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'Not a dictatorship of the proletariat but a comradeship of all': Methodism and the Newcastle Labour Movement

Tony Laffan

   

Introduction

 
A number of historians have noted the importance of the Methodist Church (now part of the Uniting Church in Australia) for the British labour movement. This is especially the case for the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The activities of those members of the labour movement who were also Methodists is an important topic for research. Methodism was important in a variety of locations as well as for certain professions and occupations in Australia as it was in Britain. Methodism had many core value systems that were co-extensive with what may be called craft unionism. These values were also widely held throughout professions such as finance, teaching, nursing, police and administration. Geographical areas where Methodists were a significant component of the overall population were often also key areas for the emergence of the values of 'laborism' in Australia. Examples include the various coalfields of NSW and the copperbelt of South Australia. 1
      Newcastle with its coal miners provides one area where there is considerable evidence of this activity. These mines required skilled workers. Engine drivers, under-managers, deputies and the contract miners had to be recruited from those areas in the UK where coalmining occurred. Among these were Durham and Northumberland, the very areas in the UK where the Methodist link was of greatest significance. 2
      Consequently Newcastle's religious affiliation was very different to NSW as a whole. The critical statistic is that, in 1891, Methodists made up 31.1 per cent of the Newcastle colliery district population compared to 10.1 per cent for the whole of NSW. For non-conformist potestants as a group (including similar denominations such as Congregationalists and Salvationists) the total was 52.8 per cent for Newcastle versus 25.9 per cent for the state.1 Given that Newcastle itself had administrative, business and port functions we can assume that the Methodist component was even stronger in the various mining centres. These townships included Lambton, Wallsend, Minmi, Adamstown, Dudley, West Wallsend, Kurri Kurri, Weston and Cessnock. 3
   

Methodist Values and the Miners

 
Methodism is one of those Christian denominations that insist all can be saved. This concept, when coupled with other core Methodist values, produced individuals who were prepared to put enormous effort into community life. One such example was Robert Gray. 4
      Gray was a lay preacher in the Merewether Primitive Methodist Church (the largest of the Methodist denominations in the district). He was also Mayor of the municipality. Speaking at an 1889 Newcastle co-operative society conference he said:
Co-operation, to my mind, is Christianity in common life ... it is ours to alleviate the poverty and pauperism in our midst, the ignorance and darkness by which we are surrounded. The task may be great, but the accomplishment is sure. If we have faith in our work, if we are impelled forward by a hatred of all that is wrong and oppressive, and a deep sympathy for the downtrodden, we shall by the spirit of our movement raise man — mentally, socially and morally.2
 		5
      During the late 1880's and early 1890's these Methodists and their non-conformist friends were also heavily influenced by the Social Gospel movement from the United States. Advocates of the Social Gospel included popular authors Laurence Gronlund, Edward Bellamy, George Herron and Charles Sheldon. Fundamental to the Social Gospel was the notion that capitalism fostered competition and an attitude that isolated individuals. Christianity and brotherhood demanded a non competitive economic system such as socialism.3 6
      Such attitudes were taken by many Methodist working men and women into the community organisations that comprised the broader labour movement of the Newcastle region. As well as co-operative societies (consumer welfare and credit during strikes) we must also include not just trade unions and the Labor Party but also sickness benefit societies, building societies, yearly clubs, funeral funds (all provided by many trade unions), schools of arts, debating societies. In later years unions were interested in similar activities such as the Workers' Educational Association and Labor colleges. 7
      Community organisations such as building societies were crucial to the miners' struggles. As a group miners, had often fought long and hard for the right to freehold housing title in mining townships; strikes were difficult when the employer could evict. They had also fought against payment in truck(credit vouchers) on company stores, another form of crude exploitation that could keep workers servile through debt. 8
      Temperance was also very significant. The Rev. Thomas Davies, Methodist, of Kurri Kurri, was to argue, in support of temperance lodges, that there was no trade union that would not benefit in its organisation from having sober, well-educated members.4 Much of the Methodist agenda could be said to provide workers with extra bargaining power, both individually and collectively. 9
      In general self help by skilled industrial workers was, according to George Howell (a major British trade union official of the late nineteenth century), the basis of successful craft based trade unions.5 He pointed to the unemployment funds these organisations built up and the benefits they paid as being responsible for the employers being unable to drive wages down during trade depressions. For Howell, and many others, this was voluntary collective self help at its best — providing surety for workers and their families. 10
      Any examination of the names of the many miners' lodge officials, union branch activists, Labor Party branch delegates, and co-operative society committees show numerous overlaps with church organisations, temperance societies, benefit lodges and the Loyal Orange lodges.6 11
      Just as the Labor Party was the dominant political expression of the local unions, so were the Loyal Orange lodges the political voice of the non-conformist churches, whose members in the Newcastle region were mainly miners and workers. The two were also closely related. The Loyal Orange lodges provided a place where Methodist labour activists could meet to discuss social and political issues as well as industrial matters. Yet the role of the Loyal Orange Institute (LOI) in the decision making process for many unions and the Labor Party has hardly been touched upon by Australian labour historians although a number mention, in passing, masonic influences in union elections.7 The LOI shared ritual and many values with the Masonic Lodges. These values included belief in God, respect for the law and the advocacy of brotherhood. The Masonic lodges grew during the twentieth century as the LOI withered. The freemasons were less obviously political. 12
   

Newcastle Methodists and the First Years of the Labor Party

 
A clear exposition of how many Newcastle Methodists felt at the time of the 1890 Maritime Strike was given by the Rev. James Blanksby in a sermon on the 'brotherhood of man'. Blanksby preached that
Under the present system, ... the rights of capital override the rights of man ... competition renders it essential that work be performed as cheaply as possible. Capital and labour are thus placed in perpetual and increasing conflict ... Christ teaches us that man, as man, has divine and inalienable rights ... that any man wants is not God's will ... man is capable of elevation, and has a claim to those surroundings and influences which will refine his nature, ... will the present form of conflict between capital and labour bring us to the desired goal ... strikes, like national wars, are based upon the false principle that the interests of the two parties are antagonistic. Their interests are mutual ... the spirit of the church in so far as they have been true to the spirit of Christ, have been opposed to tyranny, injustice, fraud and every form of social evil ... society shall be Christianised and built upon the basis contained in our Lord's command As ye would that others, should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.8
 Blanksby was a frequent platform speaker for the Australian Socialist League and the Labour Electoral Leagues.		 13
      These values were expressed on the eve of the Labor Party's formation. They were to remain the agenda of many Methodist working people and labour activists for several generations. But the first challenges from others in the labour movement were not slow in coming. 14
      The 1894 dispute over the role of caucus in the Labor Party and the agreement it reached with the Protectionists led to an early crisis for J.L. Fegan MLA (Newcastle), one of the original 36 Labour Electoral League members of the NSW Parliament and a Methodist. Fegan felt that his conscience could be a prisoner of the Catholics in the Protectionist group and that he would be unable to work and vote for prohibition. He left the party as did Blanksby and a number of his other supporters. However the point is that they left the Labor Party, not the labour movement. Fegan continued to rely on working class support for re-election. Often unionists such as George Cornish, secretary of the Newcastle branch of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, made up the majority on electoral committees for Fegan. 15
      Issues such as gambling licences, temperance and local option were to lead some to put more faith in the Loyal Orange lodges for the implementation of their social program. This was partly the reason why Orange independent candidates did better in local government elections in the Newcastle region than Labor Party candidates for the first half of the twentieth century This relative success for the LOI is indicated by my preliminary research. 16
      On other issues such as arbitration, Saturday half holidays or early shop closing (to prevent Sunday sport) and safety conditions Methodists were part of the mainstream of the labour movement. The Rev. Thomas Davies was quick to use his pulpit in defense of the miners' campaign on the abolition of the 'dog watch' shift.9 For Davies it desecrated the sabbath. The extent of support for Methodist attitudes was shown when former Primitive Methodist minister William Kearsley had no difficulty in gaining Labor Party preselection for a coalfields seat in 1910. At this time all members of unions affiliated to the Labor Party could vote in preselections; the miners were affiliated. 17
      However, a real challenge to the whole strategic basis of craft based trade unions and indirectly to Methodism's values had come with the growing popularity of the concept of industrial unionism. This was promoted as the natural response to the increasing concentration of capital. The theoretical expression of industrial unionism came primarily from socialists in the United States. Daniel DeLeon of the Socialist Labor Party, Eugene Debs of the Socialist Party and Big Bill Haywood of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) each had their admirers in Australia. In Newcastle industrial unionism made significant progress when Peter Bowling, President of the Colliery Employees' Federation (CEF), took the IWW Preamble from the US Western Federation of Miners for his proposed nationwide union of coalminers in Australia. The IWW Preamble emphasised irreconcilable class war. This was directly contrary to the Methodist notion of co-operative brotherhood. 18
      In order for the proposal to be implemented the rules and structure of the CEF required that a majority of individual mine lodges had to actually endorse the proposal. The rules also provided for a lodge to demand a referendum. In these circumstances Methodists and other 'old unionists' campaigned strongly against the IWW Preamble. In its place they advocated a 'federation of crafts' in the shape of the proposed Australian Federation of Labor. As a result of this campaign significant numbers of the miners' lodges voted down the IWW Preamble. This was particularly the case where the lodge leadership was virtually synonomous with the local Loyal Orange lodge. Miners' lodges such as Glebe, Burwood, the Sea Pit and Wallsend provide examples.10 Within weeks it was obvious that a district ballot would be held and the letters started pouring into the Newcastle Morning Herald (and Miners' Advocate). While not all of the correspondents were Methodists many were and those who supported 'old unionism' were nonconformist Christians to a man. 19
      The Rev. Thomas Davies wrote at least four letters. Davies argued that the IWW Preamble was contrary to Christian teaching. He held that justice, equality and brotherhood were based on Christianity. Class warfare, whether in the interests of the employer or employee, stressed self interest over others.11 Davies praised the politics of British Labour MP, Keir Hardie.12 20
      David Simpson, a Baptist and author of the pamphlet Divine and Human Socialism, wrote numerous letters opposing the IWW Preamble and defending arbitration.13 Dave Watson, also a Baptist and later to be CEF President and a Labor Senator, wrote frequent letters to the editor. A.T. Griffiths, an Elermore Vale miner, Methodist and father of future ALP parliamentarian Charlie Griffiths MHR (Shortland 1949–72), also worked his pen hard. W.E. Huntley, brother in law of CEF Treasurer Amram Lewis and later himself to be an official in the Draymen's Union, quoted scripture in one of his many letters opposing the IWW.14 21
      W. Muir, Minmi miners' lodge delegate, defended participation in the Labor Party and parliament as essential for workers' progress and attacked the IWW as anarchy.15 Muir and his concept of unionism was so well based among the miners that some years later, in 1913, Muir and W. Laird, a Loyal Orange activist, were able to lead their lodge out of the CEF when the Minmi miners reached a five-year no-strike agreement with mine owner, John Brown.16 22
      The 'old unionists' triumphed in the plebiscite by a margin of 3,900 to 2,154.17 A further indication of strong local support for the Methodists and their values came, during this campaign, in the local option or temperance referendum held in conjunction with the 1907 state election. Two coal mining electorates (Kahibah and Waratah) voted for reduced licences. The result was close in several others.18 23
      Although Bowling was beaten over the IWW Preamble, he remained CEF President and many lodges, particularly on the Upper or Cessnock coalfield, maintained militant stances on employer attempts to mechanise and on the abolition of shift work. In September 1909 the employers, determined to ensure as many hours of work as possible, brought on a confrontation by sacking the Hebburn lodge delegate A. Burns. The resulting district wide strike had near unanimous support. Loyal Orange members Dave Watson (Wallsend miners' lodge president) and W. Littlefair (Ebbw Vale miners delegate) were typical of the many who were active in the various strike fund committees. Littlefair was one of the 'unlucky thirteen' who received gaol sentences for their role in organising the miners. 24
      As the strike headed towards defeat and with much of the existing leadership in prison those who supported arbitration in principle emerged. Watson defeated Bowling for the CEF presidency in December 1910.19 Watson stood for industrial peace. He was able to prevent district wide strikes until he retired from the union to enter the Senate. 25
      The IWW issue did not go away with Bowling's defeat. The fight over industrial unionism continued. In April 1913 A.T. Griffiths debated George Waite of the Sydney IWW Club at Anstey's Hall, Cessnock.20 Industrialism was to become an even larger topic towards the end of World War I and for a period after. 26
   

War, Conscription and the 1917 Great Strike

 
It is beyond the scope of this article to comprehensively examine the response of Methodists to the War save for several generalisations. The Conscription split took a number of Methodists out of the Labor Party and the revolt in Ireland made some of them distinctly hostile to the ALP. Secondly, some of those whose primary loyalty was to the Labor Party became less active in Methodist circles especially after the ALP proscribed the LOI in 1922.21 27
      As far as unions were concerned the situation was complex. The rail unions were nearly smashed by the 1917 Great Strike. Loyalist unions were formed for the strikebreakers and received official court recognition. Despite this there were also many Methodist railway workers who were victimised and who continued to support what was left of the original rail unions. Walter Skelton, a senior figure in the LOI, was central to the development of the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) from the loyalist unions. The network provided by the LOI greatly assisted Skelton in this task. The NUR espoused what can accurately be called the Methodist industrial agenda. Likewise in the steel industry the Federated Ironworkers' Association (FIA) came close to collapse. Yet rather than accept what were perceived as company unions there were many who stuck by the FIA. 28
      The events of the Great Strike vastly strengthened the position of the industrial unionists in the miners union. The Australasian Coal and Shale Employees' Federation had been renamed as the Worker's Industrial Union of Australia (Mining Department), or WIUA, following amalgamation with the Broken Hill lead miners union. The WIUA adopted the IWW Preamble (Detroit or political version) with its clause on employers and employees having nothing in common and the need for irreconcilable class war. The WIUA was part of a wider agenda to establish the One Big Union (OBU) and the WIUA sponsored the formation of the Newcastle Industrial Council (NIC) along with the defeated unions of 1917. The NIC also adopted the Detroit IWW Preamble. The WIUA organised tours by militant speakers and established a bookshop in its Newcastle rooms selling revolutionary socialist literature.22 29
      Those Methodist unionists who remained loyal to class reconciliation and arbitration had a fight on their hands. The Methodist Church appointed the Rev. F.T. Walker as a missionary to the workers and established the Men's Own Movement (MOM) to promote the cause. The MOM was designed to counteract the anti-social and anti-Christian revolutionary socialists and by November 1923 was distributing 1,300 copies of its paper New Man each month in Kurri and Cessnock.23 Walter Skelton MLA (Protestant Independent Labour Party — Newcastle) chaired the inaugural MOM meeting. Major Hugh Connell DSO, MLA (ALP — Newcastle) was also a member.24 30
      Walker published a pamphlet entitled Towards Industrial Peace in 1926. The message could have been written by Blanksby in 1890 or Davies in 1907. Walker argued that labour as a commodity, traded at the cheapest possible price, was immoral but existing unions had made enormous strides since the dreadful days of the Industrial Revolution. He argued that society must be based on co-operation, brotherhood and God's love. Walker claimed class warfare was evil. He held that it caused the resentful employees to give skimpy work and that it led employers to adulterate goods and neglect the environment in the interest of profit. He urged his supporters to establish 'not a dictatorship of the proletariat but a comradeship of all'.25 If Walker, and the two parliamentarians, provided the theoretical response others acted in a more organisational manner. 31
      For the WIUA to become the sole mining union it not only had to overcome the skilled craft workers' unions but also the Colliery Mechanics Association (CMA) and the Colliery Staffs' Association (CSA). The CMA covered many surface workers. Unless its members could be persuaded to join the WIUA no other progress towards the OBU could be envisaged. In 1921 WIUA lodges at Burwood Extended and Wallarah took industrial action refusing to work with CMA members. Both strikes failed. J.E. Pendlebury, CMA President,26 was a lay Methodist preacher,27 and a committee member of the Cessnock Co-operative Society.28 The CSA covered a number of junior managerial and administrative jobs about the mines. CSA Secretary George Batey had similar attitudes to Pendlebury. Both men stood for state parliament on behalf of the Protestant Independent Labour Party (PILP). Skelton, of the PILP, served two terms for the multi-seat Newcastle constituency between 1922 and 1928. Ultimately unsuccessful the PILP stressed arbitration and Christian brotherhood.29 Connell and the ALP prevailed over a narrow sectarian party. When in 1925 the WIUA tried another forced amalgamation with the CMA Pendlebury likened joining the WIUA with joining the Third International in Moscow.30 Again the CMA survived. 32
   

Conclusion and Further Research

 
For a large part of its history an understanding of the core values of Methodism along with their networks is a prerequisite of any review of the Newcastle labour movement. 33
      The struggle between the WIUA and the CMA is relatively easy to document. Far harder to penetrate is the informal use of contacts in the LOI, church and the more extensive masonic networks for ALP preselections, co-op society and union contests. Anecdotal evidence of the widespread nature of this practice gathered from labour histories has already been referred to. It is highly likely that Methodists acted in this way, in addition to more public efforts, to deal with the 'satanic revolutionists'. Research is needed to tease out the detail of the Methodist role in unions where sectarian rivalry flourished and in industrial disputes where Methodists were present in large numbers. 34
      Further research is also needed on the role of Methodists in local government elections where the Labor Party should have done well but did not. While very visible there, these issues extend well beyond Newcastle and its coal miners. 35


Endnotes

1.  Ellen McEwen, The Newcastle Coal Mining District of NSW 1860–1900, PhD Thesis, University of Sydney, 1979, p. 262.

2. Newcastle Morning Herald (NMH), 17 July 1889, p. 7.

3.  Howard Quint, The Forging of American Socialism, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1953, pp. 103–141.

4. NMH, 23 October 1906, p. 7.

5.  George Howell, Conflicts of Capital and Labour, Macmillan & Co., London, 1890, p. 139.

6.  Tony Laffan, 'The Loyal Orange Lodges and the Newcastle Labour Movement', The Hummer, vol. 3, no. 3, Summer, 1999–2000, pp. 1–9.

7.  F. Waters, Postal Unions & Politics, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1978, p. 133; T. Sheridan, Mindful Militants, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1975, p. 202; B. Juddery, White Collar Power, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1980, pp. 208–209.; R. Murray, The Split, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1972, pp. 60, 97, 139, 187, 213, 223 & 352, and T. Truman, Catholic Action & Politics, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1960, p. 245.

8. NMH, 3 September 1890, p. 6.

9. NMH, 25 August 1906, p. 11.

10. NMH, 13 August 1907, p. 6, NMH, 14 August 1907, p. 5.

11. NMH, 7 December 1907, p.13.

12. NMH, 24 December 1907, p. 7.

13. NMH, 10 March 1908, p. 3.

14. NMH 11 December 1907, p. 6.

15. NMH, 14 August 1907, p. 7.

16. NMH, 29 March 191, p. 5 .

17. The People, 14 March 1908.

18. NMH, 12 September 1907, p. 5.

19. NMH, 23 December 1910, p. 4.

20. NMH, 23 April 1913, p. 6.

21. NMH, 1 August 1922, p. 4.

22. The Toiler, 23 July 1920.

23. NMH, 12 June 1923, p. 4 .

24. New Man / Christian Industry, 15 February 1924.

25.  F.T.Walker, Toward Industrial Peace, Men's Own Movement, Sydney, 1926, pp. 22–24.

26. NMH, 18 November 1920, p. 4.

27. NMH, 27 October 1921, p. 5.

28. NMH, 24 May 1919, p. 8.

29.  Tony Laffan, 'The Protestant Independent Labour Party of NSW, 1923–1929', The Hummer, vol. 3, no. 9, Summer 2002–2003, pp. 16–24.

30. NMH, 10 December 1925, p. 6.

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