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Book Review
| John Barnes, Socialist Champion: Portrait of the Gentleman as Crusader, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2006. pp. xvi + 362. $39.95 paper.
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| Over 50 years ago, Henry Pelling called Henry Hyde Champion 'a pioneer of Labour representation', but historians of labour and politics have never found Champion's political career in Britain and Australia, where he spent the last half of his life, worthy of a book-length study. Was this because Champion's preferred channel of labour representation, independent of the trade unions, was dismissed as historically irrelevant by labour historians who followed the well-marked streams of labourism and Leninism in those countries? Now that neither seems capable of re-invigoration, perhaps Champion's middle-class socialism will attract their attention. |
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In Australia, the middle-class socialists deserve a better press. The first Fabians were their own worst enemies, according to Race Matthews, because of their uncooperative attitude to the trade unions. Yet, Labor's parliamentary culture has always been middle-class, and its political strategy and policies were usually Fabian. Childe was derided as an anti-Labor dilettante, although actually he drew on a period of intense involvement in the labour movement to argue that there should be a more balanced and democratic partnership between the industrial and political wings. Champion, of the same generation as the first Fabians, fits into this story all too easily. Contemporaries in Britain said his attempt to set up an independent labour party was paid for by 'Tory gold', and in Australia he was accused of treachery during the maritime strike of 1890 (because he said it would fail – as it did). Now, however, John Barnes, who is not a labour historian but a distinguished professor of English, has written a detailed and fascinating study of Champion, defending his motives, reclaiming his model of an independent labour party, and providing a sympathetic portrait of the man. Barnes concludes by hoping that Champion's 'creative role in the early history of the socialist dream may yet receive its due'. |
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Barnes reminds us that until recently labour historians have 'averted their eyes from the emotional and sexual lives of their subjects'. His book provides new and persuasive evidence to explain Champion's uncertainty in public life in the 1890s, and thus in part the bewilderment of his contemporaries about his political objects. He was in love with a married woman, Adelaide Hogg, whom he had met in Melbourne in 1890 or 1891. Subsequently, they were both in Britain until she returned to Melbourne with her husband. In 1894 Champion followed. In Melbourne, anonymous letters about the affair sapped his political will and alienated voters. Although he continued to involve himself in progressive causes and to promote an independent labour party from behind the scenes, his ambition to become its parliamentary leader, already damaged by his falling-out with the Trades Hall Council, could not survive the anguish arising from his ending of the affair in 1897. |
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Does it matter that Barnes is not a labour historian? In one important sense I think it does, especially in the first part of the book on Champion's British career. In his conclusion Barnes writes that he did not want to argue 'a case for or against [Champion] on the basis of his political actions'. He then goes on, however, to assert that Champion should be remembered as a 'socialist champion'. That socialism Barnes refers to as 'an ideal' and 'a dream'. This does not ring true, for Champion was a hands-on person, practical in regards to both issues and the best form of party organisation for socialists. He was an incorrigible joiner, an irrepressible leader. Barnes does present Champion in great detail as socialist publisher, party official, candidate, demonstration organiser, and mediator. He does show how his contemporaries misjudged his intentions, in one crucial matter drawing on unpublished research on Maltman Barry, the supposed conduit for Tory funds to Champion. But the more the detail piles up and the controversy surrounding him deepens the more we need some guidance about how to evaluate Champion – more, that is, than the claim that he was a dreamer and an idealist. It would be nice to know what the prospects for an independent labour party were. (After all, Australia has never had a viable independent labour party, but the British ILP persisted until the 1930s.) It would be nice to have some discussion of the comparative merits and defects of Champion's model of independent labour representation and the 'lib-lab' and labourist models. Without these evaluations I suspect that for many readers the detail in this part of the book will overwhelm their interest in Champion as a person. |
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The fascinating complexity of Champion's character, especially its impact on his private and public lives, is fully revealed in the second part of the book on the Melbourne years from 1894. He was a parliamentary candidate twice in this period, on each occasion asking the electors to take him on trust. In this role he was Champion the fastidiously-dressed gentleman, a throw-back to the age when notables ruled, seemingly unaware that mass parties were altering the form of representative government. At other times he sought to remake himself as the common man, churning out words for the commercial press as a member of the intellectual proletariat. Then he would throw himself into organising. He socialised with Victoria's literary and liberal political elite but supported socialist cooperation, women's suffrage, anti-sweating, and the celebration of May Day. In his marriage with Elsie Belle Goldstein she was the bread-winner and dominant partner, Champion's ill-health persisting until his death. Barnes foregrounds this restless and mercurial Champion, and also the pathos of his later years, in a narrative of great power. |
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Although ill, Champion could still write. This was the period in which he became an important figure in Australia's literary culture, as literary agent, book importer, and publisher of the Book Lover. Barnes, as an authority in this field, has a surer touch here, and succeeds in showing that, while ostensibly apolitical, the middle-class literary milieu overlapped with the socialist. In fact, the great achievement of this book is that it provides a sympathetic account of Melbourne's vigorous middle-class socialism before World War I and restores Champion to his rightful place in it. As well, Barnes is able to convince us that on Champion's death his comrades were justified in celebrating the selfless and courageous life of a man we have forgotten. Thoroughly researched, wise in its reading of human experience, and elegantly written, this book is an important and welcome addition to the field of labour biography. |
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| University of Sydney |
TERRY IRVING | |
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