The Great Barrow Wars
The period post WW1 had been a
disappointing one for Lismore. Between the censuses of 1911 and 1921 the
population grew a mere 14% (7609 to 8700), below the Richmond average of
16%, below the State average of 27.5%, and way below the big 46% gain in
the Tweed-Brunswick where the spectacular growth of the banana industry
had given rise to much rejoicing in the business houses.
A prescient
‘Northern Star’
editorial of early 1921 gave the first ominous warning of hard times ahead
…another cloud is the likelihood of the commercial depression being
experienced in Great Britain and America as acutely just now overtaking us
in Australia. If it should reach these shores its effects after the years
of prosperity we have enjoyed will be felt with even more severity than in
the old world. Prices will slump so much that there will be a wholesale
discharging of employees and in consequence complete stagnation of
business, with poverty – born of our national extravagance – stalking
through the land…. And 8mths later: The world-wide adjustment of
industry and commerce after the great war is being reflected in all
primary industries, and butter being dependent on the world’s markets, is
affected by the purchasing powers of the great centres of population.
Uncertain markets may be experienced for a year or two hence…. But it
went on far longer.
Post WW1 soldier settlement blocks had
been created everywhere, substantially increasing the number of dairy
farmers and banana benders struggling to share the available pie. In 1922
the whole economic base of the Richmond-Tweed region started to look
pretty shaky. The banana industry collapsed that year and the dairy
industry started heading in the same direction. By early 1923 farmers and
farm hands were starting to wander the countryside trying to earn a quid,
with many of them having a go as hawkers of fruit and veggies in the local
towns.
By this time the retail and wholesale
fruit and veggie trade was dominated by the Greeks and generating a bit of
aggro. One disgruntled retailer with a small fruit shop outside the CBD,
which gave him cheap rent but less passing trade, convinced the council to
give him a hawker’s license to flog his stuff from a barrow around the
block, joining the three already licensed and a number of illegal
operators. But the cunning bugger built himself a barrow the size of a
semi-trailer, which remained fixed in Molesworth Street, and proceeded to
aggressively market a wide range of produce.
It was so successful that pretty soon he
had invested in a warehouse, ripening sheds and a carrier business, with
his lorry doing regular runs to markets in Brisbane and the Tablelands.
Others followed suit, parking their ‘barrows’ of various sizes outside the
existing fruit shops of the block, creating traffic havoc and bad tempers.
The shopkeepers were whinging about unfair competition while the public
was overjoyed that the increased competition had brought cheaper fruit
and veggies of higher quality and quantity. At this time the town was
choc-a-block with fruit merchants, all barely turning a profit, and the
price war from the barrowmen was the last straw, although an investigation
by the ‘Northern Star’ had indicated that fruit consumption in Lismore had
gone up by 50% in 12mths, and declared that this was a healthy thing,
prompting it to campaign on the side of the barrowmen.
Council initially listened to the shop
keepers and resolved to abolish ‘barrowmen stands’ within the
municipality, but was then hit with an orchestrated letters-to-the-editor
campaign from the barrowmen: It is particularly hard on the digger
barrowmen who has ‘done his bit’ and invested in the purchase of equipment
to be ordered off in preference to Greeks and other foreigners who are
rapidly gaining business ground to large advantage in this country…,
carrying
on a whinge at least 20yrs old. (In reporting on a meeting of the
Country Storekeepers Association in Nov03, the Sydney Morning Herald,
under the heading 'The Alien Within Our Gates', believed The
retail fruit and fish trade is monopolised almost wholly by the Greek
and the Italian; the hawking trade is almost entirely in the hands of
the Chinese, the Syrian, the Afghan, and the Indian....)
It
turned out that only three Greek cafes (one in Molesworth and two in
Woodlark), and three other ‘foreigners’, who were ‘old and respected
citizens’, had a fruit retailing sideline. (And 'Fairplay' in a
follow-up letter reckoned The returned soldier stunt is
well to the front in Mr Manewell’s argument, but from careful and
exhaustive inquiries made, I find that not one of the proprietors of these
street fruit stalls is a returned soldier. The ‘digger ploy’ remained
a favourite marketing strategy throughout the Depression.)
On 26Feb23 the barrowmen delivered a
petition signed by 700 disgruntled citizens afraid that the days of cheap
fruit were over. The council went wishy-washy and did a Pontius Pilot by
handing the matter over to the Wheel Traffic Committee for a
determination. In the meantime the letter war continued with the Greeks
entering the fray, prompted by some unfortunate words from Alderman White,
reported under the heading ‘Trade With White People’. Said White,
in the chair in the absence of the mayor, Practically the whole of
the fruit trade in New South
Wales was in the hands of foreigners. Were they going to give them a
monopoly? The question of rents had been raised. He said it advisedly that
the Greeks were the cause of high rents in Lismore today.
[A nice politician’s spin on the facts. The building housing the Bavea
Bros Garden of Roses café was sold in late 1921 for £156 per foot, a
record for Woodlark Street frontage, shortly after which the new owner
raised the rent to recoup on his investment.] The Greeks employed no
white labour, and did not have to comply with the industrial laws. These
foreigners who had shops in Lismore and who hawked fruit and vegetables
around the town cared nothing for the country; they got all they could
with the ultimate idea of taking it away from
Australia. It was a pity that people could
not realise these things and do business with white tradesmen. Ald. White
went on to say that he was standing outside a Greek shop the other day. In
the window were grapes marked at 1/- a pound. A man came along selling the
same grapes. He told the Greek they were four pence a pound, and the Greek
would not buy them at that price. What sort of game was that? If the
barrowmen were endeavouring to earn that sort of thing they were doing
something more than making a living for themselves. They were putting
fruit within the reach of the people….
The good Alderman had apparently viewed
the window display of Peter Dimitri Feros, who wrote an indignant letter
to the editor giving facts and figures, which showed little difference
between prices, but significant difference in quality in favour of the
shopkeepers. So far as employment is concerned I have ascertained that
there are 14 local girls employed in various Greek shops in Lismore, and
the proprietors of such shops are all subject to the same laws and awards
as anyone else. As a matter of fact the girls in my shop are paid
considerably over the award rates and are provided with free board in
addition. It may surprise some of your readers to know that the current
expenses of working my shop amount to £21 per week. Just compare this with
the 5/- paid by the barrowmen and consider whether we are not entitled to
some sort of a fair deal.
So far as my nationality is
concerned it is quite true that I was born in Greece; but I do not know
that I am any the worse for that. History reveals the fact that English
princesses have condescended to marry Greek princes and surely if such
alliances were considered advantageous and politic by the ‘powers that
then were’ surely it is not for your correspondents to say that we Greeks
are not entitled to earn our daily bread under the British Union Jack.
Perhaps your correspondents are not aware that the Greek civilisation is
the oldest in Europe and for many centuries Greece led the world in art,
education and most other accomplishments. Surely it is not quite good
taste for any of them to infer that they are any whiter than we (the
Greeks) are….
Peter Nick Bavea also
took special
exception to the remarks of Ald. White re Greeks, and fired off a
couple of indignant letters, also giving facts and figures. In closing
I would point out to the general public and to Ald White in particular
that Greeks generally live as well as any other race of people that
inhabit this planet and always spend their money in the towns in which
they make it. We have one hope and that is that on the last day that He
who marks the sparrow’s fall will not make any distinction as to our
colour. This according to Ald. White’s remark offers us one bright hope.
And in another letter, Voicing the opinions of the majority of the
Greeks of Lismore, we say leave the barrowmen where they are as we bear
them no ill will. We have faith in the general public to believe that
there will still be a picking left for us to keep the wolf from the door.
What we take exception to is the colour scheme that is being introduced
into the controversy for we see no reason for this mark of distinction.... One point you give us credit for and that is that we, by the price we
charge, never attempt to scab on our ‘white’ brother….
|
Gathering at the Boer War
Monument on the Woodlark-Keen Intersection to commemorate Anzac Day 1923. (Courtesy Sydney Mail edition of 2May23)
It's believed Jack Nick Bavea was a member of the Lismore branch of the
RSL. Ten years later he, on behalf of the Greek community
of Lismore, has presented Lismore Returned Soldiers’ League
with a Greek flag as an appreciation of the good work that
body is carrying out and as a token of friendship that was
felt by all Greeks whose countrymen fought side by side with
Australians in the Great War.... |
The Northern Star again conducted a survey
and again came down on the side of the barrowmen: In
Woodlark street there are four shops in
which fruit is sold. Two are conducted by Greeks and two by white men. In
only one shop window were the prices shown on the fruit displayed for
sale. This was a Greek’s shop. In the business section of Molesworth
street there are two shops where fruit is sold. One is conducted by a
Greek and the other by a white man.… During the morning there was much
perturbation among the Greek shopkeepers. A sort of indignation meeting
was held to discuss the developments of the meeting of council. One Greek
is said to have declared that he was prepared to spend a good deal of
money in a further effort to have the barrowmen removed off the streets.
To whom and why! The answer to the latter question is obvious. There is
the instance of the price of grapes cited above…(where
a chart compares prices in a Greek shop with those of a barrowman parked
outside.)
There were more letters for and agin’ the
Greeks, but mostly agin’. And the Greeks continued to be singled out as
the culprits ripping off the public despite the presence of the Australian-born fruiterers. ‘Fair Dinkum’, under the heading
The Greek v.
The People, reckoned that if the members of the Wheel Traffic
Committee and those few other belated alderman who still hold to the
obsolete doctrine of the divine right of aldermen were about town on
Tuesday morning, they must have seen and heard a few striking
demonstrations as to how far the foreign ring is interested in getting the
barrowmen annihilated. In one corner of the block a veritable Greek
legation held counsel. Savage is the only word to describe the anathemas
heaped on certain aldermen, the ‘Northern Star’, the petitioners, and the
whole show generally.... Then the legation adjourned in several directions
hot on the trail of the offenders who had dared to tell the truth.
Napoleon on Elba had
‘nothing on’ one hefty Greek propping up the lintel of Alderman White’s
door. With folded arms and a fierce ‘then I wait’ this foreign martyr to
the voice of the people and the rights of little children was last seen
glaring at an empty office and awaiting the deputy Mayor.
And another anonymous bloke, more than
likely the semi-trailer entrepreneur himself, under the heading Who
Rules the Town, was into conspiracy theories and reckoned that the
people are alive to the unique quality and quantity of their fruit supply
at present, whether the aldermen are or not, and they want justice for the
man who pioneered the move here, has sunk his capital, and who had
compelled the foreign combine to come out and show their unhappy hand. He
buys his fruit from local and Tableland growers, and his lorry carts the
local grower’s produce to the Tableland in return. I am open to
correction, but have been told that he will be found to pay the local
grower as much as 50 per cent on what the foreign trader offers.
We aver that the barrow did not take the
trade from the shops so much as create by sound fruit, cheap prices, and
the confidence of the public, an entirely new field of trade. We again
quote the ‘Northern Star’s’ unbiased news item before this controversy
opened up at all, as the unique increase in fruit consumption in the last
twelve months here. A 50 per cent increase in spite of ever-increasing
drought, slacking trade, reduced wages, and a decreased population is
something which even a ‘mere school boy’ (to quote Ald. Stratford) would
have too much respect for his mental reputation to seek to ignore.… The
foreign element have during Monday, by their prices, and the following
days, by their execrations, threats, and general consternation proven
every word, line and letter, of the petitioners’ pleas and arguments….
Yet another bloke also dwelt on the man
and not the ball… one only need to pay a visit to any important suburb
or town throughout Australia, and Europeans, Greeks and Chinese will be
seen offering fruit for sale from shops and from barrows also.
The Greeks subsequently retired from the
fray leaving Mrs Effie Gundlach, who had taken over one of Nick Poulos’s
Woodlark shops in 1920, to cop the flak as spokesperson for the ‘foreign
fruiterers’. She got the backing of the Chamber of Commerce, who refrained
from calling for an outright ban of the barrows and simply recommended to
Council that they be relocated to other sites such as in front of the
Post Office, the Council Chambers, and the ‘Northern Star’ office… and the
Public School.
This flushed out the semi-trailer
entrepreneur under his own name, who gave a gratuitous serve to the
whingers: The trouble with most of these people (Gundlach, Feros
and Bavea) kicking up all the noise is that they don’t know how to
handle the fruit business. They don’t know the markets and therefore make
losses instead of profits…. There seems to be a great outcry because
Howell has a lorry (funny we don’t hear anything about Mr Baveas having a
motor car for hire though, and sometimes using it for other purposes than
fruit carting) [The Bavea Bros acquired a 7 seat Studebaker in late
1922, presumably as part of the catering business being run by Jim Bavea,
but it seems to have been a white elephant and was continually advertised
for hire, presumably without the appropriate taxi license. It was sold a
month or so after this letter.] Well, if this old town considers a man
should be knifed in the dark merely for the sin of putting a couple of
thousands of his hard earned money into circulation… and punished for
having brains to make one business work in with another, then it’s a
pretty queer town....
As I’ve said before, they
haven’t got a sound argument between them. Mr Baveas infers something
about ‘scabbing’ in his letter. I don’t know what he is talking about; but
I’m not ‘scabbing’ on women and children by trying to snatch fruit from
them in a climate like this, anyhow.
If the people of Lismore had even a baby’s knowledge of the fruit trade
they would know that the same ‘hidden hand’ has fought the barrowmen every
inch of the way right across Australia. It’s the same hand every time and
in every place, and its ways are as dark as they are devious. I notice
that the Greeks have thought it a diplomatic move to honourably withdraw
from the controversy, and Mrs Gundlach, who has previously been silent,
takes up the running. This seems to need explanation and certainly the
public are entitled to know the whole story of this attack on their fruit
supply…. I have never been on the Greeks’ premises nor yet on Mrs
Gundlach’s, but I hereby invite the whole box and dice of them and the
general public to visit my shop and sheds and backyards…(to view the state of cleanliness)…
and I hereby challenge Mrs
Gundlach and the Greeks to come out in the open and do likewise. Are they
game!
And I notice they still
leave the pie stall alone. Remarkable and significant fact!….
[Probably Mark’s, but at this time at
least one other North Lismore licensed ‘Pie & Coffee Stall’ was making regular
trips over the bridge into the CBD, perhaps serving as an indicator, along
with the increasing number of fish hawkers, of an early onset of difficult
times. Other fruit barrow operators were operating off private vacant lots
in Keen and Magellan, while the Chinese market gardeners, regular hawkers
from their horse and/or carts for many years, were ignored (or immune)
until the Depression.]
The Council was duly served with the
Chamber of Commerce recommendation accompanied by a petition of 200 names.
They again deferred a decision by referring it to the Wheel Traffic
Committee which, on 28Mar23, recommended that three barrow stands, on
wheels and no bigger than 10ftx4ft, be approved; one in Magellan street
near the post office, one on the west side of Molesworth and one on the
north side of Woodlark, and that tenders be invited from British
subjects only. The letter writers had great fun in pointing out that
one of the current barrowmen was an American. And one bloke saw the
loophole: As for the clause allegedly seeking to disqualify the
foreigner – all that we have to say is that it will not disqualify him at
all – not in the very least. If the wheel and traffic committee or the
council want proof of that I am willing to put them in the way of
obtaining it. … the clause is unfortunately worded. Instead of barring the
foreigner it runs that ‘the applicant shall be a British subject.’- ie,
giving the dreaded ‘Hindoos’ and naturalized Greeks and other ‘aliens’ a
look in. The conspiracy theorists also reckoned that there would be
colluding tendering, with the barrowmen forming a ring and acting as
frontmen for the fruit and veggie mafia: Any alderman of even the
smallest experience in public life must realise the utter impossibility of
knowing for certain the identity of the real ‘man behind the gun’ in any
system of tendering…. As the petitioners pointed out at the beginning of
this controversy, the ‘hidden hand’ always has been, and always will be,
consummately ‘gloved’….
Five months after the controversy started
the council finally bit the bullet and resolved to accept all the Wheel
and Traffic Committee recommendations - except for defining the
nationality of the operators. (They left the ice-cream carts alone
however. These operators, doing a good trade around the school until
banned in 1929, subsequently added a fruit sideline. And the barrows
operating from vacant private land around the block, mainly Keen and
Magellan, were outside the Council’s jurisdiction.)
Both Bavea and Feros then left town and a
period of great turbulence followed. Peter Bavea, and probably his brother
Jim, left their brother Jack to hold the fort and wandered off to
Mundubbera, near Maryborough, to acquire the Royal Hotel. Peter Feros left
his brother Jack minding the shop and relocated to Toowoomba where he
subsequently rode out the Depression with a successful carrier business.
Theo Fardouly sublet his Olympia Café to his father-in-law,
Peter Lemnos (Polychrone),
and became hands-on in his ice making business. Nick Calligeros walked
away from his Kythera Café and abandoned fruit for fish. George Poulos and
George Patrinos sold their Busy Bee Cafe to Angelo Crethar and went their
separate ways; Poulos to open the Gopoulos Dining Rooms in North Lismore
and Patrinos into the woodwork. The old Catsoulis fruit and veggie
wholesale business, The Fresh Food Supply Company, fell into the
hands of its probable manager, Paul Coronakes. His neighbour Mrs Gundlach
moved across to South Lismore to open a general store, although her move
may be due to the building’s redevelopment, the new Skype’s Building
appearing on the site in 1924. Ditto Paul Coronakes who relocated next
door in late 1923/early 1924 and subsequently rose from the ashes to enter
the fruit and veggie game big time by establishing the Lismore Fruit
Exchange, which went on to become the largest produce wholesaler in
the district.
And with unfortunate timing a masochist,
H. Suzuki, opened The Japanese Café at 96 Keen St mid1923, in the
ex-premises of the Chinese herbalist Wong Yuen, but only seems to have
lasted five minutes, despite offering our Home-made Hot Pies, best in
town, 4d each only. And the Japanese never repeated the experiment
anywhere in the region. Nor did any Chinese market gardener appear game
enough to open a fruiterer’s business, let alone a café like Chow Kum and
Willie Choy at Murwillumbah. In Lismore they remained pre-eminent veggie
growers, with vast fields at Currie
Park between the race course and North Lismore proper, marketing the fresh
produce door-to-door as well as
supplying certain cafes and pubs.
The Italians later cornered this market,
but at this time there was a bit of dissention within the Italian ranks.
Antonio Nardi, a young New Italy settler, was a member of the Richmond
District Council of the Primary Producers Union and at a meeting in
Feb1923 Mr Nardi (Nimbin) moved, ‘That the district council recommend
to the central executive that under present conditions prevailing in New
South Wales the importation of Italian immigrants is unjustified and
misleading…. Later in the year it’s believed he returned home for a
holiday.
Upon arrival in Lismore in 1923 Angelo Crethar became the
main spokesman for the Greek Community. |
Whilst on a trip home in 1929 the indulgent Northern Star
gave him two thirds of a page to show five of his holiday
snaps. (Courtesy Northern Star edition of 14Sep29) |
Top
Alien Election
The local economy continued to deteriorate
and the fun and games became more intense, with the next major development
being the battening down of hatches for the 1925 ‘alien election’ when
Nardi’s proposal was acted on. The banana industry had gone further into
the doldrums with the bunchy top disaster while the dairy farmers
continued laying off labourers in favour of family employment, resulting
in a population shift within the Richmond-Tweed region. Many of those who
walked away from the plantations and farms gravitated towards the
industrial belt in and around Sydney, while those who remained tended
towards Lismore, where there were no new or expanding industries to absorb
the surplus population. Competition for jobs got worse and aggro started
to build over the continuing dago influx.
Nevertheless, while keeping its readers
informed on the goings-on of the Tweed Anti Foreign League, and giving
passing references to White Australia utterances by candidates during
rallies in Lismore, the Star wasn’t greatly interested in raising dagoes
as an issue for the May25 State election. (See under 'Undesirable Aliens'
at
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~aliens/chapter_1.htm
for the story of the 'Tweed Anti Foreign League.')
The Star's first pronouncement on the subject
came with the landing of the ‘Cephee’ early in the year carrying 700 Jugo-Slavs,
250 Greeks and Macedonians, 150 Italians, and 100 other nationalities...
and generated an editorial: Frequently the
newspapers contain references to migrants landing by the shipload in
Australia…. Before proceeding
further it is well to pause and consider, even to the extent of
resuscitating ancient history, the policy subscribed by all Australian
political parties, that of maintaining racial purity…. But the crucial
point is that Australia should be kept Australian. In other words
Australia should be the sacred repository of the best that lies in the
ideals and ethics of the stock from which her people sprung.
The point arises: Are matters tending in the way indicated above? …Judging
by events one has to give a negative answer. For instance the citizen has
only to take up his daily newspaper and read in it messages of the arrival
of foreigners such as Italians, Jugo-Slavs, Maltese and other un-British
races... and even if by
long residence they become sufficiently acclimatised to absorb our
customs, still the infusion of foreign blood must have its influence on
the national character and life…..
It is indeed refreshing to
note the arrivals of migrants from the British Isles, for it is only by
the introduction of blood from the source that Australia can hope for a
continuance of the ideals and ethics for which the nation stands and for
which its forbears fought and suffered….
And repeated an article from a Melbourne newspaper:
Race Efficiency. Influx from Foreign
Countries. View from New Aspect:
Perhaps no question that has come before us of late has aroused more
discussion and excited deeper feeling than that caused by the unexpected
influx of migrants from Southern Europe. Their advent has been the cause generally of uneasiness
and fear of the future. The general impression is that these immigrants
from the Mediterranean littoral are not in all respects the most desirable
additions, and that an influx in numbers bodes a certain amount of danger
to the country we live in…. The people of Southern Europe are
considered not to be up to the Anglo-Saxon standard or the Nordic type
generally. We have a vague distrust of these dark-skinned, somewhat
under-sized, gesticulating, vehement strangers, who are making Australia
their Mecca…. they have the reputation of being clannish, quarrelsome,
quick to violence, and difficult to absorb, and that their very
thriftiness is, in a way, a menace to the freer spending Australian,
enabling them to undersell their labour....
But there is one aspect of the subject
that seems to have been overlooked, and that is the biological point of
view. Indices of national mental efficiency… show,
that the English were top of the pops and Greeks and Italians were down
there with the Neanderthals (and Poles and Belgians).... The highest
duty of our rulers is to see that the delicate mechanism of Australian
efficiency, mentality, and intelligence is not lowered by a hair’s breath;
that a nation inheriting an A1 mental standard should not allow anything
to bring that high standard down even by a fraction.
And in reporting
a meeting of the Tamworth New Settlers League on the eve of the election
reckoned that The Italians were quickly taking
possession and forming themselves into groups, and in some places it was
not uncommon to walk around and never hear a word of English. This state
of affairs will undoubtedly in time have a serious effect on the people of
Australia....
They were working on the
group system and they appear to have their own capital, whereby they would
acquire a sugar plantation and after working it up would put one of their
number in charge. The profit from this farm was apparently being used to
acquire more farms, and so by this system they were gaining possession of
farm after farm. There was a growing feeling that the Australian planter
was being crowded out…. As time went on and the Italians came into
possession of more of the plantations it was obvious that the Italian
cane-cutting gangs would be given preference over the Australian gangs…The
immigrants, too, were bringing with them their old feuds and
characteristics….
Otherwise the Star was relatively benign
on dagoes. Post election it carried reports of the goings-on in Queensland
over the Ferry Report and the retorts by Christy Freeleagus on
behalf of the Greeks, but made no editorial pontifications apart from a
comment on the new Immigration Bill in July. The Type of Immigrant:
For some years immigration has been a live question in
Australia. Coupled with the need for
immigrants has been the type of new immigrants required…. It
(the Bill) aims at maintaining the purity and character of the British
people, and checking the efforts of aliens and other immigrants who,
inspired by foreign schools of thought, come here to make war upon
Australian laws, institutions and industries. Any idea that a new
continent can be made a ‘melting pot’ for all races of the earth is not
generally endorsed in Australia, and rightly so….
Thereafter things settled down and the wicked Labour Party copped most
the Star’s angst.
Late the following year there
was a sermon on foreigner’s enclaves and immigrants from some other
countries, who enter the commonwealth without consulting anybody and
settle in colonies wherever they please. The Italian invasion of
Queensland is a
case in point. There are some parts of the state which are almost wholly
Italian. They are just little bits of Italy transferred to Australia, the
people retaining the habits and customs of their own country and showing
no disposition to conform to those of the country of their adoption….
Settlement in colonies has a tendency to arrest this
(assimilation) and that is
the aspect of the case which requires consideration from those who desire
to perpetuate British traditions in
Australia....
The son of a foreigner who plays with Australian children, goes to
school with them, and enters the workshops and labours amongst Australian
youths and workmen, cannot escape from the effects of his environment.
Unconsciously he absorbs the Australian outlook, with very small
modification due to national characteristics, and will ultimately become
as good an Australian as those of British stock. Another generation will
make transformation complete. Many of the names which figured in the list
of those who died for the Empire in the war supply convincing testimony
that the descendants of foreigners who settled in Australia years ago had
nothing foreign left about them but their names. That will inevitably be
the case when immigrations of other races become part of the general
population…. And
it came to pass.
The same thread carried into
1927 with an editorial on White
Australia:
The Bishop of
London, giving his
impressions of his recent tour through the Dominions, said that a White
Australia was not so much a policy in the Commonwealth as a passion…. His
epigrammatic declaration possibly explains the reason why the White
Australia policy is accepted by every section of the community…. While the
White Australia policy was at first directed against Asiatics it has of
late years begun to take on a wider significance. Immigration from some of
the European countries which have not attained a high standard is
developing at a rate which is causing some anxiety, and there can be
little doubt that the time is rapidly approaching when the problem which
this represents will have to be given serious consideration. The objection
is not to immigrants of other nationalities of the right type making homes
in Australia. Examples can easily be found of men and women of other blood
than our own who have made admirable settlers and whose descendants have
become as good Australians as those who sprang from British stock….
There can be no doubt that the alien immigrants who are now coming into
the country in increasing numbers do not even represent the best of their
races. The social conditions under which they and their ancestors have
lived for generations have created a gap between them and Australian
ideals which cannot be readily bridged. While the economic effect of this
new type of immigration is not without its serious side the important
issue is the influence it will exert on the race.…
And later in the year an
article on Racial Purity. Influx of Southern Europeans.
Melbourne Thursday: A
deputation from the Australian Natives Association to-day waited upon the
Prime Minister and drew attention to the large influx of Southern
Europeans to Australia. It was said that the maintenance of racial purity
was a vital objection to Southern Europeans. The objection was not one of
superiority; everyone admired their national spirit, but they came from
different environment, and it was believed that the influx of undue numbers
of these people would lower the Australian social conditions…,
generating an editorial on the Influx of Southern Europeans: Interesting
figures regarding immigration to
Australia are contained in a
statement issued by the Commonwealth Statistician the other day. There is
no falling off in the number seeking admission to the country as compared
with previous statistics…. The fact is revealed that there has been an
influx of Southern Europeans, the ratio being 19.5 per cent of the total
number of immigrants as against a percentage of 9.3 for the corresponding
period last year. Some of these people are of undoubtedly of a good class
so far as developing a country is concerned, but on the other hand there
are some who are not of a desirable type. The point would seem to stand
out that the influx of the foreign element is in too great a proportion.
Australia requires immigrants, but naturally looks to people of the
British race rather than those of other nationalities. A deputation which
waited upon the Premier during his recent visit to Lithgow referred to the
influx from Southern Europe as being to the detriment of British subjects,
the point at issue in this particular case being that of the prevalence of
unemployment.
Bound up in
immigration is the question of a White Australia…. One has only to take a
visit to Sydney to observe the great proportion of aliens who are in
business in the smaller shops. Reflection will also bring a realisation
that there is a decided ‘corner’ in many of these businesses.… Strict
interpretation of the law as the law prevails is one of the methods of
keeping Australia white. We have a unique opportunity of maintaining an
Australia reasonably ‘white’. No other country in the world is in the same
fortunate position so far as the colour question is concerned, and our
welfare depends upon wise statesmanship and efficient carrying out of the
laws. This policy is not unchristian – it is merely the preservation of
the white race and the standards of the white race....
Thereafter
the dago problem faded as immigration slowed and the Depression
approached.
Lismore 1939 (Oakes Oval centre left) |
Great Depression
The economic fortunes of the region
fluctuated widely through the 1920s, and while there was continuing café
turbulence the rate stepped-up upon arrival of the Depression: In late
1929 Nick Poulos seemed to have walked away from the Byron Café
owing and being owed money; his brother George and family, having given up
on the Gopoulos Dining Rooms, followed him to Sydney in late 1930,
at the same time Harry Nick Crethar, new owner of the Byron/Regent, was in
trouble, along with Theo Fardouly in the ice business; in early 1930
Menus Crethar returned home after mysterious machinations with his Woodlark
shop; in mid 1930 Athena Andrulakis offloaded her Richmond Café and
retired from active business; in late 1930 John Modeas seemed to have
walked away from his Apollo Café, while his alleged ex-partner,
Peter Nick Crethar, went on to struggle in the fruit business until
reorienting as the Monterey Café; and in late 1930 Jack Bavea
changed directions, walking away from his Garden of Roses café to
become a full-time ‘function caterer.’
Compounding problems involved competition
from the bakers, who started to expand their product range and make
inroads into a traditional café trade, McLeish’s new Golden Crust Bakery
being the most aggressive marketer. George Adams opened in Molesworth St
in 1930 and began offering a range of cakes and biscuits (‘Rich Genoa
cake’ at 1/4d per lb, ‘Iced Sultana cake’ at 11½d per lb, ‘coconut wafer
biscuits’ at 1/6d per lb…), directly competing with those cafés with their
own pastry/bakery departments. The grocery departments of the Department
Stores, some of which went self-service in 1930, also expanded their
product lines, including confectionery, cutting across another café
function. (McDermott's even introduced an in-store 'tea rooms' service in
1932.) And the commercial ice cream makers were multiplying like
rabbits, causing wholesaler Fardouly to weep and generating wails from
those café proprietors making their own stuff.
But above all problems was
the drying up of paying customers, other businesses finding trading just
as tough, including the hairdressers, who, like the Greeks, had colluded
in price fixing for many years, a haircut stable at 1/6d until a new
upstart dropped his price a big 33% to 1/- in early 1930, forcing the
others to progressively follow suit. And speaking of suits, Maloney & Son,
the tailors occupying the 3-storey building on Comino’s original site,
dropped the price of their handmade suits from £5/5/- to £3/15/-, starting
a price war that lasted through to 1934. The Greeks however, continued to
collude on 1/6d for the three courser.
Paradoxically, the Star was reporting a
feeling of confidence in Lismore by the end of 1929, running counter to
everywhere else in the region. During 1929 there was a building turnaround
with 87 new dwellings valued at
£60,688
erected, the highest number since the record of 116 in 1923. And the Star
reckoned that the majority of business people state that the trade on
Christmas Eve established new records, and this applies to businesses of
many different kinds (and on the same page reporting that in the
mining centre of West Maitland a number of business places are ‘going
broke’; they haven’t any Christmas stock in.… It is dreadful to see the
half-clothed, ragged people going around….) In the past 11yrs no
fewer than 900 new houses have been erected, which is something of an
achievement for a country town.… Continual advancement is undoubtedly in
store for the town and district… said the editorial. And Norco
had had its best results since 1920, the last year of the war-time price
fixing, giving suppliers an average monthly return of 16.75d per lb of
butter for 1929 (although in his annual report Mr McInnes, the State
Director of Dairying, said the outlook was looking grim.) But the Star,
while itself insisting on cash up-front for all adverts, was into
confidence building and only gave a passing word to the recent Wall Street
collapse, the retrenching of all council outdoor staff, mounting
unemployment across the region and local work relief schemes. (In 1931
building activity slumped to a record low of
28 new houses, valued at
£16,010, while the butter cheque to farmers hit its all time low of 8.07d
in 1934, each penny fall representing a loss of £15,000/mth to the
region’s 4000 Norco suppliers and a corresponding loss of spending money
at the cafes.)
In Dec29 the first of the
desperation remedial measures had been introduced with a reduction in the
basic wage and abolition of rural awards. In March 1930 came a reduction
in public servant’s salaries; in May came a reversion to the 48hr working
week and the start of work rationing; in July came the introduction of a
tax on wages to raise money for an Unemployment Relief Fund, which by
early September had seen Lismore and surrounds the recipient of £14,000 in
grants, enabling the employment of 66 of the 377 registered unemployed in
rationed jobs, mainly on roads in the surrounding Shires.
By May 1930 there were 110
local residents unemployed in Lismore, while many more were transiting
through on walkabout in a search for work. Thereafter unemployment
increased exponentially, although it's not known whether any local Greeks
went on the dole. All persisted with the shaky café game, probably
following the Northern Star’s advice in mid Jun30 that Public bodies in
the Richmond
River district of New South Wales have also advocated the principle...
of Britishers getting first preference for jobs.
Outside Lismore the first
grants went to Terania Shire for the Cawongla to Kunghur Road (£1132 in
late Jul30, increased to £4000 in early August, which initially employed
12 men but was increased to 50 as work progressed), and £1134 to Tomki for
the Casino to Pelican Creek (Spring Grove Road). In mid August it was
advised that Labour exchanges throughout the country have received
instructions that the migration of unemployed to distant places where work
is going on will be prevented as far as possible and local men get
preference. Thus Terania council will absorb the unemployed men on its own
electoral roll before engaging men from outside, presumably including
Lismore and other ‘local’ districts, but ahead of those from further
afield. Lismore exchange has this week received applications for
registration for men from the Tablelands and from Queensland. Two
weeks after that, 4Sep30, the Star said that Men have registered at
Lismore from all parts of the Commonwealth. Townsville, Brisbane,
Bundaberg, Trangie, Maitland are among the registrations noticed. Three
women have registered, and are open for engagements for domestic work of
any kind....
But in late September 1930,
just after the State election campaign got underway, the Star advised
that Motorists around the Lismore district comment that during the past few
weeks there has been a large reduction in the number of men on the roads.
Since it is difficult to find any other cause it may be assumed that the
unemployed have been to a great extent absorbed by the relief works
started in all parts of the State. At the Lismore sale yards there appear
to be a number of men who have taken up permanent residence and this
hardly fits in with the intention of the municipal council when it decided
to take no action to prevent men camping at the yards for a night or two.
And
cost cutting by the municipal council was
still on-going. In a debate in Aug30 on staff costs and the abolition of
the position of deputy town clerk and downgrades of other positions, the
councillors acknowledged that it was fully cognizant of the fact that
it was impossible to borrow any more money…. At present the people were
groaning under the heavy rates and the recent taxation (the
unemployment relief tax on wages) was like the last straw on the
camel’s back. The council had only its own revenue to depend upon and must
prune its expenses…. At this time squeezing a bit more out of
electricity was a significant agenda item; the current 1240 consumers
connected generating over £20,000 into council coffers.
Throughout all this the
Northern Star was alert but not alarmed. At the formation of the
short-lived Lismore Unemployment Relief Committee, aka the Lismore
Community Chest, in early May30, to which all Greek café owners
contributed confectionery for money-raising raffles, the Star reckoned
that this does not mean that this town is retrogressing. Unemployment
is much more rife in most towns than in Lismore.... And in mid May,
with the increasing number of transients on walkabout looking for work,
used a rationale still current: The comparatively favourable conditions
on the North
Coast induce many Sydney unemployed to set their faces in this direction….
And in late July, when the Council further rationed employee’s work, the
Star published a ‘stop whingeing’ editorial: Lismore today is a busy
town, and the Richmond is the most closely settled country district in the
State. The people are living in comfort compared with those who came to
the district in the early days…, perhaps because it was trying to
build an argument against the increasingly vocal local Labourites. And in
September in warning against the election of Labour said We on the
North Coast are in the unique position, for the full effects of the
depression have not been felt here; nevertheless, depression is in the
air, and even in this highly-favoured locality there are people who cannot
find work…, but Mr Lang will make it worse. Also in September it got
carried away reporting the Civic reception for Mr Iwasaki, of the Japanese
Department of Commerce and Industry, who said that one thing that had
struck him during his short experience of the Northern Rivers district was
that the trade depression was less noticeable here than in other parts of
the State…, at the same time reassuring the farmers who …in times
of stress have a number of advantages not possessed by dwellers in cities
and towns..., it is the men in closest contact with Mother Earth who can
best survive. That is one reason Lismore and district feels the present
depression less than the cities – one reason it will never be be so hard
hit…. Lismore and
North Coast towns have their
prosperity on more secure foundations than cities where the populations
are engaged in satisfying non-essential wants. This fact, likely to become
increasingly apparent during the next few years, will certainly stem the
drift to the cities, and may turn the tide in the opposite direction.…
As it turned out,
Richmond did suffer a
‘relatively’ benign Great Depression, but in the interim had to undergo a
turn in purgatory.
And in an end of year
summary: The Lismore district during the year has been a kind of
‘promised land’ to thousands of men on the roads, some seeking employment
and some seeking easy living. This influx is one of the penalties of a
reputation of being better off than most parts, but it is not too high a
price to pay for the reputation. Naturally the district could not absorb
all the unemployed of the Commonwealth and, the people being ‘clanny’ and
inclined to prefer those they have known for years to the stranger, the
promised land has not been the haven that some expected….
By this time, late Dec30, all
the election bribe money had been spent and thereafter it was life on the
dole as Premier Lang's Bolsheviks diverted all relief tax money
to Sydney/Newcastle projects. The unemployed had to be satisfied with
ration vouchers issued by the police until Premier Steven’s economic gurus
returned in mid 1932.
Lismore’s unemployment seems to have
peaked in Jun1931 when the Labour Exchange had 1162 on the books, 85% of
whom were locals, although the number of food coupons issued by the police
didn’t reach its peak of 2841 (£2331) until the month of June 1932. (South
Lismore seems to have been the most distressed - In Mar32 Lismore's dole
bill of
£2131
was made up of
£619
worth of food
coupons issued in Lismore
proper, £1036 distributed in
South Lismore and
£476
in North.)
The dole
rapidly declined and after Jun33, with the introduction of the
work-for-the-dole scheme, was down to an average of 300 issues per month
(~£120 on a different ration scale). Work-for-the-dole money however, was
being paid out at a rate of £500/fortnight by Dec34, an average of 220
blokes out of a pool of ~400 unemployed on the job at any one time, while
about 60 unemployed were still drawing rations.
Perhaps prompted by optimism of an
economic turnaround with the routing of the Bolsheviks at the 1932
election, in August Angelo Crethar and his cousin Nick Crones paid the
highest price for a Lismore property for many years when they forked out
£16,500 for the Mason
Building, home to their Woodlark café. Where they found this large bag of
gold is a mystery, but at this time the bulk of their fellow citizens were
still wondering from where their next meal was coming - the Lismore police
were authorizing the issue of an average 700 food coupons per week to the
local unemployed, amounting to £7800 in the last 4mths, with the chits now
being redeemable at most grocery stores, although McDermott’s Department
Store looks like it continued to win the bulk of this trade. But
thereafter the dole started to decline with the advent of work relief
schemes.
Nick Crones (left) and Eric Crethar in Spinks Park 1944. (Courtesy Harry Eric Crethar) |
|
The Crethar & Crones
purchase, representing £370/ft, was just one month after Walter Gray sold
the Capitol Cafe building in Molesworth for a record £375/ft and the rebuild of McDermott’s Department store in Woodlark
was completed at a cost of
£5000. Four months
later, Jan33, Burns Philp &
Co bought two old wooden buildings further
down Molesworth, housing Jones Refreshment Rooms, Chemist Wilkinson and Mewing’s Cash and Carry Grocery Store, for £16,250 (or £325/ft) and then
proceeded to spend another £5000 to erect Penny’s Department Store. Six
months later Penny’s neighbour, the giant A.G.
Robertson's Department Store on the
corner of Molesworth and Magellan, bought the adjacent Paling’s Building
for £312/ft and proceeded to spend another £1000 to blend it into the main
building. At the same time McLean’s Department Store next to the Capitol
Café underwent remodeling and almost doubled in size, while the block next
to the old AGR’s site on the river side of Molesworth, left vacant after
the fire which destroyed the place in Nov30, was sold to the Union Bank
for £3335 (£115/ft), and
the Sidney & Hacking building next to the
Regent
Café in Keen went for £2900 (or £132/ft).
Twelve months later (Oct34) the Notaras Bros forked out
£100/ft
for the old Star Court Theatre site. And all while the improved and
unimproved capital value of the town continued to fall (a ucv of
£1,333,910 in 1931 to £1,155,723 in 1934, at which time council reduced
the rates for the fourth year running in the face of continuing ratepayer
defaults.)
What was happening residentially wasn’t
matching the expectations of the speculators around the CBD. At the end of
1934 rate defaults were still ongoing and council sold the properties of
10 delinquents, realising a total of just £397/10/-. Most of the offenders were
in distressed North Lismore where a year earlier, Dec33, the Simmon’s
Estate attempted to auction 15 building blocks, 13 of which were passed in
and the other two selling for £7/ft (a 58ft x 123ft block in Bridge St)
and £4/ft (running back to Leycester Creek off Simmons St.)
However, the year 1934 marked the
turnaround in the benchmark construction industry with £110,187 worth of
Development Applications approved, the highest since the aberrational
record of £126,831 in 1930, which consisted of a few big ticket items like
Woodlawn College.
In Jul35
the Commercial Bank next Coronakes
Cafe in Molesworth sold for
£25,500 (£300/ft). The Bank then acquired the
Golden Globe Cafe and its
neighbour across the road for £2750 (£125/ft) and £4760 (£216/ft)
respectively. (The Valuer-General had valued both at £162/ft in 1930,
reducing to £100/ft in 1933 when the business activities on the western side of Molesworth
Street slackened....
Once regarded as almost equaling in value the now busy shopping
sections, properties on the western side a few years ago slumped in
value as retail business sites....) In Nov35 Dorgan's new
£25,000 Vogue Theatre opened on the old AGR's site. The Commercial Bank’s
new £8000 edifice was opened in Jul36.
In
Nov36 the single storey building housing
Criss’s Fish Buffet further
south on the river side of Molesworth was passed in at
£120/ft and its 2-storey neighbour for £160/ft. In Jun37 Crethar &
Crones took a hit on their investment when they sold their 'Mason
Exchange Building' to Pidcocks Pty Ltd for £357/ft. In Nov37 the Northcott
Building next the old Commercial Bank was transformed into a Tudor style
edifice at a cost £5000 (and Jones Tea Room, the successors to
Coronakes, morphed into the Tudor Cafe.)
[And in Mar39 J.C. McIntosh Jnr acquired the old wooden 'Lance Building'
on the inside of Molesworth for £7812 (or £312/10/- per ft) to provide
Angelo Crethar with his new Air-Conditioned Cafe. Upon completion
of the new two-storey brick edifice in Nov39 the Star boasted that
Building activity has been so marked
in Lismore this year that there is likelihood that the record value (£151,183)
of buildings erected last year will be broken.... Two months after the
McIntosh purchase Dr Boyd-Law acquired the two-storey brick 'Pharmacy
Building' further down Molesworth, on the northern side of the old
Commercial Bank, for
£11,300. The price is
equivalent to £530
a foot, and is the highest paid for a business property in Lismore....
(In 1950 F.W. Lance sold his remaining building, on Crethar's southern side, for
£550/ft.) In Aug40 the new
£12,000 unifying facade around an assortment of old buildings forming
AGR's new home on the corner of Molesworth
and Magellan was
completed, at which time the lean
war years arrived.]
Café activity around the block
had gathered pace from 1935,
while unemployment relief schemes continued to generate a large slice of
the spending money for a couple more years, notwithstanding that the
region's economic mainstay, the dairy industry, continued to sail through
the doldrums. (And by early 1938 the struggling farmers were still
concerned about preserving their fragile standard of living when 70
delegates from 50 branches of the powerful Richmond District Council of
the Primary Producers Union resolved by overwhelming majority to ask
the Federal Government to curtail alien migration.... Delegates contended
that southern Europeans were not accustomed to the high standard of living
in Australia, did not live up to it, did nothing to maintain it, but still
competed with Australians....)
Lismore CBD 1939 - Keen Street foreground,
Magellan left, Woodlark right. |
Woodlark foreground, Keen left, Molesworth right. |
Flooded Lismore 1954 - Intersection
of Molesworth/Magellan foreground |
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