What Happened in Australia.
I found Australia in a strange way.
Every State had a "socialistic" Government, and yet all public works
were controlled by combines of capitalists. The business interests of
these combines were so interlocked as to be one huge concern generally
known as the "Syndicate." It carried out all constructional works at a
percentage on the cost. The percentage and interest on the capital
invested were raised by the Commonwealth and State Governments mainly
from customs duties at first and, when these slackened, as they did
later, from land taxation.
It seemed strange to find that the Socialist Governments had actually
handed over the Australian States to the oft'-maligned capitalist; and,
stranger still, the people did not complain. The fact of the matter was
that the people had found that socialistic theories were very fine for
platform platitudes, but not for practical politics.
Australia learnt over again the lesson she should have remembered from
an experiment of twenty years previously.
It was the old story of "New Australia": the story that taught the world
that ideal socialism is impossible whilst human nature is as it is. And
yet Australia had forgotten it! It is strange that people rarely profit
from past failures. Countries as well as peoples usually insist on
buying their own experience, and the history of the socialistic
experiment in Australia between 1910 and 1917 was simply a repetition of
the great failure of William Lane's ideal.
It is interesting, at this stage, to study the analogy.
In 1890, a brilliant-phrasing Socialist, named William Lane, set
Queensland workers' minds aflame with his Utopian dreams of the ideal
socialistic life that could be lived on a large tract of country
offered them in the heart of South America. Three years later 250
Australians, including 60 single men and many single girls, put all
their wealth into a common fund and sailed away from Australia in a
specially chartered ship.
It was a unique experiment in Socialism. The men were not the scum of
cities, but enthusiastic and hearty individuals; clean-thinking
Irishmen, for the most part, trained in the tasks of settlement. All
were equal, and the warmest comradeship existed between men and women.
Here was the first weakness of the Socialistic creed: by all
contributing to a common fund, Lane had provided for communism of goods;
by recognising all children as belonging to the State he had provided
for communism of children; but as a father and a husband he feared
communism of morals. Hence he framed a regulation aimed to preserve the
conventional relations between the sexes, especially on board ship. To
prevent "flirtations" he issued a decree forbidding women to appear on
deck after sunset!
The first dissension arose through the women objecting to remain in the
stuffy atmosphere of the ship's hold below the water line from sunset to
sunrise, and, as each woman claimed equality with Lane, the notice was
torn down. Lane, however, produced a bundle of proxies from members of
the movement in Australia, so that his single vote constituted a
majority! He then assumed the post of dictator.
The party then split into two factions; one that believed in Lane, and
the other that objected to his despotic control and questioned his right
to allot to them the "dirty jobs," such as "washing up" and "scrubbing
the decks."
After many trying adventures the socialists reached the site of the
communistic settlement and found opportunity to study and compare
Socialism in practice and in theory. They had at last done away with the
bad old methods of capitalism, which "ground the people down and robbed
them of rest, energy, food and life"; so the "New Australians"
determined to avoid drudgery in their new life, and were very keen on
being properly "uplifted." There were a number of musical instruments in
the stores, so thirty-six socialists formed a band and practised
assiduously in the pleasant shade of the trees for a considerable
proportion of the time they should have been clearing timber and
building houses under the tropical sun.
Those who toiled hardest protested, but Lane, with a stern hand and a
revolver in his belt put down revolt and punished those who disputed his
decision by setting them the most disagreeable tasks.
Against Lane's decision there was no appeal. Three men disobeyed him and
he ordered them out of the colony. One of them had put L1000 into the
venture and wanted to argue. Lane, however, called in a posse of native
soldiers, armed to the teeth. They marched into the camp with fixed
bayonets, and the three malcontents were taken out and cast adrift.
One of the "faithful" wrote at this time:--
"We have surrendered all civil rights and become mere cogs in a wheel.
We are no longer active factors in the scheme of civilisation: in fact,
each man is practically a slave. Lane does the thinking; we do the work.
Result--barbarism!"
A third of the party soon broke camp and threw themselves upon the
charity of Paraguay. Those who stayed behind shortly afterwards expelled
Lane. With forty-five sympathisers he set out to establish another
Paradise!
Those who stayed behind drew up a series of regulations that made any
change a subject for universal discussion, and as the regulations were
being continually altered, public gatherings took up most of the day's
work. Convening meetings and arguing thereat was found much more
interesting than toiling in the hot sun; so practically little work was
done.
A Frenchman had a little farm close by and was making a small fortune
from it for himself, whilst thirty-five Australians next to him could
not make a living for each other! So much for the advantages of
Socialistic co-operation!
Soon the "New Australians" had to get busy to prevent starvation. One of
the many authoritative writers said:--
A brief but brilliant span of existence may be attained by a
Socialistic State living on the capital of its predecessors, but it
soon runs through the capital and goes out like a spent squib and
leaves a nasty smell.
(New South Wales also found this out ten years later.)
Instead of the "New Australians" getting busy and making the profits
that awaited the exploitation of the wonderful timber on their area,
they looked for easy work and fancied they found it in the cultivation
of ramie fibre.
The fibre failed; money was being exhausted; the leaders were faced with
two propositions. They had either to set the people at productive labor,
such as timber-getting, or raise money somehow, somewhere. They followed
the latter as being the easier task. So they sold to an outside
capitalist the exclusive right for three years of cutting timber on the
area. They sold it for an absurdly small consideration, to find later
that they were also prevented cutting wood for their own uses!
Although Lane had started a new colony, he made but two innovations. He
ruled that as woman's only sphere was in the home, he would abolish the
woman's vote. His other innovation for an ideal Socialist community was
the employment of cheap native labor. He thus revived the "wicked
capitalistic idea of cheap--nigger labor."
It was also found that the inclusion of the native element had a serious
effect upon the morality of the Socialists. There was a remarkable
increase of half-caste children without the formality of marriage with
the Paraguayians.
Communism was still advocated, yet to the communistic dining table each
man brought his private bottle of treacle, which he stowed away between
meals under his pillow or in some other secret hiding place. Children
grew up godless and ignorant and--Lane disappeared!
The original population was reduced to 22 men, 17 women and 51 children.
It was decided to abandon Socialism and let each man work for himself
instead of "each for all and all for each." Then things began to
prosper. The ambition of each was to become a capitalist. There was no
talk of an "eight-hour day"! From sunrise to sunset men, women, and
children worked, and in an incredibly short time houses rose, gardens
developed and later teachers came to uplift the children and to start a
Sunday School.
What is left of "New Australia" to-day is an average community of sane,
sober and hard-working farmers, taking as their motto: "What we have, we
hold"!
Yet the failure of that experiment was forgotten in the rush of
Socialistic legislation that gripped Australia before and during the
war; and the rise of the "Syndicate" saved Australia from a similar
wreck that followed the previous experiment.
The "Syndicate" idea began to develop. It became another name for
co-operation. The keen people at the head of it saw that its continued
success depended on the people having an interest in the profits of
their work, so they gave the public opportunity to share in it.
The "Syndicate" expanded its sphere of co-operation. Did a State factory
fail, then, if there was a chance of profit in the material it
manufactured, a co-operation "Syndicate"--a subsidiary branch of the
combine--took it over. The workers, supplanted by labor-saving
machinery, were taken up by the great farms the "Syndicate" was
developing throughout the country.
The "Syndicate," however, did not encourage manufacture unless the goods
could be made cheaper and better than they could be imported duty free.
It studied every new manufacturing proposition apart from any tariff
possibilities. The first point it considered was whether it was
advisable to establish in Australia a factory with necessarily expensive
power to compete with Canadian or other factories that utilised cheap
water power.
This policy naturally brought about two conditions. It established
manufacture on an honest basis by doing away with the necessity for the
usual political wire-pulling for the imposition of tariff duties, and it
gradually brought about free trade in goods not worth manufacturing in
Australia.
From an industrial point of view the "Syndicate" system revolutionised
the lot of the Australian worker. It fixed a minimum wage, much higher
than the then ruling rate, and instituted piece-work. The regular wage
was guaranteed whatever the output, and the piece-work rate was added to
it.
The "Syndicate" introduced scientific management and, from a business
point of view, considered men first and profits second. It knew that
better working conditions resulted in easier and more profitable work.
It considered the conditions of labor by grading employees. It studied
their equipment and noted if tools, benches or machines were best fitted
for the people who used them. It saw that a "five-foot" man was not
given a "six-foot" shovel, or that a short girl-worker was not sitting
on a seat that would be more comfortable for a tall girl. It fitted the
equipment to the worker just as a shoe is fitted to the foot.
It studied the work as well as the equipment. Each part of the work was
specially arranged to eliminate unnecessary movements until it became so
standardised as to give the worker the easiest way of doing it properly.
Working hours were shortened; yet more work was done. Each worker did
what he could do best. Profit-sharing was introduced in all ventures,
but it was based upon individual effort; in fact, the "Syndicate"
combine was a system of organisation and profitable co-operation, a
system that put the Socialist out of business.
Organisation and co-operation stopped the mad war upon private
enterprise and industry. It found the value of men lay in their ability
to think individually and act collectively. Trade Unionism did not do
that. It is true it helped the workman to secure higher wages, better
working conditions and shorter hours, but it was not satisfied with
that. It sought absolute ownership of factories and all means of
production, with evasion of responsibilities and no provision made
against deficits.
The Trade Unionist called for opportunity for all, but denied it to
those workers who could not afford to pay the entrance fee to the union.
Whilst the Trade Unionist, on the one hand, was getting highest wages
from private enterprise, on the other hand, he demanded from the State
cheap house rentals--as at Daceyville and other State-controlled
suburbs.
The Australian worker, therefore, practically lived upon Government
charity, until the Government was beggared and the capitalist
"Syndicate" providentially stepped in and saved the country.
It was well for Australia that the capitalists considered the
individual, and that it was just as good business to have efficient
machinists as well as efficient machines.
It was well for Australia that the capitalists knew the value of human
flesh and nurtured it. And Australia understood. In the stress of the
German War it had sobered up. It had dropped the Utopian dreams of the
impracticable and used its head. It saw an analogy in the system of the
"Syndicate," "Organisation and Co-operation," to a similar system that
had led them to victory on the battlefields of Europe.
The perfect organisation that military training gave, and the intense
co-operation the call of the blood demanded, instilled these two great
principles into Australian character.
The great German War was worth while to Australia.
It is evening as I write these concluding phrases. I look across Sydney
Harbor from my Cremorne home, and I see the city skyline edged with a
glistening fringe.
Beyond the distant hills of purple blue the sun is sinking in a saffron
sky.
Into the evening air the homeward 'planes are rising from the city park.
A faint report comes from the sunset gun and starts a train of vision
running through my mind.
I hear again the gun that brought me from the sky into the Forest of the
Argonne, and then "Nap" passes through my thoughts. (He is now in charge
of a Syndicate concern.)
Madame then comes into vision. (She is now the "gran'ma" of my home.)
Then Wilbrid totters across my field of thought.
And then Helen--but my reverie has ended....
She calls me in.
(The End.)