LABOUR STALWART DIES

Grey River Argus, 17 September 1932, Page 8

LABOUR STALWART DIES

GEORGE M. BURNS, EX-M.H.R. The Labour papers which came to hand from Australia last week brought news of the death of Mr George M. Burns at Cremorne, New South Wales. The deceased gentleman long and honourably served the Labour and Socialist movement in Australia. As a young man he worked as a miner on the southern coal fields, and while there he was South Coast correspon dent for “The Northern People’’ (formerly “The Socialist”), conduct ed by Mr H. E. Holland at Newcastle. A sensational feature of Mr Burns’s correspondence was his exposure of the methods employed by the mineowners and particularly by the Vickerys—a family of “philanthropists” in Sydney with interests in the mines —who ground the miners down to the uttermost farthing in the matter of the hewing rate and day wages and at the same time further reduced the men’s incomes through rent extortions. The Vickery mines owned many miners’ “residences” in the vicinity of their pits, and every miner given employment was required to occupy a Vickery house. If he had a house of his own which he preferred to occupy, he was still compelled to pay rent for the Vickery dwelling which he didn’t occupy. Burns pointed out in his articles in “The Northern People” that in a number of cases two or more miners were paying weekly rents for the same cottage. Because of his keen advocacy of the rights of the miners, George Burns was eventually blacklisted out of the N.S.W. South Coast mines and found his way to the West Coast of Tasmania, where he worked as a miner and was eventually elected to the Tasmanian Legislative Assembly. The honorarium was then £.lOO a year—less than £2 a week. Mr Burns eventually stood down from the Legislative Assembly to carry the Labour banner against Sir Phillip Fysh for the Federal constituency held by that gentleman. The candidature was unsuccessful and Mr Burns returned to New South Wales and succeeded in once again securing work in the mines of the South Coast. In the meantime he had married Miss Lilian Locke, daughter of the Rev. Canon Locke. Mrs Burns both before and after her marriage was an accomplished Socialist lecturer and writer, and was a powerful aid to her capable husband. When the great coal strike of 1909.10 eventuated, and Mr W. M. Hughes took sides with the coal owners and against the miners, Mr Burns stood solidly with the men and faced all the risks—which were by no means inconsiderable under the Wade Government’s coercion legislation—in an endeavour to ensure that the South Coast men would not desert their comrades of the North.

At the Federal election in 1910, Mr Burns won the Federal seat of Illawarra for Labour, but lost it at the following election. In or out of Parliament, however, he devoted his energies to the cause of the working men; and there will be many among the older men in the Labour movement in New Zealand — men who either worked with him or knew him in Australia—who will mourn his loss and send their messages of condolence to his sorrowing widow on the other side o f the Tasman Sea.