86  
Journals link Search link Partners link Information link
May, 2004
Previous
Next
Labour History

Table of Contents
List journal issues
Home
Get a printer-friendly version of this page
 
 

Defending Internationalism in Interwar Broken Hill

Sarah Gregson

In the 1920s and early 1930s, Broken Hill workers were divided about the presence of southern European migrants on the mines. Nevertheless, strong anti-racist opposition from within the miners' union towards a returned soldier racist, Richard Gully, stood in stark contrast to the role of mine managers, conservative local newspapers and other Returned Soldiers' Association activists who employed racism as a classic 'divide-and-rule' industrial strategy. As a companion piece to my work on the 1934 Kalgoorlie race riots, this study provides further confirmation that internationalist responses to migrant workers were not unknown in the Australian labour movement in this period.1 1
   

Introduction

 
E.P. Thompson employed the notion of class, not as a structure to be frozen and examined in isolation, but as a constantly evolving 'historical relationship'.2 For example, in his view, the notion of deference, without both labourers and squires, made little sense. Along the same lines, while any discussion of Broken Hill must include its union struggles, these militant traditions have arguably obscured the equally important class mobilisations of the mine managers and their supporters. In most Broken Hill histories, conservative activists are either hidden from view or portrayed as lifeless caricatures, devoid of complex motivations and strategies. Exemplifying the wider historiographical trend regarding racism in Australia, employer involvement in local race relations has also been overlooked.3 This study demonstrates that the activism of mine managers around the question of race helped to create industrial and political outcomes advantageous for employers and that this activism is an important qualification to the 'union town' image of Broken Hill. For its part, the local labour movement struggled to articulate an appropriate response to the presence of southern European labour on the mines, one that would resist employer attempts to lower wages and offer solidarity to migrant workers. 2
   

War, Ideology and Industrial Relations along the Line of Lode

 
World War I was a period of enormous political and industrial upheaval in Broken Hill, with the disruption to world metal markets resulting in widespread unemployment. Despite initial support for Australian military involvement, local anti-conscription activists managed to build militant campaigns against war, nationalism and conscription and a strong 'No' vote was registered in both the 1916 and 1917 conscription referenda.4 On the other hand, local radicalism inspired a closer alliance between conservative groups in Broken Hill, who mounted a range of campaigns to discredit anti-conscriptionists as cowardly, treacherous and irresponsible.5 This coalition did not end with the Armistice. 3
      In the mid-1920s, increased numbers of southern Europeans came to Australia for work, as part of a deliberate policy by the conservative Bruce/Page government to increase the labour market for rural land clearing and other menial labour. Unsurprisingly, many found such back-breaking and poorly paid work unattractive and were drawn to mining towns, where better working conditions often prevailed. Union accusations that the Broken Hill mine managers were secretly trying to 'flood the labour market' were not unfounded. Reluctant to use 'derelict labour' sent by the local government-run labour bureau, in 1923 the Mining Managers Association [MMA] resolved to increase the supply of underground workers by cultivating contacts in a range of mining centres to recruit workers not yet 'infected' by trade unionism.6 While the arrival of increased numbers of migrants evoked intense debate within the Broken Hill labour movement, the mine managers and their key supporters — the Nationalist Party (7), the local sub-branch of the Returned Soldiers' Association (RSA), 'loyal' workers in two 'breakaway unions', the Barrier Workers Association and the Trades and Trades Labourers Union, and the Barrier Miner (or the Miner) newspaper — also played an influential role in local 'race relations'.7 4
      One way to plot the 'race debate' in Broken Hill is to trace the ideological war waged between two bitterly opposed camps — the Barrier Miner and Barrier Daily Truth newspapers. The Barrier Daily Truth (or the Truth) was Australia's first labour daily and, in the words of Arthur Griffith MLA, its aim was 'to send forth to the world [the worker's] protest against a rotten social system'.8 The Truth's nemesis was John Smethurst, editor of the Barrier Miner (or the Miner), who was firmly pro-arbitration, pro-conscription, pro-White Australia and anti-industrial militancy. During the war, Smethurst tugged many heartstrings by eulogising enlisters and publishing soldiers' letters home, but the paper's pro-militarist stance angered anti-conscription activists and its offices were twice bombed during the war.9 Because the Truth constantly faced Miner attacks that it irresponsibly led workers into ruinous strikes and the subsequent starvation of their families, it labelled the Miner as 'that gramophone of the profit-hunting mob'.10 5
      Local mine managers kept a close eye on both papers. W. Wainwright, manager of the Broken Hill South mine, described the Truth as a 'disloyal, contemptible, scurrilous rag' and that, as 'one of the worst sinners in fostering industrial unrest', it should have been suppressed under the War Precautions Act.11 After the war, the Collins House Group's London representative, W.S. Robinson, argued that the labour movement's suspicion of the ulterior motives behind welfarism might be 'allayed by useful publicity' in a sympathetic newspaper.12 He argued to Colin Fraser, an industrial advisor to the Collins House mine managers, that:
[t]he press men should be used to educate [the workers]. Their views should be quietly moulded so that any proposals put forward or action taken will not create suspicion which would kill all chances of cooperation.13
 Fraser also advocated patronage of the Miner, 'to combat the baneful effects [of the Truth] and to keep the Companies' case placed fairly before the community'.14		 6
      The Miner passionately supported immigration restriction but, during the 1916 conscription referendum campaign, its editorials were forced to address the argument from the right wing of the 'Vote No' campaign that conscription would allow 'coloured' labour to take local jobs. Defending limited importation of such workers as an expedient measure to save women from unfeminine tasks, one editorial argued that the real threat to the White Australia policy was the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)-influenced Amalgamated Miners Association (AMA), claiming that:
The rules of the A.M.A. were specially altered to make provision for the admission of men belonging to coloured races, including Chinese. Certain coloured races were excluded from the privileges of membership, but that bar was removed by a special alteration of the rules, apparently because the party running the A.M.A. and the anti-conscription movement believes that the yellow man is as good as the white.15
 In reply to Smethurst's 'accusations' of union anti-racism, one AMA member argued that, while not supporting the IWW, neither would AMA members blindly support the White Australia policy. Importing goods made by poorly paid Asian labour undercut the conditions of Australian workers and, therefore, negated the need for Asian exclusion. In his view, Asian workers should be allowed to enter the country, join unions and get decent conditions.16		 7
      Taking this challenge extremely seriously, Smethurst published another long diatribe against international solidarity, which argued that:
The upholders of the equality of all men, of all colours and degree of civilisation or savagery, have apparently succeeded in convincing many former believers in a White Australia that this policy is a wrong one, and that the ports of the Commonwealth should be opened wide to the labour of Africa and Asia.17
 Out came all the excuses — that if they were not good enough to marry your daughter, then they were not good enough for Australia; that Australia was better kept 'for our own breed' rather than filled with 'mixed colours'; that the proposed IWW revolution would only bring Australian standards down to the lowest level and that Asiatics would set that level 'by their habits'. If this was not enough, Smethurst fulminated, 'some Asiatics live in Australia under low conditions, with their pockets full of bank notes, gold rings on their fingers and gold chains round their camels' necks'.18 While the Miner's description of AMA internationalism rather flattered the miners' union, the issue of immigration was constantly debated within the local labour movement. The Truth contained a range of articles that espoused eugenics, but it also paid tribute to the struggles of Asian workers against the incursions of British and French imperialism.19		 8
      Towards the end of the war, the AMA embarked on a campaign against non-unionists and, at one meeting, particular mention was made of non-union 'foreigners'. Even in a climate of war-inspired xenophobia, the union resolved to contact migrant workers 'with the object of bringing them into the union'. Notably, one official argued that the term 'foreigner' in the motion be replaced with 'non-unionist'. It was also resolved that 'all antagonism against foreigners be obliterated from "Barrier Daily Truth"'.20 A few years later, Richard Quintrell, president of the Workers Industrial Union of Australia (WIUA), spoke out against immigration schemes that swelled the labour market in the interests of employers. Nevertheless, he insisted that, once in Australia, migrants should be recruited to the union and offered the same protection as other members, because hostility towards migrant workers would surely drive them into the employers' hands and turn potential allies into a 'non-union army'.21 While this position did not go unchallenged, it remained the official attitude of the union leadership — a leadership that, as will be demonstrated below, was repeatedly endorsed in ballots held during bitter campaigns for migrant exclusion. 9
      In short, the Truth published material that reflected the breadth of debate within the labour movement and the wider working class but, on balance, promoted an anti-racist attitude. The Miner, in contrast, argued that while racial equality was a 'nice-sounding' theory, the need for White Australia was supreme. Its editor accused the Truth of supporting 'inter-racial' marriage and shared political rights with 'non-whites'. Outraged at these unconscionable suggestions, Smethurst maintained that such breaches of the White Australia policy 'would not be tolerated in practice by even the most rabid advocate of internationalism'.22 In essence, he was appealing to working-class readers to hold firm against anti-racists in the labour movement. When the Australasian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) decided by a narrow majority to disaffiliate from the Pan-Pacific Secretariat in 1930, the Miner's editorial crowed that this was a victory for White Australia. The worst aspect of the Pan-Pacific Secretariat, according to the Miner, was that it opposed any 'colour bar' and that there were 'Chinese and representatives of other coloured races among its members: all of course thoroughly imbued with Red ideals'.23 In comparison, the Truth's editorial strongly opposed disaffiliation, urged international labour unity and censured the 'reactionaries in the Australian Labor Movement' for having temporarily handed a victory to the ruling class.24 10
      While no attempt should be made to 'whitewash' the labour movement from racism's stain, the historiography on Australian racism has rarely acknowledged the presence of anti-racist politics among trade unionists and, hence, cannot explain why the Barrier Daily Truth contained some of the most theoretically sophisticated anti-racist positions available in Australia in this period.25 For its part, the Barrier Miner's crude allusions to the horrors of miscegenation, using the counterpoints of 'white superiority' and 'coloured savagery', were analogous to the 'mob' responses more commonly attributed to working people. Battling the daunting prospect of an industrially united, multi-ethnic labour movement, energetic organisers from Broken Hill's conservative camp promoted Australian nationalism and cross-class unity through racial homogeneity. Crucial to examining how the conservatives operated and intermingled are the activities of one F.G. White, who was the lynchpin for conservative election campaigns, 'breakaway' unions, public displays of Empire loyalty and discrediting labour movement activities. Plotting conservative connections will also provide a political context in which the 1920s debate over southern European migrants can be more fully understood. 11
   

The 'White army'

 
F.G. White was a prominent Broken Hill businessman, from his arrival in the town in 1895 until his death in 1953. For his anti-working class 'sins', White was described in one Truth editorial as 'the bitterest and most consistent anti-Labor force, as an individual, in Broken Hill'.26 Prominent trade union leader, Paddy O'Neill, said of White that he had once 'tried to get a widowed school teacher dismissed from her job because she was an anti-conscriptionist'.27 During World War I, he led the Barrier Empire League (BEL), a pro-war, pro-conscription organisation that was, according to local labour movement leader, Walter Riddiford, composed primarily of Broken Hill's small business proprietors.28 After the war, White was appointed an administrator of the local War Memorial Trust and frequently dined at the 'top table' at local RSA functions.29 Early in 1917, White formed the National Citizens Association (NCA) to run local election campaigns for Nationalist candidates. One of the NCA's objectives was to provide citizens with a voice in local politics, but democracy was not a strong feature of its constitution. In White's words,
[its members] would not necessarily nominate anyone, but they [would] consider it their bounden duty as citizens having a stake in the city and the British Empire to combine and work for the return of such candidates who in their opinion would best represent this district from a national standpoint.30
 For White, the NCA provided a structure that he, and people like him, could control in the interests of Broken Hill's establishment and the wider interests of the Nationalists, while attracting an activist base from which right-wing politics could be organised. In the words of one aspiring Nationalist candidate, 'the rank and file of National supporters [were] treated with utmost contempt'.31 Likewise, 'A Soldier's Sister' was critical of the five-shilling fee to join the NCA that made enfranchisement for the purposes of choosing a candidate difficult for wage-earning Nationalists.32		 12
      The link between White's NCA role and his RSA activities was recognised by many in the labour movement. One Truth correspondent complained that the RSA's 'non-political' mantle was ridiculous, because it only helped those returned soldiers who were anti-Labor.33 Further, its executive called meetings immediately prior to elections at which they promoted the Nationalist platform. Nevertheless, the RSA provided White with a unique opportunity to meet working class returned soldiers, from whom he was otherwise socially removed. During the 1928 municipal election campaign, union leader Bert Speck highlighted White's role in conservative politics. While unionists knew White to be on the employers' side, he argued, the same could not be said for his Nationalist candidates 'who were used to swinging spawlers or picks, who were traitors to their class, their union and the Labor Movement'.34 This was an important observation, forewarning of White's strategy to cultivate talented working class cadre as a conservative wedge among trade unionists. 13
      F.G. White, the Barrier Miner and the Mine Managers Association (MMA) encouraged two 'loyal' unions — the Barrier Workers Association (BWA) and the Barrier Trades and Trades Labourers Union (T&TL). In response to a 1916 stop-work day organised by the AMA during the 44-hour week campaign, the Barrier Miner published several advertisements that equated AMA industrial action with disloyalty. Placed by White, the advertisements appealed to conservative workers to observe closely which miners worked and which did not. One read, 'Workers of the Barrier, Show your loyalty to Empire and Australia and to the boys fighting for you at the front. Work To-day'.35 While the AMA won the battle for a shorter working week, the conservatives were able to organise those who had opposed the campaign into the BWA.36 Known derogatorily within the labour movement as the 'Blue Whiskers Brigade' and as 'a bogus boss-ridden conglomeration of derelicts', the BWA then organised underground miners, in competition with the AMA, by opposing direct action, ALP affiliation, and the cessation of contract mining.37 The T&TL organised surface workers. In its defence, BWA members claimed their union was made up of 'a very large proportion of the most respectable unionists of Broken Hill'.38 They comprised approximately 100 members, a significant proportion of whom were conservative returned soldiers. In 1917, 60 BWA members paraded on Anzac Day and, at the conclusion of the march, were addressed by Federal Nationalist candidate, Lieutenant Montgomery.39 The MMA's adviser on welfarism, Gerald Mussen, was told by BWA leaders that 3,000 men along the line of lode would scab against any AMA strike. Although Mussen expressed disbelief at this figure, the BWA leaders assured him that their men, along with those in the T&TL, would defy AMA militancy, a promise they kept during the Big Strike of 1919–20.40 14
      Post-war moves to build industrial unionism in Australia saw the Broken Hill branch of the AMA become the Barrier Branch of the Mining Division of the Workers Industrial Union of Australia. For a period, the local WIUA remained aloof from the more moderate unions on the Barrier, but its own increasing industrial restraint and tactical considerations eventually prompted closer organisational unity. WIUA officials negotiated a rapprochement with the T&TL and developed a policy of 'mutual assistance' with the Federated Engine Drivers and Firemens Association (FEDFA) to enforce a closed shop on the mines. On badge show days, the mechanism by which non-union members were identified, and either recruited or sequestered, FEDFA winder-drivers simply refused to lower any non-unionist, and, as the BWA was considered a 'bogus union', this strategy dissolved the much detested WIUA rival.41 Arguably, however, the BWA's existence had helped radicalise the decisions of the underground miners, by claiming many supporters of moderation and arbitration who would have challenged the WIUA militants. Ironically, the subsequent usurpation of the 'breakaway unions' coincided with mounting WIUA conservatism. In addition, industrial unity paved the way for greater organisational unity, and between 1923 and 1925 the Barrier Industrial Council (BIC) emerged to replace the Trades and Labour Council with the much sought affiliation of the WIUA. As one local described it, '[w]hen they formed the BIC they dragged in and quietened the WIU of A and also made the 'blue whiskers' a bit more active, it cut both ways, suited everybody'.42 However, as Ellem and Shields noted, these bureaucratic moves did not diminish the central place of mass meetings in WIUA decision-making processes, thereby preserving, as is demonstrated below, an important window into local race relations.43 15
   

'Under the flag of British imperialism': the Broken Hill RSA

 
With approximately 3,250 enlistments, Broken Hill was fertile ground for recruitment officers.44 A fervent patriot and Central Mine Manager, James Hebbard, became the driving force behind the local returned soldier organisation, urging his fellow mine managers to consider returned soldier welfare as paramount.45 They agreed. Frank Allen, Secretary of the MMA, felt that the provision of facilities for the RSA 'would have a good effect in counteracting undesirable influences in Labour matters and make for industrial peace'.46 In private correspondence, W.S. Robinson added, 'I have taken it for granted that the Company takes every man being a returned soldier whatever his condition back into employment'.47 Union official Bill Eriksen confirmed that when the soldiers returned, 'the companies put them on, whether they had work for them or not ... they all got jobs'.48 16
      In 1917, Colin Fraser surmised that the 'very large profits' being made during the war, of which working people felt they had not received a fair share, were responsible for industrial unrest. So that he could garner advice from the town's elite about the situation, a circular entitled What's Wrong with Broken Hill? was distributed to prominent citizens.49 Hebbard's response was that returned soldiers should have a proper meeting place, as 'such an institution would have a good effect in counteracting undesirable influences in labour matters, and make for industrial peace'.50 Several months later, Hebbard warned that Barrier Daily Truth was seeking to win over returned soldiers 'by a display of sympathy and ventilation of grievances', maintaining that:
the Bolsheviks of the Barrier Unions will use every endeavour to accentuate the disgruntled feelings which many of the returned men have towards the Government and employers generally, and it seems to me if employers desire to assist the Government in repatriating these men in such a way that the better opinions with which they have returned (in a large measure utterly antagonistic to the Bolsheviks) may be strengthened, it is time the Companies were "up and doing" with a view to preventing the spread of these opinions as well as to prove that they have the welfare of the men who have earned the Country's gratitude, sincerely at heart. The aggressive attitude of the militant unionists towards the Companies and those workmen who desire to be loyal to the Country by doing their duty in maintaining its industries can only be squelched by supporting the loyal men who will undoubtedly as time goes on, create a more harmonious atmosphere, and it is hoped to render temperate the malcontents who have been in evidence in Broken Hill for years past.51
 In 1919, an RSA delegation to the MMA reported that membership stood at approximately 200 men and that they hoped to have 1,000 members by the end of the year. Hebbard's proposal that the MMA donate £10,000 to the RSA for a suitable building, with the remainder invested in war bonds to provide future income for RSA activities, was agreeably received.52 However, by 1927 membership had only climbed to 370, a small proportion of those eligible to join. For the mine managers, this made it even more important to support the 'loyal' core that identified with RSA politics, and, throughout the Big Strike, money for returned soldier relief works was by far the largest item of recurring expenditure of the MMA.53		 17
      Local mine managers reflected a more generalised ruling-class apprehension about a large body of organised, militarised men mixing with a fractious labour movement. Upon their return, the Barrier Daily Truth appealed to returned servicemen to join the fight against capitalism and militarism, stressing the working-class background of most soldiers. One article decried the broken promises made to returned soldiers and exposed terrible labour conditions on Soldier Settlement schemes as little different from 'scabbing on horses'.54 The mine managers feared that, if left to themselves, returned men might be influenced by such propaganda and, similarly, RSA leaders discouraged returned soldier fraternisation with labour movement 'disloyalists'. When the militant unionist and NSW MP, Percy Brookfield, remarked that many Broken Hill men were 'starved into going' to war, local RSA Secretary, G.F. Barson, wrote to the Truth to protest that he and other returned soldiers had not 'forgotten many of the railway scenes and street utterances when we [left] for the front, and we know who, of the soap-box orators, are our friends and our enemies'.55 However, the employers' fears about fraternisation between returned soldiers and unionists were not without foundation. As one local noted:
when the soldiers were coming back, the middle class of Broken Hill thought they'd sool the soldiers onto the unionists ... because they were jack of the unionists who were always striving for some conditions ... at the weekend a monster procession took place of unionists ... there were 5,000 people there and to our surprise the soldiers, the Returned Soldiers' League, sent a speaker too, supporting the unionism; that took the wind out of the sails of our very best citizens of Broken Hill.56
 The Palace Hotel was a concrete demonstration of the mine managers' support for the RSA. The MMA purchased the Palace in 1919 from Emil Resch, the brewer, whose nephew Richard was a leading RSA member in Broken Hill.57 Built in 1889, the hotel was valued at £12,000 and a further £4,000 was authorised for renovations. By 1922, the sub-branch's report boasted that Broken Hill had the 'finest returned soldier club rooms in the Commonwealth', for which the RSA paid the MMA a nominal rental of one shilling per annum. It comprised 63 bedrooms, two bars, a large billiard room, reading and writing rooms, a lending library and a recreation ground with a tennis court. In subsequent years, the MMA contributed further substantial sums for renovations and remodelling. In 1946, with membership levels reinvigorated by another war, the RSA sought new premises; the MMA sold the Palace Hotel and donated the entire proceeds of the sale to the RSA's building fund.58		 18
      The RSA leadership's indifference towards working-class living standards soon became apparent. Not only opposed to militancy on the mines, it was also willing to undermine the industrial demands of returned soldiers. In 1920, a group of forty returned soldiers who were engaged in relief work on the Wilcannia road refused to work until they were granted paid walking time to the job. As one of the soldier strikers said, '[i]f the unionists around the district are allowed this privilege of travelling time, then why is it refused to us?'59 The RSA Executive thought the men's demand just, but heartily disapproved of such 'unconstitutional methods' and prepared a list of 'replacement' workers. With the leadership clearly prepared to organise scabbing against fellow returned soldiers, the men returned to work.60 Racism was another means by which the RSA leadership sought to hide its antagonism towards improved rights for workers. By masquerading support for White Australia as concern for wage and employment levels, the RSA promoted 'white unity' as the key to improved working-class living standards. For example, in 1921, the annual general meeting of the local sub-branch discussed the 'regrettable fact' that, while there were many 'aliens' working on the mines, 'returned soldiers capable of doing the same work were unemployed and practically penniless'.61 19
      Perhaps the most revealing insight into the link between the RSA, the mine managers and racism was provided by Cyril Emery, President of the MMA. In 1931, at the Anzac Day Smoke Social held at the Palace Hostel, Emery began his speech brazenly by acknowledging that many RSA members thought, 'Why doesn't the old blackguard put off a lot of foreigners on the North [mine] and put on Anzacs?' Having stirred up much 'applause and commotion' on this issue, Emery laughed and said, 'Well, make it rough, boys, I like it that way'. Then, adopting a more conciliatory tone, the politically astute mine manager acknowledged that 'Australia' was having a difficult time at present, that things were not as they would like, but that there were better times ahead. Reiterating the RSA's place in post-war society, Emery was certain that the 'men who stormed Gallipoli would come through with the right leaders'.62 His speech served a number of political ends. In raising the presence of 'foreigners' in Broken Hill, Emery confirmed to RSA members that migrants caused returned soldier unemployment. At the same time, he affirmed 'freedom of contract' as an inviolable principle and the employment of cheap labour as an employer prerogative, no matter how 'rough' the RSA might make it. By raising the question of migrant labour, he clearly saw no problem with racism against such workers, as long as the blame for insufficient jobs was primarily directed towards them. In closing, he emphasised that the economic fortunes of local mine managers and workers were integrally linked. 20
   

Only Divided They Were Ruled: Battling the Elite Ideological Terrain

 
As had happened during the war, both major local newspapers debated heatedly about the increased presence of migrant labour in Broken Hill. The Barrier Daily Truth promoted an equivocally internationalist position; editorial comments championed the plight of destitute migrant miners alongside claims that migration should be more strictly regulated to reduce unemployment levels and limit employer attempts to use racial antipathy to weaken labour unity. One editorial argued that, '[o]ne minute the Capitalist Press is helping to bruise and baton the workers into submission and the next it is expressing fear that the workers' lot may be jeopardised by the Chinese and Japanese'.63 In contrast, the Barrier Miner called the WIUA a 'foreigners' union', claiming that it had traitorously put interpreters in the mines to assist newcomers. Conservative supporters of the mine managers were in a predicament. While they supported the right of mine managers to employ the best labour, they resented mine managers choosing southern Europeans. One letter to the Miner from 'Friend of the Digger' insisted that there was no way that Maltese workers could be superior to Britisher workers. Nevertheless, instead of attacking the mine managers' infidelity to white workers, he chided the WIUA's inclusiveness. Reflecting eugenicist fears of miscegenation and racial degeneration, the writer argued that:
[e]ver since the armistice ... those coloured aliens were having the preference, and were taking the jobs rightly belonging to the returned soldiers and other white workers ... Are the unionists indifferent to their own interests? Have they no respect for the future generation, in permitting those hordes of nondescripts into their ranks and homes? If so, I say they are degenerating, and will soon be on the level of a Maltese coolie.64
 		21
      While supporting employer attempts to choose young, single men who were not likely to be a burden on the compensation system, the Miner reflected a section of ruling-class opinion which recognised that Australian nationalism did not come cheaply. Its editor argued that
however desirable unmarried foreigners may be as beasts of burden, and however good they may be as donkey workers, they are very bad citizens as regards helping to make a prosperous town on the Australian standard of working-class culture.65
 The Truth called the Miner's bluff, at one point exclaiming:
What does the "Miner" desire the union to do in the matter? Does it propose that the union should declare a strike against working with these men who are coming from foreign countries? ... Meanwhile the duty of unionism is to organise those who are here, come they from the farthest or nearest part of the world. 66
 When questioned about migrant employment, WIUA Check Inspector J. Beerworth replied simply that no workers had complained about the matter.67 A few weeks later, the Miner expressed outrage that the union had not protested strongly enough against the 'influx', seeking only to increase the union's funds by welcoming migrants 'with open arms'.68		 22
      In October 1924, the Barrier Industrial and Political Council called a mass meeting on the issue of foreign labour and, to apprise readers of the debate, the Truth outlined the three main divisions that existed within the labour movement. The Left argued that it was not for organised labour to regulate immigration and that migrants had as much right to come as anyone else. In contrast, right-wingers advocated taking action to prevent migrant workers from working in the industry. In the middle were those, the Truth's editor among them, who did not seek to make nationality an issue, but recommended regulation of the 'influx' for economic reasons.69 23
      When a motion reflecting the centrist position was put to a mass meeting, the discussion ranged far and wide. Moving the motion, Gough spoke of America, where, he said, foreigners lived in squalor, did not spend their wages locally, drove down conditions and did not settle. Lamb questioned this view of American history, arguing that the IWW's Bill Haywood had told him that organising migrant workers was crucial and that race was a class question. Wetherell responded by stating that immigration restrictions were not aimed at 'creating a conflict of nationalities, but at preventing it' and that 'passions would be aroused' if migration levels were allowed to create unemployment. Wood argued that 'it was impossible to measure a man's principles by his nationality, the colour of his hair or complexion'. As proof, he used the example of Irish immigrants being used to drive down conditions in America. As each group of new arrivals acclimatised and organised, he said, the employers tried to use a different group of immigrants. Lord declaimed that he was not against foreigners per se, but against an 'influx' of any kind. As a rejoinder to this argument, Davey cited the 1892 strike, where it was Australians who had scabbed. Finally, Considine moved an amendment to Gough's motion, which read:
That this meeting of Barrier workers deprecates the efforts of the mine owners and other capitalistic agents to create dissension and disunion in the ranks of the workers here by trying to filch from us the hard won conditions now enjoyed by the mine workers; and, further we are of the opinion that only by working class solidarity can such conditions be maintained.70
 Considine argued that the employers encouraged workers to alienate foreigners from the unions, making them easier to exploit. 'The movement today should bring the workers together', he said. This amendment was narrowly defeated. The centrist motion won by 117 votes to 83, indicating that a substantial minority supported the internationalist position and that the motion received an amalgam of votes from those occupying the 'middle ground' and right-wing exclusionists.71 This forum suggests that the attitudes of trade unionists towards southern European workers in the 1920s were enormously diverse. Certainly, the nuances in debates at mass meetings were not always apparent in the final wordings of union resolutions.72		 24
   

'Gullyism'

 
In September 1927, a number of Broken Hill mines closed and more than 1,200 workers lost their jobs. Labour movement mass meetings resolved to pressure the State government into funding schemes for job creation, such as road works and a water supply scheme. However, some anti-southern European agitators saw these meetings as an opportunity to campaign for migrant exclusion. One of F.G. White's working-class associates in both the RSA and in Nationalist political circles, Richard Gully, found the ensuing political and industrial situation much to his liking, and became the leader of an anti-southern European campaign that waxed and waned in Broken Hill until the early 1930s. A veteran of the Boer War and World War I, Gully was an arch-conservative. Edgar Ross, who was in Broken Hill during this period, named Gully the 'orator and organiser' of the racist campaign, and that 'his stamping ground was the unemployed'. 'Get rid of the Maltese and I'll have a job' was the attitude Gully encouraged, Ross said.73 25
      In the 1924 South Australian state elections, Gully had stood as an Independent for the seat of Wallaroo, but received an ignominious 109 votes.74 Demonstrating his political sympathies, Gully advised business interests to flee South Australia to escape the new Labor government, despite the campaign having been held in the wake of the closure of the Moonta mines.75 He arrived in Broken Hill late in 1924 and it was not long before his anti-migrant activities attracted attention. In a letter to the Editor of the Truth, 'Spaghetti' referred to Gully as a 'paid or honorary tool'.76 Another letter, from 'Digger', argued that the Barrier Miner was 'planking for [Gully] right and left'.77 Edgar Ross felt that Gully 'smelt strongly of the agent-provocateur' and had been seen in discussion with F.G. White, 'allegedly seeking financial aid'.78 26
      Towards the end of 1926, Gully and his supporters began to agitate at WIUA meetings for the closure of the union books to southern Europeans and it was soon obvious that this propaganda was having an effect.79 In mid-1927, FEDFA officials advised the WIUA that, in protest at the migrant 'influx', they would refuse to work with a particular migrant WIUA member and, in so doing, the logic of Gully's propaganda could not have been made clearer to the miners' union.80 The WIUA Management Committee castigated the FEDFA decision for being 'against a member of the working class' and claimed that 'such action is only playing into the hands of the Boss'.81 However, the Barrier Miner published a letter from 'Centre Cut', who praised the FEDFA decision and castigated his own union leaders who, he argued, 'prate of "international working class brotherhood" and similar fallacies'.82 Gully's campaign continued to grow. Employing familiar racist devices, he asserted that 'dagoes' only spent ten per cent of their earnings in Broken Hill and sent the rest of their money overseas. Another heinous crime, in Gully's view, was the unmarried status of 80 per cent of migrants. On one occasion, he exclaimed:
I wanted to close the books on the cows. They are the men who scabbed on you. And you deserve to be tramped if you allow it. They'd get a living under conditions you wouldn't tolerate. They live in hovels with three and four to a room.83
 		27
      Leading figures in the Broken Hill labour movement castigated Gully for his outbursts. Ern Wetherell argued that Gully was playing into the hands of the mining companies and that workers were all members of the same class 'whether they were born in Crystal Street, Sulphide Street or the middle of Malta'.84 Richard Quintrell pointed out that it was an Italian man who gave Gully his job on the Big Mine, that this had meant that Gully 'went quiet' on his anti-foreigner campaign, and that the two had worked peacefully together until this crisis had been created by the companies.85 Gully also faced stiff opposition from many migrants. Some wrote letters to the Barrier Daily Truth to protest against Gully's vitriol. At meetings, groups of migrants would interject, attack the stage and generally disrupt his speeches, so much so that Gully frequently needed police protection to leave the area. Agnes Dini, an Australian woman whose husband was Italian, publicly challenged Gully — did he think, then, that his beloved King George was also from 'a mongrelised race'? How did Mr Gully propose to deal with foreigners who had been in Broken Hill for 20 years? What of the many Australian women, like herself, who were married to southern Europeans?86 28
      In its coverage of the mine closures and anti-migrant campaign, the Barrier Miner was unquestionably 'planking' for Gully. It was cause for celebration that a meeting of 400 unemployed, which Gully chaired and the labour movement boycotted, was 90 per cent in favour of migrant exclusion. The Miner journalist caricatured the 'excitability' of the migrant protesters in the audience, dismissed the words of every Maltese interjector as incoherent, and praised Gully's 'witty' replies to his detractors. The vast majority of the Miner's letters to the Editor were pro-Gully. One letter, signed 'Caucasian' and purporting to be from 'an interested spectator', argued that, 'what struck [him] forcibly was the well organised foreign element which ought to be a warning to all Australians'.87 29
      Anxious to defeat 'Gullyism', Ern Wetherell challenged Gully to a public debate on the question; 'Is Mr Gully's propaganda in Broken Hill in the interests of the Australian-born workers?' More than 1,000 people attended this forum, which was so 'lively' that it had to be abandoned midway through the proceedings, as a number of fights had broken out. President of the Barrier Industrial Council (BIC), E.P. O'Neill, chaired the discussion, threatening from the outset to close the meeting if both speakers were not given a fair hearing. Gully opened by claiming that nothing was further from his mind than an attempt to divide the labour movement. His only concerns were that Australians were not being given employment preference and that Australia might shortly be 'mongrelised' and 'overrun' by southern Europeans. If, as he and other RSA members believed, 'eternal vigilance was the price of liberty', then Australians were 'taking things easy' and not protecting their 'great heritage'. He advocated that the WIUA close its books to southern Europeans and that those currently employed should be given three months notice to quit.88 Wetherell countered Gully's arguments by pointing out that the current market price for lead would enable the mine owners to withstand a lengthy strike.89 While he opposed mass migration, he felt that workers from any part of the world should be offered solidarity in Broken Hill. Migrants were 'victims of the same system as the Australian-born workers'; jobs were always the property of the employing class, he said, and any attempts to set one group of workers against another would damage their ability to mobilise industrially. In reply, Gully declared that he would continue his propaganda, even if it meant closing down the mines.90 However, at a subsequent mass meeting of the WIUA, it was resolved that ejection of migrants from the union was 'not in the best interests of the working class'.91 30
      Not to be deterred, Gully organised another meeting, chaired by fellow RSA member, Arthur Anson Lawrence. Lawrence argued that there were 800,000 unemployed in Great Britain and that Australia should absorb 'their kith and kin, rather than allow aliens into the country'. Their principal aim, he said, was to keep Australia white.92 In an attempt to discredit this meeting, labour movement leader, J.J. Porter, said that Gully's choice of Lawrence as chairman was revealing: 'a man it fell my lot to prevent from scabbing at Round Hill in the strike — a "Nationalist" and a blue whisker'.93 During the 1920s, Lawrence had been employed as a timberman on the South mine, was a prominent member of the 'loyalist union', the BWA, until its collapse, and was then a member of the WIUA until his premature death in 1930. Lawrence had held a number of executive positions in the Broken Hill RSA and was one of only two Broken Hill members to be awarded an honour medal for services to the League. In the obituary composed by his political enemies at the Barrier Daily Truth, he was described as a 'rather able opponent' and 'a fairly good platform speaker and debater'.94 31
      Lawrence also served as an alderman on the City Council with F.G. White's team of Independents (or, rather, anti-Labor Nationalists). However, in 1928, he appeared in court in support of a case brought by a returned soldier against the City Council for not recognising veteran employment preference. In this context, Lawrence might have been seen as an unproblematic defender of returned soldier rights, but for his subsequent involvement in a campaign to weaken unionism among municipal workers in the following year. In 1929, it was Alderman Lawrence who moved a motion declaring that there was to be no preference for unionists in Council employment and that the merit principle would henceforth be applied. It was pointed out that Lawrence's support for the principle of returned soldier preference had slipped because, in promoting the appointment of a non-unionist, he was overlooking the claim of a more qualified casual, who was a returned soldier and a union member. Clearly, for Lawrence, weakening union strength was a higher priority. Likewise, F.G. White was a lone voice urging the Chamber of Commerce to fight union preference in a meeting called to resolve the strike that resulted from the non-unionist's appointment.95 32
      A reliable estimation of support for Gully's campaign is difficult to reach. Newspaper reports of BIC and Gully meetings must be considered too partisan to reflect accurately the balance of forces, but the level of support behind Gully's candidature for president of the WIUA is perhaps the most reliable indicator of his fluctuating political fortunes. In 1926, he received 148 votes to the 593 votes of his main rival, Richard Quintrell. In 1927, at the height of his racist campaign, Gully's support peaked at 854 votes to Quintrell's 1700, with the increased member participation in the poll suggestive of the polarisation that Gully's campaign had engendered. However, by 1928, Gully received only 270 votes to Quintrell's 926.96 These results suggest that, while Gully gained some support from organised workers, his divisive diatribes galvanised others in the labour movement into stronger opposition to his more objectionable conclusions. Indeed, Maltese miner, Paul Sultana, credited the labour movement with preventing his expulsion from Broken Hill. Sultana said, '[Gully] wanted to take all the foreigners, Europeans, off the union list. Strike us off the union list ... but the union wouldn't let him'.97 33
      Even some racist workers were won over by the arguments of the internationalists. During the Depression, A.R. 'Flossy' Campbell wrote letters to the Barrier Daily Truth arguing that there were too many foreigners on the mines. It was useless, he spat, to complain to the union officials because they were all 'internationalists'. All Gully's talk was a poor substitute for direct action to get rid of the foreign workers. He also appealed to businessmen to support the anti-foreigner campaign because migrant earnings were not spent in Broken Hill. The union books should be closed, Campbell argued. While he was aware of the arguments of his political opponents that such a measure would 'split the ranks', force the foreigners to scab and weaken the fight against the mine managers, 'it behoves us all to support our own first', he wrote.98 Who could have predicted that, four years later, Campbell would be a leading member of the staunchly internationalist Militant Minority Movement, successfully elected on its ticket to the influential Check Inspector position? It is not known precisely what effected this change in Campbell, but it must be assumed that anti-racist activists played an important part in his 'conversion'.99 34
      While the MMA denied any formal support for Gully, its members relished the resulting division in the Broken Hill labour movement at no cost to management and Cyril Emery was quick to exploit the contradictions in the WIUA position that Gully had stirred. In conference, Emery insisted that preference was always given to Australians over foreign labourers, disingenuously asking whether the WIUA wanted the mine managers to 'discriminate between members of the same union' to exclude the migrants.100 This rhetorical question both exposed the element of racism attached to the union's position on immigration and blamed the WIUA for encouraging migrants to stay in Broken Hill by recruiting them. 35
   

From Solidarism to 'International' Localism: the WIUA closes its books

 
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, conferences between the BIC and the MMA continued to discuss the question of employment preference. The BIC accused the MMA of using medical examinations and of giving preference to southern Europeans to weed out local union members. The employers consistently defended their right to employ the most 'suitable' workers for the job and, in their view, southern Europeans were physically and temperamentally suited to lowly-paid menial work.101 While the union representatives were aware that the mine managers were deliberately exploiting the unemployment situation along the line of lode and some officials opposed these divisive tactics, they found it difficult to prevent their protestations regarding local employment preference from making concessions to racist ideas. Quintrell claimed that some foremen were giving preference to southern Europeans on the basis of job type. A union member had applied for work on the South Blocks, only to be told by the Underground Manager that the particular position was 'a foreigner's job'. Subsequently, Quintrell informed the manager that the BIC did not object to specific individuals, but would not allow the allocation of work on the basis of nationality. In reply, the manager advised that he had no problem with employing southern Europeans for particular jobs. Another mine manager supported recent work applications by some Western Australian workers, contending that the BIC's concern was only with overseas men. Quintrell replied heatedly, 'A man may come from Alaska and be as good as a Broken Hill man, but we want preference for Broken Hill men'.102 36
      In May 1931, a letter from 'Australia First' to the Barrier Miner appealed for Richard Gully to come out of 'retirement', arguing that a body of the unemployed should approach the MMA about ousting the foreigners. Further, the letter 'sooled':
I think that such a move would get support from the Returned Soldiers' League. As there are Germans working among these foreigners, is not that a great insult to our returned men who offered their lives fighting in the Great War?103
 As incentive, 'Australia First' reminded Gully that there were now fewer foreigners in the town 'to join in the hooting with the Reds [and] to suffer defeat is no disgrace'.104 Gully begged off returning to public life, but encouraged 'Australia First' to take up the challenge.105 Clearly, Gully recognised defeat and had no wish to repeat the experience and 'Australia First', too, subsequently expressed reluctance to make a public stand.106 By 1931, Broken Hill appeared to have become an inhospitable place for would-be racist campaigners.		 37
      A few days later, after years of relentless pressure on the question of race, the WIUA executive gave in to the 'localists', arguing that members would have to meet a strict residential requirement to gain access to mine employment.107 The Barrier Daily Truth explained that, if a man was not a member of the union before the closure of the union books, he would have no choice but to leave the industry or force others to down tools. The rule change was 'based upon the contention that preference to out of work members of the union should be enforced'.108 However, the secretive manner in which this decision was taken suggested that the closure of the books was recognised as a defeat. Only three years earlier, the WIUA had donated £100 to striking waterside workers, accompanied by a message to the effect that the Waterside Workers Federation decision to close its books was 'detrimental to Unionism'.109 38
      With only the Zinc Corporation, Broken Hill South and North Broken Hill still in operation, these companies requested a conference to negotiate reduced costs. In the face of devastating levels of unemployment, labour movement leaders defended the exclusionary policy as one that would limit the mine managers' ability to flood the labour market. However, in the course of these negotiations, the different political positions of local union leaders became apparent. Staunch localist, O'Neill, requested that the Companies not employ men 'from other parts'. When Emery replied that newcomers were not getting work, Quintrell insisted that new men were finding work and that this had forced the WIUA 'to take a stand on the matter'. As proof, he cited the case of two men who had recently attempted to join the union, but had been refused. He stated categorically, 'We are going to keep the work for the Broken Hill men'.110 39
      An important feature of the union closure was its 'non-racial' aspect. As Ellem and Shields point out, the definition of 'local' included many southern European men who had not been born in Broken Hill, but who had lived there for some years.111 In the eyes of the WIUA executive, these men were more 'deserving' of a job than an Australian newcomer to the town. When Mr Gall, one of the mine managers, stated that a party of Italians had recently taken in a man who had been away for six months, Quintrell replied that this man could not then be considered a newcomer, confirming that the Italian had drawn his clearance before leaving and would be readmitted to the union. When BIC representatives Gough and Eriksen attempted to turn the discussion back to questions of racial 'loyalty' and British preference, Quintrell again put the onus back on the mining companies by pointing out that the Workmen's Compensation Act allowed the companies to dodge compensation payments if a migrant miner was killed.112 While the WIUA president's political leadership on the question of racism was not without contradiction, it consistently rebuffed employer attempts to divide and rule. 40
   

Conclusion

 
The common focus on Broken Hill's union history obscures the role of local conservative activists who agitated against labour movement internationalism as a threat to White Australia and capitalist hegemony. The mine managers were keen to attract cheap southern European labour to the town for labouring work, but were anxious to isolate them from radical union influence. The Barrier Miner newspaper and the RSA were useful allies in this regard. They attempted to divert labour movement agitation about unemployment onto migrant workers, while never seriously hindering their arrival. Trade union members were initially divided about the presence of southern Europeans in Broken Hill, but when Richard Gully agitated for migrant exclusion, the majority of unionists rejected his simplistic equation that 'too many migrants' meant too few jobs as a poor substitute for industrial solidarity. While the mine managers did not ultimately win their battle to isolate migrants from unionism, their constant campaign for 'freedom of contract' and racist hiring practices forced the WIUA to incorporate right-wing unions into its ranks and to close its books to new recruits, a more conservative industrial position than many officials and members would have preferred. Nevertheless, the non-racist basis upon which the closure decision was taken, coupled with the inspiring campaign against Gully's vicious crusade, stand as crucial contributions to the history of anti-racism in the Australian labour movement. 41


Endnotes

1. The principal returned soldier organisation in Broken Hill was the Returned Soldiers' Association which, in the period under review, was a sub-branch of the South Australian branch of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA). On Kalgoorlie, see S. Gregson, '"It all started on the mines"?: the 1934 Kalgoorlie race riots revisited', Labour History, vol. 80, May 2001 The author appreciates the comments of the Labour History referees who read an earlier draft of this article.

2. E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, Penguin, Ringwood, 1968, p. 9.

3. Brian Kennedy's excellent social history of Broken Hill predominantly portrays racism as a simple British/foreign dichotomy, although he does note the part played by local mine managers, clergy, business people and the Barrier Miner newspaper in whipping up pro-war xenophobia. Moreover, Kennedy's study concludes with the Big Strike of 1919–20 and so does not examine the racist campaigns that flared during the 1920s. Ellem and Shields have scrutinised this period, and provide a gripping account of Gully's crusade to divide the town. However, in their portrayal, Broken Hill's 'race debate' is one largely between the 'solidarists' and the 'exclusionists' within the labour movement. B. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale: a Social History of Broken Hill 1883–1921, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1978, p. 132; B. Ellem and J. Shields, 'H. A. Turner and "Australian Labor's Closed Preserve": Explaining the Rise of "Closed Unionism" in the Broken Hill Mining Industry', Labour and Industry, vol. 11, no. 1, 2000. The omission of employers from the historiography of racism is discussed in S. Gregson, Foot Soldiers for Capital: the influence of RSL racism on interwar industrial relations in Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill, PhD thesis, School of Industrial Relations and Organisational Behaviour, University of New South Wales, 2003.

4. Le Duff argues that the AMA frequently expressed the belief that relief work was unfairly distributed among single men, 'encouraging' them to enlist. He also notes that the results for the entire Barrier district revealed a 60 per cent opposition to conscription, whereas, in the urban localities, the 'No' vote ranged from 65 per cent to 75 per cent of the total, far exceeding the state average. G.R. Le Duff, Factions in the Labour Movement in Broken Hill 1914–1919, Honours thesis, School of Social Science, Flinders University, 1969, pp. 31, 57, 84, 140; Kennedy, Silver, Sin, and Sixpenny Ale, p. 128.

5. See G. Dale, The Industrial History of Broken Hill, Fraser and Jenkinson, Melbourne, 1918, pp. 209–14.

6. Concerning the policy of the Bruce/Page government, see I.M. Cumpston, Lord Bruce of Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1989, pp. 33, 42, 52. The MMA tried to avoid contact with the labour movement in its search for workers, fearing them to be contaminated by anti-employer propaganda. Indeed, in 1917, it resolved not to place advertisements in the Barrier Daily Truth, but rescinded this decision reluctantly in 1923, because too few workers read the Miner with its anti-labour bias. Minutes of Meeting of Broken Hill Mine Managers' Association (hereafter MMA minutes), 19 April 1923, 10 May 1923, 4 June 1923, Broken Hill South Collection, Melbourne University Archives (hereafter BHS/MUA).

7. For analyses of the role of returned soldier organisation in interwar Australia, see G. Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism: The Pressure Group Activities of the Returned Servicemen's League, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1966; K. Amos, The New Guard Movement 1931–1935, Melbourne University Press, Clayton, 1976; H. McQueen, 'Shoot the Bolshevik! Hang the Profiteer! Reconstructing Australian Capitalism 1918–21' in E.L. Wheelwright and K. Buckley (eds), Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism, vol. 2, Australia and New Zealand Book Co., Brookvale, 1978; J. Murray, 'The Kalgoorlie Woodline Strikes 1919–1920: A Study of Conflict Within the Working Class', Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 5, December 1982; M. Cathcart, Defending the National Tuckshop: Australia's Secret Army Intrigue of 1931, McPhee Gribble, Fitzroy, 1988; R. Evans, The Red Flag Riots: A Study of Intolerance, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1988; A. Thomson, 'Passing Shots at the Anzac Legend' in V. Burgmann and J. Lee (eds), A Most Valuable Acquisition, McPhee Gribble/Penguin Books, Melbourne, 1988; M. Lake, 'The power of Anzac' in M. McKernan and M. Browne, Australia: Two Centuries of War & Peace, Australian War Memorial/Allen & Unwin, Canberra, 1988; A. Moore, The Secret Army and the Premier, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, 1989 and The Right Road? A History of Right-wing Politics in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995; B. Oliver, 'Disputes, Diggers and Disillusionment: Social and Industrial Unrest in Perth and Kalgoorlie 1918–24', Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 11, June 1990, '"The Diggers' Association": A Turning Point in the history of the Western Australian Returned Services League', Journal of the Australian War Memorial, no. 23, October 1993 and War and Peace in Western Australia: The Social and Political Impact of the Great War 1914–1926, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1995; T. King, 'Saving the Returned Men: The Soldiers' Lounge, St Paul's Cathedral', Victorian Historical Journal, vol. 65, no. 2, 1994.

8.Barrier Daily Truth (hereafter BDT), 21 August 1908.

9. One Miner editorial accused the anti-conscriptionists of being a lawless section of the community and that their public meetings were trampling on the rights of citizens. The newspaper became a mouthpiece for every pro-conscriptionist who wanted to wipe the anti-conscription struggle off the streets. Barrier Miner (hereafter BM), 15 July 1916. See letters from 'Done My Bit' and 'True Loyalist', BM, 28 July 1916; 'A Soldier's Daughter', 'Anti "Sinn Fein"' and 'Direct Action', BM, 4 August 1916. A police report on the second bombing noted that Mr Smethurst had 'fought the I.W.W. and other disloyal sections in Broken Hill for months, giving them no quarter'. IWW papers, reference: 7/5588, NSW Police Service collection, State Records NSW.

10.BDT, 4 June 1920; 1 October 1923.

11. W. Wainwright to C. Fraser, 8 March 1918, Sir Colin Fraser collection, reference no. 1/18/5/11, Melbourne University Archives, Melbourne (hereafter CF/MUA).

12. Re Robinson, see G. Blainey (ed), If I Remember Rightly: The Memoirs of W. S. Robinson 1876–1963, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1967. Re the Collins House Group, Carrigan details the high level of German investment in the Broken Hill mines before the war and the reluctance of some sections of mine management to break lucrative economic ties with 'enemy' capital. Indeed, he cited the admission of one company director that BHP had more German shareholders than British. The outbreak of war inspired cooperative ventures between a number of Broken Hill companies, resulting in the formation of the Collins House Group. The Group comprised four major companies — Broken Hill South, North Broken Hill, Zinc Corporation and Amalgamated Zinc. Financiers W.L. Baillieu and W.S. Robinson brought these companies together to cooperate on a number of 'forward integration' projects — most notably, the establishment of Broken Hill Associated Smelters (BHAS) and Electrolytic Zinc. It was Carrigan's view that Robinson and Baillieu's prescient decision to hitch the fate of the Collins House Group to Billy Hughes' empire-loyal patronage secured its ensuing good economic fortune and the subsequent eclipse of BHP influence in Broken Hill (F. Carrigan, 'The Imperial Struggle for Control of the Broken Hill Base-Metal Industry, 1914–1915' in E.L. Wheelwright and K. Buckley (eds), Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism, vol. 5, Australia and New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, 1983, pp. 166, 181–84); J. Kennett, The Collins House Group, Master of Economics thesis, Monash University, July 1982, p. 84. See also P. Richardson, 'Collins House Financiers W.L. Baillieu, Lionel Robinson and Francis Govett' in R.T. Appleyard and C. B. Schedvin (eds), Australian Financiers: Biographical Essays, Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1988; E.W. Campbell, The 60 Rich Families Who Own Australia, Current Book Distributors, Sydney, 1963, pp. 104–7; P. Cochrane, Industrialization and Dependence, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1980, pp. 76–102.

13. W.S. Robinson to C. Fraser, 25 April 1917, reference no. 1/37/11/2, CF/MUA.

14. C. Fraser, What is Wrong with Broken Hill?, reference no. 1/18/5/11, CF/MUA.

15. AMA rules concerning membership eligibility made no mention of any racial qualifications at this time. In fact, the main onus of eligibility lay not on skin colour but on a prospective member not being an employer of labour. Revision of rules, AMA minutes, 8 July 1917; BM, 25 September 1916. For an explanation of the IWW's position on racism, see V. Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: The Industrial Workers of the World in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1995, esp. pp. 79–91.

16.BM, 27 September 1916.

17.BM, 28 September 1916.

18.BM, 28 September 1916.

19. See, for example, BDT, 20 November 1922; 7 July 1925.

20. AMA minutes, 20 January 1918.

21.BDT, 22 December 1926; 22 September 1927.

22.BM, 16 May 1924.

23. For a summary of this political battle, see F. Farrell, International Socialism and Australian Labour, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1981, pp. 188–200; Barrier Miner, 20 March 1930. The Miner's editorial reflected ruling-class opinion more generally. The Bruce-Page administration consistently frustrated moves for closer international trade union links, by refusing passports to Australians wanting to attend Pan-Pacific trade union conferences held overseas and by refusing entry to those 'foreign' trade unionists who attempted to come to Australia. As Farrell demonstrated, conservative politicians linked internationalism and Communism with treason. F. Farrell, 'The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Movement and Australian Labour, 1921–1932', Historical Studies, vol. 17, no. 69, 1977, p. 450.

24.BDT, 1 March 1930.

25. See, for example, M. Willard, History of the White Australia Policy to 1920, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1974 (first published 1923), esp. p. 54; A.C. Palfreeman, The Administration of the White Australia Policy, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1967, p. 136 and 'The White Australia Policy' in F.S. Stevens (ed), Racism: The Australian Experience, A Study of Race Prejudice in Australia, vol. 1, Sydney, 1971, p. 164; C.A. Price, The Great White Walls Are Built: Restrictive Immigration to North America and Australasia 1836–1888, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1974, p. 226; F. Farrell, International Socialism and Australian Labour, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1981, p. 16; S. Brawley, The White Peril: Foreign Relations and Asian Immigration to Australasia and North America 1919–78, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1995, pp. 2, 16. To sum up this approach, Markey stated that 'dislike of foreigners (was a) national working-class characteristic'. R. Markey, 'Australia' in M. van der Linden and J. Rojahn (eds), The Formations of Labour Movements 1870–1914, E.J. Brill, New York, 1990, pp. 580–1. For exceptions to this trend, see works by V. Burgmann including 'Capital and Labour' in A. Curthoys and A. Markus (eds), Who are our Enemies? Racism and the Working Class in Australia, Hale and Iremonger, Neutral Bay, 1978; Revolutionaries and Racists: Australian Socialism and the Problem of Racism, 1887–1917, PhD thesis, Australian National University, 1980; 'Racism, Socialism, and the Labour Movement, 1887–1917', Labour History, no. 47, 1984; and 'Writing Racism Out of History', Arena, no. 67, 1984. Also see more recent contributions to this debate in J. Martinez, 'Questioning White Australia: Unionism and "Coloured" Labour, 1911–37', Labour History, no. 76, 1999; P. Griffiths, The road to White Australia: Economics, politics and social control in the anti-Chinese laws of 1877–88, unpublished manuscript in the possession of the author, 2002; J. Small, 'Reconsidering White Australia: class and racism in the 1873 Clunes riot', Marxist Interventions website, http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/interventions, accessed 28 January 2003.

26.BDT, 26 November 1931.

27. E.P. O'Neill was president of the Barrier Industrial Council from 1924 to 1949. Called the 'uncrowned king of Broken Hill', O'Neill was employed by the local council as a night soil carter. He was referring to Frances Mortimer, who taught at the Broken Hill Public School. Mortimer attracted the attention of the Criminal Investigation Branch in 1916 because of her anti-conscription activities, and for her association with the IWW's Tom Barker, Adela Pankhurst, and the Labor Volunteer Army with its associated 'extremists' and 'foreigners'. According to Ern Wetherell, it was H.L. Hosier, White's business partner and co-secretary of the BEL, who attempted to discredit Mrs Mortimer, by reporting to the Minister for Education that she was 'an evil and disloyal influence'. In retaliation, the AMA 'blackballed' the Broken Hill Jockey Club, of which Hosier was Secretary. Under pressure from his colleagues to resign, Hosier capitulated and moved to Melbourne, after a residence of 19 years in Broken Hill. The confusion over the identity of the informant is probably explained by the popular impression that the two men were close political allies, both equally active and strident opponents of the labour movement. E. Wetherell, The "Stormy" Years of 1910–1921, unpublished manuscript, Charles Rasp Memorial Library, Broken Hill, ch. 4, pp. 6–7; IWW papers, NSW Police Service records, reference: 7/5590 no. 142, State Records NSW; BM, 24 April 1917; BDT, 5 December 1931.

28. Le Duff, Factions in the Labour Movement, pp. 25–6. The BEL's aims were: 'To hold out the right hand of fellowship for those enlisting for active service, to assist those returning wounded or sick, and generally to help the Empire in the job it has undertaken'. R.H.B. Kearns, Broken Hill 1915–1939: New Horizons, Broken Hill Historical Society, Broken Hill, 1977, p. 8.

29.BDT, 25 April 1927.

30. For a description of the National Federation, of which the NCA was a part, see M. Booker, The Great Professional, McGraw-Hill, Sydney, 1980, p. 208; P. Cochrane, Industrialization and Dependence, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1980, p. 105; BM, 30 March 1917.

31.BM, 30 September 1924.

32.BM, 31 March 1917.

33.BDT, 20 September 1927.

34.BDT, 1 December 1928.

35.BM, 6 September 1916.

36. Advertisements were also placed in the Barrier Miner under the pseudonym, 'Legal', calling for anti-militant workers to meet. These advertisements were headed with the same distinctive typeface as that of BEL announcements. Shortly afterwards, the new organisation gained registration under the NSW Trades Union Act (1881); BM, 5 February 1917.

37.BDT, 6 November 1919; Dale, Industrial History of Broken Hill, p. 244.

38.BM, 23 March 1917.

39. This estimate by Wally Riddiford is the only numerical assessment of the BWA's strength that I have been able to find. Interview with five Broken Hill miners, conducted by M. Laver in 1974. Tapes held in the National Library of Australia (hereafter NLA), reference no. TRC 341, Tape 3, Canberra; BM, 29 April 1917.

40. G. Mussen to C. Fraser, 24 March 1919, reference no. 1/37/11/2, CF/MUA. See, for example, BDT, 17 July 1919.

41. For an explanation of the transition from the AMA to the WIUA, see B. Ellem and J. Shields, 'Why Do Unions Form Peak Bodies? The Case of the Barrier Industrial Council', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 38, no. 3, 1996, pp. 399, 403.

42. Interviewee in B. Hammond, The Spuds and Onions Strike, The Origin and Course of the Broken Hill Strike 1919–1920, unpublished Honours thesis, School of History, University of Melbourne, 1970, p. 14.

43. Ellem and Shields, 'Why do Unions form Peak Bodies?', p. 404.

44. 365 were killed. BDT, 12 October 1925.

45. In early RSA correspondence, Hebbard signed himself as President of the Returned Soldiers' Association. It was Hebbard who donated five horses to R.N.J. Resch to give to volunteers in his Light Horse contingent (see endnote 57). Later, the RSA would list Oliver Holmes Whitford as its first President. It is likely that Hebbard set up the local organisation, handing the presidency over to a suitable returned soldier some time afterwards. An officer and an MC winner, O.H. Whitford was certainly suitable — he later became the general manager of North Broken Hill Limited. His claim that he would like to line up militant workers and shoot them also recommended him to the position. Kearns, Broken Hill 1915–1939, pp. 6, 9.

46. F. Allen to J. Hebbard, 20 June 1917, reference no. 1/18/5/11, CF/MUA.

47. W.S. Robinson to C. Fraser, 25 April 1917, reference no. 1/37/11/2, CF/MUA.

48. Interview with Bill Eriksen, conducted by Edward Stokes on 14 March 1982. Tape held by NLA, reference no. TRC 1873, Tape 25.

49. Fraser's circular and the replies it garnered are an important record of the debates that were taking place about the harsh nature of mining work and whether welfarist policies would create a more harmonious industrial relations environment. In a letter to Fraser, W.S. Robinson stated: 'Either conditions can be bettered or they cannot. If the former, it is a crime to leave them without any attempt to effect improvement. If they can't then we had better tell the Broken Hill shareholders that unless they are prepared to go and work the mines themselves we see little chance of continuing operations except by armed force ... If I am ever asked in a court of law where the chief blame for past unrest should be placed, I will bluntly say, on the shareholders, who, beyond cursing the unions and red raggers, have done nothing at all but draw dividends'. C. Fraser, What is Wrong with Broken Hill?, reference no. 1/18/5/11, CF/MUA. Fraser concurred. He wrote approvingly of 'old Captain Handcock' from Wallaroo who, he argued, 'showed a much clearer appreciation of the industrial position when he said "tuppence in comforts be worth sixpence in wages"'. C. Fraser to W.S. Robinson, 13 February 1919, CF/MUA. For more on Hancock, see M. Robinson, Cap'n 'Ancock: Ruler of Australia's Little Cornwall, Rigby, Adelaide, 1978.

50. J. Hebbard, What's Wrong with Broken Hill?, CF/MUA.

51. J. Hebbard to MMA, 19 February 1918, reference no. 1/37/12, CF/MUA.

52. MMA minutes, 13 February 1919.

53. Annual Report and Balance Sheet for year ended 31 December 1927, Broken Hill RSA, held at the Australian War Memorial. See, for example, Financial Statements, MMA minutes, 12 February, 11 March, 28 April 1920; MMA minutes, 23 January 1920.

54.BDT, 29 July 1919.

55.BDT, 11 September 1919.

56. Interviewee in Hammond, Spuds and Onions Strike, pp. 3–4.

57. Edmund Resch, Emil's brother, was 67 years old when the war began in 1914 and his subsequent internment at Holdsworthy provides an example of the indiscriminate nature of state harassment of Germans during World War I — he had lived in Australia for 50 years and had been an Australian citizen for 25 of those years. See C. Carr, The Resch Brothers in Australia, unpublished manuscript held by the NLA, 1992, pp. 23–33. Richard Resch married Emma Fletcher and adopted her name in 1916, perhaps wishing to avoid anti-German hysteria to which his uncle would fall victim. On New Year's Day in 1915, it was Richard who led a group of police and Volunteer Rifles to 'deal with' two Turkish sympathisers who had fired on a local train. This episode is widely acknowledged to be the only incident where 'enemy' shots were fired on Australian soil during World War I. Resch's commanding officer described him as the 'mainstay of the Citizen Force' and 'an indefatigable Recruiting Officer'. See Department of Defence, file nos. MP84/1 1128/1/16, A2023 A95/5/36, NAA, Melbourne. For Resch's change of name, see BM, 7 June 1916.

58.Diggers' Gazette, 15 December 1919; Colonel Jacob, President of the South Australian branch of the RSSILA, attended an MMA meeting for a round of mutual back-slapping and to personally thank the Companies for the considerable corporate assistance given to returned soldiers. Fulsomely, Jacob remarked that the RSA had been 'handed over' a 'wonderful building ... at a peppercorn rental' and had been generously lent another sum to make renovations, again 'at peppercorn interest'. MMA minutes, 9 May 1935; Diggers' Gazette, 7 February 1922; Annual Report and Balance Sheet, Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia, Broken Hill Sub-Branch, for year ended 31 December 1927, p. 5, held in Australian War Memorial; Diggers' Gazette, 7 February 1922; MMA minutes, 23 August, 29 October 1923, 10 July 1924, and 2 August 1934; R.H.B. Kearns, Broken Hill 1940–1973: New Horizons, Broken Hill Historical Society, Broken Hill, 1977, pp. 17–8. In what I like to think of as the southern Europeans' revenge, the Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL) Club in Broken Hill ceased operation in 1994, whereas its former premises is now trading under the name of its proprietor, Mario Valentino Celotto, and has been renamed Mario's Palace Hotel.

59.BDT, 19 February 1920.

60. Report of Broken Hill Executive by S.W. Barson, RSL Collection, reference no. MS 6609, item 763, NLA. To see the clear link between the RSA and the business community, consider those seated at the 'top table' at the 1927 Anzac Day smoke social — accompanying F.G. White were R.T. Atkinson, the local magistrate, Labor Mayor, Alderman Dennis, who was threatened with expulsion from the Labor Party for his pro-militarism speeches, C.J. Emery, President of the MMA, E.L. Frost, district sales manager of the Ford Motor Company, T.G. Bennet from the Department for Labor and Industry, R.E.A. Kitchen from the Country Traders' Association, W. Coates from the Chamber of Commerce and Camillus Sinclair Wood from the Pastoralists' Association. Wood was later named by the Truth as the local organiser of scab labour, sent to Adelaide during the waterfront strike against the 'Dog Collar Act' in 1928. BDT, 25 April 1927; 4 October 1928.

61.Diggers' Gazette, 21 January 1921.

62.BM, 27 April 1931.

63.BDT, 3 March 1923.

64.BM, 3 April 1924.

65.BM, 28 April 1924.

66.BDT, 8 August 1924.

67.BM, 17 May 1924.

68.BM, 14 October, 4 November 1924. In State Parliament, debate took place about the arrival of destitute southern Europeans in Broken Hill, sparked by a resolution to Premier Fuller from the Barrier Chamber of Commerce, 'objecting to the influx of foreigners which was a menace to the business and industrial life of the community'. BM, 9 September 1924. Announcing White's death, the Barrier Miner, described him as 'the grand old man of the local business community' and 'one of the stalwarts of the Chamber of Commerce'. BM, 24 August 1953. Not satisfied with simply writing to State Parliament, R.E.A. Kitchen, a Broken Hill Chamber of Commerce executive, took himself to Sydney to make representations to sympathetic parliamentarians. BDT, 26 September 1924.

69. The Barrier Industrial and Political Council was an organisation of affiliated unions and the local ALP; BDT, 1 November 1924.

70.BDT, 3 November 1924.

71. Of the participants in the debate, G. Gough, was a FEDFA official, Paddy Lamb was a founding member of the Communist Party of Australia and a delegate to the Central Council of the Miners' Federation, Ern Wetherell was the editor of BDT and J. Lord was an official of the T&TL and, later, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the WIUA. In 1931, Lord had his leg amputated after an accident at the Zinc Corporation. M. P. Considine was a former president of the AMA and had held the Federal seat of Barrier from 1917 to 1920. For a full report of this meeting, see BDT, 3 November 1924. Also see letter from 'Old Miner' advising that he had kept every 'scab list' issued in Broken Hill and that 'practically all of (the scabs were) dinkum Aussies or true-born Britishers'. BDT, 25 October 1927.

72. In Lunn's view, '(r)esolutions to the TUC (Trades Union Congress) should be the starting point of any investigation of labour attitudes to race and immigration, not the conclusion'. K. Lunn, 'Race Relations or Industrial Relations?: Race and Labour in Britain, 1880–1950' in K. Lunn (ed), Race and Labour in Twentieth Century Britain, Frank Cass, London, 1985, p. 3.

73. Report of conference between MMA and representatives of Broken Hill unions, 10 February 1928, BHS/MUA. For a detailed discussion of the Gully campaign and the subsequent levy dispute, see Ellem and Shields, 'Australian Labor's Closed Preserve'. Gully is listed as serving with the Sixth (South Australian Imperial Bushmen) Contingent between April 1901 and April 1902. He was promoted to the rank of corporal and was mentioned favourably in dispatches in the London Gazette, 29 July 1902. He was not, as was alleged by one of his political opponents in Broken Hill, one of 'Morant's mob'. See Murdoch University website, wwwtlc2.murdoch.edu.au/community/dps/military/bor-sa6.htm#sa6, accessed 6 July 2000. For details regarding Gully's World War I service record, see personnel record no. 5538, National Archives of Australia (hereafter NAA), Canberra. In 1920, it appears that Gully's wife, Olive, became tired of her husband's infidelity and sued for divorce. She claimed that her husband had been unfaithful many times and that he had, on more than one occasion, sought medical treatment for venereal disease. This personal history was exposed some years later by the manager of the BDT, W.E. Dickson, when Gully claimed that his opposition to industrial action was in the interests of women and children. See Gully vs Gully, Case no. 428 of 1920, Supreme Court Matrimonial Causes Jurisdiction, South Australia, Courts Administration Authority, Adelaide; BDT, 21 October 1929. See interview with Edgar Ross, conducted by Barry York on 24 January 1997, transcript held by NLA, reference no. TRC 3557, p. 35.

74. Gully had announced his intention to stand as a Nationalist candidate, but did not get preselection. His 109 votes were only marginally more than the number of informal ballot papers. The Register, 8 April 1924; Letter, Ex-Secretary of the Kadina ALP, BDT, 28 September 1927.

75.Kadina and Wallaroo Times, 9 April 1924; K. Bailey, Copper City Chronicle: A History of Kadina, self published, Kadina, 1990, p. 125. In the wake of these mine closures, a racist diatribe against Maltese workers appeared in the local paper. This letter contained all the political positions which Gully would soon after promote in Broken Hill — opposition to strikes, antagonism towards Labor leaders, and hostility to union recruitment of foreigners. Published under a pseudonym, I have been unable to confirm that the letter writer was Gully. Nevertheless, it had a recognisably Gully-style and was written during his campaign for the 1924 State election, showing that mining crises, Gully and racism were common companions. See Kadina and Wallaroo Times, 2 April 1924.

76.BDT, 8 October 1927.

77.BDT, 20 September, 1927; 5 December 1927; 19 October 1927.

78. E. Ross, Of Storm and Struggle, New Age Publishers, Sydney, 1982, p. 40.

79. WIUA minutes, 21 August 1926, 6 March 1927, 13 March 1927, 27 March 1927, and 3 April 1927.

80. WIUA minutes, 5 July 1927.

81. WIUA minutes, 19 July 1927.

82.BM, 14 July 1927.

83.BDT, 19 September 1927. Being 'tramped' was being forced to leave town in search of work.

84.BDT, 19 September 1927.

85.BDT, 20 September 1927.

86.BDT, 26 September 1927, 28 September 1927, 1 October 1927, 19 October 1927. Dini is but one example of interaction between local and migrant workers that Gully could not easily undo. While racism was not uncommon and affected all aspects of people's lives, many opportunities for fraternisation occurred through shared experiences. See S. Gregson, '"It all started on the mines"', pp. 29–31. Formally, of course, the vast majority of mine workers in Broken Hill were linked by unionisation and, in the workplace, were in daily contact. Informally, too, workers broke down the barriers presented by racist ideology. When Paul Sultana described the card games that took place underground, Barry York asked was it just Maltese workers who played. Sultana said, 'No, no, everybody; all these people. There's half an hour for crib ... they stay there until they finish the game. Until they know when the foreman's coming ... and piss off'. Crib time is meal time. Transcript of interview with Paul Sultana, conducted by Barry York on 2 November 1984, held by NLA, reference no. TRC 3582/6, p. 42.

87.BM, 27, 29 September 1927.

88.BDT, 17 October 1927. O'Neill was no internationalist and his insistence on a 'fair hearing' was almost certainly an attempt to ensure Gully was not silenced. Of itself, O'Neill's reluctance to openly support Gully indicated that such a position was not dominant amongst local union officialdom.

89. A former Wobbly, Ern Wetherell had shifted politically rightwards after the demise of the IWW and, during the early 1920s, thought that immigration should be restricted to avoid racism, but Gully's campaign pushed him leftwards again. This description might seem harsh when measured against Wetherell's magnificent role against Gully's campaign. Gully himself was quick to identify the contradictions in Wetherell's early responses to the arrival of Maltese workers, and quick to claim that Wetherell was hiding his real politics from the internationalists in the WIUA In reality, Wetherell was torn on the issue but moved in an anti-racist direction in response to Quintrell's political leadership, the actions of migrant workers themselves and the obvious industrial ramifications of Gully's campaign. In one speech, he said that 'he saw in front of him faces of men, some of whom were Italians and Maltese, with whom he had worked, and he would be disgraced forever as a unionist were he to leave unchallenged the brutal statements of Mr Gully'. BDT, 19 September 1927.

90. Full report of this meeting, BDT, 17 October 1927.

91. WIUA minutes, 18 October 1927.

92.BDT, 10 November 1927. For details regarding Lawrence's World War I service record, see personnel record no. 625, NAA, Canberra.

93.BDT, 12 November 1927.

94.BDT, 17 March 1930.

95.BDT, 23 January 1929.

96.BDT, 29 April 1926; 15 December 1927; 20 December 1928.

97. Interview with Paul Sultana, pp. 86–7.

98.BDT, 23 June 1930; 29 August 1930.

99. Campbell volunteered for the A.I.F. in 1918. He contracted influenza before embarkation and was discharged in Australia after the cessation of hostilities. For details regarding Campbell's service record, see personnel record no. 14836, NAA, Canberra. See also J. Kimber, 'A Case of Mild Anarchy'? The Rise, Role and Demise of Job Committees in the Broken Hill Mining Industry c1930 to c1954, Honours thesis, School of Industrial Relations and Organisational Behaviour, University of New South Wales, 1998, p. 48.

100. MMA minutes, 11 April 1927.

101. See, for example, the managerial support given to F.C. 'Boomer' Rolfe, a foreman at the Central mine, who was caught 'red-handed' taking a bribe from a Maltese worker in return for a job. The manager of the mine refused to investigate, or take any action against, Rolfe's corruption. BDT, 23 October 1925. Such exploitation of migrants had a long history. Giving evidence at a Royal Commission into the Broken Hill mining industry, W.E. Wainwright, Manager of the South mine, praised the suitability of Maltese labour for loading coal. He said, 'I have had some good experience of Maltese on a particular class of job; I find they are very good at loading coal. Loading coal is a dirty job, and the Maltese do well at it; they do not want so much looking after as the Englishmen'. The Underground Superintendent of the South mine, Andrew Fairweather, assured the Commissioners that there were 'practically no foreigners on mining work; they only occupy the positions