New novel recalls socialist origins of Labour Party

Press, 24 July 1984, Page 21

New novel recalls socialist origins of Labour Party

By

KEN COATES

For all its present middle-class attributes, The New Zealand Labour Party, which swept into office in the snap election, has its origins in a long, bitterly fought coalminers’ strike nearly 80 years ago in the small West Coast town of Blackball. The 11-week struggle, eventually won by the miners, at a time when strikes were banned by law, attracted nation-wide attention, embarrassed the Government and paved the way for a vigorous labour movement. It was master-minded by the pioneer socialists, Bob Semple and Paddy Webb, both Australians, who eventually became Ministers in the first Labour Cabinet of 1935, and one of the most overlooked figures in New Zealand history, Patrick Hodgens Hickey. The stirring story of the strike, with its confrontations, intrigue, fierce loyalities, antagonisms, clashes with the law, humour and human suffering is recalled in a book just published, “Blackball 08.” Its author is a West Coast-born Christchurch journalist, Eric Beardsley, who has been Canterbury University’s information officer for almost 20 years. He calls his book a novel, but he found the basic facts of the strike so gripping and significant, and the main characters so strong in the historical record, that he has virtually left it as a set piece. With six daughters, Eric Beardsley’s Christchurch home was often visited by male university students. Back in 1968, after the Blackball mine closed, be bought a miner’s cottage on the Moonlight road for $4OO with nine of those students, each of them contributing $4O.

It was while holidaying there “and talking to the old jokers in the pub” that he became interested in the stirring events of Blackball. New Zealand in the early years of the century was hardly a workers’ paradise, though it was proudly proclaimed to be a country without strikes. The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1894 at first granted wage increases for workers, but from 1901 when it

stopped doing this, it came under criticism. But many unionists remembered the crushing defeat of the maritime strike of 1890, and so the arbitration system was tolerated. Pat Hickey, born in Nelson, soaked up socialist ideas while working in America. He worked in mines where strikes led to violence, occasionally to death, and sometimes to open warfare between strikers and armed thugs hired by employers. He was an official of the Western Federation of Miners, the toughest, most hard-bitten of American unions. Son of an Irish farmer, “he would have been a commanding figure if he’d taken up the sacred calling his family had planned for him,” writes Beardsley. “You only had to look at the thrust of his jaw, the challenge in those dark eyes, the slightly bitter twist of a mouth women couldn’t quite take their eyes off. He would have been a bishop for sure, maybe a cardinal. “A battler, anyway, you could sense that straight away. He’d never knuckle under. Intelligent too. And oblivious to his own charm.” Hickey worked as a miner, first

at Denniston where he met Paddy Webb, from Victoria. Although then only 22, Webb had been a labour agitator for six years, active in the long, bitter Victoria miners’ strike. He was black-listed from working in the mines there. Hickey later described Webb as “a square-built young chap, always late for work, rushing across the. Denniston plateau, the backs of his trouser legs worn through at the bottom, and vigorously flapping as he hastened on his way.” His Irish charm, rough appearance and ready smile concealed a toughness that few suspected. It was Webb who persuaded Michael Joseph Savage, his Victorian mate, (later canonised as our first Labour Prime Minister) to come to New Zealand as well. Savage did not like the idea of all that West Coast rain, so he moved to Auckland. Hickey got the boot from the Denniston mine for his “stirring” but found work at the Runanga State mine where he soon became firm friends with Bob Semple. Of Scots-Irish parentage and born in New South Wales, Semple began work in the Lithgow mines at the age of nine as a trapper, opening and closing underground ventilation doors. By 1907, he was a seasoned

agitator. His spare build gave the impression of height. Prominent cheeckbones and a drooping moustache accentuated his sunken cheeks. He held himself erect, shoulders a little back, the stance of a boxer on his toes, he had survived the violent, angry, strike-breaking methods applied in Gippsland, but was also blackballed, and entered New Zealand under an assumed name. Semple was a strong personality, deceptively unassuming in private, but dynamic in public. He had boundless energy and enthusiasm, and an ability to galvanise others into action. He was a well known industrial radical in the Grey district, dedicated to worker protest and action, giver and receiver of vitriolic abuse, called “Bob the ranter,” and “the demon of dissension.” Hickey, Semple and Webb decided to provoke a strike with the aim of discrediting the arbitration system, and advertising the strength of socialist ideas. They applied for jobs at Black-

ball, were taken on and began an energetic socialist campaign. As entertainment alone, it was a godsend to the isolated, dreary little town of about 500 people, who listened with growing excitement to the street orators. The socialists centred on an issue which would get maximum union support for a strike. This was a long-standing grievance — only 15 minutes for “crib” or lunch time, the shortest lunch break of any mine in the country, “or the world,” it was claimed. The miners’ union resolved that its members would take half an hour and told the management so. But instead of sacking the agitators, the mine manager, Eric Leitch prosecuted Hickey for refusing to obey his order to resume work after a 15-minute break. Hickey recalled one of the most dramatic moments in the country’s industrial history when he wrote later: “The manager came to my working place while I was eating my lunch and stood over me with his watch in his hand, and at the end of 15 minutes in what no doubt was intended for a tone of authority, said: ‘Hickey, you have had 15 minutes for “crib”; as manager of this mine, I order you to resume work’. “I looked up at him, and objected to his arbitrary demand and replied: ‘“But look here, Boko, I haven’t eaten my pie yet.’ “‘No joking,’ he replied; ‘I order you to resume work’. “‘And I refuse,’ I replied.” Later, when fined, Hickey refused to pay, and his stand failed to produce the planned result. The challenge to the mine management was repeated when seven unionist members of the Blackball Socialist Party persisted in taking half an hour for lunch and were dismissed. This played into the socialists’ hands, and the union resolved to stop work until all the men were reinstated. Four were well known local men of long unionist standing. Regretting his haste, Leitch offered complete reinstatement, but with socialist prompting, the union demanded payment for lost time and for ballot dismissals in future.

The manager refused such a back-down and the union prepared for a long struggle. Socialist speakers travelled all over the coast whipping up support — H. M. Fitzgerald, a socialist

organiser from Wellington, walked 20 miles from Greymouth to Blackball for an evening meeting, and collapsed from exhaustion while giving his speech. The strikers added another grievance to that of “crib” time — objection to the number of truckers working a 10-hour day. The strike was now attracting national attention and widespread sympathy in David-taking-on-Goliath terms. When the Labour Department took the union to court for striking illegally, 30 miners wearing red rosettes and red ties crowded into the Greymouth court. When the testy judge adjourned for an hour and a half lunch break, after earlier holding that 15 minutes was ample “crib” time in a dark coal mine, the miners hissed their scorn. The whole country was indignant. The union was fined £75, only£ 25 less than the maximum, and the court found that the sacking of supposed trouble makers was within the management’s legal rights. It looked to the public that the Blackball strike was over. But having defied the arbitration system so far, the unionists were determined to fight on. Not only did the strike continue, the union also refused to pay the fine; this defiance became a national issue. The union collected funds for its strike appeal throughout New Zealand, but met a mixed reception. As the strike dragged on, the coal company made a series of compromise proposals for settlement, which the union rejected. Hickey was arrested for failing to pay his fine, but he was hoisted shoulder high and preceded by a brass band in Blackball when taken to the police coach brought to take him to the Greymouth gaol. Hickey’s stay in prison was brief — his fine was paid, against his wishes. He said later that the coal company paid it. On May 12, 1908, the long strike of nearly three months was settled, after the number of miners in Blackball quietly dwindled. It was hastened by the flooding of the Tyneside mine at Brunner, where 100 miners were thrown out of work. The Blackball Coal Company, which also owned the Tyneside mine, decided that the Blackball mine should work two shifts of eight hours each, giving employment to the Tyneside miners. It was agreed that the seven dismissed men should be reinstated, without victimisation; there would be half an hour for “crib” and an eight-hour day. It was a triumph for the strikers,

who gained every point for which they had fought. The Blackball Miners’ Union had successfully defied the existing system of industrial order. Even attempts by authority to regain lost power and prestige ' resulted merely in local resentment and widespread ridicule. In a bid to collect the £75 fine imposed on the union, a warrant was issued against its property. But as it had no assets, union members were held liable for up to £ 10 each. Police seized sewing machines, ornaments, bicycles and furniture while the men were down the mine, and announced an auction. The miners and their wives were furious, and the men refused to work on the day of the sale. Pat Hickey addressed the gathering, and made it clear the union would deal severely with bargain hunters. With several strapping young miners standing by to discourage such bidding, all the bikes and other goods were knocked down “to the highest bidder” as the police sergeant had said, for a few shil lings each. The auction realised but 12s 6d, and the goods were returned to their owners. The strike was a heavy blow to the arbitration system, and en enormous boost to the determination and self confidence of the handful of socialists who engineered it. It underlined the value for workers of closer organisation and greater militancy. What happened in Blackball in 1908 decisively accelerated the pace of change in New Zealand labour relations. ’ Much of the strike’s success was due to Hickey’s leadership. It led to the formation of the Miners’ Federation and the Federation of Labour, of which he became an organiser. He was not the great orator that Semple was, but he wrote prolifically. He went to Australia during the First World War and helped fight conscription. Hickey returned to New Zealand to edit the “Maoriland worker,” and contested the Wellington Mayoralty in 1921, unsuccessfully. Later, he started a printing business, and stood for Parliament in 1925, but failed. He finally went to Australia again, where he died in 1930. In “Blackball 08,” says Eric Beardsley, the events of the strike are authentic, but history is silent as to why Bob Semple left Runanga shortly before it.

In the novel, Semple goes to work on the Midland Railway at Cass, in a bid to organise the Irish workers there. “I remember seeing Semple when I was a young reporter, just before the 1949 election,” Mr Beardsley recalls. “Although his powers were declining, he was still volatile, a forceful orator who stalked up and down the platform, and stabbed the air to make a point It was part of the popular entertainment expected those days, without TV." The author, who worked for nearly 20 years for “The Press,” detects in the turbulent days of the Blackball strike the first stirrings of a sense of nationalism in New Zealand. He notes that the strikers managed to get all the New Zealand miners’ unions, except Kaitangata, to contribute to their strike fund. The Grey Valley and Brunner became the cradle of militant industrial unionism, which received a setback with the breaking of the Waihi strike by the Massey Government when a striker was killed, says Eric Beardsley. The socialist leaders were flung into gaol, and the “Red Feds” came to realise they could not fight the might of the State in direct confrontations. They realised that compromise would have to be used to advance the workers’ cause. Eric Beardsley spent many hours poring over the files of the "Greymouth Star" and the “Grey River Argus” (now defunct) with its disintegrating, yellowing pages. He found out how the people of 1908 lived, what they wore, ate, their attitudes, drinking habits, how they travelled and the confines of narrow social respectability. He rode a bike over miles of the narrow roads along which the early militants walked and pedalled. Once he had finished his research, he wrote the book in about 18 months, much of it while living alone in the Blackball cottage. The author sees close parallels between the industrial scene of today and 80 years ago. “With Government intervention, there is intense dissatisfaction, and this is behind some of the industrial problems we have had,” he says. “If there is freedom to bargain with employers, the unions will obviously feel happier, even if they do not always achieve a great deal.”