I've seen mobs afore. Men as ain't drilled and disciplined never stands a charge.'
'They've got rifles and revolvers, I know,' said a younger man, 'and they can shoot pretty straight, some of 'em. Suppose they keep open order, and pepper us at long range? What's to keep 'em from droppin' us that way, from cover, and then makin' a rush?'
'There's nothin' to keep 'em, only they won't do it,' replied the sergeant oracularly. 'They know the law's agin' 'em, which means a lot in Australia – so far. Besides that, they've never faced a charge, or don't know what it's like to stiffen up in line. You'll see how they'll cut it when they hear the colonel give the word, not to mention the bugle-call. Why, what the devil – ?'
Then the sergeant, ending his sentence abruptly, almost halted, as a column of flame rose through the night air, sending up tongues of flame and red banners through the darkness which precedes the dawn.
'D – d if they haven't burned the bloomin' steamer!' quoth he. 'What next, I'd like to know? This country's going to the devil. I always thought it was a mistake sending our old regiment away.'
'Halt!' suddenly rang out in the clear, strong tones of the colonel – the voice of a man who had seen service and bore the tokens of it in a tulwar slash and a couple of bullet wounds. 'These fellows have set fire to the steamer, and of course she will burn to the water's edge. They will hardly make a fight of it though. In case they do, sergeant, take twenty men and skirt round so as to intercept their left wing. I'll do myself the honour to lead the charge on their main body, always supposing they wait for us to come up.'
The character of the resistance offered proved the sergeant's estimate to be absolutely correct. A few dropping shots were heard before the police came up, but when the rioters saw the steady advance of a hundred mounted men – an imposing cavalry force for Australia – saw Colonel Elliot, who rode at their head with his sword drawn, heard the clanking of the steel scabbards and the colonel's stern command, 'Charge!' they wavered and broke rank in all directions.
'Arrest every man on the river-bank with firearms in his hands,' roared the colonel. The sergeant, with a dozen of his smartest troopers, had each their man in custody a few seconds after the order was given – Bill Hardwick among the rest, who was fated to illustrate the cost of being found among evil-doers. One man alone made a desperate resistance, but after a crack from the butt-end of a carbine, he accepted his defeat sullenly. By the time his capture was complete, so was the rout of the rebel array. Hardly a man was to be seen, while the retreating body of highly irregular horse sounded like a break-out from a stock-yard.
Matters had reached the stage when the stokers at the Gas Works were 'called out,' and the city of Melbourne threatened with total darkness after 6 P.M.
Then a volunteer corps of Mounted Rifles was summoned from the country. The city was saved from a disgraceful panic – perhaps from worse things. The Unionist mob quailed at the sight of the well-mounted, armed, and disciplined body of cavalry, whose leader showed no disposition to mince matters, and whose hardy troopers had apparently no democratic doubts which the word 'Charge!' could not dispel.
At the deserted Gas Works, aristocratic stokers kept the indispensable flame alight until the repentant, out-colonelled artisans returned to their work.
This was the crisis of the struggle – the turning-point of the fight; as far as the element of force was concerned, the battle was over. It showed, that with proper firmness, which should have been exhibited at the outset, the result is ever the same. The forces of the State, with law and justice behind them, must overawe any undisciplined body of men attempting to terrorise the body politic in defence of fancied rights or the redress of imaginary wrongs.
The rioting in the cities of Melbourne and Sydney was promptly abated when the citizen cavalry, 'armed and accoutred proper,' clanked along Collins Street in Melbourne, while Winston Darling led the sons of his old friends and schoolfellows, who drove the high-piled wool waggons in procession down George Street in Sydney to the Darling Harbour Warehouses.
Much was threatened as to the latter demonstration, by blatant demagogues, who described it as 'a challenge; an insult to labour.' It was a challenge, doubtless – a reminder that Old New South Wales, with the founders of the Pastoral Industry – that great export now reaching the value of three hundred millions sterling – was not to be tyrannised over by a misguided mob, swayed by self-seeking, irresponsible agitators.
No doubt can exist in the minds of impartial observers that if the Ministries of the different colonies over which this wave of industrial warfare passed, in the years following 1891, had acted with promptness and decision at the outset, the heavy losses and destructive damage which followed might have been averted.
But the labour vote was strong – was believed, indeed, to be more powerful than it proved to be when tested. And the legislatures elected by universal suffrage were, in consequence, slow to declare war against the enemies of law and order.
They temporised, they hesitated to take strong measures. They tacitly condoned acts of violence and disorder. They permitted 'picketing,' a grossly unfair, even illegal (see Justice Bramwell's ruling) form of intimidation, employed to terrorise the free labourers.
The natural results followed. Woolsheds were burned, notably the Ayrshire Downs; the Cambridge Downs shed, 4th August 1894; Murweh, with 50,000 sheep to be shorn – roll to be called that day. Fences were cut, bridges sawn through, stock were injured, squatters and free labourers were assaulted or grossly reviled.
Everything in the way of ruffianism and disorder short of civil war was practised, apparently from one end of Australia to the other, before the Executive saw fit to intervene to check the excesses of the lawless forces which, well armed and mounted, harassed the once peaceful, pastoral Arcadia.
At length the situation became intolerable; the governing powers, with the choice before them of restraining bands of condottieri or abdicating their functions, woke up.
It was high time. From the 'Never Never' country in remotest Queensland, from the fabled land 'where the pelican builds her nest' to the great Riverina levels of New South Wales, from the highlands of the Upper Murray and the Snowy River to the silver mines of the Barrier, a movement arose, which called itself Industrial Unionism, but which really meant rebellion and anarchy.
It was rebellion against all previously-accepted ideas of government. If carried out, it would have subverted social and financial arrangements. It would have delivered over the accumulated treasure of 'wealth and knowledge and arts,' garnered by the thrift, industry, and intelligence of bygone generations, to one section of the workers of the land – the most numerous certainly, but incontestably the least intelligent – to be wasted in a brief and ignoble scramble.
The list of outrages, unchecked and unpunished, during this period, makes painful reading for the lover of his country.
A distinguished and patriotic member of the 'Australian Natives' Association,' in one of his addresses before that body, declared 'that, for the first time in his life, he felt ashamed of his native country.' That feeling was shared by many of his compatriots, as day after day the telegrams of the leading journals added another to the list of woolsheds deliberately set on fire, of others defended by armed men – sometimes, indeed, unsuccessfully.
When the directors of the Proprietary Silver Mine at Broken Hill saw fit to diminish the number of miners, for which there was not sufficient employment, it was beleaguered by an armed and threatening crowd of five thousand men. A real siege was enacted. No one was allowed to pass the lines without a passport from the so-called President of the Miners' Committee.
For three days and nights, as the Stipendiary Magistrate stated (he was sent up specially by the New South Wales Government, trusting in his lengthened experience and proved capacity), the inmates of the mine-works sat with arms in their hands, and without changing their clothes, hourly expectant of a rush from the excited crowd.
The crisis was, however, tided over without bloodshed, chiefly owing, in the words of a leading metropolitan journal, to the 'admirable firmness and discretion' displayed by the official referred to – now, alas! no more. He died in harness, fulfilling his arduous and responsible duties to the last, with a record of half a century of official service in positions of high