Country Party Ascendancy - Part 2
In late 1930
Premier Bavin again polled the State in a popularity contest. This time Mr
Missingham had a genuine commie to contest, Mr W. Harkin/s, a
Sydney apparatchik,
leaving the Star searching for other appellations
to pin to the endorsed local Labor candidate
and Lang fan, Mr James Fredericks
Jnr,
Gundurimba born and Nimbin bred but now a school
teacher of Numulgi and secretary of
that district's PPU branch. He
maintained that Harkins was a Nationalist
Party plant, sent to Lismore by their Sydney executive. In any case
Harkin only put in two appearances before scurrying
back to the workers' paradise of
Sydney.
Anglican
Fredericks was probably galvanised into political action by the cut in his
salary, along with that of all public servants, which caused his colleagues in the
Lismore District Branch of the Teachers Federation to become very agitated, (or as the Star sympathised, they are ...now kicking up a shindy just because
they are getting a jolly Dutchman's rise by having their salaries
increased backwards). He reformed
the long-defunct Lismore branch of the ALP in May, just as the 44hr
working week was abolished in favour of reversion to 48hrs.
Resurrection of the ALP
branch, whose regular meetings were held at the Golden Globe Cafe,
coincided with the 110 local men out of work getting unionised, enabling
them to speak with one voice in lobbying the Council for relief work in lieu of
food relief, and resolving that to be eligible for any such work the
unemployed should have a minimum residence in town of 6mths, so precluding
the many more unemployed who were continually passing through Lismore (and
temporarily camping at the saleyards/showground where they were having a fine time
tearing the place apart for firewood.) These latter blokes were monitored
by Mr J. Welsh, 'the agent for the State Labour Exchange' who 'conducted the official unemployment bureau', who said that within the last 2
days ... he had dealt with 59 men, 32 single, 26 married, one widower,
with a total of 49 dependents. At the same time the police said up
to 60 applicants a day ... were imposing on the rationing system... and
some had evidently intended to take up residence in Lismore, but a round
up in the camps had cleared off this kind..., one of the camps being
behind the Polychronis Dinkum Cafe in South Lismore near the Duck Pond
where the council had spent a fair amount of money constructing
dressing sheds and making the Duck Pond suitable for public bathing....
Now the dressing accommodation has been commandeered by some of the
unemployed and women and children are afraid to use the sheds, which
were all washed away in the record flood of Feb31.
Proving you were bona fide unemployed on walkabout looking for work, and
hence an entitlement to 'track rations', proved very tricky.
Three weeks later Mr Welsh advised that 150 local men were now out of
work, but this was a slight reduction due to an outflux to Casino where
650 unemployed had gathered after Mr Buttenshaw, Minister for Railways,
announced the reopening of the Casino-Bonalbo rail project, offering work
for 200 men rationed at the rate of 24hrs a week each. Also on the agenda
was the further downsizing of the South Lismore rail workshops and the
transfer of employees to Casino, the curtailment of the North and South
Lismore sewerage
scheme, and the reduction of wages and the rationing of work for council employees. Two weeks after
that, 21Jun30, the committee formed by citizens of goodwill to raise and
distribute money and goods for necessitous cases, had registered 79
married men and 60 single men with a total of 130 dependents. Three weeks
later the committee was dissolved due to loss-making functions and
donations of food, clothing and firewood going out at a greater rate than the wherewithal was
coming in. (At the same time Lawyer McIntosh Jnr convened the T.M.
Hewitt Testimonial Fund, which had accumulated nearly
£500 in donations by early September.)
At the wind-up meeting Mr Simpson, an
unemployed representative on the committee, advised that there were a
total of 481 men with dependents drawing ration tickets from the police, but
that dozens of unemployed men had been refused rations by the Lismore
police. In all cases the amount of rations had been reduced. Single men
were getting rations to the value of 2s 1d a week, and it was impossible
for any man to live on that... At this time ration
orders to the value of
£150
a month were going out. Committeeman Alderman White said
he did not agree that the time had yet arrived when single men were
entitled to relief in the Lismore district. Apart from the women and
children he was opposed to the distribution of relief.... And a touch
of 'blame the victim' started to creep in. (Amongst
the unemployed single blokes were
a number of farm
lads brought to the district under the migration scheme -
'Dreadnought Boys' -
who are now out of work.... Twelve
months later the New Settlers League approached the PPU looking to place
more of them, aged 17 to 20, with sympathetic dairy farmers, at which time
there were already 250 scattered on farms around the Richmond-Tweed, 43 of
whom were in the depressed Casino district.)
Towards the end of Jul30 the unemployed
formed their own 'Lismore Unemployed Relief Committee', at which
time they had 536 unemployed and dependents on the books. ...
Our object is to distribute food, firewood, clothing, etc., to those in
need of such, also we intend to establish a soup kitchen for the free
distribution of a wholesome hot meal. We have been in communication
with the Mayor and also the town clerk for official recognition and for
permission to send out duly appointed collectors, but have been refused
both requests.... We intend in the face of this opposition to carry on....
In late September the Ladies' Benevolent Society took up in a small way
where the Community Chest Committee left off, running cake stalls and
collecting clothing, and by early October had granted relief to 14
applicants. And in late October single blokes registered with the
Labour Bureau won an entitlement to rations,
generating an influx from Queensland.
The Unemployment Relief Act came into
operation 1Jul30, with the money raised from a tax on wages to
be distributed by a committee representative of employers and employees -
one of each from the country and from the city, with the Ministers for
Local Government, Labour, and the Treasurer, and an economic expert.
Within a couple of days Colonel Bruxner, Minister for Local Government,
informed Mr Missingham MLA that he had approved
£500 to Lismore Council, which was supplemented by another £3708 in late
August, most of it going on work
at the aerodrome to qualify for the necessary license to operate
commercially (which turned out to be a white elephant.) The relief workers hired were restricted to a maximum of
35hrs per week, but received a pro rata wage based on £4/2/6 for a 48hr
week. By the end of Aug30 Mr Missingham had announced over £14,000 worth
of unemployment relief grants around his Lismore electorate, with promises
of much more as the election campaign got underway. And by early September
the Lismore Labour Exchange had placed 66 of the 377 registered unemployed
in rationed jobs created throughout Lismore and surrounds, notwithstanding
that the surrounding shire councils had their own registers of unemployed,
the largest group apparently being in the recently devalued Tintenbar
Shire, where 62 were recorded by the end of July, while its neighbour,
Ballina Municipality, had registered 88 (representing over 300 dependants)
by early June.
Things were rapidly going from bad to
worse and at the start of the auction the Star was
perplexed to learn of the need to run a local Laborite
against Mr Missingham in view of the latter's largesse, and said, perhaps
with tongue-in-cheek, Is the reason the Bavin Government's
unemployment tax on wages - the reverting to a 48 hour week - the cut in
civil service salaries - reduction in basic wage - the rationing of work
on the railways - or what? The Star started shaping the main election
issue as raising a smile from the farmers: The interests of the man on
the land have for long been the matter of paramount importance in the
Richmond River district, and must continue to be while the prosperity of
the area is dependent on primary production... and farmers would be
unwise to forget that they have little in common with... Labor. Two
days later the dagoes got a run in another editorial on the formation of
the British Preference League in North Queensland: Public bodies in the
Richmond River district of New South Wales have also advocated the
principle... of Britishers getting first preference for jobs
(after returned soldiers),
thus ensuring the
Greeks persevered with the increasingly tenuous café game.
The 48hr week whingers got no sympathy from
the farmers, who work nearly double that time... all the year round
under all climatic conditions. But rarely a word on the parlous state of butter passed the lips of
any candidates, although Comrade
Fredericks reckoned that the farmers, good unionists all, were a little
inconsistent in complaining of a fixed basic wage for workers while at the
same time fixing the price of butter. Mr L.T. MacInnes/McInnes, NSW Director of Dairying, who
coined the term ‘Paterson’s Curse’ to describe the Butter Stabilization
Scheme, also came to town,
at which time the Richmond-Tweed was
producing 47% of the State's butter;
23,000 tons of the stuff for 1929-30, the second highest production on
record after 1924-25 (while the export price almost halved over the same
period.) Whether he addressed any meetings is unknown as the
Star never published any of his comments,
whereas in times past it had given him space to spruik the
greater merits of a State-based butter pooling scheme and priority to the
home market.
And confusing the punters in a
convenient coincidence for the Country Party, if not deliberate
'Green/e
tactics',
were two regular letter writers, Mr James Fredericks, farmer of Caniaba,
and Mr P. Fredericks, farmer of Nimbin,
singing anti-Labor sentiments.
An
entertaining feature of the Lismore debate was the appearance of Catholic Casino lawyer Mr J.J.W.
Kissane, preaching the Labor
gospel … if unrighteousness had so
triumphed that by a perversion of the Divine order of things St Michael
were leading the Nationalists and Satan the Labour forces, he would, in
those circumstances, unhesitatingly
vote for Satan….
and adding … The jury lists are packed; a working man does not get a
chance in Lismore to-day to be tried by men of his own class. Though
practically every citizen of Lismore is entitled by law to a place on the
jury list, the men for these lists are carefully selected by the Crown
authorities… and … you find jurymen prepared to allow a
judge to bully them into a verdict.
(He subsequently had an altercation with
the Star on mischievous misreporting, relieving Bishop Carroll of the need
to start excommunication proceedings.)
In any event, Labor
Fredericks won the usual booths at North and South Lismore and came close
in the town itself, scoring 2713 votes to Country Missingham’s 2792. But
Mr
Missingham, although disappointed in his big drop in
urban
popularity, came home with 62% of the vote
overall, having
won the
farmers, the major beneficiaries of,
but least contributors to, the mana falling onto the roads from the
Unemployment Relief Fund.
His
naughty how-to-vote card,
‘If you do not vote preference as indicated above your vote will be
informal and not counted,’
was probably an overkill.
There
were 13,049 on the roll, but a record number of absentee votes (1134),
originating from 211 different polling
places throughout the State,
implying that many were
travelling long distances
on walkabout in a search for work.
Postal votes came from all parts of
Australia, but apparently Far North Queensland was the favoured bolt hole
for locals. And locally the itinerants were catered for by the provision of over 2000 absentee voter
forms at selected booths.
A week after the 25Oct30 election the
Lismore Labour Exchange reported 400 locals registered as unemployed, now
'taking turns' for work on the relief projects. And a week after
that Teacher Fredericks started whinging about the methods used in the
late election... and... the underhand assertions which were made
against me during the late campaign... particularly... the
allegation that I used to belong to the Country Party... which
contains such poor sportsmen as the majority of the Country Party members
have over and over again proved themselves to be... and started legal
action over Country Missingham's how-to-vote card, ('I have absolute
evidence that those cards did influence people'), requiring the broke
branch to go about raising
£50 to lodge
the court application.
This election also saw the
appearance of the new Casino Electorate and a field of 9 candidates
(after Communist Leak withdrew); 5
Country, 1 Endorsed Labor, 2 Independent Labor and 1 Independent
Something.
Casino, having the honour of the biggest
unemployment pool in the region, failed to attract one person to a meeting
called by the Mayor to form a similar group to Lismore's short-lived
'Community Chest Committee'. Such groups had been formed throughout the
region, but Casino apparently had its own problems. In mid Jun30 the limit
on the number of men approved for work on the Casino-Bonalbo line was
raised to 300, but there are hundreds of men camped in and around
Casino, altogether too many for requirements, and further arrivals will
only augment an already congested labour market..., as hundreds of navvies
were progressively laid off from the Kyogle-Brisbane line as the project neared
completion. Nevertheless,
Alderman Reid for the Country Party won 23% of the primary vote
and 64% after distribution of preferences, taking the game from Labor
Young, winner of the primary with 27%.
One of
Casino's Independent Labor
candidates was a disillusioned Country Party turncoat,
Fred Crowther,
a devout Methodist,
an
ex-farmer of Numulgi and recently
prominent in PPU and CP affairs. In his
sermon to the faithful he said It was true that he had been secretary of
the Country Party (Lismore branch), but he had sent in his
resignation because he could not follow Dr Page or support the legislation
enacted during his regime…. He was one who had been a staunch advocate of
the Paterson scheme – a purely voluntary scheme on the part of the
dairyman to stabilise his product – but instead of being a benefit to the
tenant farmer it had turned out to be the reverse, because at the end of
his term tenders were called by the landlord to get the bit extra out of
the property that the Paterson scheme brought about…. At this time
figures bandied about guesstimated that
up to 65% of dairy farmers were tenant or share farmers, most
of whom were not members of the PPU and most of whom
reckoned they
were becoming
'serfs to the farmer',
a lot of the latter being absentee landlords who made up a fair swag of
the 50%
of Norco shareholders deemed 'dry
shareholders' (along with failed, retired or ex-landholders/farmers.) Crowther bombed
out but stood as Endorsed Labor for Byron at the next election
(when the share farmers were even more agitated over the
landlord's share of the decreasing butter cheque.)
He missed out again and subsequently became 'President of the Lismore
Branch of the NSW Council Against War.'
In Byron Country Budd
enjoys the distinction of being the only unopposed candidate in New South
Wales... after Communist Haddow
withdrew at the last moment.
...The electorate, of course, is a veritable Gibraltar for the Country
Party....
(And thereafter, apart from Crowther in
1932 and further token efforts from Labor in 1935 and 1944, the lefties
joined the Nationalists/Liberals in giving up on the Byronoids,
notwithstanding the ambiguous stance of Mr Stuart and the following
'Independents'. Labor started recontesting in 1962 but the Countrioids/Nationals
didn't surrender the seat until 1999, the year the electorate name changed
to 'Tweed', having already morphed from 'Byron' to 'Murwillumbah' in
1988, the year the electorate of 'Ballina' was carved off and won by Don
Page for the National Party.)
State-wide, Labor swept home with 55 seats,
the Nationalists 23 and the Country Party 12. The Star,
allegedly now with Nesbitt MLC and Alderman Eggins amongst
its Directors, was
grumpy and felt
The people deserve the Government they vote for…and … It must be
a changed Mr Lang now to deserve the support he has got.
[Presbyterian Harold Thorby, Minister for Agriculture and
CP member for Castlereagh/Dubbo, lost his seat, and Teacher Dunn,
Labor member for Mudgee, again became Head Farmer and was promptly invited to
Lismore by Teacher Fredericks and Farmer Crowther to meet in conference the tenant and
mortgaged dairy farmer; to receive first hand knowledge of the
chaos under which both parties were carrying on; ...to stop the present
trend of events caused by over capitalised land and rentals. (In 1907
Teacher
Dunn's brother, Edward, was the first editor of the Lismore-based 'North Coast Daily News',
started by a group of Catholic businessmen led by Joseph Bede Kelly,
foundation Chairman of Norco and MLA for Tweed 1894-98, and Irishman
Patrick McMahon, dubbed 'The Sugar King' of the Tweed and an unsuccessful
candidate at various Tweed elections over the years. Anglican Dunn handed over to Catholic convert Robert Browne who was promptly promoted to command the good ship
'Northern Star' in 1911 and started steering to starboard. The Daily News
sunk in 1914, at which time Catholic O'Halloran arrived in town to launch
'The Northern People' and immediately tacked to port. Edward Dunn was
editor of the Lang-biased 'Labour Daily' when he died in 1932.)]
Top
Premier Lang
inherited a poisoned chalice. Things accelerated from worse to worser and by
the close of 1930 the Star was
barking mad and baying for his
blood, while
the local Laborites and
Countrioids began gearing up for an early Federal
election.
The
Federal Government started to fall apart in late Jan1931 when Joe Lyons,
allegedly
flirting
with a sub-group of the All For Australia League, crossed the floor with
4 comrades to
join the Nationalist Opposition, followed in early March by 6 NSW members who went to the
cross benches as ‘Lang Labor’.
Mr
Lyons formed the United Australia Party
and took over from Nationalist John Latham as the Leader of the Opposition
in May, causing Dr Page to subsequently withdraw from the coalition and
form the United Country Party, perhaps
in part provoked by
Billy Hughes being
welcomed back to the fold and Senator Massy-Greene appointed to the shadow
cabinet. And in Dec31
it was deja vue all over again for the Richmond punters when ‘Lang Labor’
voted with the UAP and UCP to bring down the Scullin Government.
But in the meantime:
The Casino Country Party
branch
had been the first away in mid Jan31: Consequent upon the disturbed
condition of the political atmosphere, the Casino branch of the Country
Party which had lapsed into a comatose state for many months past, decided
on Friday night to enter upon a campaign of activity forthwith…
A few days later Dr Page,
Lieutenant
Green
and Colonel Munro,
general
secretary of the NSW
branch of the party, attended a meeting of the Richmond Electorate Council
in Lismore, chaired by Mayor Tighe of Ballina, where they started
preparing for a perceived imminent Federal election, and were
again frothing at the mouth
in a call for the secession of ‘New England’ from NSW. But the Star reckoned that
Almost any gathering of men
in Lismore discussing the economic situation is sure to speak of
government by a Commission…,
the initial aim of the fascist All For
Australia League. ...As the head of such a body General Monash
leaps immediately into the thoughts of most men….
Labor on the other hand was
in a bit of disarray. By late Feb31 the Lismore branch had grown to a
membership of 181 and had affiliated with the new Ballina branch, bringing
total financial members to over 300. But in the
debate to support the ‘Lang
Plan’ for repudiation of loan repayments there were a number of
resignations, including Vice President Eastment and Secretary Bondfield,
the latter with hopes of being the endorsed candidate for the Federal
election and running with Prime Minister Scullin’s less radical policies
to stabilize the
economy. The press secretary, James
Fredericks' brother Clarrie, also resigned because of a mole in the ranks
passing info on party meetings to the Northern Star (Thankfully, otherwise
this story couldn’t be written.) And Mr Meyers/Myers was sprung as a communist
while Mr Gleeson was branded a ‘white-washed Nationalist’,
pointing the finger at President Fredericks and uttering I am a better Labour man than ever you
were.... There were a
few more lively exchanges and the meeting was closed, said the Star’s
spy.
Amongst other things, the
major
local
factor giving rise to
all the agitation and early politicking was the
new Lang taxation to relieve the
huge rise in unemployment. All local work projects
had dried up:
Messrs Missingham and Budd had
cut the ribbon to open the Ballina-Booyong rail line in late September
1930.
This on-again-off-again 5½yr project cost
£412,000 to build 13 miles of
track,
the first sod turned in mid 1923 in the
presence of the Deputy Premier of Queensland, W.N. Gillies,
personally invited by the Deputy Mayor of Ballina, P.E. Tighe. Completion
of the project saw a lot of the navvies go to Casino to
find work on the Casino-Bonalbo line, while the remainder competed for
roadwork on the unemployment relief projects around Tintenbar Shire and
Ballina Municipality;
(At
the same time the
£21,505 Lismore-Ballina road was completed, eventually contributing to
closure of the non-viable Ballina-Booyong rail link, which
had its first reduction in service in Nov31 after it earned
£3000
on
running costs of
£25,000 per year);
Also in late Sep30
VIPs from all over the place cut the ribbon to launch the single gauge Kyogle-Brisbane line. This 4yr project, a great engineering feat, had
resulted in the expenditure of
£4,420,000 (inclusive of the
rebuild of portion of the
Grafton-Kyogle line) and
employed over 1500 people, many of whom drifted to Casino to join the
queue for work on the Casino-Bonalbo line;
Competition for railway work increased the anti-dago sentiment, one bloke
complaining that he had seen foreigners engaged over the heads of
Australians and thought that the ‘white Australia’ policy was a farce when
such a condition of affairs was allowed to exist… and a reflection
on the authorities when men would be engaged over their heads who could
not even speak English, most of whom appeared to be Maltese;
The non-viable Casino-Bonalbo project, started in Jul29 and temporarily
halted Apr-May30, was finally terminated in mid December, resulting in
300 more men joining the ‘calico township’ on Carrington Park at
Casino, where the police were now writing ration orders to the tune of
£1000 a month. (By late Jan31 the number on the ‘dole’ had broken the 1000
mark and the ration bill was now £1200 a month);
All ‘Missingham’ unemployment relief projects around the Richmond had been
completed by December, even with each LGA rationing the money at the rate
of ~£170/week. Upon taking command Premier Lang had diverted almost all
unemployment tax money to Sydney-Newcastle projects, while all local
overtures for more relief works were rejected;
The Star and the unemployed were screaming for work, not rations, answered
with a Christmas gift from the Feds. In late Dec30 NSW won £194,000 as its
share of the Federal Government unemployment relief grant, two thirds of
which went on Sydney-Newcastle projects. After personal lobbying by
Alderman White and Town Clerk Nelson, and introductions to appropriate
Ministers/Departments by Missingham MLA, Lismore and Casino were allotted
£500 each, while Ballina,
Coraki,
Gundurimba, Terania, Tintenbar and Woodburn got
to share £1050 between them. The money was all spent by the end of Jan31;
In the new year the 48hr working week was reduced to 44hrs
(except for rural employees) and the
unemployment relief tax on wages was increased from 3d to 1/- in the £,
generating a howl
for the
head of
Premier Lang;
In early Feb31 came a record flood, presenting Lismore alone with a damage/loss
bill of £100,000, but no relief money from State coffers
apart from the police being authorized to exceed their budget to
provide food for necessitous cases;
Every cloud has a silver lining and the farmers,
mainly in the Kyogle district, were ecstatic as new green
shots began appearing in the fields,
encouraging them to snap up the
unemployed at just below the new tax threshold
of £2 a week, and increase
production, paradoxically reducing their income by increasing the mountain
of butter. A lot of these unemployed remained on the farms to add to the
growing number of
destitute
share farmers;
Post flood the number of unemployed registered at the
Casino
Labour Bureau dropped to 720, mainly as a result of an outflux to Lismore with
the rumour of resumption of work on the sewerage scheme, although
a lot
were picked up to repair flood damage along the Kyogle-Brisbane rail line,
while the Mayor said there were still over 1000 men, women and children on
the ‘dole’.
(But
by
early June numbers receiving sustenance
had jumped to 1500, one third of whom were women and children, of whom 214
were living in tents at the main camp in Carrington Park with 700 men,
while the remainder made their home under bridges and various digs on the
outskirts of town.
June saw a new record for dole payments of
£1580,
bringing the total for the 6mths to 30Jun31 to
£8750. And by late July an influx
of mainly transient young blokes aged 16 to 20, some of whom were from interstate,
had built the number of unemployed men to 1200, prompting the Council to
build a separate camp for local unemployed on the proposed aerodrome
site.)
The sewerage scheme, started
in early 1930, was Lismore’s first ‘informal’ unemployment relief
scheme, the council insisting
to the contractors
that 85% of men employed should be locals.
The £27,000 first stage, laying pipes in North and South Lismore, was
completed by mid December, adding another 150 men to the dole queue
because the desperate
Department of Works hadn’t
let contracts for the next phases. In the meantime the council was stuck
with the interest bill on the loan, with no hope of recouping from
ratepayers until connections were made to households. The council was
already distressed with defaulting ratepayers, a big overdraft and no
capacity to borrow, while staff who hadn’t been retrenched were on work
rationing and reduced wages.
In striking the rates for 1931 the Mayor
said the council was 'sailing very close to the wind' with its
decreased revenue (a projected loss of over
£2000, but better situated than the
other local Municipalities and Shires.) And a month later sold the
properties of 17 defaulting ratepayers, mainly in distressed North
Lismore. But ratepayer defaults continued and by Aug31 the revenue loss
was
£4000,
followed a few months later by the new Lang legislation to exempt crown
lands and church property from the imposition of rates, resulting in
another £1000 knocked off the income.
Successful lobbying saw the
Department of Works
let a £36,639 tender in late March for completion of a modified
sewerage scheme,
immediately attracting another group to Lismore to swell the number of
unemployed registered with the Labour Bureau to
a record 963
(broken in early June when 1162 were on the books, 85% of whom were
locals, and enjoying Premier Lang's new allowance of up to 8/- a week for
single blokes, a married couple 12/10d, with one child 19/-, three
children 26/6d, ...increasing on a sliding scale to 49/- per week for a
family with ten children, all of which increased the work-for-the-dole
howl from the wounded tax payers and an increase in dole fraud.) During March Mr Welsh
had handed registration tickets to 69 married and 51 single men, to
whom 124 dependents look for support. He also advised them of new
regulations from the State manager: …I desire to advise you that
consideration should only be given to those bona fide local residents
whose names have appeared on a State electoral roll for a period of at
least 12 months. The term bona fide local resident may be defined as
applying to any person who is a resident of the district for a period of
three months…But it was academic
anyway, as the only work available at this time was that created by the
money still trickling in to councils for Main Roads Board contracts,
notwithstanding that most councils were complaining of the reduced subsidy
from the MRB and its preference for South Coast road projects (while the
cost-conscious Kyogle Shire engineer reckoned that Graders
were far more efficient and serviceable than horses and drays and men with
picks and shovels,
the latter later to become his major workforce as the work relief
schemes got underway and Kyogle benefited from the largest road network
programme in the region.)
Other big construction
projects completed in early 1931 and adding workers to the dole queue were:
the £52,000 Woodlawn College, basically completed by Oct30 but opened for
business in Feb31
at the same time as the official opening of
the £20,000 Rural
School additions;
the £60,000 Norco factory,
also practically finished by Oct30 but opened in
Jul31; and the £12,000 Commonwealth Bank
building opened in
Sep31. Disasters included AGR’s giant Department Store
on the river side of Molesworth Street next to the Ryan Hotel, which went
up in flames in late Nov30 and put
the remaining
50 employees out of work.
(Numbers already had been depleted in early 1930 with the
introduction of a self-service grocery department,
a first for Lismore.) But they were
back in business shortly afterwards, at the expense of the employees of
The New Firm, when AGRs
(A.G. Robertson) acquired the troubled Department Store of
Davis Bros & Burgess on the corner of Molesworth and Magellan and
gave it a makeover with the approval
of Landlord Nesbitt MLC. (In early Oct31 McDermott's Department Store, the major
contractor for redeeming food coupons, went up in smoke, putting another 40
employees on the dole - although they quickly established a scaled-back
operation in the partially damaged building next door, the ex-home of
Moneysavers' Department Store, which had shut its doors a couple of months
earlier.)
By early March Lismore’s
893
unemployed (600 of whom were married
men with dependants) were camping around a number of locations.
Amongst
other digs there were
60 on
the
Marist
Brothers
sporting fields at Coleman’s Point where
20 found shelter
in
an old shed and
leaving the remainder sleeping under trees without covering, 30 at
the Council saleyards sleeping in the pigsties, and 20
in a partly enclosed shed
at the old
Government
wharf, and They are living under conditions 100 per cent
worse than those of the aborigines at North Lismore, who at least had a
house. (Adding to the Lismore anguish were the aborigines
seeking integration when they
started to drift in from outlying reserves to North Lismore, where 120 had
congregated by mid 1930. Lismore is
'our country' they proclaimed, answered with segregation at the new
Tuncester/Cubawee Reserve in Jun31.) Unlike Casino, Lismore had no
'officially designated'
camp
for the unemployed until mid April when the Council made Albert Park
available and St Vincent de Paul built barracks and other infrastructure,
semi-completed in late April just as another big flood arrived to again
wash the unemployed, aborigines and
citizens from their camps
and houses.
The
political
agitation came to a head
in early Mar31 when the non-political PPU and Chamber of Commerce
initiated a protest meeting over the relief tax.
Scottish
Mayor Ross
chaired the
meeting,
which saw over 700 people crowding into the Richmond Hall while at
least 200 others outside cheered enthusiastically, when it was
resolved That, as both the Federal and State Governments continue to
ignore in their legislation the wishes of the country people, as expressed
by the people and their direct representatives in Parliament, this meeting
calls on all town and shire councils to convene meetings to have a
petition signed and addressed to the Governor-General of Australia and the
Governor of New South Wales to use their prerogatives and dissolve the
present Parliaments. The Star branded the meeting and resolution
‘historic.’ By mid March
300 municipalities and shires had received
a copy of the draft petition, under a covering
letter signed by the Mayor of Lismore, the President of Gundurimba Shire,
President of the Lismore Chamber of Commerce, and President of the Richmond
River Council of the PPU. And by early April a heap of local Lismoreiotes
had signed the petition following another huge meeting
that was
characterized by patriotic fervour after Mr W.F. Oakes and other
speakers against repudiation denounced the Premier….
A
Labor
Party
speaker,
77yr old Anglican
Englishman
Thomas Winterton,
a prominent conscriptionist in
Lismore's WW1 Win-the-War League, tried to get a word in but halfway through
his speech the Mayor
ruled his amendment lost, generating
a demonstration from a portion of the gathering.... Governor Game acknowledged receipt of the
petition in late April, stating he would give his earnest consideration
to the proposal.
Also
in early March Richmond
was
agog when the Star reported the
amazing gathering of 8000 farmers at Wagga calling for the replacement of
State parliaments with provincial councils and threatening secession of
Riverina. The price they received for their fruit had halved in 12mths.
Green MHR had to work like the clappers to hose down local meetings called
to recruit for the Riverina Movement
and
the
All For Australia League,
but being told to nick off at Kyogle where
His criticism was
strongly resented by Mr R.E. Alcorn
and other speakers, who dealt
trenchantly with Mr Green.
(A month earlier a meeting convened by
Methodist Alcorn, a director of Norco, past president of the Kyogle Shire
and now a landlord with his property Omagh in the hands of share
farmers, had rejected a request to sign up with the Country Party's New
State Movement, instead opting to join up with the movement praying
for the dissolution of Parliament.... Conversely, a little later
their neighbouring Tweed Shireites demonstrated a more loyal Country Party
following; new branches favouring the New State Movement being formed
all over the place, probably influenced by convening President
Marks of the Tweed Shire Council, who reckoned
that the North Coast would never
be able to pay its way while it was governed from Sydney,
ably
assisted by party organiser E.E. Craig, whose skills so impressed Mr Oakes
of Lismore that he recruited him into the rival United North Coast
Movement after the election resulted in dissolution of the coalition. At a
meeting of the NCUM executive in early Feb32 the adaptable Mr E. E.
Craig said the country was shocked at the attitude of Dr Page and Senator
Hardy... and a resolution was carried condemning the disloyalty
of Dr Earle Page and Senator Hardy to the United Australia Party.)
In early May31
State firemen Bruxner, Reid and Missingham
arrived to build firebreaks, particularly around the
recalcitrant Kyoglearians, describing as shameful the
criticisms of Dr Page after his patriotic service to the Commonwealth.
Colonel Bruxner emphasised the danger in a time of political upheaval
of the electors stampeding to overthrow the present reliable
representatives in favour of new men.... But, alas, Kyogle remained cynical of the Countriotes' solutions to the
mess, typified by a letter writer: As one who listened ...I was
greatly disappointed to find that the whole of their speeches consisted of
destructive criticism... and they... offered not a single
constructive suggestion to show how the State is to regain its former
prosperity.... I have been a member of the Country Party since it
was formed... but... Abusing the AFA and Riverina movements... and
weaving a lot of fanciful pictures about a 'Utopian State' in the North is
not going to go down with the electors....
Dr Page and the Countriotes saw
Charles Hardy, instigator of the
Riverina movement, as a
serious
rival for rural leadership and,
being cunning
operators,
subsequently bought him off with an offer of
chairmanship of the
United Country Movement
and
a seat in the Senate. (Kyogle always was and remained a bit out of step with the rest of the
region.)
In late April the
State Savings Bank collapsed and the local branch shut its doors, leaving
a heap of angry depositors,
inclusive of
businesses, councils and organisations/institutions
(like the CWA and the hospital), and the NSW economy
took another nosedive. At the same time the fascist ‘New Guard’
started to flex its pecs and the socialist ‘Australian Labour Army’
stepped up recruiting. (Across
New South Wales there was much huffing and
puffing and protestations of bravado from the labour movement. The
schoolteacher secretary of the Lismore branch of the ALP spoke for many
when he informed Chief Secretary Gosling:
"As an ex Sgt of the A.I.F., I, for one, am prepared to fight for our
Government if necessary ... The swashbucklers need a severe lesson before
they plunge the State into bloodshed."
...wrote Andrew Moore in his article
‘The New Guard and the Labour Movement, 1931-35’.)
In August the struggling Primary Producers Bank
formally went belly up, leaving many distressed farmers and forcing the
mortgaged Lismore Turf Club into private hands. (The Lismore branch of the
PPB was the first in NSW, opened in 1922 in the new Northern Star building with Messrs J.J. Hayter,
Frank H. Bartlett and John T. Whipps as Directors/Trustees.)
By
August
a touch of hip pocket and compassion fatigue started to overtake the
Limoreiotes and Casinorians. During a Lismore council discussion on
conditions at Albert Park, Alderman White said
it is
a big mistake to concentrate a body of men in the one place, “with nothing
to do but hatch plots.” The council should not grant the light
(£18), he said, until the
unemployed did the fencing. Such places were nothing but Communist
sources. At Casino Communist literature was being distributed. He did not
know much about the Lismore men, but the open boast was made that they
would flood the next municipal council. The ALP and the RSL protested
to council, the latter pointing out that 25 returned soldiers, ranking
from a second Lieutenant to a private, were ensconced at Albert Park
and had already demonstrated quid pro quo by offering to cut firewood
for the hospital and to work for clothing, while the Unemployed Camp
Committee pointed out that St Vinnies
had spent about £140 on
the buildings while the council had done nothing.
Alderman White said “I have nothing to withdraw and nothing to apologise
for. I said it in cold blood, because it needed saying, and am going to
keep on so long as I live,” …The
question is not what will we do with the unemployed, but what will the
unemployed do with us...
at the Council elections in December. And the unemployed said we won’t build the
fence and get stuffed about the electric lighting.
(Anglican Alderman White died mid Jul32 and the Star eulogised that ...fear of offending
never made him hesitate to express an opinion.)
At
Casino the ratepayers were haemorrhaging money at the rate of £200 a
year supporting the unemployed camps, in addition to the
individual cost to a section of the community for the provision of milk,
vegetables, and clothing, etc. To this must be added the cost of hospital
treatment and ambulance attendances (and 3 suicides), all of which
have created a drain on the resources of the community. And as all
pleas to the Government for maintenance assistance had fallen on deaf ears
and the unemployed refused to meet a levy of 6d each per week to assist
(except for the campers near the showground), council decided to disband
the Carrington Park and Hartley Street camps and deposit all single blokes
at the cattle market site, where there was water and sanitation laid on,
and all families to the new aerodrome site. Upon completion of removal
to the other camping areas, no additions will be permitted to the
Carrington Park community…and…the police be requested to co-operate
with the council’s officers in preventing camping in the vicinity of
bridges. The big logistics exercise was completed by late October, at
which time the number of registered unemployed had dropped to 872
(inclusive of 16 females), while the dole bill for September had set a new
record of 3451 food coupons issued at a cost of £2690. Casino had
sustained more than its fair share of unemployed because of false rumour
after false rumour of an imminent restart of railway construction.
[Similar figures are
unavailable for Lismore as Mr Welsh's office and all his records went up
in flames in October. But Lismore peaked at much the same time and
thereafter there was a steady decline in both places, probably mainly due
to rumours of work on the hydroelectric scheme, just confirmed with the
signing of the agreement between Lismore Municipal Council and the Clarence River County
Council, the latter estimating the initial construction phase would employ 400
men. And in early November Bishop Carroll laid the foundation stone to
launch the
£22,000
St Vincent's Hospital,
bringing it forward because ...We were anxious to release the
£13,000 in hand to
give employment in this time of slackness....
And towards Christmas a few itinerants probably went home to see the
family, while others went surfing and fishing:
There has been a
steady increase in the dole figures at Ballina for some weeks,
demonstrating that while the inland towns are showing decreases, the
unemployed are journeying to the seaside....
By early Jan32 only
274 unemployed had rolled up at Mr Welsh's relocated Lismore Labour
Exchange to fill out new registration forms, 83% of whom were locals (167
married with 458 dependents, 50 single blokes, 3 women and 10 widowers),
but thereafter increased, while Casino continued to fall.]
Also by
early Aug31 the AFAL was sorting itself out
and was seeking to
unite disparate groups under
one movement and back candidates unaffiliated with any party,
while the agenda now included similar ‘provincial
council’ aims to the original Riverina Movement
demands.
Charles Hardy was well on track
with his job
for the Country Party in gathering the four separatist movements, New
England, Western, Monaro-South Coast and the Riverina,
under the umbrella of the United Country Movement. But in late September
the recalcitrant farmers of
the Brunswick, mainly those from the PPU's
rival, the Dairy Farmers' Society, formed the United North Coast
Movement, without any clear agenda other than to see the backs of
Lieutenant Green and the
dictatorial Sydney Executive,
but
evolving with
a lean towards
'provincial councils' rather than separate States.
The
United
Country Party’s heavy cavalry
arrived at the gallop
– the UNCM represents
disruption, disintegration, division and weakened efforts. There is
absolutely no room for this new movement - but the stubborn
Brunswegians
wouldn’t buckle (although it seems
there was dissention within the ranks, thwarting the ambitions of Alderman
Chew of Mullum to run as a candidate.) The UNCM was subsequently hijacked
by Nationalist Oakes of Lismore.
In early December came the council
elections, now with provision for 'ticket' voting. The two 'Lang Labor'
candidates, Staff Sergeant-Major Thomas Winterton, an earlier Independent
candidate for Byron (and father of Lance Corporal Thomas Percy, President of the RSL, member of the Richmond Electorate Council of the Country Party
and a great fan of Lt Green), and
Electrician Myers, who had a hard time convincing
people he wasn't a communist, were introduced to the punters at a rally
following a diatribe against the Northern Star by their campaign
manager, Comrade Fredericks. ...The gathering was not impressed
with what the Labour exponents had to say, a fact recognised by Mr
Fredericks when he once or twice addressed the gathering as ladies and
gentlemen and others. Fredericks had been a tad upset over the Star's
editorials which, apart from branding them representatives of communism
and Labour extremism, and deploring the entry of politics into council
elections, acted as the sentinel for the interests of the municipality
in punching out its own political ticket that endorsed all the blokes
listed on Country Party-biased ticket of the Citizens Municipal Election
Committee. The Langites, together with John Welsh of the Labour Exchange standing
independently, ran last in a field of 21,
the fear of the unemployed happy campers swamping the voting never eventuating.
There were
1736 ratepayers amongst the 4049 electors
who had bothered to list on the Municipal roll, 47.5% of whom turned up to
vote.
[The new Mayor,
Wesleyan Methodist E.J.
Eggins,
an ex-banana grower of Billinudgel, brother
of the Mayor of Grafton and
cousin of Methodist Dr Page,
stated he was the first non-Presbyterian ‘chief citizen’ in 15yrs.
He was anointed as a Country Party
MLC 1940-49 and MHR for Lyne (Kempsey/Taree/etc) 1949-52.
(And by the bye, the
Eggins family was a major shareholder in Grafton's Daily Examiner -
acquired by Dr Page and a bunch of mates in 1915. By the
time it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Northern Star Holdings in 1977 E.J.'s brother, Bertie Clarence Eggins, a Country candidate for Clarence
in 1935, had been a director and chairman for 37yrs.) And keeping it
all in the family, E.J.'s partner in a dairy farm at Bexhill, Alderman
William Walmsley, the brother-in-law of the next Mayor,
William Frith, both of Northern Ireland Presbyterian extraction, served as a Country MLC 1952-64.
Upon farewell of Auctioneer Frith to State parliament in 1933 Surveyor Hosie
was elected Mayor, apparently the first Catholic to fill the position
since J.B. Carlton in 1911, and at the Council by-election Presbyterian
Real Estate Agent Selwood comprehensively trounced Presbyterian Lawyer
McKenzie attempting a comeback. (Mayor Hosie's elevation resulted in
Bishop Carroll paying many compliments to the good work of the Council -
the duties of the mayoral office were being worthily and successfully
discharged by the present occupant..., who had pursued more grants and
loans for unemployment relief work and earned Lismore the distinction of
being the first municipality outside Sydney to sign up for the
work-for-the dole scheme, which involved payment for work done rather than
food relief. Surveyor Hosie had arrived in town in 1919 to take over the
business of Catholic surveyor Kelly, earlier MLA for Tweed, who had
completed the work of surveyor Peppercorn in laying
out the village of Lismore in 1879, the year municipality came into being.)]
Two weeks later there was
a merry
Christmas election when
Lt
Green entertained
four guests - three Country and one Labor.
The
uncharitable
Star
said that
In 1929
...13,000 voters agreed that Mr Gibson would
more adequately represent them. …and the polling will prove the
increasing dissatisfaction with the sitting member. …The ‘Star’ has no
complaint against Mr Green’s two new Country party opponents, but knowing
the importance of securing adequate representation, again supports Mr
Gibson,
now President of the Lismore branch of the Richmond PPU. And
naturally don’t even think about Labor.
And again Mr Hayter was forced to declare
that Norco is absolutely non-political and is not financing any
candidate, while a Tenant Farmers' Defence Association attempted to
get off the ground and put tenant/share farmers onto the PPU boards, which
were wholly made up of landlords/farm owners. And the Green camp again gave Mayor Tighe's earlier Labor sympathies a
run along with Auctioneer
Gibson’s military record, while all
of them painted Teacher Fredericks into the Bolshevik's corner.
And again
Lieutenant Green defied
rumours of his imminent death and,
with Dr Page's endorsement, arose with 33% of the primary vote, but
getting a fright when 70% of
Sergeant Fredericks' preferences went to Gibson, narrowing
his winning margin to 331 votes over Gibson (20,559/20,228). Country
Gibson won 25% primary (and
dominated at Kyogle), Labor Fredericks 19.3%, Country Tighe
(winning Ballina, Coraki and Woodburn) 13.4%,
Country Greening (a Bruxner mate
from Glen Innes) 3.2%, and Mr Informal 6.1%. Casino again returned to the
Labor camp, otherwise Green
marginally took
just over half of the rest of
the subdivisions,
including Mullum and Lismore
(and Tenterfield where the formation of a Scullin-leaning ALP branch in
Mar31 didn't help - the Railway Department, once the biggest employer in
Tenterfield, still went ahead and downgraded the place after the opening
of the line through Kyogle - perhaps implying that if Comrade Fredericks
hadn't run with the Lang sack of solutions the result would've been much
the same? Tenterfield was in a spot of bother - from 1929, the year the
Council was sacked and the Town Clerk arrested, many started flocking to
the dairy industry as a means of buying a job, resulting in a 60% increase
in the number of suppliers to the local butter factory by 1933, a
concomitant 26% increase in production and a fall in the farmers' average
gross income from £201
to £86pa.)
The Richmond's share of Premier Lang's
Christmas gift of £150,000
for relief works arrived too late to bring any voter gratitude. Lismore
and Casino won £100
each, while Coraki, Gundurimba and Kyogle shared
£150. Ballina, Terania, Tomki and
Woodburn are mysteries, but Tintenbar, the brokest of the Richmond LGAs,
definitely missed out (as did broke Byron Shire). Casino gave 45 men 2 days
work gravelling roads, while Lismore Council stretched it out with a matching
£50 and employed 60 men cleaning
drains, 90% of whom
were married locals whose children were given a party by the Salvos.
The Star reckoned the declaration of the poll was chiefly
remarkable for the sportsmanlike spirit shown by defeated candidates...
after Green MHR remarked that this election had not been clean....
Comrade Fredericks was proud of the vote he had polled in the
conservative constituency of Richmond, especially in view of the
scurrilous statements... branding him a communist (expounded on in follow-up letters.) For the
Senate Charles Hardy scored 39% of the Richmond vote, ahead of
Massy-Greene with 21.7%. Only 2 other candidates of the field of 13 came
in ahead of Mr Informal on 9.7%.
Nationally, a landslide gave
the UAP 40 seats and the UCP 16, while the ALP was reduced to a rump of 15
seats (and 5 Independents had fun
taunting them all.)
Prime Minister Lyons decided to
govern in his own right and Dr Page and crew had to sit on the cross
benches.
Senator
Massy-Greene became assistant Treasurer to
Lyons but resigned in ill-health after the Oct1933 budget, 11mths before the punters again went to the
polls.
[And amongst the gloom some humour when The
Rev Dean Hennessy branded Green MHR a sectarian during a speech at St
Carthage's Catholic school. Protestant Oakes leaped to the Lieutenant's defence:
I am not a supporter of Roland Green, I disagree with his politics and his
party, and I have never given him a vote, but I like fair play...,
begging the unthinkable; Did W.F. (Walter Frank) vote Labor? - and roll in his grave in 1944
when his son, Lawyer Warren Frank,
Mayor of Lismore 1939-40, stood as 'Lang Labor' against auctioneer
William Frith, the
sitting Country Party member and Mayoral successor to produce merchant Jim Eggins in 1933?
And commiserate with the said Country MLC and MHR Eggins when they looked
down upon his son, Dr
Barrie James Eggins, standing as Endorsed Labor against the Country MLA for
Lismore, Bruce Duncan, a wonderful man and genuine farmer for a change, in 1968? (Lawyer
Oakes was probably lead astray when he spent 3yrs working for Bolshevik
Advocate Kissane in Casino prior to he and his brother opening a legal office in
the McIntosh Chambers in Lismore in mid 1934.)]
Five
months later Premier Lang was sacked by the Governor
(13May32)
and the
mob was
requested
to revisit its
1930 ruling. Unemployment was
rampant and thousands destitute,
with the resurrected local Labour Exchange
again showing a rising rate of registrations: The Lismore Labour Bureau has
registered 650 genuinely unemployed men, many of whom were one time the
sole supporters of large families...,
but work relief money was about to start flowing.
The farmers were further down
the
poverty road
(so they said, and have always said),
albeit scraping by with subsistence living
as usual, but cheap loans were on the way.
Norco was paying its suppliers an average monthly rate of 10.87d/lb of
butter produced from cream supplied, the lowest return since before the
war. It continued to fall to a record low of 8.07d in 1934.
This time
Sergeant
Fredericks,
still
president of the Lismore branch of the ALP, stood in Casino, while his
vice-president,
Digger
Charles Taylor
M.M., was given a run in Lismore,
standing
as a 'Lang Labor' candidate and
whinging that
certain local businessmen were members of the New Guard (as was Dr
Page briefly, according to rumours.) The
fascist New Guard, which has a worthy spirit behind it
commended the Star, had got off the
ground in late 1931 when the local organiser, Major Carter of Goolmangar,
stepped up his recruiting drive.
By the time of the election the Lismore branch had built to almost 700 members under the leadership of Colonel Board, President of the Chamber of Commerce and the
region’s leading architect. [Another prominent New Guarder was ex-Mayor
Scotsman Ross, who initiated a
collection to fund the court case of Captain de Groot, of Harbour Bridge
ribbon-cutting fame, which turned out to be an overkill as the fine was
only £5 with £1 costs. The foundation Mayor of Murbah, Peter Street, now a
Lismore Lawyer, was also active, as was Colonel Hindmarsh, Commander of the
15th Light Horse and allegedly a Director of Northern Star Ltd.
Post election triumph the New Guard Troop, organised into 'Units', was still kept on alert
because ...the snake of communism was only lying dormant..., at
which time RSL membership peaked at
a surprisingly low 170 (but 2yrs later boasted it was the 4th largest
branch in the State with 230 members?)]
Mr Missingham,
in ill health,
reappeared under the banner of the United Country Party when the
suitability of the
Countrioids to continue to represent the best
interests of the region was being
challenged by an emerging
underground army of old Nationalists. These
blokes desired to break the ‘free run’
pact with an attempt to form a branch of the UAP and
enter a
competitor, a
proposal heavily criticized by the Star, which now irrevocably had
completed its turnaround, pleasing
Presbyterian A.D. McLean, Chairman of Northern Star Ltd, President of the
Lismore Retailer's Association, a committeeman with the
Lismore branch of the UCP, and later vice President of the Lismore branch of the UCM.
The local branch of the UAP started to
evolve a week after the Federal election when the Brunswick's North Coast
United Movement held a meeting in Lismore, chaired by Farmer Whipps of
Alstonville, a member of the Dairy
Farmers' Society.
Although the gathering was mostly farmers, Mr W.F. Oakes, former President
of the Lismore branch of the Nationalist Party, was an attendee and
informed them all that the UCP had won through default,
because there was nothing better offering.... Followed by a
letter barrage:
The NSW section of the Country party is decadent and worn out...,
and
using such tactics as distortion, subtle inference, half truths,
misrepresentation and political trickery.... Then came a recruiting
campaign: Farmers - Wake Up! 150 Dairy Farmers have already
joined the Lismore branch of the North Coast United Movement, and will
assist in securing 1/2d a lb as the lowest price farmers shall receive for
their butter. Farmers are now working for almost nothing....
Subsequent meetings were a shambles as the PPU, now with Country Gibson
occupying the Richmond President's saddle, disrupted proceedings and urged sticking with the voluntary
Paterson Scheme, while the NCUM, still predominately DFS members but with
an increasing number of ex-Nationalists, wanted to run with Teacher Dunn's
Marketing Act, a compulsory pooling scheme similar to that almost endorsed
in late 1928 and based on that initiated by
Labor in Queensland, where the dairy farmers were still consistently
getting 2d/lb of butter more than their NSW comrades.
By the
time of the
election campaign the NCUM
was still trying to sort itself out, still only had
about 200 financial members, still
mainly from around Lismore and
Mullumbimby, and still defiant of the ‘United Country Movement’ with
far more
branches
around the region flogging the
UCP
manifesto.
A few weeks out from polling day they held a meeting and
voted on a motion that in the cause of unity, the Lismore branch of the
United North Coast Movement becomes a branch of the United Australia party
movement. But
Mr Thyer, local organiser for
the UCM, killed the motion by
swaying a larger block of the UCP-leaning
members of the NCUM, adding that he was vexed to learn at least one
gentleman so lost his mental balance that he referred to a prominent
supporter of the United Country Party as a ------- fool.
With nowhere to go
Presbyterian
Oakes, also
prominent in the New Guard, pleaded to the Star:
We in this electorate who are believers in a United Australia policy (and
there are thousands of us), ask you, Mr Editor, to for goodness sake give
us a fair deal in the country and allow our party to grow as the country
people want it to grow. We are sick of the disunion that the UCP (which
does not represent the majority of the country interests) is trying to
create, and consider you have quite misjudged the position in referring to
this as a definitely Country Party electorate. …and although I believe and
hope that our sitting member (Mr Missingham), will hold his seat in the
face of any opposition that may arise, it would be his own honest
personality that would carry him through and not the political claptrap of
his party, which is doing his cause quite a bit of damage. Were he a
member of the UAP, as he ought to be, his would be a life seat…He
also reckoned the UCP were stemming the tide of United
Australia with a
campaign of pin pricks, abuse, and misrepresentation…as
in the days of Massy-Greene.
But the Star was unrepentant
and gave the UCP plenty of coverage in its campaign against the
'political pirates for the Lismore seat,'
eventually forcing the rebels
to withdraw from the race after a few nasty slanders. The movement
subsequently collapsed,
'wiping out a political excrescence'
said potty trained Editor Peek, but they may have got somewhere if they'd
been better organised.
Engineer Oakes gave a parting shot:
Definitely, Mr Editor, the UCP do not play the game. Thousands in this
electorate recognise that as a fact. Not least of their faults are
narrowness of vision in their ability to appreciate disinterested service,
by those who do not see eye to eye with them; and their fatal habit of
trying to use their own parochial bushel to measure up the other fellow’s
corn: both stand out as measures of a mentality that does not appeal to us
all....
but I will do my best to help Mr Missingham…
The electorate was also
heavily lobbied by the Feds, Senator Hardy, President of the United
Country Movement,
having a triumphal march through the
region, accompanied by Digger Green MHR (and the shadowy Major Carter), and given
civic receptions in Lismore and most other towns.
He said …If Australia was to become an
industrial nation it would mean the end of the man on the land and every
country town, in an address on high tariffs protecting secondary
industry but leading to high costs for the primary producers (although not
a word on high tariffs protecting the butter makers from the New Zealand
invasion.)
The ‘us and them’ argument was
again prominent
on the agenda …At
present the country representatives are like a voice in the wilderness
against city interests…
with calls for
regional
secession
from NSW
again reaching fever
pitch. A week later (21Apr32) Major
Carter accompanied the Chief of Staff of the New Guard, Major Beveridge,
around the region on a three-week recruiting and money raising mission,
receiving much the same acclaim as Senator Hardy.
Meanwhile the Star was trying to get Laura Norda endorsed as an election candidate. Through lobbying Government mates, Labor Lawyer Kissane
and Mr McKenzie of the Casino Unemployed Committee had managed to get 32 blokes released
from Grafton gaol who had been sentenced for 'jumping the rattler' in a
search for work and track rations. The Star figured Australia has not
yet reached the point of suspending law and handing over the control of
the country to an unfortunate minority. ...The Police Magistrate heard the evidence in the charges brought before him for unlawful use of
the railway, and made his decisions accordingly. ...and the whole set of
circumstances (of the release) smacks too much of overriding the
law for the benefit of that section of the community from which the Labour
party draws most of its support. ...No one begrudges the released men
their liberty, but it's ...sure to encourage other unemployed to
seek free railway transport and, apparently, the Labour party thinks they
should have this privilege irrespective of what the laws of the country
may state.... (In a case in late Jan32, when 8 blokes were put in the
clink, the railway traffic inspector at Casino, now the hub of the rail network
after Lismore was downgraded, estimated that 400 men per week
were travelling over the Grafton-Murwillumbah line without paying the fare.
In one batch alone there were 87.... In a case in late Mar32, when another 18 became guests of His Majesty,
Pro
Bono Kissane argued that These men have to walk from town to town in the
hopeless quest for work, many of them are bootless and footsore. ...There
is no chance of men getting employment in or around Casino. There are more
than 1000 unemployed here, and it would be madness for additional men to
join the camp. There is no work from private enterprise. I can't get any
work myself.... The manager of the Casino Labour Exchange said he had
asked the Government to abolish the track ration (the lowest scale
of rations), which compelled men
to walk... - after earlier reporting an alarming growth in the pitiable cases... of 15 to 21yr olds.)
Thereafter every announcement of public projects
was accompanied by warnings that any associated work was not available to outsiders. In early Apr32
Mayor Eggins, in announcing
£30,000 worth of new sewerage and
reservoir construction, stated that It would be useless
for unemployed from other parts to come to Lismore in the hope of securing
employment.... A couple of weeks later the Star made similar comments
upon the
announcement that the £191,000 loan for the
first stage of the hydropower scheme finally had been approved, just after the council
started a crack-down on happy campers by insisting on a
'development application' for the erection of any tent or humpy, as it
did not want to encourage unemployed to congregate in Lismore.... For March the Lismore dole
bill had come in at £2131 (Casino
£1645, Ballina £1062, Woodburn/Evans Head £198), but Mr Welsh had trouble keeping track of actual
numbers as the unemployed were constantly coming to sign on but leaving
without signing off.
In late Apr32 Prime Minister Lyons announced
that the Loan Council would be raising money for unemployment relief, NSW
to get a reduced entitlement of
£600,000
because of Premier Lang's recalcitrance.
By 10Jun32, the day before the election, The Commonwealth Unemployment Relief Council
for NSW had assessed
submissions from LGAs to the tune of £386,673
and gotten immediate approval
for implementation from the Feds,
who had made grants of
£274,981
and loans of
£58,642,
while the balance of
£53,050
came from the LGAs' own funds. The projects were
assessed/recommended/approved and money
allotted
under
4 categories; the whole amount as a loan at 4% interest, a mixture of
grant and loans, a mix of grant plus
council provision of materials, plant and supervision, and grant plus
plant and supervision. Those councils in the best financial position got
the most money.
On the eve of
the election the Richmond had
£7760
worth of road projects underway; Gundurimba, the first away with a
£5020 request in early May, got
£1000, on the condition it
supplemented with £200
of its own money; Kyogle got
£2000 and provided plant and
materials as a contribution; Casino was enjoying
£1100 topped up with
£200 from the ratepayers; Woodburn
was rationing £750
with an equivalent
£100
contribution
via provision of horses and carts;
and Tomki was playing with
£950. Ballina asked for
£4000
but got
nothing and its 350 unemployed were advised to sign on at Tintenbar,
still in financial trouble and given a grant of
£990 on condition of a supplement of
£560
from its own pocket. Kyogle (which asked for
another
£6500) and Terania (which begged for
a big
£13,000)
were still being assessed, while Lismore was told that
its
application
for
£7000
had
not
been
approved as
the
projects
were not
'developmental or directly reproductive.'
Its unemployed however, rushed to sign on at Gundurimba, which was swamped
with 244 applications on the day of the work announcement (3Jun32). Five
gangs of 40 men were each given a week's work, which was all over by mid
July. (Lismore was home to both the Terania and Gundurimba Shire
Councils.)
The dairy farmers
had gone from broke to destitute in
trying to maintain their income by
increasing production, the cows presenting
them with an extra 4500 tons of butter in the last 12mths (for
NSW overall),
but once again
the candidates rarely talked
about the stuff, all the running being done by the PPU,
which was still trying to prop up the Paterson scheme with renewed efforts to 'equalize'
the export/domestic price and State quotas.
By this time the number of dairy farmers
had started to increase exponentially as the retired
and absentee
farm owners returned to
work their holdings, their living money depleted because of rent defaults
by tenants, who at this time represented about 20% to 50% of dairy farmers,
the landlords estimating the former figure while the tenants were emphatic
on the latter. Some leases were renegotiated and the
owners went into partnership with tenants, then effectively relegated to share farmers,
while other desperates figured there was little capital or knowledge required to become
a share farmer and joined the dairy game on the reasoning that low returns
were better than no wages. Additionally, at the urging of the PPU more
crown land was being opened up to accommodate farmers' sons, the latest
ballot attracting 1151 applicants for 10 blocks in the Kyogle district and
all school teachers, bank managers, solicitors' clerks, postmasters, ...were eliminated from ...the ballot against genuine farmer
applicants.
And again the confusing
Fredericks’ of Nimbin and Caniaba were anti-labour letter writers. Another
perennial
couple, Mr Stewart of Nimbin and Mr McInnes of Lismore, started writing
about how
the Teachers Federation had passed a resolution ‘That Empire
Day and saluting the flag be abolished.’ …The insidious doctrine
of Communism is ...creeping into our schools and
...the time is ripe for culling out any anti-British teachers…,
while Canon Moore reckoned that ...Communist
doctrines were being taught in his parish...,
all smelling of another orchestrated campaign to undermine
Anglican Fredericks, who
took time out from lecturing
in Casino to compose ripostes,
donning another hat as President of the Lismore Branch of the NSW Public
School Teachers' Federation.
The Star declared that if Mr
Lang was re-elected it would shake the whole foundation of the
Commonwealth…. The return of Mr Lang and his satellites is
unthinkable. The party which nearly brought the State to revolution and
chaos has lost all right to support… A record vote (for the UCP)
is desirable to indicate the sanity of the people….
And it came to pass that
Mr Missingham won his best
victory ever with 75% of the vote, taking every booth, including North and
South Lismore (where
downgrading of
the railway
workshops
had started.) Budd and Reid were similarly returned in Byron and
Casino. The Country Party had now consolidated its grip on the region and
variations to the menu were rarely
seen again. State-wide the UAP won 41 seats, the UCP 23 and Labor
24.
Top
Mr Missingham died 7mths later, 1Feb33,
and was eulogised by Colonel Bruxner as a man who had no time for
anything that was not British in every way. There was a stampede for his seat by 6 candidates, the handful of Countriote selectors giving the nod to Mayor Frith, Mayor Tighe and
Auctioneer Gibson to stand as endorsed UCP candidates after Missingham
Jnr and a few other UCM and UCP candidates took advice to step aside. Mr
W.F. Oakes made a monumental blunder and bankrolled a young outsider from
Sydney, 27yr old Phillip Wilkins who had run as a UAP
candidate against Premier Lang and took 7.4% of the Auburn vote. Allan
Barrie, son of an ex-mayor of Lismore but now a Sydney resident,
insisted he was a 'Coalitionist' despite the Star and the Countriotes branding
him an Independent, perhaps because he advocated a reduction of the
number of parliaments and didn't like their socialisation of
the transport of the State.
And Labor was in its usual disarray,
Teacher Fredericks finally getting the nod from his branch colleagues to
run with the 'Lang Plan' after Teacher Dunn, who had lost his seat of
Mudgee, rejected their overtures to contest Lismore. The meeting was
characterised by the same fireworks which abruptly terminated a meeting...
at which Lecturer Fredericks and his brother resigned and a previously expelled
member held the floor, while one prominent member offered to settle
a dispute with another member 'outside'.... The Star's mole was
still embedded. (At a meeting in late 1932 the then secretary got in a
huff and walked away with all of the Labour League's books and
papers and Fredericks was perplexed as to how the Star got the
story - I am at a loss to
know from whence your information originated.)
Mr Wilkins
initially started campaigning under the UAP banner before morphing into an Independent UAP
candidate, but after getting carried away with advocating the abolition of the
States and following Colonel Bruxner's warning that The Premier (Mr
Stevens) had asked him to state that the gentleman who was standing as an
Independent UAP candidate was doing so on his own personal responsibility.
He had neither the endorsement of the Premier nor of his party...,
he (or W.F. throwing his hands up in
surrender) finally
decided that plain Independent would do. Nevertheless, he was still
placed 4th on the Countriote's voting card, followed by Barrie then
Fredericks. And W.F. continued to throw money around, giving Wilkins the
distinction of taking political advertising to new heights as the first
ever candidate to run full-page adverts in the Northern Star, which had
wised up and sacked its astrologer, giving no tips for the first three
places but endorsing the other three in the same order as the Countriote
preferences.
Despite the gloomy black mood of the farmers
the re-election of a UCP candidate was another laid-down misere as money
continued to flow into the region.
The Fed
UAP had continued to dole out the largesse for distribution by the NSW
UAP/UCP, with an initial offering of another
£600,000
immediately upon Premier Stevens' ascendancy. Senator Massy-Greene,
Assistant (often Acting) Federal Treasurer and Chairman of the Loan Council, played a large part, while
actively clashing with ex-Treasurer Page performing a minor role from the cross
benches. At
the height of the Depression in 1932 Dr Page, at loose ends upon finding
himself on the outer, poured more fuel on the hotheads and asserted that
‘New England’ was prepared to unilaterally declare itself independent,
arguably generating the same largesse
from the treasure chest as previously. While Federally this stance
put him further at odds with the UAP, in NSW the coalition was put
together with his nod, Colonel Bruxner leading the ‘new’ Country Party
into a powerful position under UAP
Premier Stevens. Colonel Bruxner, Tabulam born and Member for
Tenterfield, became Deputy Premier and Minister for Transport, giving
him a great say in allocation of resources in this neck of the woods.
In
Feb1934 Mr Fraser, general manager of Norco and a member of the NSW
Unemployment Relief Council, (an appointment demonstrating the
prominence of Norco and/or the cunning of the Country Party),
upon
given the honour of opening a
£22,000
bridge and associated road works near Tabulam said he hoped that the bridge over
Rocky River would long remain a monument to Mr Bruxner..., who
allocated the bananas.
(The
‘Bruxner Road’, now the ‘Bruxner Highway’, received heaps of
money pre,
during and post Depression.)
The first large project in the region was approved a month after the Jun32
election when Casino's
£63,000 sewerage
scheme got the nod, with half the money as a grant and the rest as a 40yr
loan at 4%. Within a week 572 men had applied for jobs, but...
The
possibility of obtaining employment on the sewerage works at Casino has
attracted hundreds of men to the town from all parts of NSW and other
States. In the three unemployment camps there are approximately 1500 men,
women and children, and this number is being augmented daily.
The police are recommending the
issue of track rations only to prevent further additions to the number,
who cannot all obtain employment.... Some
residents of Casino are advising relatives from other parts to come
and enrol for work....
Attention is drawn to a
condition which precludes strangers getting employment, the condition
being: 'The term bona fide local resident may be defined as applying to
any person who has resided
in the district for a period of three months.... And by
early August
The closing
of the Moree-Boggabilla railway work has caused many men who formerly
lived in Casino to return in the hope of getting employment on the
sewerage works. More than 100 additional ration tickets for single men
were issued to-day, and there was a corresponding increase for married
men. Those who have returned to the town previously fulfilled the
residence requirements...,
but
only a small percentage of the men now waiting can possibly be given jobs...,
on the same day it was announced that the
Bexhill Quarry
had ceased
operation
upon completion of the ballasting contract for the
Grafton rail bridge
and as a result 30 to 40 men
have been thrown on the unemployment market.
(The bridge was opened by Colonel Bruxner in
mid Jul32, giving a straight through Sydney-Brisbane run.)
From this low things slowly recovered. By late August 765 men were engaged
on the Casino scheme on a rotation basis, 30 married ex-diggers with 4 or
more children under 14 being at the top of the priority list and 330
single non ex-diggers at the bottom. And the resurrected Main Roads Board
had approved the biggest road construction programme for Kyogle and
Terania for many years - 80 blokes, some from the Casino pool, already at
work building the Woodenbong-Bruxner Road link. By mid August Casino had
£90,000
worth of public works approved, having won more money for a new hospital
and the Tatham bridge, while in July and August
£4,000 worth of
private construction had started. And thanks to special loans to farmers
of up to £300
at 3% over 15yrs, 12 blokes on the unemployment books at Casino were
already slaving away on farms around Mummulgum - due to a condition that
the farmer and family members weren't allowed to
lift a finger themselves (and you guessed it - whinges from over-worked
and under-paid farm hands increased.) The unemployed transients were no
longer a problem and the ration bill had dropped
dramatically due to Casino being removed from the list of approved 'track
ration' centres (along with Bonalbo, Kyogle, Acacia Creek and Wilson's
Downfall in the general area, just in case.) For
October the dole bill came in at
£696
(Lismore
£1027).
[All places had decreased sharply after June (Casino
£1871,
Lismore
£2331,
Ballina £1135,
Woodburn
£198), except Ballina remained
stubbornly stuck at around
£595
per month after July, while Woodburn ceased issuing all scales of ration
coupons after mid December, their local unemployed having to trek to
Coraki (who later had to walk to Lismore once a fortnight.) By the time of the Lismore election in Mar33 Casino's dole bill was
averaging ~£40/mth.]
And the basic wage had been cut from
£4/2/6 to
£3/10/-, with the public servants suffering an
additional loss, and old age and invalid pensions went from 17/6d to 15/- a
week. The unemployment tax of 1/- in the
£
on wages remained
in place, while the new 32 question dole application form introduced in
October wasn't greeted with riots as happened elsewhere. Nor was the
October announcement that the rules of engagement had changed to define a
'bona fide local resident' as one who had at least 12mths local residency.
And nor the re-categorization of the unemployed into 6 groups for
employment priority; married men with six or more sprogs to get no less
that 15 days work every 5wks, and the single blokes at the other end of
the scale on 5 days per month. (5 men with 53 children between them got
most of the work on the new
£6500 nurses' quarters in Lismore.)
The single
blokes were given a break at Christmas when a special relief grant of
£250,000
was made available, with priority for work given to those longest on the
unemployment queue, irrespective of marital status. In addition to the ongoing work, this
grant gave 7 of
the 10 Richmond councils another
£6,600
between them, half from Santa and the other half provided as a 3% loan over 5yrs. Those not already on the job were
given road work on a rotation basis and paid at the equivalent rate of
£3/10/-
for a 44hr week. (In anticipation of a 'call'... 254 registered
unemployed men besieged the South Lismore labour exchange early yesterday
morning, said the Star 8Dec32.) In late Feb33 the dole was cut to 5/6d per week for
single blokes, 9/- for a married couple, married with one child 14/- and
each child thereafter 2/6d, accompanied by the institution of ration cards in
lieu of coupons that could now be signed off at any grocery store, which was
all overtaken by the work-for-the-dole scheme introduced in Jun33.
In early Jan1933
£100,000
from the Unemployment Relief Fund was set aside for dairy farmers,
providing individual loans of up to
£600
(if the farmer put up one third.) But the Kyogle farmers were weeping as
their farm hands deserted to the
Kyogle-Woodenbong-Urbenville roads
project and links to the Bruxner,
one of the
largest unemployment projects around at this time and
employing
250
blokes
living in a
number of calico camps along
different sections.
...The
big road works now in progress absorbed practically every available
man and youth in the district. Although the wages are not high on the road
work jobs, the men work only five days a week, and earn more in that
period than they could earn in seven days on dairy farms....
The work... is mostly a pick and shovel job... and apparently
much more costly than if carried out by contract with the aid of
machinery.... At the same time Mr Dunningham, Minister for Labour
and Industry and Chairman of the Relief Council, announced a sum of
£200,000
had been earmarked for road construction in the Clarence and Richmond
valleys..., the purpose of which was to open up more areas for dairy
farming and add to the world-wide glut of butter, 20,000 tons of the stuff
now sitting in cold storage in London, while the home market was suffering
through the inroads being made by the margarine manufacturers. And the number of
farmers by-passing the factories and making their own butter, which already
was of serious proportions, selling
locally and undercutting the levy-added Paterson stuff, was rising
rapidly. (In Sydney, Norco's major market, butter consumption had dropped
by a third, while in the UK the Brits were opting for Danish butter
because it was softer and easier to spread.)
A week after the death of Mr Missingham the 'earmarked sum' suddenly became
£300,000, and headlined as
'Brazen Attempt to Influence Votes' by the Sydney Labor Daily, denied
by Mr Dunningham: ...even if the 'Labor Daily' statements were
true, which they are not, the carrying out of the works (in the
Kyogle/Casino district) could not possibly have any influence on the
Lismore by-election. At the same time the grant to dairy farmers
became £150,000 and the farmer's obligation reduced to 20%, while 400
applications... had already ...been received and a
considerably larger number are in the course of transmission to the board
through dairy factories, to which applications are submitted in the first
instance.... Further benefits arrived with the Farmers' Relief Act in
mid Feb33.
(And regarding Mr Dunningham's 'no influence' comments, in late Mar33 the
Star reported a dramatic drop to 450 registered unemployed at the Labour
Exchange due entirely to an outflux to the Casino, Kyogle, Bonalba,
Mallanganee roads' projects. But they started to dribble back shortly
afterwards upon finding that the local unemployed in those centres,
plus those from outside, ... had beat them to it.)
The tenant farmers were still
the most militant, believing that the farmer's advocates, the PPU, did
not represent the tenants' side of the industry.... I would
suggest a monster meeting of tenant farmers in Lismore...
said struggling Tenant Short who, at the subsequent meeting of 83 tenant
farmers, got up a motion for a 22½%
rent reduction and amendments to the Agricultural Lessees' Relief Act.
(And a week later a meeting of 50 landlords
begged to differ.)
But it was the Tweed farmers who started the
greater
militancy, 600 of the happy chaps gathering at Murbah on the day of the
Lismore election to say they'd had enough -
following the announcement two
days earlier that the February pay to farmers was to be 7½d per lb of
butter, the lowest return ever.
Voluntarianism
wasn't
working (a number of co-operative and proprietary
butter
factories had never signed up
to Paterson/Equalization) and they wanted immediate implementation of a compulsory
Commonwealth equalization scheme and a Federally fixed price, finally
coming full circle to Massy-Greene's 1919 plan. A week later
(17Mar33) 100 Mullum
district farmers gathered to hear Mr W.P. Condon of the DFS advocate
immediate implementation of Teacher
Dunn's Marketing Act,
while his mate
Mr Wiley in supporting the motion stated
had farmers adopted Senator Massy Greene's original plan, which was
rejected at a meeting of Norco shareholders, farmers would have been
£30,000,000
better off. Speaking against the Paterson scheme he said....
And
three
weeks later during a monster rally in
Lismore the pay for
March was announced as 7¼d,
the 8th consecutive monthly decrease,
at which time the farmers
totally lost their sense of humour. But
as a consolation Norco announced one of the best returns in the State, its
4121 suppliers to receive a gross pay of
£117,931
for the month; 226 farmers to get under
£10;
901 to receive between
£10
and
£20;
1343 between
£20
and
£30;
901 between
£30
and
£40;
and 750 over
£40.
Country Frith won the primary
with 33.4% of the vote, followed by Comrade Fredericks on 30.1%, Country
Gibson with 20.3%, Country Tighe 7.7%, Independent Wilkins 7.65%, Mr
Informal 2.2%, and Independent Barrie 0.8%. After distribution of
preferences Frith came home with 64% and Fredericks 36%, a far better win
for Labor than in 1932 and sending some sort of message, but
Frith was returned unopposed
until 1941 when the Teacher
decided to make
another run. And this was the last hurrah
of the Nationalists/Liberals in the region, giving the Country Party a
dream run ever since. [Engineer
W.F. was farewelled
to the great electorate in the sky in 1934
(along
with
Fair Go Editor Peek
and Advocate Kissane,
the latter needing 10 priests to get him launched.)]
For sure, the
Richmond-Tweed suffered a ‘relative’ benign Great Depression compared to
the the rest of the State, but it remains a quandary as to whether this
was due to the Country Party rewarding loyalty - an obligation called upon
at every election when the sitting members reminded their constituents of
all they had done for them. Notwithstanding the dubious Paterson Scheme
for the farmers, and the initial
huge railway
undertakings, it was mainly the
following grant money
for roads and the accompanying infrastructure that cushioned the region,
although a perennial complaint from the Richmondites was that the Country
Party was favouring Dr Page’s home turf of the Clarence with a greater
share of the projects.
The
region’s alleged
greater-than-pro rata share of
the road/infrastructure money could be sheeted home to the Country Party
because of the New State hysteria. This old secession obsession got a run
all through the 1920s when the region was convinced it wasn’t getting a
fair share of State resources, again reaching boiling point in early 1929.
At all elections, but particularly those when Labor was in power, the
loudest noise was coming from the Country Party,
providing a
nice 'wedge'
ploy,
despite all the sums being done in 1925 showing the proposition was
completely unviable, and despite cost arguments at almost every election by Comrade Fredericks and Protestant Oakes in
an attempt to counter the emotional appeal (the logo 'Country Party' itself being
persuasive packaging.)
In any event, the Star liked to
assert that the infrastructure projects put in place in the region were a
direct result of panicked politicians in Sydney placating the
punters.
[ While
the Country Party leadership was professing passion for secession, it
seems the local punters were only ever lukewarm, viewing it more as a
Tablelands obsession. And despite a tongue lashing from Lieutenant Green for
their recalcitrance, the PPU and Norco
saw access to their major market in
Sydney under threat. To stir up more interest and allay fears the 'Far
North Coast Sub-Division of the New England Movement', comprising the
electorates of Lismore, Byron, Casino and Clarence,
was formed during a Country Party
Conference at Casino in Sep1933.
While Mr H.L. Anthony was the more
prominent agitator, Deputy Mayor Eggins of
Lismore was elected leader. But it took until Apr1967,
when the region was again suffering severe depression, that
a referendum gave their
descendants an opportunity to test their salesmanship - Dr B.J. Eggins and Lawyer W.F.
Oakes supporting a No campaign that saw the majority of the 420,000 punters
in 21 electorates of Northern NSW agree with them, except for the 60% of Lismoreians who
sided with Mr J.D. Anthony MHR and wanted out of NSW, the 2nd biggest block of Yea sayers of the 9 similarly inclined electorates.]
At
the end of Apr1933 the number of registered unemployed in Lismore jumped
to 494 (from a consistent monthly average of ~450), mainly as a result of
the announcement of grants for reballasting the railway lines, although
the Mayor, Chamber of Commerce, citizens, police and the Star were all
disturbed over the influx of 'undesirables' brought by the general
perception that Lismore and district presented rich pickings, as it hadn't
suffered the same deprivations as elsewhere. It all came to a head with
the mugging of Angelo Crethar and a crackdown on beggars, street buskers
and residential hawkers (and an increase in the electricity bill with the
introduction of more street lights and all-night burning.) Nevertheless, the unemployment
figures remained
much the same into the mid year census, which disclosed 13 separate 'camps' providing digs for
a fraction of the 397
males, (and maybe housing some of the 92 females), who listed themselves as unemployed. And
a month later, in
Aug33, Nesbitt MLC told Parliament that 'Lismore has less unemployed
today than any other district in the State. There was practically no
unemployed in the town....'
Albert Park, home to 4 families and 16 single blokes,
had become a minor resort in the overall gulag, although two months later
the health inspector said there were 24 permanent 'camps' at the Park, inclusive
of the Singles' Barracks now housing 12 people, usually full to
overflowing he said,
adding that while no doubt it was true that the number of unemployed at
the camp was diminishing, it was increasing in other parts of the town by
some of those from the camp shifting into vacant houses. There were ten
unemployed in one house in North Lismore last night, he declared.... (Anecdotally, one of the
larger singles' camps was at the old council quarry where the Baptist
Church now stands in Uralba St.) So the picture isn't clear. (12mths later Albert
Park was reported with 25 permanent adults, 20 children from 18mths
to 17yrs, and 'a number of travellers' in the singles' barracks,
which were in an 'unsightly and deplorable condition', and home to
'drifters'. The 'Unemployed Camp Committee' had long been defunct,
but a new 'Unemployed and Relief Workers' Association', apparently with no interest in Albert
Park, was formed in mid 1934 with 140 members.)
However, at the census the self-assessing Lismore citizens gave
themselves a relatively healthy median income per male
'breadwinner' of
£127/yr, way
above the Municipal median of
£97
and
State median of £86,
despite 324 male breadwinners claiming they'd earned no income over the
past 12mths, perhaps indicating that the work-for-the-dole scheme
introduced to Lismore in early June hadn't yet had an effect, while 5wks
earlier Mayor Hosie reported 260 men receiving the dole in Lismore. (For comparison,
Wagga, the capital of the Riverina and a similar size to Lismore, but less
convincingly returning a Countriote, supported a pool of 595 unemployed
males and 64 females, while the male breadwinners were taking home a median
£91/yr.)
At Casino, now home to a large railway department (250 employees bringing
in ~£50,000/yr
in wages, and shortly to rise with the transfer of South Lismore's locomotive
branch), the number of
self-assessed unemployed had a bigger drop to 138 males and 22 females, and the
electorate, which extended into the Clarence region, rewarded Countriotes
until 1971 when the rural recession, just as devastating for the dairy
farmers as the Great Depression, forced a Labor experiment.
(See
Depression Statistics at
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~aliens/annex_b.htm )
Mr Frith sat on the
Lismore seat for the next 20yrs, finally ousted (at age 70) by a younger Countriote, 'Dreadnought boy' Jack Easter,
Mayor of Ballina. The Lismore consumers continued brand loyalty until 1959 when
a Country cock-up enforced a product change with
Keith Compton, ex
Engineer of Kyogle and Gundurimba Shires, who described himself as the
first and only Labor alderman elected to Lismore Council in 1941,
implying Mayor Oakes was initially a conservative.
Bruce Duncan
reintroduced the Country diet in 1965, but chose
to become an Independent
in the latter period of his 23yr reign
rather than switch to the
Nationals
after the Country Party rebranded itself. At Federal
level Richmond returned Countriotes/Nationals until the school teachers
got home in 1990. Except for a couple of aberrations the
Nationalist/UAP
sales team, repackaged
as the Liberal
Party
in 1944, has continued to give up on the region (or still can't buy
a franchise.)
Meanwhile, back on the farm, two
weeks after the 11Mar33 election Comrade Fredericks was amongst the many
wanting prompt action, the loss of spending money by the dairymen being
greater than the money flowing in on relief schemes, and pressed for the calling of meetings in
all large centres, such as Lismore, which all tenant farmers, share
farmers, mortgagee farmers and wage earners engaged in the dairying
industry be urged to attend.... And a week later the Star
reported Unprecedented scenes... at a rally of 700 district
farmers, business and professional men, and private citizens of Lismore...
at the Richmond Hall. The following week another meeting of 97
farmers proposed a dozen different solutions, from lynching any
storekeeper found selling margarine and any baker or pastry cook found
using the stuff in cakes or other pastries, to fire bombing Foley Bros,
the proprietary company supplied by
about 300 district farmers, which had not signed up for the equalization
scheme, while Chairman Gibson read out a letter from Country Dunlop MLC, new
NSW President of the non-political PPU, who had changed the party line and now advocated
legislation for a compulsory Paterson Plan. A week later Comrade
Fredericks and his Bolsheviks upped the ante and resolved to ask Mr J.T. Lang to press for
a Royal Commission to inquire into the dairying industry..., at the
same time Mr Hayter conceded that It seems nearly impossible to get dairymen
to stand together to adopt measures on a voluntary basis..., while
continuing loyalty to voluntary Paterson.
The overachieving cows, together with the pigs and calves who offered
themselves for slaughter, presented
the 5796 dairy farmers of the Richmond district with a gross income of
£1,402,203 for 1933, said Mr Wilkinson, the
senior dairy bureaucrat for the Richmond, probably including the upper Clarence in his figures. (And a net return of ~£2/10/-
per week commented a dairy farmer
- but no mention of what was passed on to the share farmer.) Nevertheless, things on the butter marketing front
continued to bounce around until the
farmers said stop stuffing around in Jan34 when their pay hit another all
time low of 6½d
per lb, giving them the lowest income since 1898 despite (or
because of)
record production.
The voluntary
Paterson finally ceased operation on 25Apr34 and
the Commonwealth Dairy Produce Equalization Committee Limited was
established to oversee new State Dairy Produce Boards (that were based on
the original Queensland model), which had the power to fix the amount of
butter for domestic consumption within States, regulate the movement
between States to prevent 'dumping', and place the surplus to Australian
requirements under the export control of the Equalization Committee, who
figured out the final pay due to each butter factory after convoluted
calculations. But
1934 and 1935 turned out to be the worse income years ever, while the
subsequent years were only marginally better, even with an easing of the
glut through the increasing exodus of exhausted farmers from the milking
shed. Between 1935 and 1939 the North Coast pensioned 18,000 cows, Norco
butter production decreased by 8,500,000 lbs and its average monthly pay
to farmers increased from 8.8d/ld to 12.3d/lb, about where it was in 1915
upon introduction of price fixing. Labor kicked in with subsidies during the
early years of WW2 in an effort to stop the haemorrhaging and keep
farmers producing butter for Britain.
The
Richmond race
of late 1934
coincided
with happy cows and the best rains since 1926 delivering another new production record and record
low price, and a recent worsening in unemployment - 390 people in Lismore, Terania
and Gundurimba, not picked up for unemployment relief projects, were
either drawing rations or being paid under the work-for-the-dole scheme,
while Mr Welsh estimates that there are about 150 registered who are
not eligible for relief work, presumably meaning there were still many
‘on the track’ who did not meet residency requirements. (At this time
Lismore Council
was authorizing the payment of an average of £500/fortnight to work-for-the-dole recipients, of whom an average
of 220
from the unemployment pool were on the job at any one time.) The
rise may have been due to the widening of the policy of creating local relief work
specifically for Sydney/Newcastle unemployed, the first project being the
£20,000 Nimbin-Cawongla-Murbah Road, started in Apr34 and created for 100
blokes from Sydney. A protest
by
Terania Shire
Council, which would normally have been given the money to carry out the
work under the roster system, eventually got 20 locals on the unemployment
register in Lismore allotted
to the camps. At the same time reafforestation
work
specifically created for 18 to 25yr old single blokes from Newcastle, got
underway in the Banyabba and Braemar State Forests. Like the road workers,
they were supplied with tents, rations,
utensils and
subsidised
rail passes to the camps, but because of the poorer pay (30hrs per wk at
1/- per hr), they were also
given
rabbit traps to earn a quid in their own time, the bunnies being the current fad in the Greek cafes
- stuffed and baked for 1/-.
(The foresters, provided
they proved they were stayers by remaining for 3mths, got paid at the rate
of the current 'living wage', meaning an increase of 16/8d per week,
after Jun34.)
One of the
biggest 'non-locals' projects in the
Richmond-Tweed was planned for the Burringbar Range where
300 miners from Cessnock were to wield picks reforming the highway.
Reafforestation work in
the wider Northern NSW region was anticipated to absorb 4000 single
blokes, at the same time deafforestation work was expanding like the
clappers.
Supplying
railway sleepers to meet the huge contracts signed with China and New
Zealand, as well as meeting the growing domestic demand, was drawing men
and families from as far afield as Victoria, all to the great distress of
ex-Mayor Hosie who was trying to have the Nightcap Range taken out of the
hands of the Forestry Department and declared a National Park. And the
roads into the State forests were ‘Sydney-siders only’ relief projects,
much to the displeasure of the Shire Councils who figured it was 'trespassing
on the rights of local government', an objection already voiced about
the Main Roads Board machinations.
Of the
£300,000 allocated for development of the Upper Clarence and
Upper Richmond, £172,000 had been spent by mid 1934 (£118,000 had gone on
wages alone), creating 62 miles of new roads and 30 new bridges in the
Bonalbo district and giving access to 450,000 acres, 130,000 acres of
which was earmarked for dairying, on which acreage were now 475 holdings
(an expansion from 214 at the start of the project in late 1932), some
already adding to the mountain of butter. Norco's Bonalbo factory now had 125 suppliers which meant that,
with families and the multiplier effect, there were about 9000 people
dependent on the Bonalbo factory and its suppliers. Mr Dunningham, on
the presentation of these figures to the Bonalbo Agricultural Society, in
front of Mr Eggins, Mr Hayter, Editor Care, et al, was given a rousing
cheer and allowed to indulge in a bit of politicking. ... Mr Dunningham
remarked that 'they had their own methods of dealing with communists on
relief works,' and he advised Bonalbo people to 'boot communists out' if
they should endeavour to establish themselves in the Bonalbo district....
He spoke of the personal friendship between himself and the deputy Premier
(Mr Bruxner) - the latter being responsible for Mr Dunningham's visit -
and of his visit as an indication of the good feeling existing between the
UAP and the Country Party in the State sphere. 'It would be a good thing
for
Australia if the same feeling existed in the Federal sphere....'
The
local
field
for the Federal
sphere
included
3 familiar stayers
-
Country Green, Country Gibson and Teacher
Fredericks, now
formally standing as 'State Labor' (aka 'True Labor' and 'Lang Labor'
verses 'Federal Labor'),
with Country Eggins
making his debut.
But it nearly didn’t turn out that way. At the end of Jul34
21 members of
UCP’s Richmond Electoral Council
voted to
endorse
Green and Eggins, much to the indignation of stunned Mr Gibson and furious
Lt
Green, who could not understand the giving of a gratuitous endorsement
to another candidate. Nevertheless, Green and Eggins hit the campaign
trail, running big adverts paid for and endorsed by the UCP, while a week
later Gibson started running
two-liners,
paid for and endorsed by himself,
with no indication of what party he represented.
The groundswell that developed, particularly the protests from Kyogle,
Casino and Murbah,
echoed in the Star's
editorials,
threatened to split the party until the Central Executive, which had
rubber-stamped the Richmond’s recommendation, stepped in and endorsed
Gibson at the
end of August, just over 2wks out from polling day.
It seems that Labor initially had decided not to run, but rushed Comrade
Fredericks to the blocks after they saw the turmoil developing.
Pre
campaign Dr Page
took all the credit for The dairy stabilisation legislation…which...
is largely due to the Country Party’s vigilance and incessant action...,
while Labor, now under the presidency of Comrade Harris of Murbah,
figured it was ‘the latest and probably most wicked proposal,’ ...because
of... the restriction of production…. These butter comments served
as the rare mention of the elephant in the electorate during the rest of the
campaign, which saw Mr Eggins and Mr Gibson mostly singing catchy lyrics
from the same hymnbook... ‘only men of country experience who were
thoroughly familiar with country requirements were fitted to represent
country interests’, while Lt Green was in a huff most of the time (or
made to look so by the Star.) All condemned Fredericks for wanting to
nationalise the banks, while his Labor colleagues continued to be
slightly unhinged with the conspiracy theory that both the NSW and Federal
Governments were the puppets of a shadowy 'big business ring.' New English
Editor Care carried on the Star's tradition, giving them minimal coverage
and consigning them to the usual place in the pecking order, and, despite
the initial entertaining Country preselection skulduggery, along with the usual
anti-Labor Fredericks of Caniaba and Nimbin getting bolder and even
confusing the Lieutenant, also
mentioned that The 1934 election campaign has been one of the quietest
on record.
In any
event,
the Lieutenant again won the primary with 27.8% of the vote,
the True Believer
Teacher trailing by 238 votes on
27.4%,
Country Eggins with 26.5%,
PPU
Gibson with a half-hearted
15.4% and Mr Informal
on
2.9%. Once again second-count distribution was scary, Eggins jumping ahead
of Green upon receipt of Gibson’s preferences, but after the elimination
of Fredericks Green got home 25,366 to 24,313.
Bolshie
Fredericks again won Casino,
and
now added Lismore, Murbah and Tweed Heads to
his fan club,
while Green took the Tablelands and
Eggins
marginally
captured
most of the
remaining subdivisions.
At the declaration of the poll Lt Green was an ungracious winner (or again
made to look so by the Star), claiming that ‘vile
slanders’ concerning him had been concocted and disseminated…. He asserted
that if any case of ‘this malicious and abominable lying’ was reported to
him he would take steps to vindicate his character… and
not being paranoid
that… a ‘parochial faction’, having its headquarters in Lismore, had
tried unsuccessfully to unseat him…. Mr Eggins maintained he fought
a clean campaign, while the Teacher was happy with the
big increase in
his vote over last time,
all his new fans being
disaffected UAP voters reckoned the Lieutenant. Mr Gibson didn’t
front.
Nationally, the ALP made a
small gain to 18 seats, the UAP a loss to 33, the UCP a loss to 14, and Independents a gain of 5 to sit on 10. Prime Minister Lyons was
again forced to form a coalition with the UCP,
but
Dr Page’s influence wasn’t
nearly as great as his previous power position in the coalition.
He
was awarded the Ministry of Commerce, while the UCP received only another
4 of the 14 cabinet posts, 2 of them without portfolio. In the Senate the
ALP was left floundering with 3 seats, the UAP a gain of 5 to 26 and the
UCP a gain of 2 to 7.
The
number of eligible electors
on the Richmond roll
(53,675) had
continued
to rise from the
Depression proper, but by
the election of 1937 the expansion had slowed (54,884) -
Star figures.
Entertaining skullduggery continued into the following council elections
of 1Dec34.
Two weeks out from this
election Mayor Ross was sprung as the mysterious lessee of the old rifle
range, which for 4yrs council had been trying to purchase from the Dept of
Defence to preserve as a remnant of the Big Scrub, and in moving a motion
of ‘no confidence’ Alderman Hosie said Your attitude has been
outrageous and hypocritical…. You have treated your fellow aldermen in a
dastardly manner in the matter of the scrub lease…. Members of this
council have been publicly belittled…. Two days later Mayor Ross
announced he wouldn’t be contesting the elections
(along with supporters Aldermen Kellas and Arthur
-
and all grossly unfair said Lawyer Basil Oakes), but an outraged Ald Hosie
took the debate right to the wire. All sitting aldermen were returned,
with ex-Mayor Lawyer McKenzie being 1 of the 3 new faces (along with
Storekeeper Ben Frith,
brother of William MLA and a
committeeman
with
the Lismore branch of the UCP, and Chemist Brand, the current President of
the branch and a Director of
Northern Star Ltd.) The Lismore punters were a hard comedy audience to impress,
the Star commenting that the elections did not provide much interest
for Lismore ratepayers, after 36% of the 4041 electors on the roll
fronted up (a decrease from 48% of 4049 in 1931.) Ald Eggins was
elected Mayor. (Apathy occurred across the region, the Ballinarians
being the least interested with
only
26% of
the 1934 enrolled
punters
foregoing the beach to do their duty. The Casino Mayor declared the number
of votes a ‘record in reverse.’)
A few
weeks later apathy was still the go when the Lismore branch of the UCP
began gearing up for the State elections, and the Treasurer, Mr Allen,
declared
...The
(financial) position is even worse in the other
sub-groups, which are as dead as Julius Caesar. There is not one of them
constitutionally alive…, and promptly resigned. The Secretary,
ex-Labor
Gillies, was appointed as a ‘paid organiser’
to stir up interest,
playing
a part in the huge Country Party picnic on Tooloom Range on 28Jan35, at
which Dr Page, Colonel Bruxner and Mr Dunningham were amongst the 1000
people attending for the launch of the latest network of roads in the
Upper Richmond/Clarence, bringing the total spent over the last 2½yrs
to £243,780.
According to Mr Dunningham, about 1100 or 1200
unemployed men had been sent to the district when the work was begun. Of
that number 600 had left of their own accord, having secured private
employment, in many instances in the district…. Because they had not been
good workers, about 300 of the men had been dismissed from the work
(presumably the ‘communists’ he mentioned earlier), which had been
carried to completion by between 200 and 300 workers who had done their
job well….
A week
later Mr Welsh reported that 231
new
men had registered with him in the last
2mths, many when the Main Roads’ contract at Urbenville finished with
the object of being placed on the Main Road’s Cawongla job, at which
time there was a keen demand for farm hands to help with high production
due of the continuing good rains. The unemployed however, preferred
the work-for-the-dole money, amounting to
£1/1/10d per fortnight
for single blokes, 80 of whom had such employment with the Lismore
council. They weren’t interested in the farmers’ offer of £1/wk and board
in return for labouring 25hrs a day, 8 days a week.
The
Lismore police had no sympathy at all with men who will not accept work
when it is offered. These individuals, who can only be classed as
‘unemployables’, may find themselves with nothing at all if they persist
in adopting this attitude…. Similar sentiments were expressed by the
Casino police who were telling the single
blokes
that they must take to the track and find work... if they rejected
farm
work. The unemployed held a protest meeting at the
Casino
Town Hall: Realising,
as we do, the degrading effect the track has on young men and how almost
impossible is the task, we desire to know if the constable is taking this
action on his own initiative, or if it is an order from the department….
The Northern Star was also hardening up: …The relief work system was
never intended to become an industry and there is little doubt but that,
if it were abolished, many of the recipients, especially the single men,
would be forced to take farm work and would no longer be a charge on
taxpayers.
At the
same time as these goings-on Mr Gillies was
the leading
agitator
for
a meeting of dairy farmers because,
amongst other things,
…we cannot afford to listen to the abortive cry of ‘limitation of
production.’ Although
Norco
directors refused to convene this meeting, it is not being called now in
any spirit of antagonism or censure on the directorate…. Norco has all the
eggs in the one basket, while tons of dairy products from outside
proprietories find profitable market in the district. These bye-products
and side lines must be taken up or Norco will be left standing still….
And Spencer
Cottee had been rehabilitated: Had they listened more to him than some
of the 'heads', who ran the meetings at Byron Bay, probably things would
have been much better than they were to-day....
The Queensland farmers were still getting 1½d per lb more than the New South Welshmen and the local proprietary
company,
Foley
Bros,
was getting
seriously competitive with its new factory,
but Norco said nonsense and the farmers remained resigned to their fate.
Two months later (18Apr35) Frith MLA was returned unopposed
(and again 4May38).
(Apart from cheese in 1940, Norco remained complacent for another 15yrs
before belatedly redistributing the eggs - bottled milk and ice-cream in
1950 and yoghurt in 1960 - perhaps prompted by Peters Ice Cream Pty Ltd
taking a
controlling stake in Foley Bros in 1946.)
The
Lieutenant’s Waterloo came
at
the Federal
election of late 1937.
(Country Green 29.7%
primary, Labor Fredericks 28.6%,
Country Anthony 23.5%, Country Gibson 15.8%, Mr Informal 2.4%.) Over two thirds of Labor preferences went to Country
Anthony, giving him a comfortable win over
Lt
Green. Labor won Lismore and
Casino on primary votes, while
Banana Bender Anthony ran third on primary
in his home
plantation of Murbah, following Green and Fredericks.
The Lieutenant was gracious in defeat, but
still
obsessed with
setting the record straight
that it was he that originated,
and saw carried to fruition, the 6d per lb duty on New Zealand butter
that made the Paterson Scheme workable.
He stood for the State seat of Bathurst in
1938 and was trounced by both the Labor and UAP candidates.
Labor continued to make a comeback
nationally, winning 11 seats to sit on 29, while the UAP lost 5 to 28 and
the UCP gaining 2 to 16. And they recovered in the Senate, gaining 13
seats to sit on 16, the UAP down 10 to 16 and the UCP down 3 to 4. Prime
Minister Lyons died 7Apr1939 and Dr Page became PM for 18 days until the UAP elected Mr Menzies, a man with no great love of the Country Party. Nor
did Dr Page have any great affection for Mr Menzies whom he tried to undermine,
resulting in he and the UCP being excused from cabinet, the party
splitting and Dr Page subsequently losing the leadership to Mr Fadden, one of
the splitters. But they were invited back in early 1940 and shortly
afterwards Dr Page was
reappointed as Minister for Commerce, although later sent out of
the way to London after Menzies resigned under pressure in late 1941. Prime Minister Fadden took temporary command until the Independents
switched sides and gave Labor the keys to the treasury.
In late 1940 Mr Anthony
consolidated his grip on Richmond. This election was greeted with apathy as
the citizens were distracted by the war, aided by the Star, which devoted
most of its space to armed campaigns, although, paradoxically, trying
to talk
up interest in election combat: It is impossible to reconcile the public attitude of ‘can’t
be bothered, the war is more important’ with the knowledge that the
results of the polling have a vital bearing on Australia’s part in the
conflict… All except dyed-in-the-wool Labourites are confused about the
Labour factions, knowing nothing about the causes and usually caring less.
There was a time when, no matter how bitter the pre-selection disputes,
Labour would always go united to the poll, but that no longer applies…
Country Anthony
scored 64.2% of
the primary vote, Comrade Fredericks,
standing as 'Australian Labor Party (Non Communist)', 30.6%,
and 62yr old Photographer Collingridge of Canberra, standing as State Labor
(different to the earlier 'State Labor'),
4%. Mr Anthony took a clean sweep,
winning every subdivision to turn the whole electorate conservative,
although
the Teacher
marked his paper with a fail in
the actual towns of Lismore and
Murbah.
(Fredericks, aged 60, gave the game
away the following year after a tilt at Country Frith, but his brother, Francis Clarence, carried on the
family political tradition - their father had been a local political
agitator back in the 1890s - with another go in 1947.)
Nationally Labor continued its comeback, winning another 3 seats
to
ride home on 32, the UAP
unseated from 5 to
canter in with
23, the UCP losing 2 to
graze on 14
and the Independents gaining 4 to
play
with 6.
In Oct41 the Independents presented Prime Minister Curtin and the ALP with
the licence to run the country. The new Liberal-Country coalition regained
control of the purse in 1949 and Labour went into prolonged disarray.
Back in Nov39
the Richmond PPU had resolved to do something about the lack of
political action on 'curtailment of margarine sales'. Farmer
Whipps of Alstonville advocated that the Union would do better to
attach itself to the Labour Party, prompting Chairman Gibson to
retort (with hand on heart) that the Union was not and had never
been attached to or allied with any political party
(repeated as 'non party and non political' on becoming
President of the NSW PPU in 1943 and appointment to the Australian Dairy
Produce Board in 1944, serving in both jobs through
Labour and Coalition administrations into the late 1950s.)
In any event
it was Federal Labour that introduced escalating butter subsidies during WW2,
which always lagged the farmers'
production costs resulting in another 7000 registered dairies disappearing from NSW
by 1950. And at a
PPU meeting in Lismore in Aug51 500 distressed farmers threatened to go on strike,
following Labour Premier McGirr's refusal to support another rise in the
retail price of butter 'unless it is made by Commonwealth subsidy'.
The Prices Commissioner had just granted a 6d rise, from 2/2d to 2/8d per
lb, but the militant farmers argued this came nowhere near compensating
for their production costs. The meeting condemned the Federal Govt
for not honouring election promises... and was ...appalled at the
attitude of the Country Party members of the Federal Cabinet.... Farmers
had been peasants for years, employing their wives and children as
slaves to provide butter for the community..., but Treasurer Fadden
refused to go beyond the current subsidy of 1/3d per lb (£16,800,000/yr),
forcing Premier Girr to blink first and approve another rise to 3/2d.
The brinkmanship game continued and in mid 1952 NSW Labour again caved
in (a rise to 4/2d) in the face of Treasurer Fadden's steely stare.
There it sat for a while as consumption of butter continued to fall,
production costs and inflation continued to rise, margarine continued to
gain market share, Peters acquired the remaining shares of Foley Bros and cleverly sold to
Norco, and Lismore elected its first ever Labour MLA.
In May50 the Northern Star headlined
Record
Prices Reflect Confidence in Future.... During last year 342 building
permits involving an expenditure of
£668,624
were issued by Lismore City Council...,
and it
was difficult to secure a house under
£2000.... One of the largest firms of wholesale merchants in the
Commonwealth, David Cohen and Co Pty Ltd., recently purchased the
Riviera dance hall.... Although the price has not been disclosed, it is
understood they are insured for
£10,000. The 25 foot shop frontage occupied
by Messrs Lance and Co in Molesworth Street
(next
Crethar’s Air Conditioned Cafe)
was recently sold for
£550
per foot. The single storey brick building in Woodlark Street, known as
Clive Buildings, was recently sold... for
£23,500.
It is understood that the big chain store organisation, Messrs Fosseys
Ltd., bought this
£470 per foot property.... Messrs Fred
Ash and Co Pty Ltd acquired their property in Magellan for
£20,000.
McKenzie Buildings in Woodlark
Street (housing The
Richmond Cafe) have been
sold... in the vicinity
of
£13,500.
And Council has approved plans for
Notaras Bros £20,000 suite of shops in Woodlark;
construction is about to start on the new £170,000 nurses quarters and
new £400,000 hospital; and the McKenzie Chambers in Molesworth Street (housing the
Golden Globe Cafe)
is expected to attract keen bidding....
(They went unsold at the 19May50 auction and passed in at £17,000 on a
reserve of £20,000.)
Over 600 farms in the Richmond district change hands every 12
months, according to Lismore auctioneers. They stated that there had
been a steady decline in the sale of going concerns. From the owners’
point of view, these were not a good proposition, and more money could
be made from share farming. This was borne out by the fact that 39
applications were received in response to a recent advertisement for
share farmers.
However, this would also indicate
that many of the people could not secure accommodation in Lismore and
wanted to get on a farm where the cost of living was cheaper , he said.
The majority of farms offering for sale today could be classed as second
and third class properties....
Despite continuing dairy desperation and
rural destitution
Mr Anthony went on to a
stellar career and held Richmond until 1957, when his death intervened and the seat passed to his son, who sat on it
for another 27yrs, also with a distinguished service.
The communists were kept on hand and milked at every election into the
1960s.
The cows were kept on life support and enjoyed a long-lingering death
from the subsidy drip until Saint Gough showed mercy. The farmers drifted to greener pastures and Richmond
stagnated through to the late 1970s, while Norco,
a once internationally-known
brand name, continued to fade from memory.
And
in Nov1964 'The Barons of
Molesworth Street', Messrs McIntosh, McLean, Robertson, Brand and Opie, the owners of Northern Star Ltd and
Richmond River Broadcasters Pty Ltd (Radio 2LM Lismore),
bundled their media interests, inclusive of controlling stakes in subsidiaries
The Tweed Newspaper Co Pty Ltd (Murbah), Gold Coast
Publications Pty Ltd (Southport), Casino Newspaper Pty Ltd (Casino),
Tweed Radio and Broadcasting Pty Ltd (Radio
2MW Murbah)
and
Richmond-Tweed TV Ltd (Channel 8 Lismore), into the entity Northern Star Holdings Ltd,
which was listed as a public company in Mar1965 and within a few years had
gobbled up more media outlets to become a monopoly media vehicle
delivering conservative homilies between Kempsey and Beenleigh,
although it hardly mattered politically
- the media rarely
influences anybody and the Star group played to a regional audience that
would’ve evolved with a Presbyterian-flavoured corporate culture anyway.
The music changed following the
takeover tricks of Westfield/Lowy in 1986, at which time pagans in synch
with a different rhythm of life were reshaping the regional culture and
conducting a new media
orchestra.
(See under 'Newspapers' at
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~aliens/references.htm
for a potted history of the local media.)
[Disclaimer: This is a subjective outa-my-depth
over-indulged segue into factors irrelevant to those affecting the
regional economy, and hence the ups and downs of the Greek cafes, but the political history of the Richmond-Tweed deserves
a separate professional book - along with the settlement patterns of the Scots and
Irish, or Proddies and Micks.
While enclaves biased one way
or another arose throughout the region, they all danced to the same rhythm
of country life, the differences only ever in the choreography, despite
the Presbyterians
providing
most of
the political, commercial and media
music.
Through to the 1930s
the Catholics consistently outnumbered the Presbyterians 2 to 1,
while the combined
weight of both groups was always less than the Anglicans.
(See
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~aliens/annexes.htm for
religious distribution.)
(See
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~aliens/electoral_statistics.htm
for thumbnail sketch of early electoral history.)]
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