased was Charles Thomas Lucas who died at Stradbroke in February 1918. The family had had strong connections with Yarram. The headline for the tribute described Lucas as ‘The Oldest Australian Native’ :

He was, at the time of his death, the oldest Australian native, having been born at Launceston, Tasmania, in 1822, and died in his 96th year.

The use of the term ‘native’ was employed to describe a long-standing association with the ‘new’ land of Australia and with the first colonists or early arrivals. At the time, the term was increasingly being employed to denote a sense of ‘national authenticity’, as in the Australian Natives’ Association (1871) whose membership was originally restricted to white men born in Australia. In a real sense, it was a term being re-interpreted.

Charles Lucas was described as the grandson of a public figure who came in the First Fleet. His father – one of 15 children – had moved to Tasmania where Charles was born in 1822. The family moved back to NSW in 1834 and subsequently moved into Gippsland from Omeo as ‘overlanders’. They eventually settled on 300 acres on opposite sides of Tarra Creek at Yarram. Charles Lucas married in 1856 and by that stage he was living at Bruthen. He subsequently moved to Stadbroke.

The article suggests Lucas was important because of his family’s rich history as original pioneers in so many locations and, obviously, because of the distinction of being, supposedly, the longest surviving link right back to the First Fleet.

Interestingly, in the detailed account of the family’s pioneering history, there is a reference to the dangerous sea voyage from Tasmania to Sydney in 1834. The boat had to be abandoned at Twofold Bay and the survivors had to … travel over 300 miles of wild country, infested with blacks to reach Sydney. Further, they nearly perished at the hands of the same ‘blacks’ who captured them and had … agreed upon a feast, and decided the whites should be killed at break of day. They were saved thanks to the intervention by one the ‘blacks’ … who had had dealings with early colonists, and had picked up a little broken English. The brief commentary serves as a reminder of the dangers faced by early settlers at the hands of the ‘blacks’. Before they ‘disappeared’ the ‘blacks’ had ‘infested’ the bush and posed great risk.

There were other pieces that focused on the ‘natural’ inferiority of the ‘black race’. For example, on 29/5/14 there was a piece which appears to have been taken from one of the metropolitan dailies under the headline, Life in Rhodesia. Victorian Woman’s Views. Black Servants. It detailed the opinions of a certain Mrs W E Dick who had .. . spent years in Southern Rhodesia before coming to live in Melbourne. In the piece the interviewer asks, Do you think the Kaffir makes a good servant?

Her reply was characterised by attitudes that were clearly unremarkable for the time:

Certainly; that is if you train him yourself. The first boy I had was an awful stupid, and could not do anything correctly. One morning, instead of filling the water jug with fresh water, as I told him, he pored the water into the milk jug and spoilt the day’s supply. Soon afterwards another boy presented himself, looking for work, so I engaged him, and dismissed the other one.

Similar attitudes appeared in soldier’s letters during the War. The long voyage to Great Britain served to confirm the sense of racial superiority. One such letter was from Gunner Percy Rendell. It appeared in the paper on 28/2/17. Of the transport’s stay in Durban, he wrote of some entertainment the troops had at the expense of the ’natives’:

The natives were very funny and we used to throw pennies to them and they would fight like bulldogs for them.

His impressions of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, were not favourable. It was certainly not a place for white people:

The streets are not formed, and the natives squat down in the street and sell their wares, fruit, etc., while the picaninnies crowd round a fellow and ask for pennies. The population is practically all natives, and you could count the white population on the fingers of one hand. The climate is very unhealthy, which is the reason so few white people live here. After a long and tiring time of 15 days in this undesirable place the troopship got orders to put to sea…

There was also the issue of non-white labour in Australia itself and the role of the trade union movement in protecting the interests of white workers. The issues could be complex and loyalties divided. For example, in the edition of 5/2/15, there was commentary on labour disputes on the wharves in Fremantle. The issue was that some of the workers in the union there were ‘full-blooded negroes’ and, as unionists they were being given preference over white non unionists. Obviously, the implication of this arrangement was that it undermined the White Australia policy. The piece noted:

Now, it would seem that the negro can be and is in the union; and that if a married white man does not belong to a union the ‘nigger’, who does, ought to have preference.

There were also views on Australian ‘blacks’ as workers. The edition of 7/8/14 featured a description of tin mining at Bamboo Creek, 40 miles north of Marble Bar in WA. The article claimed that the ‘gins’ were employed to clean the ore while the ‘bucks’ were working on the local stations as ‘outriders, shepherds, bullock-drivers etc.’ It also noted that they … take to it fairly well, being in physique a better class than most aboriginals. There was further patronising commentary:

When left to themselves the bucks make the gins do all the work outside of hunting and fighting. They imitate the whites in dress and sport, and in many cases have acquired the art of dressing neatly.

It is also worth pointing to the number of times a direct relationship was drawn between the White Australia Policy and the protection and support of the Empire. In a piece (26/5/15) on the local celebration of Empire Day, the Rev Walklate, another key Imperial Loyalist in the local community, made the direct link between the White Australia Policy and the strategic importance of Great Britain:

People sometimes ask the question, what is the use of Empire Day? I want you to think what would Australia have been today without the help of Great Britain. Without British prestige behind us our White Australian (sic) Policy would have been impossible.

Walklate even alluded to Australia’s great fortune in this endeavour, as other jurisdictions that had attempted the same policy had failed because of the intricacies of international relationships. He cited the case of California as one example:

California could not carry out a White California policy; there would have been war with Japan.

Similar claims had been made by Senator McColl at Yarram at very start of war. The local paper (7/8/14) quoted him telling a local audience, at the same time as he announced Australia was to send an expeditionary force of 20,000 men, that Australia’s White Australia Policy was under threat:

The nations of the earth would object to our holding Australia unless we could fill it, and the Government proposed to meet this problem by bringing suitable white people here who could assist in developing the country, opening it up and defending it. The only thing that kept this country for us was the British fleet and if anything happened to it, then good-bye to a White Australia.

The preoccupation with the need to increase the population to protect the White Australia Policy was a constant. For example, this piece was from just a week earlier (31/7/14). It was on the celebration of Australia reaching a population of five million:

We reached our first million in 1858, soon after the discovery of gold showed itself an influential factor in bringing about the rapid settlement of the country. The second million arrived in 1877, the third in 1889, and the fourth in 1905. Droughts delayed the fourth; there is always a close relationship between plentitude of food and plentitude of life: prosperity means more Australian babies, more adult Australians for the future. A period of unexampled prosperity has hastened the five millionth, and he should be here in the record time of nine years from the fourth.

The five millionth baby was expected later in 1914. The need for population increase both to hold Australia and to keep it white was emphasised through the War and used as a means of recruiting. But, equally, there was a counter argument pushed by anti-conscriptionists: white Australians were being killed at an unsustainable rate and this shocking loss of life represented some sort of race catastrophe that threatened the very basis of White Australia.

As an example of the appeal – from all sides – to protect the White Australia Policy consider comments written in the paper at the time of the unveiling of the honor roll at Devon North State School (25/5/17). The claim was that people were prepared to talk ‘White Australia’ but they were not prepared to defend it. Presumably, the ‘coloured nations’ is a reference to, primarily, the Indian troops fighting as part of the British Army:

There were fit men at home talking White Australia, yet they would not fight for it: they let the blacks fight for them. The time would come when the coloured races – those who had fought for our nation – would become the inhabitants of our fair land.

There were related claims about one month later (27/6/17). This time a letter from the Creswick Advertiser – was reproduced. It was from an Australian soldier who attacked those back in Australia using the White Australia Policy to justify the No vote in the 1917 conscription referendum. The use of abusive racial stereotypes to drive home the message is taken as a given:

… we are being butchered by the people for whom we are fighting. I saw a vote ’No’ card over here, and it was ‘Keep Australia White’. Oh, my God, they ought to; if Australia was filled with men like the Ghurkas it would be a lot better off than it is at present – overrun, as it is, with such a lot of ‘Dirty Skulking Curs’. … The lowest breed of nigger is better than the majority of Australia’s present population. They don’t mind staying at home and letting us fight for them, yet the won’t come and give us a hand. What would happen if we gave up fighting?

The last example is taken from an editorial in August 1919 (27/8/19) at the time PM Hughes had returned to Australia. The editorial gave a brief account of the tumultuous welcome Hughes was given in Perth. It was taken from a longer piece in The Age (25/8/19).

When he returned to Perth, Hughes was feted. Two hundred soldiers literally pulled his car through the streets of Perth. He was the returned troops’ hero and protector. In the speech reported in The Age , Hughes acknowledged that the returning soldiers would take a while to settle back into civilian life and would almost certainly create trouble. But he declared that he was inclined to look at such transgressions with a ‘very lenient eye’. The War was over but Hughes was still attacking those who had not volunteered. He declared that it was really only the returning men who truly knew what war was like and they were the only ones who had saved the nation and kept it white.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Hughes) was enthusiastically welcomed to Perth last Saturday. Soldiers dragged the car in which Mr. and Mrs. Hughes were seated through the streets. In the course of his speech he said, vide “Age”: – The great bulk of the people of Australia know nothing of war, and very many of the people of Australia have done nothing towards bringing the victory about. (Cheers.) But for the men who went out from this country to fight, Australia would have been in chains. (Cheers.) Australia is free to-day, and is white to-day. (Renewed cheers.) It owes nothing to to those who being able to fight remained behind, but it owes everything it has to those who being able to fight went out and fought. (Cheers.)

All the above are only the briefest, local examples of the extent to which all the elements of the White Australia Policy, and all the associated attitudes, were integral to any sense of national identity, national debate and national interest at the time. By the conventional standards of our time, 100 years later, the policies and perspectives appear crude, dangerous and, of course, inherently racist. However, that was the history; and any understanding of Australia’s involvement in WW1 that does not acknowledge the influence of the White Australia Policy is manifestly deficient. Equally, for present purposes, the White Australia Policy was a significant lens through which Cox, writing at the time of the War, researched and wrote his version of the history of Gippsland.

References

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative

For Bean’s writing on national charcater, see:

First World War Official Histories
Volume 1 The Story of ANZAC from the outbreak of war to the end of the first phase of the Gallipoli Campaign, May 4, 1915 (11th edition, 1941)
Chapter 1 Australia’s position At The Outbreak

191. Armistice celebrations in the Shire of Alberton

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The Armistice was signed at 5.00am on Monday 11/11/18 (Paris time) with all hostilities to cease six hours later (11.00am). Word reached Australia Monday night and the next morning Tuesday 12/11/18 Australians woke to newspaper headlines that declared, for example, Germany Accepts Defeat. Armistice Signed on Monday. Completer Surrender (The Argus Tuesday 12/11/18) and The War Ends. Germany Surrenders. Armistice Terms Signed. (The Age, Tuesday 12/11/18)

In line with its normal publication schedule, the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative did not appear until Wednesday 13/11/18. The headline (below) which appeared in the edition noted that the local paper had posted the information of the War’s end, at its office in Yarram, as soon as it came though on the Monday night. Amazingly, the same edition also pointed out that, in fact, the Armistice was celebrated locally – and also very prematurely – from around midday on Friday November 8.

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative, 13/11/1918. Courtesy NLA

Friday November 8

According to the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative, word reached the town late morning on Friday 8 November that the Armistice had been signed. In an article with the headlines, Victory Celebrated. Premature Owing to Unfounded Rumour. Thorough Enjoyment Nevertheless. … the paper traced the source of the rumour first to the Alberton Railway Station and then to telegrams, including one from the (Melbourne) Stock Exchange. The signing of the Armistice was expected imminently and the anxious anticipation in the community meant that these reports were taken as fact. As the paper tellingly put it,

… by 11 o’clock townspeople could not further restrain themselves. Flags were flown from every vantage point, stores were raided for the Allied colors, and none could settle down to work. Gaily bedecked motor cars were in evidence, and in their exuberance of spirit, owners clothed their canines in the colors. One dog hoisted a miniature Union Jack whenever he raised his tail. The school children were let loose, and headed by a few “instrumentalists,” who tin-whistled no particular tune, formed a procession through the town. They sang songs, and spectators cheered. The whole was a pleasing spectacle quite spontaneous, and worthy of the town.

However, an urgent telegram from the editor (A J Rossiter) to Reuters to confirm that the Armistice had been signed brought the response that this was not the case. At the same time, there was also a report from the State Department in Washington that the Armistice had not yet been signed. At this point, as the paper put it, ‘enthusiasm subsided a little’. But there was still considerable excitement and confusion. Rossiter blamed The Age for misleading headlines that day and noted that people became convinced that the Commonwealth Censor was trying to withhold the news. To add to the tension The Age itself, on the same day – Friday 8 November – reported on a rumour – ‘peace had been declared’ – that had spread wildly at Flemington Racecourse the day before, Thursday 7 November. On the Friday, there were more rumours about all leave from Broadmeadows being cancelled. Also on the Friday, word reached Yarram that the hotels in Melbourne had been closed, adding strength to the rumour of the War’s end. The hotels in Yarram remained open on the Friday and, according to the paper, there were no incidents as patrons celebrated in the ‘old way’. Word was also coming through by now that that on both the Continent and in America the victory was being celebrated.

Against this background the President of the Shire – Cr Barlow – decreed that local celebrations were to go ahead that night (Friday 8 November), including a bonfire on the show ground. The President’s decision, according to the paper, ‘led to criticism in some places’ but the paper also made it clear that the decision was widely supported. The paper also supported the decision, even if, strictly speaking, the Armistice itself had not been signed.

… but the children and young folks having made up their minds for the fun, the president was right in his ruling, while the spirit was in the air. There was sufficient cause for rejoicing, even though the armistice was not signed. The British Fleet had sailed through the Dardanelles and taken Constantinople, Turkey’s armies had surrendered unconditionally, and Austria, too, had surrendered. Surely this was sufficient for all round rejoicing, without the final scratch of the pen to complete absolute victory. Victory was near enough, at all events, for heartfelt rejoicing, and the people could restrain themselves no longer.

So that Friday night – November 8 – the town celebrated, three days before the actual Armistice. As the paper described,

The town at night was thronged, and wore an unusually gay appearance. Shortly after 8 o’clock a monster procession, headed by the Town Band and the Fire Brigade, moved from James-st., along Commercial-st., to the show ground. While the people were assembling the bonfire was lit, when could be seen the large attendance, numbering with the children upwards of 2,000.
Unfortunately, there was a shortage of fireworks on the night. Once the crowd settled in the grand stand, proceedings began. The ‘Doxology’ was the first item sung, followed by ‘Rule Britannia’, the ‘National Anthem’ and then ‘God Save Our Splendid Men’.

Cr Barlow and Revs Williams and Walklate then addressed the crowd. They commented on the Allied victory, and asked the people to thank God for deliverance from the hand of the Hun.
The speakers were duly cheered.

However at some point that night it must have seemed strange to those there that they were celebrating victory before the Armistice itself had been signed. The newspaper report noted that Cr Barlow told everyone there that once the Armistice had been definitely signed the Government would ensure that the news was wired to every shire in the nation. The realisation that they had been too fast of the mark must have eventually sunk in. This probably explains why the actual speeches that night were limited; and, essentially, there was not much more to do after the short speech by the two reverend gentlemen. As the paper put it,

For an hour afterwards the crowd lingered on the showground, entertained by the band, which gave a programme of well-played music.

Monday (night) November 11

Saturday and Sunday must have been quiet days as neither was mentioned in the paper’s report. But then on Monday night, when planning was underway in the shire hall for another (proper) celebration once the Armistice had been signed, word finally did come through that … an armistice had been signed, and the war had terminated at 6 o’clock that morning.

Finally, it was all for real, and it is clear from the report that there was an incredible release of emotions. There was also a dramatic sense of witnessing a unique historical event. The newspaper’s report captures the wild scenes as they unfolded in a country town. There is the overpowering sense of victory, and the attendant triumph of righteousness. Importantly, the Armistice was never seen in the strict sense of an armistice – The Age on 12/11/18 provided the precise military definition –  but as a certain Allied victory.

The welcome news was conveyed by the “Standard” representative to the meeting [then planning the real celebration for the Armistice], and the meeting appropriately sang the National Anthem and God Save Our Splendid Men. … A big crowd assembled outside the “Standard” office, where the news was posted, and song and cheers broke the stillness of the night. Minor bells tinkled, and the heavy toll of the fire bell, and the boom of Dr Rutter’s cannon announced to people several miles out that the big historic event had been achieved – the Hun was defeated. The town at once gave itself up to rejoicing. Fireworks, too, flashed the glad news, and never has such an enthusiastic scene been witnessed in Yarram. Mrs. Dwyer thoughtfully ran her piano on to the footpath, and for an hour or more a street concert was held. Never have patriotic songs been more lustily sung, and never have the words of “Rule Britannia” and the “Marseillaise ” had such significance. Britain had “ruled the waves” and with the gallant French the two nations had “fought on to victory” with the other brave Allies. Excitement was intense. The severe tensions of the past few agonising years had been relieved, and a thankful spirit prevailed. It was an historic and memorable event, such as will never again be witnessed by the present generation. The world war was over, and the blessings of a righteous peace at last vouchsafed. The doors of Thompson’s hall were thrown open by Mr. Toft, who invited all to participate in enjoyment, and for several hours, till the wee sma’ oors, (sic) young folks enjoyed a dance and general hilarity. It was a night that will never be forgotten.

Tuesday November 12

The next day, Tuesday 12 November, was declared a public holiday across Australia. The Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative reported that in Yarram a combined thanksgiving service was held in Thompson’s hall. The presiding ministers were Rev Opper (Church of England) and Rev Walklate (Methodist), with the Rev. Mr Williams (Presbyterian) as an apology. The paper described the service as ‘largely attended.’

The service opened with the National Anthem and ‘Our Splendid Men’. Other hymns included, ‘O God Our Help’, ‘God Moves in a Mysterious Way’, ‘Lest We Forget’, and ‘Jesu, Lover of My Soul’.
As per usual, the service was Protestant. According to the clergymen it might have taken God four long years but He had finally awarded the Allies the victory for which they had struggled. They been victorious because they had been fighting for principles. Their battle had been of a higher order.

All through the war the Allies had shown their inflexible determination to gain the victory, and nothing could lure them from the aim which they achieved. They set out to gain right over might, spiritual over material. They have been fighting for principles enshrined in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the patriotic church of Christendom has spoken with no uncertain voice. Our duty therefore is to return thanks to God, it would be base ingratitude if we refused or neglected to give thanks to the Great Ruler who has given us the great victory.

It is an open question as to how many at the service that day truly believed the God had finally intervened on their behalf and delivered them the victory. However, it was a religio-political line that had been preached consistently for the preceding 4 years and it would have seemed perfectly apt, even credible. Also, there was certainly no doubt that the ‘patriotic church of Christendom’ – as opposed, presumably, to the more politically and religiously ambivalent, if not outright suspect, church of Rome – had been beating a very loud drum for the four years of the War and it now intended to proclaim its (proprietary) victory.

That night (Tuesday), there was another celebration at the show ground. This was a decidedly more lively affair than the thanksgiving service. It was also a more genuine spectacle than the premature affair that had been staged on the Friday night. The celebration started about 8.00 o’clock with a procession of school children. Dr Rutter’s (home-made) cannon was pressed in to service again. The Royal Salute was played on a bugle and the usual ‘God Save the King’ and ‘Rule Britannia’ were sung by everyone there. A score of patriotic songs followed. A paragraph from the paper captures the mood,

Two bonfires were ablaze, in which were burnt the effigies of the Kaiser, Crown Prince and von Tirpiz. Indeed, they were blown up. The grand stand was electrically lighted, and fireworks shot skywards at frequent intervals. The Town Band played selections on the grand stand. All round an hilarious time was spent.

There were of course significant limits to communication at the time, and limits even to the range of Dr Rutter’s cannon. Consequently, news of the Armistice did not reach some townships until early the next day. The following report from the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative of Wednesday 13 November describes how the news reached Toora, about 40 kilometres from Yarram.

The news that Germany had submitted to the Allies’ terms of peace, which was officially wired by the Lord Mayor to Major H. A. Jacobs, Toora, first thing on Tuesday morning [12/11/18], spread like wildfire and the streets were quickly thronged with cheering crowds. Church, school and other bells were started ringing, that at the Church of England being manned by a group of school boys who rhymed their peals to a tune of Peace, Peace, Peace, while buildings became immediately ablaze with flags and banners of all nationalities bar enemy. The school children, to whom a holiday had been granted, were soon abroad, hurrahing and hurrahing louder and more vigorously than all. Heavy rain falling at the time quite failed to damp the ardour of the people’s receipt of the glad tidings that peace had been declared for the time being, Germany having signed the Allies’ terms for an armistice, and that hostilities were to cease at dawn of the previous morn (sic). The joy was touchingly near, real and sincere.

The Armistice was also celebrated in the local (primary) schools. The Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative (22/11/18) featured a detailed report on celebrations at the Devon North State School held on the Wednesday 20/11/18.

It would have been perfectly natural that celebrations took place in the local (state) primary school. As we have seen repeatedly, the local state school was a critical focus for the War effort, not just in terms of fund raising and other drives to provide comfort and support for the troops but also in the way the narrative of the War was employed – by teachers, inspectors, town elders, local Protestant clergy, the school governing body, the local press – to reinforce amongst the children the sense of loyalty to the Empire and the Nation. The values laboured were those of duty, loyalty, honour and sacrifice. The report in the local paper described how the speakers there that day emphasised that final victory had come from unwavering commitment to such basic values.

It was community celebration:

On Wednesday afternoon the parents and children of Devon North met at the school to express their delight at the successful termination of the European war. The large attendance evidenced the thoroughly loyal spirit, mingled with the deep feelings of relief.

After the National Anthem was sung, the importance of the occasion was explained to the children. They were then warmly praised for their … sustained efforts in support of all war movements. They were also urged to take pride in the school’s long honor roll which featured the names of approximately 60 former students.

That afternoon, the comments made in relation to sacrifice, patriotic loyalty and Imperial duty were virtually identical to those made when the first volunteers left the train station at Alberton in September 1914.

The honor roll, with some 60 names, testified to the loyalty of the residents, and the children were requested to reverence it and cherish the memory of those whose names appeared on it. Should the Empire at any future time demand assistance he [The president of the Shire, Cr. Barlow] was certain that the call would be just as readily responded to. His earnest request was that the children should strive to be worthy of their glorious heritage, and that they should do their utmost to maintain the Empire in the proud position it occupied today.

Cr. Barlow also laboured the theme of national – and imperial – greatness being based on ideals, values and principles. The enemy, on the other hand, was claimed to have pursued only material and worldly things.

In closing, the Shire President could not resist an appeal to the higher authority.

… so long as it [the British Empire] adhered to its present principles, its position was assured. Nations that had based their greatness merely on worldly matters had to-day even their names blotted out; therefore, they [the students] were requested to entrust themselves at all times to the Supreme Ruler.

Presumably, the Supreme Ruler was a reference to God the Almighty rather than George V., even if, as head of the Church of England, King George was the ‘Supreme Anglican’.

The ceremony finished with a mix of formality, conviviality, fun and, of course, the mandatory session of sports.

After the saluting of “The Flag”, afternoon tea was supplied and a programme of sports proceeded with.

All the speech making associated with the immediate local celebrations of the Armistice described the victory in terms of the Empire’s unconquered greatness and the associated triumph of its religion, Protestantism. Essentially, this was a perspective that looked back, to the world of pre-August 1914. All declared that the War had been won by the right side, with the right history, the right religion and the right values. Therefore, according to this logic, order would now be restored. The past could become again the present. Unfortunately, the world, the Empire and Australia itself had changed far too much for that to happen.

References

The Argus

The Age

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative

154. The start of the 1918 school year and yet more division

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This post continues to explore themes raised in earlier posts, particularly Post 84 and Post 68.

At the start of 1918 there were 2 very significant developments in the provision of schooling in the local community. At the Yarram State School, higher primary grades commenced and, nearby, the new Catholic primary school – St Mary’s – was opened.

The local community had been calling for a higher primary top to the local state primary school – even a separate high school – for several years. Just days after the outbreak of War, the Director of Education (F Tate) visited Yarram (10/8/14) at the invitation of the local school board to consider the provision of higher primary/higher elementary schooling. The basic agreement reached was that continuing classes – to Intermediate level – could be set up in (new) buildings on the existing primary school site, with the local community agreeing to contribute an amount of £350. In theory, the money was to be raised by the local council setting a special levy. But then the reality of the War intervened.

By late 1917, the push for the higher elementary school picked up again after the Victorian Government set aside funds (£2,000) for a higher elementary school in Yarram. Again, the local community was expected to contribute financially. The amount was now £400, over 4 years. This time the money was to be raised by subscriptions, not a special levy via the council. Tate visited Yarram again in January 1918 and by the end of February, 60 students were enrolled. Initially they were accommodated in existing buildings on the site but new buildings, specifically for the higher primary years, were planned in mid 1918 and officially opened in April 1919.

The provision of higher primary or higher elementary schooling was very significant. Students could now pursue formal education beyond the primary level, without having to leave the district. Other neighbouring towns – Sale, Warragul and Leongatha – had already established equivalent, and in some case even more impressive, post primary schooling. The establishment of the higher primary school – on the grounds of the Yarram Primary School – was proof of civic worth and status. When Tate had first visited in August 1914, he was reported – Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative, 12/8/14 – as stating that he believed that Yarram warranted the higher primary school and that the community could well afford it. He had observed the … substantial appearance of Yarram with its fine hotels and other buildings.

The overall success of the initiative was qualified in one critical way. At the speech night at the end of 1918 – reported in the local paper on 24/12/18 – there was an urgent appeal for a ‘hostel’ to be set up in Yarram to accommodate students from ‘outside parts’ over the school week – Monday to Friday. Such a facility had been established at Leongatha and it was recognised that an equivalent boarding facility was required in Yarram if students from other townships and settlements in the Shire were to be able to take advantage of the improved schooling. In the same speech, it was noted that while there were 42 students from Yarram attending the new higher primary school, there was only an individual student – or in a few cases 2 or 3 students – coming from Balook (3), Wonyip (2), West Alberton (3), Jack River (1), North Devon (1), Womerah (1), Tarraville (1), Lower Bulga (2) and Welshpool (2). Clearly, the benefits of higher primary schooling were largely restricted to those living in Yarram. Families with sufficient finances who were keen for their children to have a complete secondary education – generally with a view to pursuing a degree at Melbourne University – had traditionally sent their children to a boarding school (college) in one of the larger rural towns – e.g., Geelong (Geelong Grammar School), Ballarat (St. Patrick’s College) – or Melbourne. This pattern continued after the extension of primary schooling at Yarram.

The opening of the Catholic primary school – St. Mary’s – for the start of the 1918 school year was a very pressured business. The building had only just been completed and the accommodation for the Sisters of St Joseph – the teaching order to run the school – was only finalised in the week leading up to the opening. The frantic pace was captured in an editorial in the local paper – 1/2/18 – which also praised the determination of Bishop Phelan:

The Catholic community in this district has accomplished a great deal. They built and opened a large brick church – an ornament to the town – built a school, and have now purchased Mr. Brennan’s property for the comfortable housing of the teaching nuns. When Bishop Phelan gets to work things move apace.

Phelan had made it clear to the Catholic community that he expected a Catholic primary school to be established and that it was to serve not just Yarram but the surrounding district, with students, initially at least, boarding at the convent. But Phelan had also made it clear that the school had to come after the new church had been built and after suitable accommodation had been arranged for the nuns. The church, the convent and the school were all to stand as proof of the strength and social status of the local Catholic community in the district.

Interestingly, much was made of the new teaching order of nuns, the Sisters of St. Joseph. From the late 19 C, a French order of nuns – Sisters of Our lady of Sion – at the invitation of Bishop Corbett, had been operating schools in Gippsland – at Sale, Bairnsdale and Warragul. But for the new school at Yarram, Bishop Phelan had been successful in securing ‘local’ nuns. The following appeared in the local paper on 6/2/18. The claim of Scottish ancestry was, presumably, for the benefit of the large Scottish demographic:

With regard to this particular order of teaching sisters, the branch now established at Yarram is purely Australian. The Mother Foundress of this Order, Mother Mary McKillop, is of Scotch descent, and was born in Brunswick St., Fitzroy. So that the sisters of the Oder which she established are for the most part Australians. They have houses, schools, orphanages from West Australia to New Zealand.

Both these significant developments in the provision of local education took place at the start of the fifth year of the War and, as been argued in previous posts, at a time when, in theory, all fundraising was focused on the War effort. The issue is whether either or both of these initiatives attracted any criticism.

In the case of the local state school there was certainly no criticism. The commitment to establish a higher primary top to the primary school at Yarram had been there well before the War. The community had always been strongly behind the proposal. The Victorian Government had placed the proposal on hold because of the War and the local community had, patriotically, accepted this decision. But now, at the start of 1918, the Government had found funds for the proposal to proceed, accepting that the local community also contributed. Further, the local committee appointed to secure the £400 of local contribution was heavily representative of local Imperial Loyalists. Three members of the small committee stood out: A J Rossiter, the editor of the local paper; Rev C J Walklate, the local Methodist clergyman; and A E Paige, the head teacher of the Yarram SS. These 3 high profile figures would have provided an effective ‘guarantee’ of the appropriateness of the fundraising. Additionally, many of the most generous contributors to the public subscription – names were published in the local paper – were also high profile Imperial Loyalists. The lists included people like B P Johnson (£5), T G McKenzie (£10) and Dr Rutter (£10). Importantly, the change from a Shire-imposed rate increase to a voluntary subscription must have also reduced the potential for conflict. Additionally, the change avoided conflict with the Catholic community who could have argued that they were being forced to contribute, through increased rates, to a school system that they would not use, or even – from the perspective of Catholic faith – could not use. The Catholic Church already argued, on the broader scale, that this was the case with State taxation to support state schools. It appears that subscriptions to raise the £400 came overwhelmingly from Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians. The records, published in the local paper, are incomplete but it appears that Catholics were under-represented, notwithstanding a large contribution (£5) from Michael O’Callaghan, a Catholic grazier from Jack River.

Overall, there was very strong support for the higher primary schooling at Yarram SS and there was no evidence of any opposition to the fundraising associated with it. The situation in relation to the new Catholic primary school at Yarram was a more complex affair.

Ironically, there was an immediate and very significant positive associated with the opening of the Catholic primary school. The forty or so enrolments in the new school reduced the numbers at the state primary school and this meant that the new higher primary students could be accommodated in the existing facilities at the school. The need to build new classrooms was not immediately pressing.

However, such an immediate benefit hardly compensated for the major fault line which was revealed by the opening of the Catholic primary school.

On the surface at least, there did not appear to be any overt hostility directed at the fundraising associated with the new Catholic school. No one appears to have used the local paper to attack these particular fundraising efforts. Indeed, as noted, editorials at the time were complimentary of the Catholics’ efforts. However, there must have been un-reported opposition to the Catholics’ church and school building projects over the course of the War. Bishop Phelan himself made this point, explicitly, in a talk he gave on the visit of the Apostolic Delegate to Sale in April 1918. His address was reported in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 26/4/18. Talking about all the difficulties he had faced in his ambitious building program post March 1915, Phelan noted:

But the greatest difficulty experienced was the wall of prejudice raised by narrow-minded people who endeavored to howl down every movement for raising funds except for Red Cross or Imperial purposes. But the stirling Catholics of Gippsland, like their fighting brothers at the front, did their duty towards all the demands of the Empire, and broke through every barrier that prejudice and bigotry would raise between them and their own field of labour.

He specifically cited the school at Yarram in the same speech; and he used the same emotion-charged language:

Already two convents and two schools, Leongatha and Yarram, have been added to our brave army fighting the battle of Catholic education.

But if fundraising for the Catholic primary school was not a major public concern at the time, there was still considerable controversy associated with its opening.

The new school – with the exception of a brief interlude for an earlier version of St Mary’s primary school, Yarram (1885-1890) – marked the first time that the Catholic community of the Shire of Alberton had withdrawn their children from the local state school(s). Effectively, all the young, local Catholic men who enlisted from 1914 had been educated at the local state school(s). Even though their family background, for the most part, was Irish-Australian, they had been schooled, via the state system, in absolute loyalty to Britain and the Empire. Now, in the fifth year of the War, and with 2 failed referenda on conscription – with much of the ‘blame’ for the failure sheeted home to Catholics – the local Catholics were withdrawing from the state school.

The significance of the opening of the school at that point – the start of 1918 – also needs to be seen in the context of the continuing conflict between Catholic and Protestant over the issue of scripture lessons in state schools. The conflict over scripture ‘readings’ or ‘lessons’ was a constant and while it might seem by our standards, 100 years on, as minor and even trivial, it went to the core of the Protestant – Catholic divide. It was a passionate debate, for while the Protestants argued that any form of state aid to support the independent Catholic sector would be in complete breach of the principles of the ’Free’, ‘Compulsory’ and ‘Secular’ education acts of the 1870s – and only further entrench the Catholic tendency to separation and exclusivity – the Catholic Church argued that any ‘non-dogmatic’ scripture lessons, taught by ‘non-sectarian’ mainstream teachers was nothing but a brazen attempt to incorporate Protestantism in the state school systems and would therefore also be in breach of the same principles. The politics of the day meant that neither side could prevail; but each could antagonise and frustrate the other.

The conflict over scripture lessons was hardly new. For example, for an insight on the complexity and centrality of the issue, consider this account of the 1913 debate – Catholic Educational Claims – held in Melbourne where the proposition was – That the Roman Catholic claims for financial aid from the State treasury toward their denominational schools are not just, and would be destructive of our State system. Speaking for the proposition was Rev J Nicholson, spokesperson for the Scripture Campaign Council, the body representing the Protestant Churches pushing for scripture lessons in state schools. Speaking for the negative was Thomas C Brennan of the recently formed Australian Catholic Federation. The debate was in front of an audience of approximately 1,000 people and while the proceedings were civil it certainly exposed the stark differences between Catholic and Protestant at the time.

The division over the push for scripture lessons in state schools – there were attempts to have referenda on the issue put to the Victorian people – was certainly evident in the Shire of Alberton. In fact, the issue was raised, very publicly, in the lead-up to the opening of the Catholic primary school. In mid September 1917, Bishop Phelan gave a sermon in Yarram. It was reported, in detail, in the local paper on 12/9/17. In brief, Phelan instructed his congregation that in the upcoming state elections they could not vote for any candidate who supported the call for a referendum on the introduction of the scripture lessons in state schools. He saw this referendum as an attempt by the Protestant majority to … crush the Catholic minority.

Phelan must have provided a copy of his sermon to the editor of the local paper because the reporting of the sermon is so detailed. There is an entire section on the Virgin Mary. Citing Luke’s Gospel, Phelan went into great detail outlining the centrality of Mary to Catholic faith, teaching and veneration. The intention behind this specific focus on Mary was to highlight the chasm, between Catholic and Protestant, on the issue of ‘Bible reading’. Phelan pointed out that, irrespective of what the Bible said, Catholic teaching on the role of Mary, and devotion to her, were both anathema to Protestants. He reminded his congregation that up to the very recent past, British monarchs had had to … declare before receiving the crown that “the adoration of the Virgin Mary and the sacrifice of the Mass, as they were used in the Church of Rome are superstitious and idolatrous” . Prior to the Accession Declaration Act of 1910 – in time for the coronation of George V – the wording of the new monarch’s ’declaration’ had been, in part:

… I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever: and that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous.

The declaration also denied the authority of the Pope.

In the face of such diametrically opposed positions – based in large part on Bible reading – Phelan argued that the idea of a ‘non-sectarian’ lesson of Bible reading – conducted by mainstream teachers in state schools – was a myth. For him, the idea of a ’non-dogmatic’ Christian faith was a nonsense. For him, there could never be, as it were, a ‘generic’ Christianity. For the Catholic, the Bible was to be read and interpreted through a person’s faith, which itself had been formed by the teaching of the Church. But from the time of the Reformation, Protestantism had had a very different take on the relationship between the Bible and the individual. The Catholic Church saw the bible lessons in state schools, within the promise of ‘non-dogmatic’ and ‘non-sectarian’ scripture readings, as a thinly disguised attempt to proselytise in the name of Protestantism. It would never accept it.

It would be a mistake to see this particular dispute merely in terms of differences in religious dogma between Catholic and Protestant. Other references in Phelan’s sermon that day show how the tension of the difficult history between England and Ireland was ever present. It coloured everything. Speaking of the efforts of the Irish in England from mid 19C to fight for their faith and the provision of Catholic schooling, Phelan made this extended reference:

The men and women who fought for Christian education in the land of the Saxon were the sons and daughters of Ireland driven from the home of their fathers in the middle of last century by a trinity of evils, the awful visitation of Providence, the famine of ’47, the worst landlord system that ever cursed a nation, and a Government whose policy at that crisis can only be described as diabolical. When Lord John Russell was asked for ships to bring food across the Irish Channel to a starving nation he peremptorily refused, declaring that “such a use of Her Majesty’s navy would interfere with the legitimate freights of the shipping industry of Great Britain.” And the London “Times” spoke enthusiastically of the good time coming when “a Catholic would be as rare on the banks of the Shannon as a red Indian on the banks of the Manhattan.”

The not very subtle sub-text was that the persecution of Irish Catholics at the hands of English Protestants was both historical and ongoing.

Not surprisingly, Phelan’s sermon prompted a vigorous response. The first letter appeared one week later (19/9/17). It was from Joseph Nicholson, Superintendent of the Scripture Campaign, the body driving the push for a referendum on the issue of bible reading in state schools. Nicholson was arguably the most high profile advocate for the cause. He had appeared in the 1913 public debate referred to above. Nicholson argued that it was possible to have (scriptural) lessons of ‘absolutely unsectarian character’. He emphasised what he saw as the Catholic Church’s reluctance to have its followers read the Bible:

It is no doubt difficult for a non-Romanist to understand the fears of the Roman Catholic clergy concerning the effect of Bible reading by their people.

Further, he insisted, even if the Catholic clergy were that terrified about their members reading the Bible – by themselves – the lessons in the state school were not to be compulsory:

While we do not share the fears of the Roman Catholic clergy concerning the disasters that are likely to follow from Scripture reading, yet, in our scrupulous desire to protect Roman Catholic children from what they disapprove, we insist on their absolute freedom from Scripture lessons, and make provision for secular studies instead.

This letter was followed by one from Father Stirling which was published on 21/9/17. Stirling made claims about the misrepresentation of the Catholic position but overall his letter read more like an attempt to defuse the situation. This letter was responded to, again by Rev Nichoslosn, who dismissed Fr Sterling’s ‘feeble comments’. The letter was published on 26/9/17. There were more claims of misrepresentation amid pointed claims that … this infallible church is not uniform in its teachings. Nicholson argued that the arrangements for ‘non-sectarian’ bible reading lessons in Victorian state schools for which the Scripture Campaign was advocating, were in place in other education jurisdictions, both in Australia (NSW) and overseas. Nicholson chose to represent the dispute in terms of the rights and responsibilities of the 2 parties, one the minority and the other the majority. As he saw it, the Catholic minority was at fault:

The Roman Catholic opposition to “unsectarian” Scripture lessons is … intensely selfish in seeking to interfere with the Protestant majority that is tenderly considerate of the Romanist minority. We give them safeguarded liberty, but refuse Romanist domination of Protestant liberties.

This particular iteration of the struggle over the teaching of ‘non-sectarian’ or ‘unsectarian’ or ‘non-dogmatic’ scripture lessons disappeared from the local paper by the start of October 1918. However, as we will see, the issue itself certainly did not disappear. Throughout 1918, Catholics continued to block this Protestant proposal. For their part, the Protestants maintained their absolute rejection of any ‘state-aid’ for Catholic schools.

Leaving aside the symbolism of the local Catholic community establishing its own primary school and withdrawing its children from the local state school, at the very time Imperial Loyalists were calling for a single, united and focused War effort – and also at the very time that the community as a whole was trying to extend the range of post-primary state schooling throughout the district – it is clear that Bishop Phelan’s unrelenting focus on Catholic education during WW1 served to heighten division within the broader community. Effectively, he forced the Catholic community in Gippsland as a whole, and not just in the Shire of Alberton, to assert their separate identity and status through education. The problem was that this identity was overlaid with so many religious, cultural, social and political associations that the loyalty of this minority, at that particular time of National crisis, would inevitably be called into question by the Protestant majority. As much as locals wanted to downplay or ignore the division, it was always there. Equally, while their opposition to conscription is routinely presented as the distinctive behaviour of the Catholic minority in WW1, it is clear that considerably more than this single issue was at play. Indeed, as an immediate example of just how complex the issues were, Thomas Brennan – referred to above as the key Catholic spokesperson in the 1913 education debate and also the first president of the Australian Catholic Federation – supported conscription and was an outspoken critic of Mannix on the issue. Bishop Phelan was said to be neutral on the same issue. In short, the Catholic question went well beyond the issue of conscription.

References

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative

Synan, T 2003, A Journey in Faith: A History of Catholic Education in Gippsland 1850-1981, David Lovell Publishing, Melbourne

Adams, J 1990, From these Beginnings: History of the Shire of Alberton (Victoria), Alberton Shire Council, Yarram, Victoria

153. The case of Charles William Frederick Allum

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Charles William Frederick Allum was convicted at Yarram on 20/9/17 of impersonating a returned soldier. He was ordered to enter into a good behaviour bond of £10 for 12 months and pay the court costs. The police magistrate on the day, Vivian Tanner, was lenient on him and pointed out that he could have been imprisoned for 6 months or fined £100. He was prosecuted for … falsely pretending to be a returned soldier, contrary to para. 45 B (2) of the War Precautions Regulations 1915, made in pursuance of the War Precautions Act, 1915-1916.

The case was reported in detail in the local paper, Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative, on 21/9/17 and even appeared in The Age (24/9/17). The other source of evidence is the individual ‘Security and intelligence record’ [MP 16/1, 1917/807] from the National Archives of Australia.

At the time of his court appearance, Allum was reported to be only 18 yo. Incredibly, he had been passing himself off as a returned soldier since March 1917. Further, he claimed to have seen service both at Gallipoli and in France.

Allum was from Brunswick but for several months from March 1917 he worked at Yarram, at W C Growse’s store. The evidence presented in court detailed how he had told customers that he was a returned soldier who had been injured in France – shrapnel in his back – but who, after 10 months leave, was to return to camp. It was also claimed in court that he had received gifts from several young ladies in Yarram, on the strength that he was returning to camp. When he was arrested he had on him a letter, undated, which he had written, but not sent, to a Miss F Gibbs at Foster. The letter is barely coherent but he claimed to be in camp (Broadmeadows). The address he gave on the letter was his parents’ address at Brunswick.

As noted in an earlier post (Post 148) the first meeting of the local branch of the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia took place in Yarram in late June 1917 (27/6/17). Allum was working in Yarram at the time and, in terms of the identity he had created for himself, he obviously felt the need to attend the first meeting. However the told those there that he would not join the association because he was heading back to camp. His attendance at his meeting was the beginning of his undoing because he came to the attention of 2 office bearers of the new association: E T Benson and W A Newland. Both these men took it upon themselves to interview him and they questioned him about his service record and the specific details of his regimental number and battalion. In evidence in court, both men stated that his answers were ‘wrong’, in that he gave the wrong colour patches for his unit and the embarkation details were also wrong.

The issue of timing is not clear but there is a report in the intelligence file that states that Allum attended one of the early meetings of the local branch of the RSSILA – the date given is 2/8/17 – at which he was accused by both Benson and Newland of not being a returned soldier. The report notes that he [Allum] … cleared out by early train next morning. Presumably, even though he had left the town, the men went ahead and reported him to the authorities.

The authorities caught up with him in late August (27/8/17) when he was working as a steward on a boat – SS Bulla – at Victoria Dock, Melbourne. When he was challenged, he freely admitted that he had presented himself as a returned soldier when he was in Yarram. He was taken into custody – Victoria Barracks – and eventually returned to Yarram for the court appearance on 20/9/17.

According to the report in the local paper, the authorities, in the person of W P Jones, Intelligence Officer, wanted the court to make an example of the young man:

Mr. Jones asked the P. M. [Police Magistrate, V Tanner] to deal with accused as would act as deterrent to others who may come to a far distant town and pose as returned men.

However, evidence presented in the court made it difficult for the magistrate to come down too hard on on the young offender. Representing the young man in the court was B P Johnson, local barrister. Johnson was – see previous posts – one of the most outspoken Imperial Loyalists of the community.

On behalf of his client, Johnson admitted the wrong doing but he claimed the offending was more the act of a ‘fool’, and that his client had become trapped in his own lies. Importantly, Johnson maintained that his client was … not like a lot of young men – cold footers and traitors. Rather, the young man … was a mere boy, of good parentage, and had tried to enlist seven or eight times, but was turned down owing to a weak chest. He at last succeeded, but his mother would not give her consent. He tried again, and was taken out of camp. He had three brothers at the war. This lad had been pestered so much about enlisting, and having tried so often, he foolishly said he was a returned soldier, and having told a lie stuck to it. He did not so act to get any benefit from it.

The young man then confirmed that he had tried to enlist before he was eighteen and then, when he finally was accepted, his parents would not give permission. He stated that he had a ‘chest complaint’ and that his mother was a chronic invalid. He claimed that the fiction about being a returned soldier came because he ‘was pestered to enlist’ by recruiting sergeants. Cross-examined by Jones, Allum admitted that he had received presents from 3 girls at the time he said he was leaving Yarram to go back to camp.

The lad’s father was also called as a witness and he confirmed that his wife was a ‘chronic invalid’. He added that her condition was the result of a railway accident and that his son had been in the same accident. The father stated that he was prepared to pay the court costs, about £ 3.

The other critical detail that helped the young man’s defence was the fact that during the Great Strike (Post 132) he was said to have worked on the Melbourne wharves as a volunteer ‘National worker’. This would have been after he fled Yarram. This display of patriotic support was specifically cited in the newspaper report as one of the reasons the magistrate was inclined to leniency. The other reasons given were the young age, the admission of guilt and the demonstrated attempt(s) to enlist.

As indicated, there was no fine or imprisonment. The father had to pay costs and there was a good behaviour bond for 12 months.

There are some aspects of this case that are baffling. Most times when young men tried to enlist but were unsuccessful there is some record of the attempt. Commonly, in the National Archives database, there will be a MT 1486/1 (1) with minimal details: name, age, address. Moreover, when a person did enlist and go into camp, but was then discharged – on medical grounds or there was a challenge by a parents on the issue of age – there is inevitably a formal record, as brief as it may be. Allum is not a common name and in fact there are only 13 records in the NA database for this name; and there is no record at all for Charles William Frederik Allum. Nor is there any record of any brothers serving in the AIF, at least under the name of Allum.

Lastly, in the intelligence file there is letter from the parents – Esther Ann Allum and Alex C Allum – giving their permission for their son – Charles William Allum – to join the AIF. It was dated 8/9/17. It must have been supplied after their son had been arrested and was waiting trial. But there is no record of Charles William Allum ever having been accepted in the AIF.

References

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative

National Archives file for ALLUM Charles William Frederick ‘Security and intelligence record’ [MP 16/1, 1917/807]

 

(1) This series consists of records for those individuals who applied to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force, and were either rejected, discharged while still in training, or went on to serve within Australia only [usually as depot troops or camp guards]. The most common reason for rejection is on medical grounds.

152. The Queen Carnival of November 1917 and more division

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Yarram and District Hospital, courtesy Public Records Office Victoria: VPRS 12800 P1, H5533

The last post (151. The war against drink 2) looked at division in the local community over the the issue of temperance or, more specifically, the liquor licence held by the Yarram Co-operative Store. It was argued that as bitter as the debate was at the time, the fall-out was effectively contained. This post continues the general theme of division in the community, in the context of WW1, by examining controversies associated with fundraising for the Yarram and District Hospital in late 1917.

The Yarram and District Hospital had opened in October 1914, not long after the start of the War. Its development had been hurried, in part because a bequest of £500 from John Moore, a local grazier who had died in 1911, stipulated that the money could only be given if the hospital was completed in 5 five years from his death. Moore was a local Catholic and he left another £500, this time unconditionally, for the construction of the church (St. Mary’s) at Yarram. The church was opened in February 1916.

There had been a major fundraising event – ‘carnival’ – for the hospital in 1913, but with the advent of the War, state government funding was restricted because of different priorities and local fundraising was similarly affected. However, in late 1917, it was decided to have a major, community-wide, fundraising effort.

The event was described as a ’Queen Carnival’. Essentially, the community was divided into 4 fundraising teams. Each was associated with a ‘queen’. The 4 queens were designated Red Cross, Agriculture, Sports and Charity. Behind each queen there was an organising committee which was backed by particular local stores, businesses, institutions and community groups. The individual committees organised a range of fundraising activities to compete against all other queens. Progressive amounts raised by the separate queens were published regularly and flags flown to show the leading queen and the positions of the other three. The eventual winner – the queen who raised the greatest amount of money – was crowned as the ‘Carnival Queen’ at a special coronation event which was held on 5/12/17. Prior to the formal coronation, as an integral component of the fundraising, a major sports carnival was staged at the Yarram Show Ground on Wednesday 21/11/17. It was a typical sports carnival with competitions in wood chopping, horse/pony events, and foot and bicycle races. There was also a special sports program for school children. The sports carnival itself was preceded by a major procession through Yarram led by the Victorian Police Band which had been secured for the event. Also, on the night of the sports carnival, there was a major concert in Thompson’s Hall in Yarram. Again the Police Band performed and there were acts from Melbourne as well as many local amateur performers. All the details on the procession, sports carnival and concert were written up in the local paper – Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative – on 23/11/17. Similarly, the write-up of the coronation ceremony appeared on 7/12/17.

Overall, the Queen Carnival was an outstanding success and over £2,000 was raised – an incredible amount for the period – which effectively covered the entire existing debt of the hospital. The degree of planning and organisation, at multiple levels and in many committees, and the strength of the local support were very impressive, and noted as such at the time. However, there were also some significant disputes which arose as the carnival unfolded over November 1917.

One major dispute involved, of all things, a ‘chocolate wheel’, also known at the time as a ’spinning jenny’ or just a ’spinning wheel’. The chocolate wheel had become a favourite at fund raisers. In fact, the Nestle (and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk) Company – the chocolate wheels of the day were often referred to as ‘Nestle’s Chocolate Wheels’ – had developed a package which provided the organisers with the wheel itself, the wooden bats, and the chocolates for prizes. At a time when there was ongoing pressure for patriotic fundraising, the chocolate wheel was in great demand. However, there was significant opposition to the use of chocolate wheels.

There was some concern that the commercial providers of chocolate wheels were taking too much of the profits – by inflating the costs of the chocolates used for prizes, boosting overheads etc – but the larger concern was that all such ‘wheels’ promoted gambling. The wheels presented a real dilemma for the churches and the anti-gambling lobby: there was a desperate need for patriotic fundraising; the wheel was a highly profitable and very popular form of fundraising; but the wheel was also a soft introduction to the evil of gambling. Over 1917-1918, there were increasing efforts to limit the use of wheels. Certainly, the authorities tried to keep them well away from school fundraising efforts – schools were a vital focus for patriotic fundraising – and ensure that children had no association whatsoever with them. At the same time, the efforts to restrict the wheels were inconsistent and the regulations commonly ignored. Those opposed to them were commonly dismissed as ‘wowsers’.

In Yarram, the Red Cross Queen featured a Nestle’s chocolate wheel at a jumble sale in early November 1917. It was a great success. Not surprisingly, Red Cross Queen decided to run the same wheel in its booth at the upcoming sports carnival. It was at this point that the trouble started. As some essential background, the sports carnival was organised by a special committee. This committee was separate from the overall committee managing the Queen Carnival and, in fact, maintained that it was in complete control of the sports carnival. Therefore, it claimed that it alone had the say over what activities were to run on the day, and it made it clear that it was not inclined to allow Red Cross Queen to run a chocolate wheel in its booth. Faced with this, Henry George Bodman, threatened that if the chocolate wheel was blocked he would have the Red Cross Queen (Miss Bodman) resign. If that happened then, in effect, one quarter of the fundraising would stop; and to that point Red Cross Queen had been the most successful fund-raiser. Bodman was a very successful grazier who had had a long history of local government service, including a period as Shire President.

The matter came to a head, one week later, at the next meeting of the main planning committee for the Queen Carnival. The meeting was reported in the local paper on 14/11/17. At this meeting it was immediately apparent that there was a further complication because someone had contacted the Attorney-General’s office in Melbourne seeking direction on the legality of the chocolate wheel; and the advice received was that the wheel could not be operated at the sports carnival. Bodman wanted to know who had contacted the Attorney-General, but there was no clear answer to the question. Certainly there were some of this main committee – John Bett, storekeeper and elder of the local Presbyterian Church was clearly one – who were opposed to all wheels and had tried to stop the first chocolate wheel at the jumble sale. A J Rossiter, the editor of the local paper, could have been another suspect. Rossiter claimed to have seen the explicit direction sent by the Chief Commissioner of Police to the local police instructing them to prosecute if the wheel was operated. The meeting became very heated. Bodman claimed that his opponents had acted out of jealousy. Others claimed that the advice from the Attorney-General was only advice and could be ignored. They cited the extensive use of chocolate wheels in Melbourne, even at the MCG. The upshot of the tense meeting was that Bodman announced that, as a matter of principle, he was going to carry through with his threat and the Queen of Red Cross would resign. There were appeals to him not to go ahead with the resignation and some there accused him of being ’unsportsmanlike’. Bodman agreed to a crisis meeting the next night but, in the end, the Red Cross Queen did resign.

The resignation significantly affected the whole carnival. Effectively, from that point, one quarter of the fundraising effort ceased. As Rossiter put it in the local paper on 16/11/17:

Withdrawal of the Queen of Red Cross will mean a loss of several hundred pounds to the hospital, unless generous donors are disposed to apply their efforts to one or other of the queens. The main object should be kept in view.

The resignation also threatened the organisation of the final, all-important coronation spectacle as the final event of the Queen Carnival. In the end, another local lady agreed to step in as the (nominal) Red Cross Queen on the night so that the event could proceed as planned. Another effect of the resignation was that there was no Red Cross Queen presence at the local sports carnival, where all the queens had been allocated a dedicated booth for fundraising.

As well as the resignation of the Red Cross Queen, there was another matter, also linked to the sports carnival, which created still more division in the group running the Queen Carnival. It was, unsurprisingly, over the issue of drink.

The committee in charge of the running the sports carnival agreed to 2 liquor booths – commonly, at other similar sports meetings only one was used – and there was heated debate over this decision. Nor was it just the number of booths because there was as much debate over the siting of the second booth. The sports committee had decided that it would be placed near the entrance and next to one of the queen booths (Red Cross Queen). The debate over the issues was set out in the local paper on 14/11/17. Some moved a motion to overturn the decision to allow the second booth. They argued that one booth was more than enough and there should be no encouragement for additional drinking at the sports carnival. The motion was defeated. At the same time, there was more support for efforts to move the second booth, well away from the entrance and far away from the general public. Speakers at the meeting did not want to see … drunks mixed up with the women and children. A J Rossiter, the editor of the local paper and a member of the general planning committee for the overall Queen Carnival, spoke strongly against the siting of the booth near the entrance … where the language of men would offend the ears of the women and children. In fact, Rossiter used the paper to mount a spirited attack on the decision. He wrote a forceful editorial on the matter on 14/11/17:

If the carnival sports committee remains obdurate in their decision to allow a second publican’s booth to be placed near the main show ground entrance, and alongside a queen’s stall, there will arise a public protest on carnival day. The big hospital effort is only a week away, and those who see the mistake about to be made sincerely hope the sports committee will review their decision. … The environment of a publican’s booth is out of place for women and children, yet to patronise the stalls they will be brought within earshot of at least partly intoxicated men, whose language is never of the choicest, and their personal attire is indecent. Nor will there be any convenience handy. It is easy to foresee the trouble that will arise, and mar the pleasure of people out for the day, if the decision to place the booth allowed is persevered in.

Rossiter maintained the campaign. His next editorial (16/11/17) denied that the protest was driven by teetotallers:

Public feeling is very strong against the second publican’s booth being placed near the entrance to the show ground on carnival day, and yesterday a petition was mentioned. This is not an outcry from teetotallers; men who see no harm in a social glass most emphatically protest against a liquor booth being placed where it will be a nuisance and likely be a medium for bringing disgrace on some sports patrons.

In the end, the sports committee held firm in the face of all the opposition and, on the day, there was no problem. Ironically, by the time of the sports carnival, the Red Cross Queen had resigned and so the Red Cross Queen’s booth, located next to the second liquor booth, was vacant on the day. Additionally, the weather was cool and patronage at both liquor booths was well down. There was only one person arrested for being drunk and disorderly; although there was another report that a man dressed as a woman, and using abusive language, should have been arrested. As members of the sports committee had argued from the start the threat posed by the second liquor booth was exaggerated.

In terms of these examples of disputes and division over the staging of the Queen Carnival in November 1917, it is important to recognise that the individuals and opposing factions all belonged to the core group of Imperial Loyalists who were responsible not just for managing the narrative of the War – in the local paper, from the pulpit, at farewells and welcomes for members of the AIF, in local government sessions, at the local school … – but also for organising recruiting drives, patriotic fundraising, support for Hughes and his ‘Win the War’ party and votes for conscription. Clearly, beyond this common front of support for the War, there were any number of personal rivalries and personality clashes and, of course, significant divisions over attitudes to temperance and gambling and other behaviour.

On the surface, there is nothing to suggest that the 2 controversies covered here – those associated with the 1917 Queen Carnival – were driven by the War itself. They were disputes that could have arisen at any time. Versions of them were evident both before and after the War. However, it is also important to note the War was a constant background feature to all that happened; and it must have exacerbated existing differences and tensions within the local community. There was simply no escape or let up. The constant presence and impact of the War is evident in the following 4 anecdotes taken from the period of the Queen Carnival

The first anecdote concerns Mr George Frederick Sauer. Sauer was a local draper. He was a key member of the sports committee responsible for the sports carnival, and he, personally, attracted a lot of criticism over his support for the second liquor booth. He was a member of the local ANA and was also involved in the staging of farewells and welcomes for local soldiers. At the height of preparations for the Queen Carnival, he learned that Albert Rust, the young man to whom his daughter was engaged, had been killed in France. The matter was reported on 23/11/17:

Deep sympathy was felt for Mr. G. F. Sauer and family when it became known on Wednesday evening [21/11/17] that word had been received of the death at the front of Regimental Sergeant Major A. E. Rust. Mr. Sauer was actively engaged at the carnival when the sad news was conveyed by telegram, and in the being the family was made aware of the sad occurrence. Sergeant-Major Rust was engaged to Miss Sauer, with whom her friends feel keenly the loss that has befallen her. Sergeant-Major was in Mr. Sauer’s employ at the store, and proved a worthy young man, one who, after enlisting, made rapid advancement in his regiment. He is stated to have paid the supreme sacrifice last week.

The second anecdote covers a brief reference to the procession that made its way to the Yarram show ground immediately prior to the start of the sports carnival. The newspaper account (23/11/17) highlighted the number of floats in the procession – one humorously featured a chocolate wheel, with prizes of blocks of wood wrapped as chocolate – and then simply noted that at the very end came … A number of young ladies mounted, leading horses with empty saddles. It was, of course, an attempt at yet another local recruiting drive but, like all others at the time, it proved largely fruitless:

A number of young ladies rode in the arena [of the show ground], leading horses with empty saddles, while Lieutenant Smith, recruiting officer for Gippsland, appealed to the crowd to mount. Only a few saddles were filled, one passing the medical examination. The appeal was almost in vain.

The third anecdote covers one of the actual fundraising activities. Over the course of the Queen Carnival, the various queens ran all manner of fundraising activities: dances, concerts, jumble sales, euchre parties … This particular activity was billed as ‘a social evening in aid of Queen of Agriculture’ and it was held in Thompson’s Hall on 30/11/17. As described in the local paper (28/11/17), the range of interests and tastes to be catered for was somewhat bizarre, particularly given the likely audience, but the speel certainly highlighted the all-pervasive presence of the War:

… admission will be by silver coin. Competitions for all will be indulged in. Fruit salad, strawberries and cream, and lolly stalls will be in evidence. Pictures, showing some of the horrors of war, will be screened during the evening. A monster Xmas tree will be held during afternoon and evening , on which prizes will be exhibited.

The last anecdote concerns the staging of the coronation ball. The grand event was reported, in minute detail, in the local paper on 7/12/17. The event itself was closely scripted and the staging was incredibly elaborate. This was the event for which a stand-in for the Red Cross Queen was required. Interestingly, in this locally-crafted very elaborate piece of drama, the characters, setting, plot and themes were all quintessentially English. The first paragraph from the paper’s report of the event gives some impression:

Shortly after 8.30 the curtain rose, and there was presented to public gaze a scene that has no parallel in this district. Thompson’s large hall was crowded, many having been refused admission. In the centre of the stage was a throne, and pillars and appointments were made on an elaborate scale to represent the interior of a royal hall. … The pageant of courtiers, attired in beautiful costumes, have assembled to do honor to the four fair queens, and while waiting their arrival join in harmony. The Lord Chancellor (Mr. B. Couston) [local bank manager, JP, 1916 National referendum Committee, Chair of local Recruiting Committee 1917], in good voice, tenders them advice to receive each queen with honor due. …

In this re-creation of some scene from Tennyson, many references to the current War had been scripted. For example, for the Red Cross Queen (stand-in) the Lord Chancellor’s speech made much of Nurse Cavell … whose heroic self-sacrifice has inspired half the civilised world to nobler thought and action. Similarly he forged a relationship between the Queen of Agriculture and … the glorious immortal heroes of Anzac and Poizieres. The Queen of Sports was obviously linked to all those currently playing … the greater game that men are called to now … serving our glorious Empire so well in the hour of her trial. And so on. By our standards it can appear clumsy – a highly contrived attempt to make links between the War and the glory of English history – but for the audience of the day it would have appeared perfectly appropriate.

Again, the anecdotes simply demonstrate that the War was always there in the background. However, there was one final aspect of the Queen Carnival that definitely did relate, albeit negatively, to the War effort. It was the core issue of patriotic fundraising.

The Queen Carnival was devoted entirely to raising money for the local hospital. It was supported across the entire community and it was very successful; but there was a lingering doubt over the appropriateness of diverting funds away from patriotic fundraising. To that point in the War, fundraising had always served patriotic causes – Belgian relief, the Red Cross, the YMCA, various wounded soldiers’ funds, repatriation funds, the Education Department’s School Patriotic Fund … – but the hospital was a very local cause. On the face of it, the hospital fundraising had nothing to do with the War effort or patriotism. It was local self-interest. All the queens, including Red Cross Queen, were raising money for the hospital.

The War – and fundraising specifically for the War- had been running for more than 3 years. The needs of the new hospital, particularly in a climate of reduced government support, were urgent. It seems that the community, led by its civic leaders, made the conscious decision effectively to place fundraising for the War on hold and focus for a short but intense period on fundraising for a specific local priority. There was no significant public opposition or outcry. At the time, at least 6 of the 10 men on the Board of Management for the hospital – G F Sauer, Rev F Tamagno, J Bett, G E Ruby, Geo Bland and M Cox – were heavily involved in a range of groups and committees dedicated to support for the War effort. They were leading Imperial Loyalists. Doubtless their leadership made it easier for the whole community to accept the legitimacy of the hospital fundraising. At the same time, people were aware that patriotic fundraising would be affected. For example, very early on in the Queen Carnival, the editor – Rossiter – raised the issues in an editorial (9/11/17). The references are somewhat oblique but people would have known the intent. Rossiter was not talking about the fundraising efforts for the Red Cross Queen but rather the various, long-standing Red Cross branches in each of the townships.

Regrettably, but too true, the funds of the district Red Cross branches are languishing for funds, and work on behalf of our brave boys at the front is well nigh suspended. Indeed, some of the branches are in debt, and with the present insistent calls on the purse [the Queen Carnival] there seems to be no prospect of doing anything but hang on till early in the New Year. Patriotic appeals are almost entirely overlooked, yet they should be foremost in every mind.

As soon as the fundraising for the Queen Carnival was over – in the early New Year – letters appeared requesting a re-focus on funds for patriotic causes. The following was written by B P Johnson and appeared on 28/11/17, at the very end of the fundraising period for the Queen Carnival. Johnson was, arguably, the pre-eminent Imperial Loyalist in the community. His son was serving in France – he would be killed in a few months time – and both father and son were keen to spread the word about the efforts of the YMCA. Johnson was also reminding the readers, explicitly, that now that the Queen Carnival was over they had to turn their efforts to (proper) patriotic causes:

The Carnival is over, but we have still to consider the boys at the front. I would remind your readers that the Y.M.C.A. is continuing its good work, and therefore still in want of assistance. In this connection I should like with your permission to quote from a letter I received from my son last week. He says, “I am glad that you are appreciative of the Y.M.C.A.; they are doing grand work over here. In many villages we get into near the line the Y.M.C.A. is the only place where you can procure tobacco. They follow us wherever we go, and set up a counter in some shell-smashed house and give us free tea, cocoa, etc. The boys here know what they have done, and when the war is over they will not be forgotten.”

Finally, there were those who had reluctantly accepted, or chose to ignore, the fundraising for the hospital at the expense of the traditional patriotic causes. Perhaps they agreed, with reservations, that it was necessary to support the hospital. Perhaps they realised that overall community support meant that there was no point taking any sort of public stance against the Queen Carnival. Whatever the motivation, it appears that this group was determined that no further exceptions or lapses would take place. In early 1918, there were moves to organise fundraising to upgrade the community hall at Lower Whitelaw. The proposal was that proceeds from a local sports carnival would go to ‘hall funds’. Immediately, letters appeared in the local press, signed by the likes of ‘Patriot’ and ‘Loyal’, attacking the proposal. For example, ‘Patriot’ (18/1/18) lectured the proponents about their selfish, local focus. Patriot claimed that … We in Australia seem to forget that a war is raging. They reminded the general readers about the real needs of the time, when ‘our boys wounded and maimed are returning’ and when … the people of England are suffering – meatless days, the supply of beef reduced by half, people forced to compulsory rationing, milk supplies shortened to even invalids and children. The call was to put of such ventures until … after we have done with Germany. ‘Loyalty’ (25/1/18) stated,

The Yarram Red Cross, I am sure, could make much better use of the money, in buying comforts to send to the boys who are fighting our battles at the front.

Not surprisingly, the locals of Lower Whitelaw rejected and resented the gratuitous advice, particularly as it came from anonymous corespondents. There was more fierce correspondence. However, the bigger issue seems to have been that while everyone agreed to the Queen Carnival as a one-off interruption to patriotic fundraising, there were those in the local community determined to make sure that it had not set any precedent.

References

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative

Adams, J 1990, From these Beginnings: History of the Shire of Alberton (Victoria), Alberton Shire Council, Yarram, Victoria

O’Callaghan G (Comp) 2006, Clonmel to Federation: Guide to people in the Port Albert area 1841-1901, Vols 1-3, The Alberton Project

151. The war against drink 2: the grocer’s licence at the Yarram Co-op Store

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The Co-operative Store Yarram, undated. Courtesy Public Records Office Victoria

An earlier post (97. The war against drink) highlighted the significance of the temperance movement in World War One. This post looks in detail at the intense conflict that erupted in the second half of 1917 over the (liquor) licence held by the local co-operative store in Yarram (Yarram Co-operative Store). Specifically, it looks at the extraordinary series of letters in the local paper – Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative – that ran from July to September 1917.

[At the time, the spelling of licence/license was inconsistent, even within the same text. In this post, ‘licence’ is used throughout.]

The Co-operative Store at Yarram was established in late 1911. It was developed from an existing store owned by James G McKenzie.The original board of directors was – James F Trigg, George Bland, A H Moore, J Langham, J E Chenhall, Richard Moorfield and McKenzie himself. The manager of the store was J O Whyte. The store ran very successfully to the 1920s. From that point on, competition and customers’ bad debts undermined its profitability. It managed to survive, in reduced form, to the early 1960s.

During WW1, the Co-op Store was closely identified with support for the War effort. Several of its employees enlisted. Individual directors were involved in committees that supported recruiting and conscription and the staging of farewells and welcomes for soldiers. The store had a public policy of purchasing war bonds with its profits. It offered its facilities for fund raising, particularly for the Red Cross.

J G McKenzie had held a ‘grocer’s licence’ to sell alcohol in his original store from 1902, and it was transferred to the new Co-op Store in 1911. It was this licence that became a powerful lightning rod for local temperance advocates in the second half of 1917.

To the end of 1916, the temperance movement had enjoyed considerable success. It had become generally accepted – principally through editorial support in newspapers that featured public statements from the Royal Family, leading politicians, generals, admirals and many figures of authority and respectability – that it was necessary to curb drinking to support the War effort. Drink was even described as an enemy as deadly as Germany. Further, the War was proving difficult to win because too much effort was compromised by drink. As Rev Tamagno (Presbyterian) put it in a sermon at Yarram – reported in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 26/7/16 – the War had to be won with the ‘enemy [of drink] on our backs’. Beyond the broad appeal to curb (‘hard’) drink, there had been significant checks placed on the sale of alcohol through the introduction of 6 o’clock closing.

The issue of the licence at the Co-op Store in Yarram was first raised, publicly, in an editorial in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 12/7/16. The editorial purported to be an even-handed approach to temperance. Whilst it was in general sympathy with the ideals of the temperance movement, particularly at the present time, it argued that temperance advocates were inclined to be too extreme in their demands and, in particular, it felt that their all-out attack on hotels and publicans was unrealistic. Hotels, the editorial argued, were important institutions in the local community. They served an important social function and generated wealth for the town. They were legitimate businesses. Further, 6 o’clock closing was about to have a serious negative impact on their profitability. Against this background, the editorial took aim at the grocer’s licence. First it emphasised the need for a more ‘temperate’ approach:

Where the Temperance Party fail is in their extreme measures, which could not be swallowed whole by people who are alive to the injustice that would be done. Besides, extreme measures rarely meet with success. All are agreed as to the evils inseparable from strong drink, and but a small percentage is against reform, but it must not be too drastic.

Then it championed the local hotels over the licence held by the local grocer:

The cry of the Temperance Party is “down with the publican,” while little is said about the grocer’s licence, where business is done in a comparative wholesome way. We claim if the business hours of the publican are to be further curtailed [6 o’clock closing] they should at least have the whole of the retailing of liquor, and that no further grocers’ licences should issue. A grocer’s licence is after all but an auxiliary, while a publican depends wholly on the one article. His is a one-line business, while the grocer has a means of livelihood without selling grog, whether by the bottle or by the gallon. This is a point that should be advocated by the Temperance Party. If they will but proceed in a “temperate” way, and be content with a partial gain, the rest may well be left to the next, or following generations.

In the very next edition of the paper (14/7/16) there was a letter-to-the-editor signed by ‘Reform’ which agreed that priority should be given to the hotels and that ‘the absolute abolition of grocers’ licences’ would be an ‘easy win’ for the temperance reformers. The letter also highlighted another key conviction of those opposed to the grocer’s licence:

If the grocer’s licence goes by the way, the quantity of home consumed liquor will diminish greatly. The convenience of adding the liquor order to the grocery order, and the privacy of same helps the grocer’s licence. Many regular buyers at the store will not personally order or carry away bottled stuff from the hotel, hence it is apparent that if the grocery liquor trade were shut down the home consumption must diminish.

The argument that the removal of grocers’ licences was the key to the reduction of consumption of alcohol within the home was to become critical in the debate.

While to this point the material in the local paper referred only to the general provision of grocers’ licences, there was little doubt that the specific target was the licence held by the Co-operative Store in Yarram. This was made abundantly clear in another editorial published on 18/7/16:

The liquor licence held by the Yarram Co-operative Store was condemned by the local Rechabite Tent some little time ago, since some of the Order are employed in the store, who doubtless never touch nor handle, much less taste the liquor. The crusade against the licence continues, and last week one of the directors, Mr. Geo. Bland, resigned. We hear that in the Methodist pulpit, both at Yarram and North Devon, Mr. Bland’s action was commended, and the holding of a liquor licence by any store was caustically condemned. It is time the Government abolished all grocers’ licences, and allowed hotels the whole and sole benefit to be derived from the trade.

Clearly, for a range of reasons – both economic and moral – the grocer’s licence attached to the Yarram Co-operative Store was an issue in the local politics of the Shire of Alberton – or more particularly, Yarram – even before the fierce debate and division of the second half of 1917.

To give some perspective on the particular licence held by the Co-operative Store, at the licensing court, which sat in Yarram on 6/12/16 and was reported in the local paper on 8/12/16, the following hotels had their licences renewed: Carrajung Hotel, Commercial Hotel Yarram, Commercial Hotel Tarraville, Commercial Hotel Woodside, Hopetoun Hotel Gelliondale, Port Albert Hotel, Ship Inn Hotel Port Albert, Victoria Hotel Alberton, Yarram Hotel and Yarram Club Hotel. In addition to the 10 hotels, there was a wine licence for B Morris of Darriman and, of course, the grocer’s licence for the ‘Yarram and District Co-operative Store’.

The event that triggered the intense debate over the Co-op Store’s grocer’s licence in mid 1917 was the death of Thomas Callender Christie on 30/6/17.

The account of his death was published in the local paper on 4/7/17. Christie was described as a … labouring man who lived a solitary life. He was 55 yo. He worked, off an on, for a local grazier, F E Hobson. As an example of just how involved the life of a ‘local’ farm worker could be, when the estate was settled – reported on 9/1/18 – the ‘Curator of Estates of Deceased Persons’ sold off Christie’s 2-roomed house which was situated at Wonwron on 1 acre of land and included fruit trees. Christie was an example of a local ‘landed labourer’: he worked for local farmers and graziers but he also held a small parcel of land in his own right.

The finding of the deputy coroner was that Christie … died on 30th day of June, 1917, at Wonwron, from want of food and exposure as the result of a drinking bout.

Hobson, Christie’s employer, described how Christie went on ‘periodical sprees’ and related how he [Christie] had told him … on one or two occasions he would like to die drunk. The last time Hobson saw Christie was nearly a week before his death. Hobson said he … appeared to be muddled with drink … and he was… only partly dressed. At the time, Christie was drinking gin and whisky and Hobson noted that he usually drank the gin neat. Hobson was alarmed that Christie did not appear to be eating and so he cooked some sausages for him. He stated that Christie ate the food and drank some tea. A few days later, Hobson asked J H O’Connor who was going to visit his parents – they lived near Christie at Wonwron – if he would check on Christie. It was O’Connor who found Christie dead and notified the police. The police noted that the death was the result of drinking. The officer described how Christie … was clad only in a shirt. It was the middle of Winter. He also noted that … The body was hooked up by the shirt he was wearing to a hook in the fireplace.

Christie’s death, reported in detail in the local paper, was obviously tragic and confronting. It was a stark example, if one was needed, of the inherent danger of drink.

Rev Walklate (Methodist) made Christie’s death the focus for his sermon about 3 weeks later. The sermon was reported in detail, in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 20/7/17. The telling headline for the piece was – The Co-operative Store Grocer’s Licence. Condemned From The Pulpit.

Walklate began his sermon lamenting the general lack of commitment to true Christianity. Then he turned to what it meant to be a true Christian businessman. He posed the rhetorical question: What [as a Christian] is my business life? and then answered it,

Does God come first? True to God in business, then after a business transaction my client should go away feeling, well, that is how Jesus Christ does business.

The focus on the Christian business man was his entree to the store’s licence. In his mind at least, the two were incompatible and Christie’s death presented the chance to prove the incompatibility:

Last week we read of a man named Christie. who drank himself to death: not in a hotel – that is against the law – but in a hut, upon liquor bought at the Co-operative Store.

Walklate’s charge was clear: how could true Christian business men – the manager, shareholders and directors of the Co-op Store – have sold liquor to someone who drank himself to death?

To labour the point about the need to see the person of Christ as a vital figure in the way business was conducted, Walklate offered an unusual – if not bizarre – image. He asked his congregation to imagine a sign painted over the Co-op Store – Jesus Christ & Co., licensed to sell wine and spirits. The presumption was that it was inconceivable. Later, he again placed Christ, literally, at the centre of the trade in alcohol:

If Jesus Christ were to stand at the counter for one day where liquor was handed out, and owners and shareholders of licences could see the face of the Lord, how long would they continue in the business?

For Walklate, the Christian business man had a definite responsibility: Christian teaching and values had to shape his conduct. By the end of the sermon, Walklate had called out all those associated with the operation of the Co-op Store’s grocer’s licence. They were not true Christians at all but, rather, as he put it, … of the race of Judas Iscariot.

In the next edition of the paper (25/7/17) there was another letter from the anonymous ‘Reform’ [see above] who congratulated Walklate as … a clergyman who has the courage to enunciate his beliefs and opinions on such vital public questions as liquor control.

The anonymous correspondent was convinced that … the abolition of the grocers’ licences is the keystone of temperance reform. Get the grocer’s licence cut out and the battle is half won.

‘Reform’ also claimed, specifically in relation to the Co-op Store at Yarram, that the real level of drink sales was hidden in the balance sheet and, more generally, it was … a well known fact that some purchases of liquor in stores hide their purchase under the guise of other goods.

Finally, ‘reformed’ returned to the editor’s earlier claim that it was only fair that licences be restricted, exclusively, to hotels.

To this point, all the reports in the local paper – both letters and editorials – had favoured the push to remove the grocer’s licence from the Co-op Store. This changed dramatically when Richard Moorfield, one of the original directors of the Co-op Store chose to respond.

Moorfield and Walklate had much in common, including the status of both civic leaders and high profile Imperial Loyalists. Both had supported recruitment campaigns and the 1916 Conscription Referendum and both were involved in soldiers’ farewells and welcomes. But there was also a history of conflict between them. For example, during the campaign for the 1916 Referendum, the two had clashed at an anti-conscription meeting held by Senator Blakey. Both had attended the meeting to attack Blakey’s position, but Moorfield had taken the matter one step further. At the end of the meeting, he proposed a motion to the effect that those present at the meeting in fact supported conscription. Walklate had intervened and argued that Moorfield was going too far. The intensity of the clash between the 2 men was remarked on by those there. Presumably, even then, the tension over the licence was affecting relations between them.

In his letter, published in the local paper on 27/7/17, Moorfield launched a spirited defence of the Co-op Store and a strong personal attack on what he described as the clergyman’s ‘vindictive diatribe’.

Moorfield did not dispute that Christie had purchased the liquor at the Co-op Store. But he argued that Christie could and would have purchased the drink from any one of numerous other locations, and he claimed that it was unfounded to single out the Co-op Store as the effective cause of Christie’s death:

Will the Rev. Mr. Walklate affirm that the unfortunate man Mr. Christie would have abstained from liquor had the grocer’s licence been extinct? He knows full well that drink can be procured in the township at various places. Why does “the vilest abomination of that hellish traffic” belong to the Co-op Store in particular?

Moorfield’s criticism then became far more personal. He attacked Walklate as a ‘rabid teetotaler’ who was keen to force his views on everyone, including …thousands of respectable ladies and gentlemen [who] consume wine and spirits as a beverage or stimulant, yet hate intoxication or excessive drinking.

Moorfield was Presbyterian – Rev. Walklate was the local Methodist clergyman – and he certainly had no illusion about the potential ‘evil’ of drink, but he went to considerable length to distance himself from the Walklate’s approach:

I deplore excessive drinking and very much of its social influence, just as much as the Rev. Mr. Walklate does, but I don’t approve of his methods to combat the evil. I have come to the conclusion that many of the rabid teetotalers do more harm than good by their extravagant language and charges against respectable people.

Moorfield even quoted scripture to prove the Church’s approach to drink was not one of total abstinence. He also employed scripture to advise Rev Walklate to step back from passing judgement on other people’s morality. This was clearly criticism of Walklate as a minister of religion.

Lastly, Moorfield could not resist playing with the contrived image that Walklate had set in his letter, where Christ was portrayed as the licensed purveyor of wine and spirits at the Yarram Co-op Store. In such a fanciful situation, Moorfield opined, at least customers would be assured of the quality of the liquor, the sales would be conducted on the ‘very best lines’ and there would be a ‘roaring trade’.

By now, if Rossiter, the editor of the paper, had hoped to stir controversy he had succeeded.

Walklate responded to Moorfield in the next edition (3/8/170. The issue of Christie’s death was receding as Walklate now began to highlight what he saw as the real problem: the appearance of ‘respectability’ that the Co-op Store was able to bestow on the liquor trade. As Walklate stated, grocers’ licences were ‘vile’ … because their hypocritical respectability is an inducement for people to drink. They are vile because they foster drinking in the home. They are vile because women are encouraged to deception and secret drinking.

Walklate’s preoccupation with the apparent duplicity of women prompted him even to suggest that it was their innate ’snobbery’ that sat behind the grocer’s licence. He argued that the … Grocer’s licence is vile because it fosters snobbery. The licensed grocer’s wife or shareholder’s wife seeks to move to a so called higher social level than the hotelkeepers wife. As Walklate saw things, the hapless grocer was driven by his status-seeking wife.

Walklate also started making accusations about the inner workings of the store itself. He suggested that the profits from the sale of alcohol were deliberately hidden in the store’s accounting practices. He also suggested that some employees of the store had had their lives ruined and families broken up because of drink, presumably from their association with the sale of liquor at the store. The further claim was that these employees had then been dismissed … to keep the store “decent and decorous.”

Not surprisingly, Rev Walklate felt the need to challenge Moorfield’s use of scripture. He even suggested Moorfield was not a true Christian:

Use of Scripture is not confined to Christians. If I remember correctly, our Lord ere he commenced his ministry met a gentleman who quoted Scripture to make wrong look right.

As for his own more informed use of scripture, Walklate observed that ‘drunkards’ would never … inherit the Kingdom of God.

Walklate was very keen to deny any association between the historical Christ and any tolerance for the consumption of liquor. In his view, Christ, and the early Church in general, had no involvement with or tolerance of alcohol.

Walklate finished by returning to his main argument that … Christian people have been lulled to unrighteousness by the grocer’s licence and its so called respectability.

For Walklate and his supporters, hotels were ‘evil’ and ‘unrighteous’ places. But this was a given in the community. Everyone knew the dangers of hotels. The Co-op Store, on the other hand, was an even more dangerous proposition because its ‘evil’ trade was concealed by a veneer of respectability. If the licence could be removed it would represent a profound victory for temperance.

Matters became very personal in the next exchange from Moorfield on 8/8/17.

Moorfield claimed that he had not entered the debate in his capacity as a director of the store. He claimed not to have set himself up as a ‘mouthpiece’ for anybody. At the same time, he strongly defended the reputation and name of the store and its employees. The claims from Walklate about questionable practices and behaviour, associated with the sale of liquor in the store, had clearly rankled him.

To the best of my knowledge, since the store was taken over from Mr. James McKenzie, over five years ago, no director has partaken of liquor within the store at any time. The manager, Mr. Whyte, strictly forbids the slightest indulgence in drinking. The employees are a respectable body of servants who know and obey the rules of the store. Should an employee be guilty of drinking in the store during working hours, he, or she, would be liable to instant dismissal. The manager is not responsible for the actions of its servants outside working hours, but all who know them, either in the store or out of it, will pronounce them a credit to the town of Yarram.

The irony was that such declarations served to support Walklate’s claim that the very ’respectability’ of the store enhanced its trade in liquor.

Moorfield dismissed Walklate’s claims about the early Church’s commitment to temperance.

He questioned yet again why Walklate refused to tackle the liquor trade at the hotels and focused exclusively on the Co-op Store. He wondered aloud why … he [Walklate] avoids saying one word against the Club or hotels, thereby showing his bitter animosity towards the store “in particular.”

The reference to the (Yarram) Club was critical. As already indicated, the Yarram Club – a private club in Yarram since the 1890s – held its own liquor licence. Yet it had not attracted any attention at all from Walklate.

Moorfield decided that he needed to address this inconsistency. He claimed that he had the ‘painful duty’ to expose the reasons behind this ‘glaring inconsistency’. Moorfield then announced that Rev Walklate was himself a member of the (licensed) Yarram Club.

It is rumored about (but rumor is not sufficient for me), and I have it from an undoubted source, that the Rev. C. J. Walklate joined the Yarram Club, wherein the “hellish traffic” is carried on, and where drink is sold to members only to be drunk on the premises; that the rev. gentleman was duly balloted for, and made a member of the Club.

Moorfield finished his letter with a curt,

The public awaits his reply.

Walklate had challenged the ‘hypocritical respectability’ of the Co-op Store, now he was being called out as a hypocrite himself over his membership of another licensed premises.

Walklate’s lengthy rely on 15/8/17 claimed that Moorfield was twisting and distorting his (Walklate’s) arguments; and that he was being personally attacked and held to ridicule. As for his membership of the Yarram Club, Walklate denied ever having been a member and claimed, again, that Moorfield had deliberately misrepresented the situation. His version was:

I was proposed as a member of the club and successfully balloted, but hearing it challenged as inconsistent with my rechabite principles I personally interviewed the Grand See of the Rechabites in Melbourne, and was told that the Council would hold it as inconsistent with the I.O.R. principles. Desiring to be consistent, I wrote my proposer and the president of the club and asked permission to withdraw my nomination. They kindly let the matter drop, and thus I never was a member. Should the Rechabites ever permit me I shall gladly join the club for, as a man and a Christian minister I ever seek the right to be found in all places (worthy or worthless) as a man among men.

Walklate returned to the claim that the Co-op Store was morally responsible for Christie’s death. He also now claimed that the sale of alcohol was the ‘backbone’ of the ‘grocery department’ and this was the reason the store was so reluctant to give up the licence.

In his ongoing attempt to remove Christ and the early church from any association with alcohol, Walklate persisted with his claim that ‘wine’ from the scriptures was not intoxicating:

Mr. Moorfield knows that he cannot show from scripture that Biblical wine made by our Lord and advised by Paul was intoxicating. He has no ground for dragging in such instances as though they were intoxicating wines. Raspberry vinegar might have been called “wine” in those days. Any fruit steeped in water was a wine.

Moorfield waited a full week before he replied on 22/8/17. The language in his response was particularly strong. He accused Walklate of showing … his maliciousness and malignant disposition against the Co-op., its employees, and a large section of the public who do business under its licence.

Further, he claimed that Walklate’s instruction from the pulpit was so harsh and extreme – driven by his obsession with temperance – that it drove his congregation way:

From his pulpit … he attacked the Christians of his church, or any others, who professed to be followers of their Master, by using harsh and uncalled for language against them, which I have pointed out in this debate.

And he noted … no wonder the churches – in which such doctrines are preached – are becoming empty.

Clearly, Moorfield was directly attacking Walklate’s worth as a minister of religion. He also attacked his ambivalence towards the question of the licence at the Yarram Club and claimed that his obvious – and ongoing – desire to be a member, set against others’ interpretation of Rechabite principles, showed that ‘his mind is very fickle’ and ‘under outside control’. As far as Moorfield was concerned, Walklate was not even his own man.

Further, to accentuate Walklate’s supposed limitations as a clergyman, Moorfield ridiculed his references to ‘raspberry vinegar’ and other forms of non-alcoholic wine at the time of Christ. He even listed 14 specific references to scripture which he maintained showed that, in fact, biblical wine was intoxicating, and early church leaders recommended its use in moderation while explicitly condemning drunkenness. The clear imputation was that he, a layman, was a more informed scholar of scripture than this particular clergyman.

Rev Walklate’s last letter on the matter came on 29/8/17. He opened his letter by claiming that he had been subjected to a … personal and abusive attack by Mr. Moorfield. He accused Moorfield of ‘brow-beating and abuse’ and of twisting ‘my words into insults’. He wrote that Moorfield had violated the ‘law of courtesy in debate’ and, most pointedly, had poured out ‘contemptible abuse on my ministry.’ Walklate claimed that it was generally recognised that Moorfield’s attack had been so extreme that even shareholders and customers of the Co-op Store had approached him and apologised for the way he had been treated.

Overall, the letter was considerably shorter. Walklate still maintained that the store bore moral responsibility for Christie’s death. He still wanted a thorough investigation of the store’s licence. He wanted to know the ‘drink totals of each year’, and how many employees had been dismissed over drink-related problems. He was still suggesting that ‘liquor’ was … being charged as soap, vinegar, grocery or drapery.

He also still wanted to persist with the seemingly fanciful position that … Our Lord’s and Paul’s wine have no connection with intoxication of today.

Oddly, it was only in the last paragraph of his final letter that Walklate explicitly referred to the War and the call for temperance:

Now His Majesty King George, the late Lord Kitchener, Prime Minister Lloyd George, and a gallant host of leaders have banished intoxicants entirely from their households, and have asked loyal citizens to do the same during the war. Surely the Co-op. management can show a spirit of loyalty to the Empire and give a lead to this district by banishing liquor from the store.

It seems strange that he did not employ this patriotic argument earlier, and with more force. Perhaps he used it, at the very end, to claim back some form of authoritative respectability in a debate he believed he had lost.

For his part, Moorfield’s last letter came on 5/9/17. He had no intention of apologising or backing down. He wrote that Walklate was ‘ruffled’, principally because he had been caught out with his membership of the Yarram Club. He then summarised all the charges made against the Co-op Store by Walklate, from moral responsibility for Christie’s death, through the promotion of drinking in the home and the promotion of drinking among women, to the alleged practice of recording alcohol sales as other items. He rejected them all, vigorously:

I repel with indignant and redoubled force and vigor the defamatory accusations which have been cowardly and spitefully levelled at the Co-operative Store, its management, and its shareholders.

He specifically accused Walklate and his backers of an orchestrated campaign:

This outcry from a small section of violent reactionists has gone far enough, and now we say “hands off the Co-operative Store and mind your own business.” Already, if I am not mistaken, the Rev. Mr. Walklate has gone perilously near a precipice. We had peace for over five years in connection with the Co-op., until this conspiracy – by a small circle of “chosen people” – was hatched. This particular section evidently put their heads together to damn the Co-op. Yet, after all their contemptible work and “hypocritical respectability,” the store is rapidly progressing.

He employed religious imagery to damn them:

These I say, “superior” scavengers of society, searching the dust bins in other people’s places for scraps of filth to throw at the community again and again from their housetops, with malignant spite under pre-arranged conspiracies. I say, these are the kind of Pharisees who ran rampant in the days of ignorance. Have their posterity, I ask, reached Yarram and district in the year of Our Lord 1917? If so, I have every confidence that the intelligence of this community will drive them out.

He finished with a passage for Walklate:

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth – this defileth a man. (Matthew 15, 11.)

The final word on the debate in the local paper over the grocer’s licence at the Yarram Co-operative Store came on 14/9/17. It was a letter from James Bland – a dairy farmer from Alberton – and it was in support of Walklate. He reassured readers that people were not leaving Rev Walklate’s congregation and that there was a lot of support generally for his position, not just from his ‘own people’ but also from ‘most of the other churches’. Interestingly, he took aim at all non-hotel licences, the Yarram Club included:

I feel that grocers’, club and wine licences are an unnecessary evil; that they do encourage secret drinking in the home no sane man would deny. I venture to say that not one half of the drink sold by grocers would be consumed in the homes if there were no grocers’ licences.

Bland finished his letter with a fairly mild rebuke of Moorfield:

If Mr. Moorfield is going to try to get into heaven on his good works alone I think he will have to put up a better argument to Peter for a pass than he has for the grocer’s licence.

On one level, the foregoing account stands as a case-study of the intense social conflict precipitated by the attempts of temperance advocates to impose their views on the wider community. Such advocates saw temperance as proof of moral strength and religious purity. They also believed that they had a duty to promote temperance in the wider community and even impose it on, by definition, weaker individuals or souls. Opposed to such ‘reformers’ there were others who, recognising the risks and even ‘evils’ associated with alcohol, were not prepared to compromise individual rights, set themselves up as the moral arbiters of others, curb or prohibit existing social behaviours and pastimes or even deny legitimate business practices. This, essentially, was the conflict that played out in Yarram in the middle of 1917.

But this level of analysis misses much of the historical complexity associated with what happened in Yarram at that time. Specifically, it does not place the events within the context of the War.

As argued previously, the early stages of the War saw a very close connection between temperance and support for the War. Temperance was advanced as an essential war-time goal and it was promoted, vigorously, at every level – the Empire, the Nation, the AIF and the local community. Specifically, in the Shire of Alberton there was an almost seamless connect between the call for temperance and support for the War. The local Imperial Loyalists of the Shire strongly supported both causes. Importantly, this group largely featured leading members of the local Protestant congregations, including their clergymen, as well as groups such as the local Rechabites. This demographic was naturally inclined to support temperance.

However, by the middle of 1917, after 3 years of the War, when the focus of temperance reform shifted to a very specific local cause – the abolition of the grocer’s licence at the Yarram Co-op Store – the previous unity was fractured. As noted, both Walklate and Moorfield belonged to the leading group of Imperial Loyalists yet, ultimately, the issue of temperance caused them to fall out spectacularly, with considerable bitterness. It seemed that the cause of temperance had, in fact, divided the civic leaders and the core block of Imperial Loyalists.

Yet it also appears that the division and fall out were contained. Effectively, while there was no longer any common position on temperance, this tension was not allowed to undermine the stability of the group of Imperial Loyalists or their support for the War, and within a few months the same group was actively promoting the Yes vote in the second referendum.

There appear to have been 3 critical factors at play that prevented a more profound social and civic rupture. The first was that the public conflict was limited to just 2 people: Walklate and Moorfield. No other public figures became involved. It was as if there was agreement that the debate would be limited to just two spokespeople. Even Rossiter, the editor of the paper and another key Imperial Loyalist, who definitely had strong opinions on the matter, withdrew from the debate once it had been taken up by Moorfield and Walklate.

The second factor was the apparent agreement to keep the various Protestant congregations at arms length. Even though Moorfield was Presbyterian and Walklate Methodist, the debate did not become one that pitted Methodist against Presbyterian. This was a critical point because the temperance movement was definitely not limited to the Methodist congregation. Many Presbyterians were temperance backers, including Rev Tamagno the minister who had chaired the local ‘6 o’clock movement’.  Similarly, Rev George Cox the previous Church of England minister had been a strong temperance advocate. In fact, he had been the Head Ruler of the local Rechabite Tent. The Rechabites drew their number from all the Protestant churches. It appears that there was tacit agreement not to allow the debate to develop into a conflict between or within Protestant congregations. Moorfield was scathing in his attacks on Walklate but he never explicitly attacked him as a Methodist clergyman.

The third factor, already mentioned, was that Walklate did not employ the argument that temperance was vital to the War effort. He only introduced it at the very end of the debate and, as argued, then he appeared to employ it merely to claw back some credibility for his position. One explanation for Walklate’s behaviour is that he knew full well that in the block of Imperial Loyalists to which he belonged, there were others – possibly many others – who, like Moorfield, did not share his strong views on temperance and he was reluctant to use the cause of the War lest he create major divisions within the group. Rossiter, the editor of the local paper, was another example. He had in fact started the debate about the Co-op Store and its licence but he also warned temperance advocates about being over zealous. In one sense Walklate’s reluctance to create too much conflict with his peers was similar to his willingness to ignore the licence for the Yarram Club and focus exclusively on that for the Co-op Store. It appears that Walklate made political decisions about how best to pursue the cause of temperance and at the same time hold together the group of civic leaders, to which he belonged, who were committed to pursuing the War and supporting the Empire.

Even though local politics contained the fall-out from the bitter debate over temperance, it was abundantly clear that the issue of temperance was yet another major fault line running through the community. Arguably, while there was a major Catholic – Protestant divide in the community – over theology, religious history, education, perceived level of support for the War …. , the division within the Protestant churches on the issue of temperance was also very profound.

References

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative

Adams, J 1990, From these Beginnings: History of the Shire of Alberton (Victoria), Alberton Shire Council, Yarram, Victoria

105. The soldiers’ vote denied

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In early March 1917 (2/3/17), the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative published the mesage that Birdwood had sent to all members of the AIF immediately prior to the first referendum conscription, 4 months earlier. In the letter, included here in full, Birdwood is obviously calling for a Yes vote from the men.

To members of the A.I.F.- As General Officer Commanding the Australian Force, it is not for me to interfere in any political matters or to influence the voting of our men on the coming Referendum.

I know well that in any case all will vote as seems to them necessary in the best interests of Australia and the Great Empire to which we belong, whose freedom has been, and still is, in danger of being turned into slavery by Germany. I feel, however, that I can inform you all of how really essential it is that we should get all the men available to keep these magnificent Australian forces, which are now in the field, and whose name is renowned throughout the Empire, up to their strength.

Every single man would, I am sure, bitterly resent and regret it if we had to reduce a single battalion, battery or company, every one of which has now made history, and established a tradition which we all hope will last as long as the British flag flies over our world-wide Empire. But it is, I think, probable that all ranks do not know as well as I do the absolute necessity of keeping our reinforcements right up to strength, and the present system is not doing this. I feel sure all know the great feelings of regard and pride which I have for every man of this force who has up to now come forward of his own free-will and after great sacrifice.

Many brave men have given their lives for the sake of our Empire and the freedom of the world – lives which have been uselessly sacrificed if we relax our efforts in any way until we have the Germans right down on their knees. Remember, too, boys, that the word freedom does not only mean for ourselves, but what is far more important, freedom for our children and our children’s children. For them, I know no sacrifice can be too great.

In the magnificent manifesto, which our Prime Minister, Mr. Hughes, has sent us, he has fully shown what exemptions there will be when universal service is adopted. It will be seen from this that members of families, some of whom have already come forward, will be fully safeguarded, and no man need fear that there is danger of, we will say, the brother who has been left behind to look after the affairs of the family, being ordered to come out. The shirker, however, will be caught, and made to do his share, instead of staying at home as he has done up to now, not only evading his duties, but getting into soft jobs which we want to see kept for our boys here when they return, or for the representatives of their families who have been left in Australia.

I have nothing more to say, boys, except to point out to you as strongly as I can that the necessity does exist, and I hope that after these two years, during which we have been soldiers together, we know each other well enough to realise that I would not say this without good reason. Having said it, I leave it to you to act according to your conscience, for the good of our King and country, the honour of our people, and the safety of our wives and children.
W. R. Birdwood
Lieut. General G.O.C., A. I F.
October 16th. 1916

The copy of the letter, the paper explained, had been provided by B P Johnson who had obtained it from his brother. [Johnson’s brother was Sergeant Norman C Johnson who had enlisted  – 4 LHR – in August 1914 and who had been repatriated to Australia in April 1916 after having been wounded at Gallipoli.]

The publication of the letter suggests that while the referendum had been defeated, Imperial Loyalists in the local community – like Johnson and Rossiter, the editor – were still steadfastly commited to conscription. Voluntary enlistments had not picked up after the referendum, and, in the minds of people like Johnson and Rossiter, the arguments for conscription remained as valid as at the time of the referendum. The publication of Birdwood’s message to his ‘boys’ reminded everyone of the apparently indisputable logic for conscription. As Rossiter wrote in his introduction to the piece, it was … a powerful appeal for the “Yes” vote. Moreover, the case for conscription was reinforced by the claim that the AIF had in fact voted Yes in the referendum.

Specifically in terms of the soldiers’ vote, the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire reported as early as 20/12/16 that the majority had supported conscription. On that occasion, Hughes was reported as stating in federal parliament that … a majority of soldiers of the A.I.F. abroad was substantially in favor of the referendum. When he was pressed for the exact numbers, Hughes declared that he could not divulge them because … the desire of the military authorities in England precluded that [possibility]. The pressure on Hughes to release the precise numbers continued and, finally, at a speech in Bendigo on 27/3/17, he claimed that the number “For” was 72,000 and the number “Against” was 58,000: a majority of 14,000. The numbers were reported in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire on 30/3/17. [The figures given in the Official History were 72,399 Yes and 58,894 No: a majority of 13,505.]

At the end of March 1917, as far as Hughes and his supporters were concerned, the arguments for conscription had always been – and still remained –  beyond dispute; and they had the support of the highest levels of the AIF command. Further, the soldiers themselves voted for conscription by a clear majority. Therefore, the logic ran, the men overseas had been betrayed by the No vote back in Australia.

However, there was a very different version of the story of soldiers’ vote which, at the time, was concealed. Hughes had his way with his version of the truth and the episode reveals just how comprehensively the Government was able to manipulate the narrative of the War.

The alternative version comes, ironically, from the personal diaries of CEW Bean, the Official War Historian. Bean was certainly an advocate of conscription and indeed he did his best to ensure that the soldiers’ vote was Yes. But at the same time, his personal diaries expose the deceit and manipulation that characterised Hughes’ desperate attempt first to win over the soldiers’ vote, and then, when it did not suit him, effectively bury it.

Hughes’ intention was to have the AIF vote held before the vote back in Australia so that the assumed strong Yes from the soldiers would influence the national vote. However, as the vote neared he was informed by his supporters in England, including Murdoch, that the soldiers’ vote was not guaranteed. At this point Bean became involved. He was given the task of contacting Birdwood and encouraging him to make a representation to the soldiers urging them to vote Yes. This is all set out in detail in the following extracts from Bean’s personal diaries. Bean’s role in all this is very apparent. He was most definitely a key participant in the history he came to write. Bean wrote in a form of shorthand but for present purposes, I have written the diary notes in full prose, without changing any of the content.

On Sunday 15 October 1916, Bean wrote in his diary:

Last night [Sa 14/10/16] White told Bazley not to let me go on any account without seeing him.
[CBB White, Brigadier General, General Staff, Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Working under Birdwood but generally regarded as the real power in the AIF in France at the time]
[AW Bazley, nominal ‘batman’ to Bean but really a colleague]

Hughes had sent a cable to Birdwood from Burnie in Tasmania. It said that the opposition to conscription in Australia was due to the formidable intrigues of the ultra-socialists and the Fenians; and that everything depended on the lead which the vote of our own force in France gave to Australia. He called on Birdwood, with all the earnestness he could put into the cable, to put aside precedent and to use his great influence with the troops to get them to carry conscription by a big majority and give a lead to the people.

White wanted me to see Birdwood and urge him to do a really big thing for the Empire, and take this step. At the moment we both took it that what Hughes wanted was a message to the Australian people.

I hesitated a moment. Perhaps I am weak. I knew that White’s decision, whichever way it was, would have settled me in mine. But I have a very great fear of anyone in Birdwood’s position – a military servant of the State using his influence in a big question at the polls. I should have taken a few minutes to think. I wasn’t sure which way White was. Then he told me he “wants the little man to play the man – and to take a big opportunity of doing a great thing for the Empire.” The loss of this measure would be a terrible smack in the face of the Empire. It would count enormously. It seemed to me that Birdwood might very well tell the Australian people what the military necessity was for reinforcements, as their chief military adviser. It would have enormous effect. White added: “Yes, and get him to point out that every effort that we have made up to the present would go for nothing- would be utterly wasted – if this were lost.” White means, I think, that it would lose us the good name which our energy and public spirit have so far won.

When I got to London I started to search for Birdwood. … After a fair hunt, I heard of Birdie at the Charles Buckleys, where his daughter often stays. Birdie was at Clifton and would not get back till 8.20. I decided to miss the train and stay and see him. Fortunately I found out that the train left at 11.15. [PM]

Birdie, who hated the idea of being made to give evidence at the Dardanelles Commission during the war, had got away quietly to Lincoln and only went to Clifton on his last day.

He came in to the Buckleys with his pretty daughter, the little Harefield nurse, at about 8.45. We had a long talk in Mrs Buckleys sitting room, by ourselves; Mrs Buckley had been exceedingly kind in telephoning all over London for me to find out if he had returned.

Birdie pointed out at once that what Hughes wanted was, clearly, for him [Birdwood] to give a lead to the soldiers. He never hesitated a moment. I too could see at once a reason for this. If the soldiers voted No – that would kill the question, the people at home would never vote Yes if their army here voted No. The Australian vote was to be later, after the result of the A.I.F.’s vote was known. I fancy Hughes had arranged this thinking that the A.I.F would be certain to vote Yes. Anyway, it was no use Birdie sending a message to Australia if the A.I.F. voted No. The thing to do was to get the army to vote Yes.

Birdie told me that he had seen Lloyd George. While he was there Murdoch asked if he might come in. Murdoch wanted Birdwood to send a message to Australia. Lloyd George agreed, too, that B. [Birdwood] should do this, until Birdwood pointed out that if he did, it might be said by opportunists that he was ordering the soldiers how to vote. L. George agreed, and it was decided not to do this; but Murdoch got letters of introduction to Haig and Joffre and started for France to get messages from each of them if possible.

This shows how Ll. George hangs on the Australian attitude – how important he thinks it. Birdwood didn’t hesitate. He got me to sit down and write, to his dictation, a message to the men saying that he wanted them to vote by their consciences and not to influence them in any way. But he added that he probably knew better than they did, the need for reinforcements. He was sure they would not like to see any of the units, with all their traditions and history, broken up. There was a need for men. If the effort of Australia were relaxed now, all the brave lives sacrificed before would have been sacrificed in vain. The Govt has told them what exemptions were to be – they need not fear that the brother left at home to mind the business would be called to enlist; the men it would especially get were the shirkers who were at present filling all the nice fat billets which we wanted to see our men in on their return, or their relations at home.

The poll was to be tomorrow [Mo 16/10/16]. I urged that if possible this [Birdwood’s statement] ought to and could be wired tonight. But the A.I.F Headquarters said it couldn’t. I think it still could. However, Col. Wright said not. So B. asked if the poll could be put off a day or two. Wright, who is under Anderson (who is managing the business of getting the vote taken) said it could. So B. asked them to wire postponing it.

I don’t know one bit the effect of these steps. They are very risky I am sure. I should have tried every way I could to have got the wire across without postponing the poll, but I didn’t put my reasons strongly enough though B. could see that I wanted it.

There it is. I hope it does the business. For I am sure conscription is right.

Bean’s diary entry is striking at many levels. The tone is anecdotal and free-flowing. He places himself at the very centre of the action. He claims close familiarity with the leading political and military figures. He is a confidant and trusted messenger.

The actors seem caught up in the moment of a ‘good idea’ or a ‘desperate plea’ from Hughes and no one is prepared to step back and apply any sort of critical thinking. Bean talks about the unprecedented act of having a military commander intervene in an obviously political situation but there is no evidence of any deep reflection from anyone on just how significant the matter was. The narrative appears to be on the lines of a select group of powerful individuals determining, on the run, that despite the risks something had to be done.

Essentially, all the key characters involved were attempting to influence the soldiers’ vote – despite all the transparently false qualifications Birdwood included in his message –  and Birdwood, acting on Hughes’ request, was using his military status and reputation to intervene directly in a critically important political matter. Moreover, the delay to the voting schedule, so that Birdwood’s message would have the chance to influence the outcome, was obviously intended to manipulate the voting process.

Subsequent entries in Bean’s diary reveal that the political intervention did not achieve the desired outcome. In fact, it probably had the opposite effect. The following entry was dated 21/10/16, immediately after the troops had voted, and it points to an additional strategy which Hughes was keen to employ. Separate from the actual soldiers’ vote on the referendum, Hughes wanted a series of resolutions in favour of conscription passed by public meetings of the soldiers in France.  He intended to use such resolutions to promote the Yes vote back in Australia.

Murdoch tells me that Young (S.A.) O.C. Beale and another have gone across (at his request, by Haig’s leave) to address meetings upon conscription, amongst the men and see if they cannot send some resolution calling on the Australian people to send more men. If the resolution is in favour of conscription, it will be telegraphed to Australia; if against, it will perhaps be telegraphed to Hughes, but he will not publish it. I shall send the results of all these resolutions or none at all, to my papers. Hughes says that Sinn Feiners have sent agents to Australia and that the Irish and I.W.W are against him. I believe the women will carry him through.

Murdoch undoubtedly is a fine strong helper. …

Everybody here exercised [?] about the Referendum. Birdwood’s circular to the troops did little good – rather the reverse. Col. Anderson thinks Hughes is getting as nervous as can be about it. Anything favourable from here will be telegraphed out to give Australia a lead. Anything unfavourable will be suppressed. Sir Newton Moore did not issue Hughes memorandum to his troops at all. Anderson, who is his enemy, hints that this was because Moore would like to see Hughes and Labour out of office as a result of the loss of Referendum, in order that he (Moore) might get some job or position from the Liberal Govt that would follow. But this is absurd.

Anderson is a clever man but a jealous and ambitious one. He has saved a lot of money for Australia, but sometimes his motives are not purely public spirited.

The 2 men that Murdoch had sent to visit the troops in France in an attempt to secure the resolutions in favour of conscription were (Sir) Frederick William Young and Octavius Charles Beale. Young was the South Australian Agent General at the time. He was only 40 yo. Beale was a successful Australian business man living in London at the time. He was much older at 66 yo. Both men were staunch Imperialists. Young was knighted in January 1918 and he was even elected to the UK House of Commons. He effectively lived in England until his death. Beale returned to Australia after the War but he did achieve English honours, including being admitted as ‘freeman of the City of London’ (1918).  Beale was obsessed with the fear of ‘racial decay’.

Anderson, was Brigadier-General Robert Anderson who was Commandant, AIF Administrative Headquarters, London. He was credited with improving efficiencies in the AIF. He was also spoken of as a nationalist, in the sense that he stood up for the AIF’s interests vis a vis the British Army. (Sir) N J Moore was at the time Brigadier-General in charge of all the AIF depots and training centres in Britain. He had been Premier of Western Australia. He was also a very successful business man. Moore was yet another significant Imperialist. He was also elected to the UK House of Commons (1918-23).

Bean’s tone is again anecdotal and once again he places himself in the centre of the politics and intrigue. Once again, people’s motivations are represented as fairly pedestrian. Hughes clearly had no intention of allowing any negative news from the soldiers in France to make it back to Australia. If there was no support for conscription from the troops – either via the vote itself or the passing of various ‘resolutions’ in favour of conscription – then all the related news was to be withheld.

Obviously word was coming in by this point as to how the troops had voted and the intelligence was not encouraging. Bean believed that Birdwood’s message had backfired. A last minute attempt was required to get some sort of resolution in favour of conscription, from at least some of the troops. Hughes was desperate.

There is another diary entry for Sunday 22/10/16. In it, Bean talked about the last minute efforts to get support from key military leaders and the then urgent mission of Beale, Young and one additional, unnamed, agent.  Bean also revealed the apparent failure of the vote amongs the front-line troops.

In London. Lunched with Murdoch at The Times office. He has seen Joffre, Haig and Pollard and each of them has given him an interview. Haig would only make it a message, stating how much France and the allies needed the troops. Birdwood has promised to send a message on the military need for reinforcements. The vote in France has been taken and (up to the present count) the result is a ten per cent majority against conscription. They are accordingly sending to France O. C Beale, Young, and one other, to address public meetings in favour of  [conscription?].

The last diary entry was dated 25/10/16. In it Bean discloses the dismal failure of the efforts of Young to secure a resolution in support of conscription from the troops. Bean also defends his actions in pressing Birdwood to issue his message in support of conscription, but he clealry has reservations about the whole episode.

I can see (though he doesn’t say so) that White thinks I made a mess of my errand to Birdwood. He thinks I ought to have got a message to the people of Australia and not to the troops, and that the message to the troops may be interpreted as an attempt at exercising a dangerous influence and that the putting off of the voting for two days was a dangerous matter. Anderson told White he would not have let him [Birdwood] do it and perhaps I ought to have told him [Birdwood] plainly the dangers I saw in it. But there we are. As White says, I don’t know that Anderson would have found it so easy to stop him [Birdwood].

However, he really did nothing which was not perfectly defensible. He had a perfect right to tell the men his opinion on a point so important – and he had no control whatsoever over the voting. As a fact, I suspect he lost votes rather than gained them.

Bazley tells me that Young, Agent General for South Australia and a very able man, came over as arranged and asked the troops at a public meeting to send a resolution to Australia in favour of conscription. Haig had permitted the meeting provided there were no speeches, except Young’s, and no officers were present. Young put it to them that at present Australia stood first among the Dominions in the eyes of the British nation and that they would lose that regard if the country did not vote for compulsory service. The attitude of the men was quite clear. They said that they did not care whether Australia came first or last in the opinion of the British people. They wanted enough Australians left to maintain Australia’s present character after the war. They did not want so many Australians killed off that the population of immigrants flowing in, should alter the characteristics of the country. They could repopulate it by immigrants but they wanted it populated by Australians. They thought Australia had given enough to the war without forcing those who did not wish to come. They knew what it was like, now, and they were not going to ask others to come into it against their will. Young was going to wait till Sunday, but he went away on Saturday. The 23 and 21 Bns, which he saw, were almost unanimously against him.

They are funny beggars, but they have a lot of sense. It can’t be called a selfish attitude, anyway.

The 2 battalions that Young addressed – 21 and 23 Battalion – appear to have then been in their billets at Steenvorde. Both had recently been in the front lines. It is difficult to identify when Young spoke to the men but the most likely date was Friday 20/10/16. This was also the date that 21 Battalion voted in the referendum. The date for 23 Battalion’s vote is not given in the unit’s war diary but it must have been round the same time. The point is that Young was speaking to the men at the time that they were also voting – or had already voted – in the referendum. Consequently, the arguments they gave for not supporting any resolution that Young proposed were the same ones that shaped their vote. The arguments they gave, as represented by Bean, went to the core of Australia’s national, not imperial, identity. Australia had done enough. Young realised he had failed and went back early to Britain..

Historians generally argue that the overall success of the Yes vote in the AIF came not from those on the Western Front – their vote represented the clear rejection of conscription – but from those on the troopships, in the training camps in the UK  and serving in the Light Horse in Egypt.

The attitude and votes of the soldiers on the Western Front were effectively hidden. Back in Australia, as was evident in its publication in the local paper, Birdwood’s message to the troops continued to be used as a justification for conscription and, after the defeat of the referendum, Hughes was able to represent the vote of the AIF as being in favour of conscription. However, he was not able to use their vote, as he had intended, to influence the vote back in Australia.

Bean’s diary entries reveal Hughes’ determination to control, absolutely, the politics of the conscription vote. They also point to the human frailty, weakness and ordinariness of many of the key actors of the time who, coincidentally, exercised the power of life and death over their fellow countrymen. In Bean’s account, no one emerges with much integrity – or even intelligence – except for the troops themselves: the funny beggars in Bean’s words.

References

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative

Bean, CEW 1941, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, Volume XI – Australia During the War, 7th Edition 1941

Australian Dictionary of Biography

Bean’s diaries

There are digital versions of Bean’s diaries available from the Australian War Memorial website:

AWM 38: Official History, 1914-18 War: Records of CEW Bean, Official History

Item number 3DRL 606/61/1 – October 1916

Item number 3DRL 606/62/1 – October 1916

Item number 3 DRL 606/63/1 – October-November 1916

General histories

Beaumont, J 2013, Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest NSW. (see PP 243-244)

Connor, J, Stanley, P, Yule, p, 2015, The War At Home, Vol 4 The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne. (see p 113)

 

 

 

 

97. The war against drink

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While the war against drink was waged well before 1914, World War One definitely gave the already strong temperance movement added credibility and influence. The introduction of 6 o’clock closing was held up as the singular achievement of the period.

Prior to the War, the Licenses (Licensing) Reduction Board  had overseen a significant reduction in the number of hotels in Victoria. Figures cited by Public Record Office Victoria show that between 1907 and 1916, 1,054 hotels had been closed.  Additionally, the same legislation, with its provision for future local option polls, held out the promise that, from 1917, localities could vote to reduce the number of licences. It even offered localities the possibility that they could vote to have no hotels. Many temperance advocates believed that, even before the War, the movement was on the verge of ridding the nation of drink. Driven by women’s movements determined to reduce poverty, child neglect, family hardship and domestic violence, and intimately tied to the issue of female suffrage, the temperance movement had achieved a great deal.

The impact that the War had on the existing push for temperance was both significant and complex. The claim that the war against Germany and the war against drink were intimately connected – to the extent that the former required the latter – was a constant message reflected in the newspapers, particularly in the first few years of the War. Further, the success of state-level referenda over 1915-16 on the introduction of earlier closing hours did indicate that there was popular support for the view that drink did constitute a threat – however defined or quantified – to the war effort.

Specifically in terms of the Shire of Alberton, there was a strong history of temperance being actively promoted by the local Protestant churches. There was also a local ‘tent’ of the Independent Order of Rechabites (IOR) which was actively supported by the same churches.  The Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 23/12/14, under heading War Against Alcohol, presented a detailed account of a meeting organised by the local IOR. The other local paper, the South Gippsland Chronicle reported the meeting under the headline No-Licence Campaign, on the same day. The meeting was addressed by Rev Archer Harris, representing the Victorian Alliance. He spoke about the worldwide fight against alcohol and focused on the experience in New Zealand,  where prohibition (no licenses) in the area of Port Chalmers (near Dunedin) had reduced drunkenness and crime. He also cited the success of the prohibition movement in the USA. As well as delivering his public address in the evening, he had also spoken at Presbyterian and Methodist services earlier that day. The vote of thanks was given by Rev W T Johns (Methodist) and Rev Geo Cox (Church of England). At the time, Reverends Johns and Cox were, respectively, the Chief Ruler and Secretary of the local IOR. The meeting declared that drink was ‘the great national foe’ and, at the urging of Rev Tamagno (Presbyterian), decided to form a Yarram branch of the No-License League.

Drink had typically been described in terms of a national threat for many years but the War itself was employed to give this claim additional credibility. The perceived – or constructed – threat that drink posed to the national war effort was highlighted at a public meeting on temperance held in Yarram on 20/4/15. This meeting was again organised by the local IOR tent. It was written up in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 23/4/15. The audience was estimated to be about 70.

The meeting called for people to take inspiration from, and follow the example set by, the pledge – to not drink – taken by the British Royal Family. Accordingly, the first resolution passed by the Yarram meeting was,

That this meeting expresses its profound admiration of His Majesty the King in banishing intoxicating liquors from the Royal household, and we strongly recommend all loyal subjects to follow His Majesty’s example by individually abstaining from the use of alcohol during the currency of the war.

The person who put the resolution was Ben Percival Johnson. Johnson was the most outspoken supporter of the war effort in the community. He was also the driving force behind both recruiting and the Yes vote in the conscription referendum. Importantly, Johnson acknowledged that he had never belonged to any temperance group. At the same time, he was prepared to move and support the resolution because of the leadership the King had shown. Moreover, as Johnson pointed out, it was not just the King who was opposed to drink. He cited the claims made by Lord Kitchener, the Czar of Russia and British politicians like Asquith and Lloyd George. The latter, he reminded the audience, had told the British people that …  they were fighting Germany, Austria and drink and that the greatest of the three was drink.

Johnson spoke of the thousands of hours lost in the munitions industry because of the drinking problems of the workers. He also spoke of the harm drink did to the soldiers. However, principally, for Johnson at least, the most pressing reason for supporting the pledge was that it was a test of moral strength. If loyal subjects across the Empire could follow the King’s example then this universal act would represent the moral greatness and superiority of the Empire.  As he saw it, only the weak and selfish would not commit to the cause. As has already been pointed out – see Post 26. Soldiers of Christ – for Imperial patriots, the War offered the chance for people to re-commit to their religious beliefs and strengthen and prove their moral character. Moreover, for such people, the War was as much a test of moral fibre as it was a battle of military might.

The second resolution passed at the meeting – also unanimously – was more focused in its intention. It called for 6 o’clock closing, in line with other eastern states:

That in view of the appalling physical and mental deterioration, the grave moral depravity, and serious economic wastage, directly and indirectly traceable to the use of alcohol, this meeting respectfully urges the Government to come into line with the State of South Australia by providing for a referendum concerning the earlier closing of hotel bars and wine saloons.

Again, speakers for the resolution laboured the evils of drink. Drink was spoken of as the curse of the working class – It was pitiable to think the working classes could not do without drink – and again there was the extraordinary claim … that the effect of strong drink upon a country is more disastrous and more far-reaching than a German invasion.

The meeting was, of course, one for the converted and committed, but there was a noticeable confidence to the views of those there that prohibition was within reach. The War itself would finally open people’s eyes to the full horror of drink. Moreover, the legislation was already in place to enable far greater checks to drinking.  At the meeting, Rev Johns declared that, Prohibition was coming in 1917, and the public had had 10 years notice to quit. He was referring to the vote – under the Licensing Act 1906 – which promised localities the opportunity to reduce licences even further or, in fact, vote for no licences. In terms of the legislation, 1917 was the year this vote was to occur. However, it was delayed until after the War, in 1920. When the votes did eventually occur, 2 metropolitan districts in Melbourne – Nunawading and Boroondara – did indeed vote for no hotels.

The war against drink was, unsurprisingly, a favourite subject for sermons. As an example, the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative (26/7/16) featured a sermon on temperance delivered by Rev Tamagno (Presbyterian). It was headed, Temperance Question.  Tamagno spoke about his own experience, over many years, in tackling the consequences of drink and had no hesitation in declaring that it was … the  cause of more wrong in our Empire than any other. … I have no hesitation in saying that the traffic in strong drink is hellish in its results. It is to my mind a traffic in the blood, brain, body and soul of thousands in our fair land. There’s no wrong like it.

Tamagno praised the efforts of the Licensing Reduction Board and he was also looking forward to 1917 and the promised chance to vote out drink. He praised South Australia and the success of its referendum on 6 o’clock closing. He urged moderate drinkers to give up drink entirely as a sacrifice, on behalf of their ‘weaker brother’ who ‘feels in his blood and bones and brain, he must have it’. There were the customary claims about how drink was weakening the war effort across the Empire. Significantly, Tamagno was not just for curbing excessive drink but rather, as he kept putting it, he wanted to ‘drive drink from the land’. He imagined a future Australia freed from the grip of drink, one of a higher moral and spiritual order –

Think of the boundless moral and spiritual benefit that would come to our fair land by gradually weakening the liquor traffic, and ultimately leaving it no legs to stand on.

and he believed that with God’s help the backers of temperance would eventually triumph:

I know that vast problems are wrapped up in the iniquitous thing; but in the evolution of time God help us to drive it out of our land.

A pastoral letter from the Church of England was published in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 2/6/16. The church also acknowledged the world-wide efforts to curb drinking and praised the work done by the Licensing Reduction Board.  It threw its support behind 6 o’clock closing, not as just a temporary ban for the duration of the War but as a permanent check on the evil of drink.

For the local Protestant churches, the War brought an increased commitment to temperance, with a specific focus on the introduction of 6 o’clock closing. There was also a general understanding that very soon local communities were to have the power to reduce the number of licensed premises and even to vote drink entirely from their midst.

While the temperance cause was driven by heightened religious fervour, and stirring examples of Imperial sacrifice and duty, the actual behaviour of the members of the AIF was another powerful driver behind efforts to curb drink. The metropolitan and local papers were full of stories of drunken and disorderly soldiers. At a number of levels, the picture of the drunken, aggressive and dangerous digger was a very troubling image.

The Argus, under the headline Soldiers and Drink, reported (15/3/16) on a Rechabite conference held at Bendigo where the Chief Ruler claimed,

… there had never been a time in the history of Australia when alcohol had been used to worse effect than during the past 18 months, since the troops had been in training for active service.

and on the face of it, there was plenty of evidence to support this view.

The dangers of life in the large training camps had been identified right from the start, and religious bodies had been quick to try to establish a presence in the camps to counter the evils that young men would face. For example, Rev Tamagno had a letter-to-the-editor in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 26/3/15, appealing for donations to help establish a (Presbyterian)  “Soldiers’ Institute” at Broadmeadows. He claimed the facility was needed urgently … in the interests of the spiritual and social welfare of our church’s young troops . He saw the young men at risk … far from home and amid the perils of camp life near to the great city. The ‘great city’ was even more of a temptation because there were no wet canteens in the camps.

The most infamous drink-related episode occurred in the training camps at Liverpool and Casula on Monday 14 February 1916. Events that day, particularly in Liverpool and then Sydney, amounted to a major breakdown of military order and discipline. One soldier was shot and killed and there were many injuries. In the aftermath 1,000 men were discharged from the AIF and over 100 prosecuted on a range of charges.

The newspaper accounts of the day were incandescent in their fury and outrage. The riotous behaviour was presented as nothing less than a national disgrace. And drink was said to behind the excesses of what happened. The Age (16/2/16), in unrestrained commentary, declared the men involved to be traitors to the nation and despoilers of the Anzac spirit:

On Monday night, through a trifling grievance about hours of drill, several hundreds of New South Wales troops rebelled against discipline, broke camp, looted hotels, destroyed private property, and entered upon an orgy of violence. For a few hours they attacked the country, the people and the laws they are sworn to defend. These are not the men of Anzac; yet they wear the same uniform and have the same legal right to call themselves Australian soldiers. The honor of the grand young Australian army is as much in their keeping as it was in the charge of the men who fell, while advancing on the Peninsula. It is idle to discuss the merits or demerits of the complaint which led to the riot. There can be no excuses for a citizen who turns traitor to his country, and there can be none for the soldier who revolts against its authority, and temporarily takes up the cause of the foreign enemy…  Assuredly men of British blood seldom covered themselves with so much ignominy.

And the paper highlighted the evil power of drink:

Throughout the riots bottles, liquor, beer and hotels were consistent features. Whenever intoxicants were introduced to the scene the riotous soldiers became more unrestrained and the mischief the greater. Had all the hotels in the neighbourhood been closed before the riot, as they were closed shortly afterwards, the story would have been stripped of most of its sensationalism. Wherever the seeds of disorder may lie, strong liquors stimulate them into a foul and deadly growth. And not only does excessive drinking arouse latent lawlessness, it may debase soldiers of the finest manhood, and lead them in their madness to join the worst elements at the head of the mob. Discipline, therefore, depends to a fair extent upon restricting the opportunities for drinking.

While the Liverpool strike/mutiny/riot was the worst incident, there were many others at the time. For example, just 10 days earlier there had been trouble involving several hundred soldiers near Central Railway Station in Sydney. The Age (4/2/16) reported that the trouble had started over claims that a returned, wounded soldier had been manhandled by staff at a nearby ‘oyster bar’. The Age also reported on riots involving soldiers at St Kilda Beach in January 1916. At the end of February (28/2/16) it featured a story of a drunken riot at Warrnambool involving soldiers from the local camp. The police magistrate who dealt with the aftermath was quoted as declaring that … it appeared that when some men got liquor they went mad, and it was a great pity they got supplies at all. The same edition of the paper featured an account of how a 45 yo soldier – John Heath – had been killed in Melbourne, at the corner of King and Little Collins Street. Apparently, he had been involved in argument with a much younger soldier. In what for us is a depressingly contemporary story, Heath had been trying to talk his mate down when the younger soldier lashed out, unprovoked, and hit him. Heath fell to the pavement, fractured his skull and died instantly. The young assailant managed to disappear.

Post 26. Soldiers of Christ,  looked at the earlier riots involving soldiers in Melbourne in 1914. Drink was a common feature of such riots, both in Australia and Egypt at the time.

Faced with ongoing accounts of soldiers behaving badly it is not surprising that there there was popular support for the introduction of 6 o’clock closing. In jurisdictions where the issue did go to a referendum – South Australia and New South wales – there was strong support. Clearly, the threat of soldiers on leave, descending on the city for heavy drinking sessions and causing havoc did play on the minds of civilians. Many saw it as outrageous behaviour and wanted the culprits made an example of. For example, after the Liverpool trouble the local Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative (23/2/16) fulminated in its editorial,

Over 1000 men have been discharged from Liverpool and Casula camps for misconduct, drunkenness and absence without leave, and 116 men are held in custody for trial by court-martial. Rather should the men be made to fight, and placed in the front trenches, as the Germans do with this class of soldier.

At the same time, there were some who saw the problem as one caused, ironically, by temperance advocates. They argued that Senator Pearce had bowed to the pressure of temperance advocates and not allowed wet canteens in the camps. This ensured that when men went on leave, they were were bound to make the most of their limited chance to drink. As the writer of the Melbourne Letter – published in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative (22/10/15) – had put it back at the end of 1915:

The soldier, who is a civilian, has been accustomed to drinking at any odd time that he feels so disposed, will not drink any less when in town because he is made to imbibe only “soft stuff” in the camp. Rather is he prone to make certain that he uses the opportunity, while it offers, to get a fill of his favourite beverage, before he returns to another week or a fortnight of “raspberry and lemonade”.

Similarly, after Liverpool, many called for wet canteens in camps where soldiers’ drinking could be better controlled. Some also wanted tighter curfews and regulations that prohibited the sale of drink in licensed premises to any man in military uniform. Even temperance advocates could see the need for wet canteens. For example, Archdeacon Martin who worked in the Sydney camps with the Home Mission Society was quoted – The Age 22/2/16 – as advocating a wet canteen ‘under strict military discipline’,

These men become irritated when they are deprived of what they have been accustomed to, and when they get the chance they overdo it, and take more than they would if a wet canteen existed in the camp.

Six o’clock closing was first introduced in South Australia in March 1916. This followed a referendum held in 1915 (27/3/15). In the referendum only one-third of voters favoured keeping the present arrangement (11.00 o’clock) and 56% opted specifically for 6 o’clock. In New South Wales a referendum was held a few months after the Liverpool riot and the press campaign in particular drove the result. There was virtually no support for retaining the current hours, and 60% voted specifically for 6 o’clock. Accordingly, 6 o’clock closing was formally introduced in July 1916. In Victoria, 6 o’clock closing was finally introduced in October 1916. Initially it had been proposed to hold a referendum but in the end the decision was taken by the parliament. The Government judged that there was clear popular support for the action.

Some people acknowledged that drink could harm the War effort in a number of ways and they were prepared to support early closing on the basis of war-time necessity. Similarly, others recognised that drink and the AIF represented a dangerous mix, particularly if the effects played out in the streets of the cities, and they were prepared to limit drinking hours. At the same time, the fact that what many saw as an appropriate, temporary, war-time restriction was to remain in place well after 1918 – in some instances for up to 50 years – highlights the way temperance advocates at the time viewed 6 o’clock closing. For them, it was another major, non-reversible step on the way to a truly drink-free Australia.

Specifically in terms of the Protestant churches, the temperance push in WW1 was another example of the way the War itself was seen as a call by God for people to recommit to their religious beliefs and lead a more moral, socially responsible and  decent life. Protestantism was committed to both a moral and military war; and it was seen as perfectly natural that, as was evident in the case of the Shire of Alberton, the local Protestant clergy called for recruits and support for the Yes vote in the conscription referendum at the very same time they were calling for temperance and 6 o’clock closing.

The issues surrounding the push for temperance in the local community will be taken up again in a future post, where the focus will be the attempt by temperance advocates to remove the liquor licence from the local Co-Operative Store in Yarram.

References

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative

South Gippsland Chronicle

The Age

For 1916 NSW referendum results see NSW Electoral Commmission.

For 1915 SA referendum results see SA Electoral Commission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

93. Conscription Referendum 1916: the (private) No vote

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Previous posts (87, 88, 89 and 91) have covered the strength of the public campaign for the Yes vote in the Shire of Alberton. All relevant local institutions, from the local council itself through to the local press, actively and  wholeheartedly supported the Yes vote. Conscription had been widely supported by the district’s professional, business and managerial elite from early 1916. The local Protestant churches had even preached to their congregations the responsibility to vote Yes. The only potential limit to the Yes vote was the ambivalent position of the Catholic Church: the individual could certainly vote Yes, but, unlike the Protestant position, Yes was not mandated and, rather, had to be guided by an informed conscience. Other than this, the idea that a local could – let alone would – vote No was not publicly entertained.

Immediately prior to the referendum, Thomas Livingston, the local member for Gippsland South in the Victorian Parliament, was reported in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative (27/10/16)  as predicting, confidently, that the Yes vote would be 75%. In the event, the Yes vote – for the sub-division of Yarram – was 66%.

The response of the 2 local papers to the loss of the referendum is instructive. Both took the course of criticising the national result while at the same time lauding the high level of patriotism evident in the strength of the Yes vote in the Shire.

The Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative, in its first edition after the referendum (1/11/16) found the national result ‘deplorable’ but its real focus was the proven loyalty of country Victoria and, in particular, Gippsland:

The country vote in [Victoria] favoured “Yes” in every electorate but three, these being Ballarat, Bendigo, and Grampians. The seven other country electorates voted for conscription and Gippsland … gained the distinction of securing the greatest majority for conscription of all the Victorian electorates.

Similarly, the South Gippsland Chronicle, in its first edition (1/11/16) after the referendum also praised the loyalty of those in Gippsland:

It is gratifying to note the overwhelming vote in favor of Conscription given by the people of the Gippsland division, a “Yes” majority being shown in every portion of the electorate with the exception of a few small places. The totals for the division were – Yes 16,056, No 7,725. Majority for Yes 8,331.

The quoted figure gave the Yes vote for the whole of Gippsland as 67.5%.

The same article broke the vote down by electoral sub-divisions and for the Yarram sub-division – effectively the Shire of Alberton – the results were reported as 1,144 Yes, 573 No, with 24 informal votes. This gave the Yes vote for the Shire of Alberton as 66%.

As strong as the Yes vote was in the Shire of Alberton, and Gippsland generally, there was still the question of why one-third of the local community had voted No.  At least part of the answer came in the editorial in the South Gippsland Chronicle on 3/11/16. The paper claimed that it was the pre-emptive decision by the Hughes Government to apply existing provisions under the Defence Act to call up – for military service within the Commonwealth – all single men between the ages of 21 to 35.

On the assumption that there would be a successful Yes vote, Hughes wanted the military training of the first group of conscripts underway as soon as possible, and before the referendum had even been conducted. This strategy would mean that reinforcements could be sent to the Western Front as quickly as possible. While the initiative smacked of contempt for the democratic process, the real problem for Hughes was that the call up – and more significantly the exemption process that it involved –  forced the rural community to experience at first hand what conscription would mean for them; and they were left in no doubt that it posed a serious threat.

The editorial of 3/11/16 noted specifically that the call-up telegraphed the Government’s intentions once the referendum had succeeded.

The results following the referendum, should it be carried, were clearly defined by the Prime Minister, and men were even called into camp for home service in order to receive part of their training and be ready to go abroad should they be classed as fit after the people had conferred the necessary power on the Government. This was undoubtedly responsible for many who would otherwise have voted “Yes” going to the poll and helping to secure a majority for “No.” It cannot be denied that the calling up of men has inflicted a great hardship in many cases, and, as was instanced at the exemption court held at Yarram last week, made it almost impossible for those who remain behind to carry on their former vocation.

In fact, the Government had been telegraphing its intentions on conscription from the time of the War Census in late 1915. People surmised that the purpose of Schedule 1 of the census – to be completed by all males aged 18 and under 60 – was to provide the Government with data that could inform a system of conscription should the voluntary system not deliver sufficient reinforcements. Then in December 1916, Hughes issued his Call to Arms which involved a personal letter to every eligible man between 18 and 45. The men had to submit a formal response to the letter. Those who failed to return the form would be identified and pursued. The expectation was that the men targeted would enlist immediately or in the near future. If they refused to enlist they had to submit reasons and they could be challenged, in person, by the local recruiting sergeant. It was obviously a considerable shift away from a purely voluntary system.

As discussed earlier – Post 87 – there was obvious ‘push back’ in the Shire of Alberton to this drift to conscription. We know that some locals refused to return their Call to Arms forms. But, more strikingly, we know that of the 188 who had returned their forms by January 1916, 66% had selected the option to refuse to enlist. 8.5% of those who received the call from Hughes had already enlisted, 18% indicated they were prepared to enlist immediately and 7.5% said they were prepared to enlist at a later time. This left the 66% who refused the Call.

Clearly, as the drift to conscription – vigorously promoted by the Yarram-based local recruiting committee – continued to gain momentum there was growing opposition. However, this opposition took the form of a private response – failure to complete the form or failure to respond appropriately – rather than any public, organised demonstration of dissent.

The dynamic involved in the of growing (private) opposition to conscription was driven by the fundamental structure, and related ethos, of the local farming community, where the key social institution was the family farm.

As has been covered in the 2 posts – Post 60 and Post 85 – that looked at speeches given at farewells in 1915 and 1916, one of the most common themes was that of the pioneer as soldier. The young men enlisting were said to show the same spirit and character as the pioneers who had settled the district from the 1840s. The pioneers had opened up the land, battled the elements, overcome isolation and brought civilisation to the frontier of settlement. Within this general narrative, there was a particular focus on the selectors from the 1860s who had struggled to break the monopoly of the squatters and establish a new social and political landscape of family farms spreading out from small towns and settlements. The selectors had a particularly hard struggle as they attempted to establish themselves with meagre levels of capital. Often they had little background in farming itself and their access to relevant technology was limited. The parcels of land they secured were often too small, isolated or poor in quality. There was very weak infrastructure, particularly in the area of transport. Many of the selectors  lived in exceptionally challenging, if not primitive, conditions. They also felt they had little support from all levels of government. They were by themselves. But against this background, the narrative held that they had survived. They were tough, resourceful, independent and hard-working. They were the pioneers who had made the district what it was.

However, on the specific issue of labour, the pioneer as soldier theme featured a major internal contradiction which, inevitably, played out in the 1916 referendum.

Arguably, the most important resource for the selector trying to establish the family farm was the labour of the family itself. The absolute importance of family labour – the parents and the children – to the success and survival of the family farm had been a fundamental given from the very beginning of selection. The family worked as an economic unit. And the economic realities in  turn helped shape the social identity of the family, in areas such as inheritance, marriage, the generational expansion of the family enterprise and the care of the parents as they aged. This took place in a period that pre-dated modern social welfare provisions.

The actual pattern of labour on the family farm was complex. Individual landholdings could be so small, or the land so difficult, or the seasons so bad – and any number of other factors, and combinations thereof – that in many cases the ‘family farm’ was not viable without some family members working outside the farm as wage earners. Sons could work on other farms as labourers and daughters could work as domestics, either on other farms or for the middle-class families in rural towns.

Importantly, labour in these rural communities was generally not organised. The selections were too small, the nature of the farming – eg dairy farming, vegetable growing – required fewer workers per individual farm, the settlement was too dispersed and there was a long-standing, natural antipathy to the trade unions of the urban working class, as their industrial action often compromised the interests of the rural economy.

In the political and economic environment of the Shire, the assumption was that the family farm had to have the power to control its labour resources and employ them to meet its needs, in a difficult and complex environment. It was this fundamental belief that was directly challenged by conscription.

For the first 2 years of the War, individual families had decided by themselves how best to balance the need to manage the farm and ensure its survival with the concomitant need to ‘answer the call’ and discharge their ‘patriotic duty’.  However, the introduction of conscription would see the imposition of rigid and impersonal rules that would take away all the autonomy, flexibilty and individual judgement that farming families had previously exercised.

The two key events in the Shire of Alberton in the lead up to the 1916 conscription referendum that gave farming families the clearest understanding of how conscription would work, and how it would take away their autonomy, were the registration process held on 14/10/16 and the exemption court held in Yarram on 27/10/16.

Registration: Yarram, 14/10/16

The day set aside in Yarram for men to register under the Commonwealth’s call up arrangements was Saturday 14 October 1916. On the day, all single men, and widowers without dependents, aged between 21 and 35, had to register. Those who had previously been rejected for military service also had to register and undertake the medical.

The day was seen as a major event in the Shire. On 13/10/16, the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative reported:

Yarram tomorrow will present quite a military air, with officials in kharki [sic], some half-dozen doctors, about a dozen clerks, and between three to four hundred single men, with divided minds as to the necessity of enlisting. It is wonderful, even when called for home service, how many “unsound” men there are! However, these matters will be decided by the doctors.

Rossiter, the editor – and also member of the Yarram Recruiting Committee and keen supporter of conscription – clearly saw the occasion as a chance to identify all those local men who were shirking their duty. His reference to the men being called up for ‘home service’ was highly disingenuous.

The next edition of the paper (18/10/16) gave a detailed report of what had happened on the day:

Yarram was thronged with young men of military age last Saturday, when they were required to report themselves, whether considered fit or unfit for military service. A busy day was spent by Capt. Macfarlane and four other military officers, three doctors and 14 clerks filling in attestation forms. The duties commenced at 9 a.m., and by 3 p.m. the main rush was over. In the time, 222 single men were examined, 102 of whom were fit, 10 unfit, and 110 doubtful. 116 of the number applied for exemption.

With few exceptions the demeanour of the men was excellent. Some rejoiced at the prospect of going to the front, having previously tried and been rejected.

Those who did not report on Saturday will have put themselves to serious inconvenience. Within seven days they must report at Warragul. Failure to report means salutary punishment of a kind that will reflect discreditably on the men.

One man refused to take the oath, but this makes no difference. To camp he will go if passed as fit.

The doubtful ones [110 of the 222 medically examined] were ordered to attend at Korumburra for final examination. This arrangement has since been varied. The medical board will shortly attend at Yarram, and save the men the inconvenience of travelling down the line.

An exemption court will sit at Yarram on 27th and 28th inst., when reasons for declining service will be fully gone into. This court is public, and the proceedings will be published in the local and daily papers. Those who have reasonable excuses need have no fear of advancing their claims for exemption.

Whereas between 300 and 400 men were expected at the registration, only 200 were there on the day. The low turn-out tallies with other accounts (Connor, J, Stanley, P, Yule, P 2015 p. 112) that claim that, nationally, only one-third of men bothered to register. As already noted, a similarly poor response had occurred earlier when local men had not returned their Call to Arms forms.

Only 50% of the men medically examined that day were passed as fit. Many of those who failed would have failed previously. Strikingly, half of all the men who registered on the day applied for exemption. The overall results were hardly encouraging. Rossiter attempted to put a positive gloss on the affair, writing about the positive ‘demeanour’ of the men. But his last paragraph reads as a thinly veiled threat to those pursuing exemption.

The Exemption Court, Yarram, 27/10/16

The exemption court sat in Yarram on the day before the referendum and the reports of what transpired at the court did not appear until the Wednesday (1/11/16) after the referendum. However, similar courts had already been held across Gippsland. Also, the reports in the local paper make it clear that there were many people there on the day watching the proceedings. In all, locals would have known, before the referendum, of the judgements made being handed down at the exemption courts.

Rossiter was true to his word and the proceedings were covered in great detail. The individual particulars, including full names and reasons presented to the court, were given for each request for exemption. Rossiter gave the number of applications for exemption on the day as 124. However, this number does not tally with the number of individual cases he reported.  For example, he stated that 41 exemptions were granted but in fact in his report only 33 exemptions are recorded as having been granted. Presumably, there were so many cases handled in one day that he had great difficulty in keeping up with proceedings. At the same time, putting to one side the problems with tallies, his report certainly does give a description of how the court worked. Regulations required that the applicant had to appear in person before the court and represent himself. Solicitors were not permitted.

According to Rossiter’s report, 31 of the 33 exemptions granted on the day were because either the applicant was the only son (11) or the required number of sons – at least one half – had already enlisted (20). These were provisions covered in the  regulations. The other 2 cases involved the situation where the applicant was the ‘sole support’ of ‘aged parents’ or a ‘widowed mother’. One of the cases involved John Henry James Price – labourer of Blackwarry – who was one of 3 sons. Only one brother was in the AIF – under the at least one half ruling, 2 brothers had to enlist – but the applicant claimed to be the sole support of his parents. The other case involved F J Pearson who was one of 3 sons in the family. No son was in service, but 2 of the siblings were not yet of military age and this son, the oldest, supported his widowed mother.

The 33 cases where exemption was approved were, in terms of the regulations, clear cut . What focused people’s attention was how the other 63 individual applications fared. According to Rossiter’s account, 32 of the 63 applications for exemption were rejected, 15 men were given temporary exemption and the remaining 16 cases were adjourned.

Employing Rossiter’s account it is possible to divide the exemption requests into 2 categories: those involving families where there had been no enlistments at all, and those where, according to the formula, not enough sons had enlisted.

Families with no enlistments

In terms of the first category, there were 26 families, involving 34 individual men, where no eligible son had enlisted. Apparently, the number of families across the Shire of Alberton where no eligible son had enlisted was low. However, the important qualification is that there could have been other families that completely ignored the registration process and did not seek exemption.

Of the 34 individual men applying for exemption, 19 were refused outright, 7 were given temporary exemption and 8 were adjourned. Rossiter’s brief notes on each case make it clear that the reasons for the exemption related to the family’s economic interests or welfare. There was only 1 case where a position of ‘conscientious objection’ was registered. It involved the 3 Kallady brothers – Ambrose, Allan and Leo – from Devon. There were 4 brothers in the family and therefore 2 had to enlist. There was some brief discussion of what their understanding of ‘conscientious objection’ involved – would they, for example, defend their mother, sister, or even themselves – and the army officer assisting the police magistrate presiding over the court suggested options such as ‘stretcher bearer’ and ‘putting barbed wire entanglements in front of trenches’. In the end, the magistrate found that the 2 fittest of the 3 brothers of military age would have to serve. The case was then adjourned to 7 December for objections to be heard.

Several examples from this first category highlight the way family dynamics – including the ages and marital status of the sons – affected the outcome. For example, George Lewis Brunlow was a fisherman from Port Albert. He was one of 3 male siblings but both his brothers were married and therefore not required to register. He claimed to be the sole support for his invalid sister. His application was refused, presumably on the basis that his married brothers could or should pick up the responsibility for the sister. On the face of it, conscription was redefining an existing family arrangement.

B Hanrahan was one of 2 sons. As his brother was married, he had had to register. He claimed an exemption on the basis that he owned the farm and he partly supported his widowed mother and her 6 children, presumably his younger siblings. The application was refused, again overturning an existing family arrangement.

The more common reason for claiming exemption was the economic hardship or threat to the viability of the family farm or business that the loss of labour would cause. For example, Eric Oliver Hobson was working on the family farm at Yarram. There were extensive landholdings at Yarram and Won Wron. There were 3 sons in the family, one of whom was married. Under the regulations this unmarried son (Eric) had to serve. The father claimed that as a dairy farmer with a large herd he depended on this son to look after the stock. The father claimed no one understood the stock like this son. The son also kept the books. The father claimed he had tried, unsuccessfully, to find someone to replace his son. He stated that if his son went he, the father, would have to give up dairying. The magistrate said he was bound by the regulations and refused the application. He did add that the son could seek a temporary exemption, but only after he had reported for duty at the camp at Warragul.

William Thomas Charles Stonehouse operated a blacksmith business at Yarram. He had 3 sons, all of them single. Under the formula, 2 of them (J E Stonehouse and W Stonehouse) were required to serve. The father explained that all 3 sons helped in his business and if the 2 of military age went the business would have to be closed as he, the father, could not work and he had not been able to secure other workers. The application was refused.

There were 6 sons in the Vardy family from Alberton West. 3 sons were married. The other 3 sons – Leslie James Vardy, F E Vardy and Percival John Vardy – were required to serve. There was a family farm of 100+ acres; although it appears only 1 son was helping the father on the farm. Presumably the other 2 sons were working as labourers on other farms.  The magistrate noted that the 3 sons were a significant source of revenue for the father. The application was refused.

William Macaulay, a farm labourer, was one of 3 sons, one other of whom was married. He was 32 yo. He claimed that if he went it would cause great hardship and loss to those at home. The family had a farm – 180 acres – at Stacey’s Bridge. The father claimed that the farm could not be worked without his son. A temporary exemption to 27/1/17 was granted.

Families with insufficient enlistments

This second category, covering 29 individuals from 28 families, featured the cases that would have caused the most disquiet in the district. These were families where men had already enlisted but now, under conscription, more would be taken. Once again, the impact, would affect both the welfare of the family and the financial viability of the farm. Of the 29 requests for exemption, 13 were rejected outright, there were 8 cases of a temporary exemption being granted and 8 cases were adjourned.

John Joseph Egan – labourer, Alberton West – worked on the small family farm at Alberton West. There were 5 sons but 3 were married. This meant that the remaining 2 had to serve. One was already in camp. Exemption was claimed on the basis that the father was too old to work the farm and this son – John – was the only son available to help. Exemption was refused.

Joel William Trigg was involved with a family farm of approximately 170 acres at Alberton West. There were 3 sons which meant 2 had to serve. One was already in the AIF and the other brother had been judged medically unfit, which meant Joel had to go. He claimed that he would be forced to sell out if he was forced to go. The application was refused.

There were 6 sons in the McPhail family. Only 2 were serving in the AIF which meant one more son was required. The father claimed that this son, Archibald McPhail, was not fit enough to go in the trenches but the medical officers had recently passed him. The application was refused.

There were 5 sons in the Wight family with 2 in the AIF, one of whom had been wounded. At least one of the other 3 sons was below military age. The son seeking the exemption – David Wight, had a 100 acre farm at Carrajung. He worked with his father. The application was refused.

There were 9 sons in the Lay family with 4 on service with the AIF. This left still one son required. Of the 5 remaining, 3 were married and one was only 18yo. This meant that Leslie Gordon Lay had to serve. The application for exemption was refused on the grounds that even though he and his younger brother were supporting the family farm, he – the applicant- was not the sole support of his parents.

There were 6 sons in the Cantwell family, with 2 in service. James Hennessy Cantwell – labourer, Stacey’s Bridge – claimed that he supported the family – there was a family farm of less than 100 acres – and that the father was ailing and the mother an invalid. He claimed that if he were called he would have to sell the cows. Rossiter’s notes stated that exemption was granted until the cows were sold.

Nigel Hugh McAlpine had 40 acres of land at Carrajung in his own name. There were 3 sons in the family but only one was in the AIF. Nigel applied for exemption on the grounds that the brother in the AIF had left him (Nigel) in sole charge of his farm and stock. The third brother was unfit because of a knee injury. Nigel was reported as declaring that if he was forced to go his farm would ‘go to the dogs’. He was given a temporary exemption until 27/1/17.

In summary, Rossiter’s notes on the individual cases covered by the exemption court were brief and perhaps not always accurate. Also, the claims made by those requesting exemption might  have been overdrawn or misleading. At the same time, the proceedings of this court held in Yarram, and others in Gippsland, would definitely have been closely followed in the local community; and it would have been clear that conscription was set to have a major negative impact on the traditional autonomy of the family farm and farming families. The proposed level of control over both the labour agenda and social dynamic of the family farm was of a form and degree never seen before.

Exemptions for the dairy industry

It is also important to note that there was a feeling in the community that the general labour demands of the dairy industry had been ignored. As has been shown in many previous posts, by far the largest group of men enlisting in the AIF in the Shire of Alberton came from the rural, itinerant, working class. By the end of 1916 the size of this group of enlistments had reached the order of 600 men. They simply described themselves as ‘farm labourers’ or just ‘labourers’. It was a very significant pool of labour to withdraw from the local economy. At the same time, the number of men coming from the family farm was in a definite minority; and the preceding cases help explain why it was so difficult to release sons from the family farm. Yet conscription promised that even more of this labour pool would be withdrawn. Locals formed the view that despite reassurances from the Commonwealth Government the dairy industry was not being protected.

In an article that he wrote on 25/10/16, just before the exemption court sat, Rossiter wrote how in the ‘interests of production’ many claims for exemption could and should be granted. Then after the court he wrote (1/11/16) critically on the lack of exemptions granted. He used highly qualified language but others would have seen the court proceedings as a deliberate attack on the local dairy industry:

There was much concern locally in regard to a great number of applications for full and temporary exemptions made at the exemption court held on Friday last. A number of claims were made by dairymen and others engaged in that industry in various ways. The applicants who were refused exemption were informed that they must report at Warragul camp on Friday next, it being understood by them that no exemption would be granted without reporting at camp. In view of the critical situation thus presented, and of the fact that the Prime Minister had stated that rural workers, engaged in producing industries, would be allowed exemption, the position created by the court authorities caused some uneasiness in the minds of dairy farmers and those engaged as milkers by them.

The reference to the Prime Minister’s promise of exemption for rural workers is very important. It appears that as the referendum drew near Hughes became concerned that the farmers’ vote could go against him. Perhaps he received intelligence of how the call up in rural districts and the operations of the exemption courts were being received. In the week before the referendum, he issued a detailed statement which was published in the metropolitan papers (for example The Age 25/10/16 p. 7). He reminded the farmers of all the Government had done for them – purchasing their crops, setting prices, securing shipping – and declared that,

It [His Government] has given them generous exemptions. It has released all the labor necessary for their industry; their lands will be tilled, their crops harvested; members of their families will be left to carry on the farms, and sufficient labor to carry on their industry will be exempted.

Hughes also acknowledged that there was concern over the labour shortage in rural industries. He put a positive spin on the cause:

The men from the country parts of Australia have responded magnificently to the appeal for recruits, much better than the great cities. The consequence is that labor for the rural industries is relatively scarce, while in the cities there is a surplusage [sic] of thousands of eligible men.

Hughes concluded by promising again that the rural industries would have the labour they needed and, at the same time, conscription would ensure that those in the cities also did their share:

The farmers and the men on the land will have the labor they require, and the eligible men in the cities will be compelled to do their duty.

The problem was that this was not the experience of the local farmers in Gippsland. There was a critical shortage of labour and there was no real evidence that exemptions were available. The only exemptions being granted were temporary, and ‘temporary’ meant only until the end of the year (31/12/16). Further, men could, initially, only apply for exemptions after they had been admitted to the military camp (Warragul). When this very restrictive requirement was relaxed at the end of October, it was replaced with a general exemption … to all engaged in the dairying industry, including milkers to the end of the year. But, again, the exemption was only temporary and only to the end of the year; and now the men had to submit a statutory declaration from their employer – or the heads of households in the case of families – to support the claim. Once again, there was considerable tension between what was being promised and what was being experienced. The fact that men being given exemptions were finger-printed – purportedly to prevent fraud – added to the general level of antagonism.

The first 2 years of the War had demonstrated very high levels of loyal and patriotic support across the Shire of Alberton. The support was demonstrated in areas such as recruiting, fund raising and public demonstrations for the Empire. The local community was an inherently conservative one. There was a natural antipathy towards organised labour. It supported PM Hughes’ efforts to overcome the ‘industrialists’ in his own party. The middle class professionals, mangers and proprietors in the community – concentrated in Yarram – presented a narrative of the War that was aligned with the Government’s position. Publicly, the local community was pro-conscription and this was reflected in the final voting figures. In the lead up to the referendum there was no indication of any organised, public No campaign. However, events over October 1916 presented the local farming community with a clear picture of what the reality of conscription involved and there is little doubt that many would have seen it as direct threat to both their livelihood and the traditional autonomy of the farming family. Without any show of public opposition – they did not even need to draw any attention to themselves – they had the option to vote No; and, presumably, many did. Their votes help explain why, in such a conservative rural community, and with no evidence of organised public opposition, one-third of electors voted against conscription.

References

The Age

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative

South Gippsland Chronicle

Connor, J, Stanley, P, Yule, P 2015, The War At Home, The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War Volume 4, Oxford University Press, Melbourne

See also

Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, Volume XI – Australia During the War, ‘Chapter IX The First Conscription Referendum’. 7th Edition 1941

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

91. Conscription Referendum 1916: the (public) No vote

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On the strength of the meeting held for the No vote at Yarram on 12/10/16, there was little evidence of any public support for the anti-conscription case in the Shire of Alberton. This was in sharp contrast to the high level of support for conscription evident in the very public, organised and ongoing campaign for the Yes vote, as detailed in earlier posts.

The meeting on 12/10/16 was written up, in great detail, in both the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative (18/10/16) and the South Gippsland Chronicle (18/10/16). The sole speaker for the No case that night was Senator Blakey, one of the Victorian team of ALP senators. Blakey was on a tour of Gippsland and he knew that he was in for a tough time. He had tried to speak at a similar public meeting at Leongatha 2 days earlier (10/10/16) but, according to the report in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 13/10/16, he had not even managed to make himself heard:

The largest public meeting ever held at Leongatha took place last Tuesday night. Senator Blakey attempted to deliver an address against conscription, but he was hooted, and as soon as he rose to speak the audience stood up and sang the National Anthem. As Senator Blakey tried to make himself heard a cabbage thrown at his head inflicted a cut in his forehead. … He was on the platform for about an hour and a half, but he was not allowed to give expression to his views.

Two days later at Yarram things were only marginally better. While nothing was thrown at him and he did manage to deliver his speech – albeit with a barrage of interruptions – the reports make it clear that the very rowdy and antagonistic audience was not on his side. The meeting started on a negative note when Cr Buckley, introducing Senator Blakey, made the point that while he was prepared to introduce Senator Buckley as a guest speaker he wanted to  make it clear to everyone in the audience that he personally intended to vote Yes. The clear message was that the Shire council was decent enough to support Blakey’s right to speak but they certainly did not support his position.

Not surprisingly, Senator Blakey’s opening remarks were a plea for a fair hearing. He hoped that there would be no … repetition of of the drunken orgy at Leongatha …  because the … matter was too great to treat in a spirit of levity and hoodlumism. But the interruptions were constant. Blakey struggled to get his argument across in any coherent, planned way. Finally, at the end of the meeting, in an obvious attempt to hijack proceedings and make Blakey look foolish, the following resolution was put:

That, in view of the voluntary recruiting not being sufficient to meet the requirements of our army and reinforcement of men at the front, this meeting pledges itself to vote “Yes” at the coming referendum.

The resolution was seconded and put, but the vote in the end was indecisive, with only a handful voting either way. The newspaper report suggested people were either confused or annoyed that the motion had been put. Even the avowedly pro-conscription Rev Walklate … protested against a speech advocating “Yes” being made at a meeting in a hall paid for by those advocating “No”. Such niceties aside, it was abundantly clear that the meeting would never have been able to pass any resolution in favour of the No vote. Further, the reports make it clear that Senator Blakey was by himself. There were no references to other individuals or groups supporting him, either on the stage or in the audience; and most of those who asked questions at the meeting – Rev Tamagno, Rev Walklate, R E H Newberry, J Bett, F C Grano – have already been identified in earlier posts as backing conscription. Blakey would have cut a lonely figure. As a formal attempt to galvanise the No vote in the local community the public meeting was a complete failure.

There are no references in either of the local papers to any other meetings for the No vote held in either Yarram or the shire as a whole. Similarly, there are no references over the period August to October 1916 to the formation of a committee to promote the No vote. Nor is there even reference to specific individuals in the local community advocating the No vote. In short, there is no evidence that there was an organised, public – or even visible – No vote campaign in the Shire of Alberton for the 1916 referendum.

It is also worth looking briefly at the arguments presented at the meeting, both by Blakey himself and his opponents. Blakey argued that conscription per se was morally indefensible. He claimed that Hughes himself had gone back on his word, given in 1915, to not introduce conscription. He held that Australia had done its ‘fair share’ and that the cost of introducing conscription and committing to an even greater sacrifice was beyond the nation’s capacity. He criticised the metropolitan papers – the The Age and The Argus – as shamelessly biased.  He raised the fear that even married men would be conscripted, and there was the usual aside on the fear of cheap ‘yellow’ labour. There were also claims that Hughes was using the censorship laws to stifle the No campaign. For those opposed to Blakey, the major issue was that the AIF had to be reinforced and supported – it was the clearest example of national duty – and conscription was the only way this end could be achieved.

Importantly, none of these arguments were tied specifically to the Shire of Alberton. Blakey could just as well have been addressing an audience In Melbourne. There was no local dimension to the debate.  Nor was the audience divided on any ‘partisan’ basis. Most significantly, there was no mention of any organised Catholic presence at the meeting. In fact, there is no reference to Catholics at all in the extensive reporting of the meeting.

Interestingly, in his history of the Shire, Adams (1990 p186) presumes that the Catholics in the community did represent a bloc opposed to conscription.

Conscription became an important issue late in 1916 and a committee was formed in Yarram with B.P. Johnson as President to forward the movement. When the conscription referendum was held in November [sic] 1916, Yarram voted 1144 to 573. There was a strong Catholic “no” vote reflected in this result.

[Adams’ figures give the Yes vote 67% and the No 33%.]

However this argument appears too simplistic. Certainly for the 1916 referendum, there is no evidence of a Catholic bloc opposed to conscription; and it is too easy to assume that Catholics were the ones who voted against conscription.

The Catholic question was complex. We have already seen that the Catholics enlisted in numbers that generally matched their place in the Shire’s demographics. The argument of the pro-conscriptionists that the men at the front could not be abandoned – this appeared to be the strongest argument in the community – would have been as appealing to the Catholic families of men who had enlisted as any other group. Moroever, the most recent high-profile Catholic enlistment at the time was Fr Sterling, the parish priest, who had enlisted as recently as 21/10/16 as a Captain Chaplain. His enlistment would have been seen as a very public demonstration of loyalty and duty.

There is no evidence that the local Catholic community campaigned against the 1916 conscription referendum. Moreover, previous posts have shown that the local Catholics had actively supported the War effort over the preceding 2 years. It is also relevant, closer to the 1916 referendum, that the assistant priest – Fr W H O’Connor – who arrived in June 1916 to support Fr Sterling, was keen to lend his voice to support for the War effort. In fact, unlike Fr Sterling, Fr O’Connor was even prepared to speak on the same platform as some of the most outspoken patriots – and also pro-conscriptionists – in the community. For example, as reported in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 9/8/16 Fr O’Connor was one of the key speakers at a public meeting to celebrate the second anniversary of the War. The others on the platform with him were the Shire President, Cr Bland, B P Johnson, Rev Tamagno and the Federal MHR, G Wise. Fr O’Connor spoke at length in favour of the Allied efforts and against German tyranny. He spoke about the local men who had … made the sacrifice and who died nobly and well and who … had offered up their lives for the cause. And he made it clear that in his previous parishes he had called on members of his faith to enlist:

In other parts it was my lot to encourage men to enlist, and [ I ] need only to tell them of their duty and they would go forth and do it. The young men from this district have done likewise and responded to the “Coo-ee” call for assistance.

At the same time, Catholic support for the War was not as unqualified as that of the local Protestants. Bishop Phelan’s position, for example, that the Catholic Church was ‘neutral’ on the matter of conscription, and his significant qualification that the individual citizen’s vote should be shaped by an informed conscience, was at great odds with the very public and uncritical support for conscription from the Protestant churches. Moreover, previous posts have pointed out how fundamental differences in areas such as schooling encouraged sectarianism in the community over the War years. Additionally, events in Ireland post Easter 1916 definitely saw many Irish Catholics question the Australian Government’s total support for the Empire. They also, inevitably, chose to see the AIF not as a component of the British (Empire) Army but as as a distinctive, independent and truly nationalist Australian force, which meant it was possible to support the AIF – and to a lesser extent continue to justify the War – and be anti-Imperialist. But none of these important shifts were on public view in the Shire of Alberton in the lead up to the 1916 referendum.

Overall, there is no hard evidence that for the 1916 referendum, in the Shire of Alberton, there was an organised, public campaign amongst the local Catholics for the No vote. It is possible that Catholics followed Bishop Phelan’s advice and voted according to their conscience. But if they did so it was a private choice made via secret ballot. In any case, given the appeal of the dominant political argument of the day, it makes more sense to believe that the Catholic families would vote Yes, to support the reinforcement of their men at the front.

While it is not possible to identify a Catholic bloc publicly supporting the No vote, there was even less chance that there was an organised and visible bloc of ‘industrialists’, radical unionists, IWW agitators or even just ALP supporters campaigning for the No vote. Most of the rural workers had enlisted and, in any case, there had never been an organised labour movement in the Shire. Individual ALP voters might have opposed conscription and voted No, but, again, it was via secret ballot. It was a politically conservative community. The local papers were full of anti-union stories. They reported how the ‘machine’ of the industrial wing of the ALP was undermining PM Hughes’ authority and destroying the party itself. There were regular stories of how unions generally were undermining the War effort. Unionists were described as ‘traitors’ and ‘shirkers’. But all this was happening in Melbourne and the other capital cities.

Overall, there is no evidence that there was a public, anti-conscription campaign in the Shire of Alberton in the lead up to the 1916 referendum. Instead, we need to look at the reality of the private No vote in the Shire. On Adams’ figures above, it was one-third of the voters. In a community where there was no public campaign for the No vote and, instead, apparently overwhelming support for the Yes side, it was a significant private vote.

References

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative

South Gippsland Chronicle

Adams, J 1990, From these Beginnings: History of the Shire of Alberton (Victoria), Alberton Shire Council, Yarram, Victoria