'Black Gold, Kindred Spirits'

Q What was your role in the 34' Strike?

I've been asked a question with reference to the 34 strike, the question as far as I'm concerned, I was dismissed from the mine in the depression in the 30's, and didn't participate actually in the strike, cause I was on the dole, I was on the dole from then and till 1938, 5 years I think it was, roughly around them dates, I haven't got the real facts. But anyway, there was some things I did do in that strike, I, with my brother, my father and my brother had a transport business and they used to run to Melbourne and back and we used to call into Trades Hall and pick anything up, and bring it up that had gathered, that people had sent into the Trades Hall in Melbourne, to help the strikers in Wonthaggi. We'd pick it up in track and deliver it to the Union office and the Secretary at that time of the Union, was McVicars or Jim Burt, one of the two, now I'm not too sure, I think it was Jim Burt. And if my memory serves me right, McVicars had retired. And we were instrumental in helping them in all ways we possibly could to help them in that strike. Now the people in the town, the business people in the town, were more or less a lot of them in sympathies with assisting these miners for their own personal reasons because I believe that they depended on the miners for their business and supporting the miners kept their customers when the strike was over, so that they wouldn't get isolated in any way. Therefore in their wisdom they then supported the strike, because as I said before, for their own financial interests. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to carry on in the future. So, but the Miner's Union had a great contact with the Miner's Cooperative Store. And the Co-operative Store went behind the miners very solidly, such in the form as you know that win strikes, is what you can get people to give you to support your strike, to the ultimate end of either win or lose. So the Co-operative Store was one of the very good backers of helping the miners in their strikes, in credit notes, and giving them prolonged credit to help em along.

Q What about the 49' Strike?

Now I can't labour too much on the 34, but I can labour very much strongly on the 49 one, the 49 one I took a very active part in the 49 one. And in fact I spoke in Melbourne, I spoke in Footscray, I spoke in Brunswick, I spoke at the Rosella factory in Richmond, I spoke at Caulfield, I spoke in Morwell, Traralgon, Yallorn, Maryville, paper mills, I spoke everywhere they sent me and put the miners claims at the time of that struggle. Now, I want to emphasize a fact of that struggle in 49 which to me played a very significant part in the future of all strikes that participated right through all industries in Australia, that you never get anything off a boss on a plate. You've got to struggle for whatever you get and it depends on your unity and your strength if you achieve victory or otherwise. Very paramount today, of course we know that some strikes could, may be able to be avoided and some cannot be avoided. But in the 49 strike one of the great things I used in speaking in addressing meetings was the fact of the attitude of the government at that time, as much as I hate to say it, was the Chifley Government, and that was a Labor government. They seized our funds, froze our funds, and they were trying to starve us back through our kids and wives in submission to give way to them. Now that was a very bitter pill to all miners, the general public as a rule I think, came out very strongly, especially in Victoria, in sympathy to the miners in Wonthaggi. We had abundance, help came from everywhere, in fact one great well known man who was at one time president or the Miners Federation, Miles, he said, not Miners Federation, the Communist Party, it wasn't the Miners Federation, he said, "The Wonthaggi miners have learned to live without working". It was very significant of the organization that was in Wonthaggi, how they worked and how they had the unity. And how everything they did was to win, to try to obtain the object of winning their struggle. But as you know with history, the troops went in New South Wales and eventually Menzies got the troops in there. And they smashed our strike in all sorts of ways that we were driven back with very little to gain. But of what we did gain was a great knowledge in the future for whatever was going to be done. Now, that's one of the things I didn't want to repeat on this show, on the air because it was the Labor Party, and they blamed the Communist Party, the Communist leadership, is that all right, can I mention that? The Communist leadership of leading the workers because nobody knows better than we do that when down them mines, and I can speak personally for being down the deepest mine in Wonthaggi, 1000 feet, that was Kirrak, I've been down 18 shaft another one that was approximately 900 or 1000, I've been down 18, 20, 20 shaft where they were all killed, I worked in every mine in Wonthaggi and the conditions of wet, heat, smoke, dust, and everything you could possibly think of, because one of the greatest fights we ever had in the Wonthaggi mining district was for ventilation, enough air to work in. Ventilation was the bug bear, it costs a lot of money to ventilate mines, and they were very careful on the money they spent with reference to keeping Wonthaggi going. And they were very very much to the front to close it when they did close it, and I remember very distinctly I retired in 1967 trying my best to keep the mine open, deputation after deputation, to the ministers concerned in Melbourne, Honorary minister Mar, Honorary minister Darcy, Honorary minister Bellford and the great one…….Oh, I've lost his name. Anyway I had good help from certain individuals but I've just lost the name of one of them was a very hard man you know….(probably Warner).

Anyway to cut a long story short there was no, no possibility of saving the mine, we even brought the experts out from New South Wales, our own inspectors, our own men who said that Kirrak could run longer under certain administrations, but the government in Victoria was determined to close the mine and they did so. But I wish to say , and in the closing of the mine that the terms were very, very acceptable in a lot of ways, miners retiring age was reduced to 55, first time in history of a worker I think ever retiring at 55, and on a pension, a miner's pension. And those that didn't retain the age of 55 were found jobs and they were paid an amount of money on a scale of one week full pay for every year they worked and they got that as a grant, a retiring futurity is the word I'm looking for. Their retiring futurity was a week for every year they worked and also their long service leave, whatever they had coming to them, they were very liberal that way. And they really did not cause any hardship as far as retiring miners were concerned. In fact, in the long run, I have to say, that it was good for the miners because they would live longer under better conditions. So therefore, I have to say with a lot of regret because I was a miner, my father was a miner and his father was a miner, come from Durham in England. And for me to speak against mining industry, I have a certain love for the mining industry, certain love for the coal, certain love to be with those men that worked down the mine. Because there's nothing that brought men together down the mine in such comradeship as I witnessed in the mine. They would run, no hesitation whatsoever to save a mate's life, irrespective of what danger they were in at all. They were wielded into one kindred spirit, the miners in Wonthaggi that was tradition in my belief second to none in the world. And I say that, and I mean it. I had an unfortunate experience to lose a couple of my mates along side of me, one of them was killed along side of me, the other one died and these things disturb me emotionally because they were great fellows. And that's why I don't like to talk a great lot, I don't like to see mines so much. The man's job that I got down 18 shaft, down Eastern Area which is now the show mine of Wonthaggi. I got the job night shift there when the war broke out in 42, Dick Uhren who was killed there and I got his job. And me brother got the job of the other fellow who was killed with him. We both went together down the mine night shift So I haven't got very happy recollections actually, of the mine, only the comradeship and that feeling that wielded you together as one body. Wonthaggi was well known as a strong union town and that's what I treasure great of all in my activities around the mine. I cannot go past now without saying something or the great fortitude of the women of Wonthaggi. They call the men the great pioneers that is not so, they had one along side of them who was equally of greater, if not greater pioneer than they were, was the women. The women had to stand there, stay at home, and wait whether their men came home from work after afternoon shift or not. My wife never went to bed on an afternoon shift till I got home, every night I worked in the mine, day shift waited at the gate to see you come home -all right? The women to me were of paramount, oh well, I can't express it in words of what I thought of the women. The early days of the women in Wonthaggi, the pioneer spirit, I see my mother who's hanging on the wall looking down at me now. She, and my wife's mother they used to wash out, they had no electric light them days, they had no water laid on, they had tanks and had to have kerosene lamps, and they had their washing out in an old boiler system out in the backyard. They had to look after and feed the kids and cloth the kids. Look after them every way possible of even in a strike the hardship, they bore up in the strike. Oh what they didn't do, I have no words to express what they didn't do The women were the real ones to me who carried the struggle and made it possible for the men to carry on their work in the mine and to fight for better working conditions etcetera. Where do I go from here, I've just about had enough of that because I see faces…….the memories are bad. My wife slaved day and night. But what do we go onto now, what do you want a general outlook or Wonthaggi, something like that. What haven't you got? What about the union shops? Yeah, I can give you the Co-operative Store, the Workman's Club, Miners Dispensary, have you had all these? No! Oh gee whiz, their boss trumps.

Q Tell us about them then?

Sort of the achievements that the Miners Union achieved in Wonthaggi during troubled times was the forming of the Co-operative Store in Wonthaggi. And the committee consisted of retired miners mostly. My father was one of the original members of the committee when it was first brought about. And that Co-operative Store, the origin of course was all things come from the Miners Union in those days The Workman's Club, it was formed in 1911 from the Miners, and it was the miners club. Still there today, and the Miners Dispensary, which has just been graduated up to a very high plane at the present time where I spoke along with my wife at the opening of it. And the origin of that was Miners. They are the three last things in Wonthaggi that are left of historic value to the credit of the Miners Union. That's the Co-operative Store, which I've said before played a great role in supporting the strike, the women know. My wife used to leave the old homestead in Wishart street, when we lived there, get on a bus and go down, and carry, go down and shop to the Cooperative Store because you could get a loaf of bread for about 6 pence 8 hat., 7 pence. Another place would be dearer. Well we had to value every penny in those days and due to the fact of the Cc-operative Store paying a dividend, the highest they ever paid was 3/4 pence in the pound that would be called 35 shillings, 35 cents I think, no. 3 dollars, yeah 35 cents! Yeah, 3/4 pence in the pound. Anyway that was it, see, of course we all know we're on decimal currency and we know that that was one of the great robberies. Decimal currency, where the 12 pennies were made into 10 cents, we lost the value of 2 pennies, we all know that one. But talking with reference to the great achievements, as I have to repeat myself was the Co-operative Store, the Workman's Club, still going, the Co-operative Store has gone and the Dispensary is as strong as ever. What else should we mention here?

Now in reference to the history of Harmer's Haven, I would like to divert back a little bit to make sure you get some of the good, well known identities names. There was a gentleman called Cutler, and he was a miner, Old George Cutler. He actually, I would call the pioneer, one of the pioneers of this area where we live in today. It was further down at what they call Cutler's rocks, we used to walk behind him when when he went to the beach and he was that tall he was that big and long legs we had to run to keep up with him. And all of us kids were going to school, that's his two or three sons and my brother and I, we used to go and camp and stay the weekend camping in the bush Now he was a well known identity and such value that identity that he retained, passed onto his son Jim Cutler. And Jim Cutler is deceased, but he lived in this area for quite some time. He was one of them who said I retired to Harmer's Haven, where I always wanted to be in me life, on the beach, he says to cray and fish. Now they've took the crays away from me, the fish are gone, the abalones gone, everything's gone. Houses have come and I've got nothing that I'd dreamt I would retire on. He says not only that he says, now they go crook because I go crook at them of saving the vegetation because of fire. I have to use this term that the conservationists and the firemen, are always at loggerheads. One wanted to keep it up, everything up, and the others wanted everything down, one wanted to cut it down, one wanted to keep it up. Well Jim Cutler made a statement to a meeting, he said it's all right for those to say they want everything left as it is, bush all around them He says because they've got a home back in Melbourne or wherever they've come from. This is only a resort for them, a weekend place. He says mine's me home. He says if it goes up in smoke, I've got to build or get out of the fire on the beach, he said I'll lose everything. Well we have to see one point of view on all these sorts of things and I wish the world was in a state where we could all meet and have a correct analysis or situations such as meetings(?), I wish we could have some more cooperative stores and less of this monopoly business of these great big combines that buy up and kill all the small businesses. And the good old family doctor is even gone now, you've got to go to a clinic now. Everything's gone, I don't say it's an advancement from my point of view as an old man, but I suppose the youth may see it differently to I. But we must remember even of the Cooperative Store, the Miner's Dispensary, Workman's Club, they're all in the hands now, more or less and dependent on the youth. And 1'm a great believer in youth, I believe that the future of the world is in the youth. Youth is the future and the old people have got to adapt themselves to a line of thought along with the youth, but we should go together and get around questions to suit 50/50. Sort of, I don't know, divide it up so that we all live together in a community where we can all understand one another's problems, instead of fighting, and doing things in the past. We have learnt from the past that strikes were in our time, were inevitable, but they're not the answer to the problems of the world, strikes are not. Because who pays in the long run on strikes, the worker, the worker pays, the boss he don't care, he couldn't care less, Because he's got millions and millions behind him and we only depend on...... actually to put it in the right term I think, the crumbs from a rich mans table, that's what we consist, that's how we consist. And it's only due today why there is so many strikes, that these people, it's not on the co-operative spirit, of the Store, not on the spirit of the Miner's Dispensary, not on the spirit of the Workman's Club they haven't got that spirit. They have got monopoly control, they want to get the last bit of blood out of anything they touch. And that's the way they are, that's true in the ultimate end they will pay the price because the workers will get saturated to such a state that they cannot, well, it will be death before dishonor, that's the way I look at it. Because I phrase it again in one of my old sayings when I'm addressing meetings and that. And the life that's in front of us of the Co-operative Store are on the right track, was on the right track, was on the right track, got eaten up, but the Dispensary's still fighting on, going well, Workman's Club still going on. But the Union Theatre, the pictures is gone to in a way that is not the way we run it as the Miner's Union, we ran it, a long way different to what they run them today. We kept prices down, so that the miners who contributed to making the Theatre would get a fair , fair picture show for a fair price, we used to fix our prices. Anyway the whole picture of Wonthaggi is tremendous in my mind. There's so much to be said so much that hasn't been said. And I feel when I'm talking here in front of these people, that's in front of me, that I can't tell them enough, I can't give enough to em. I know what they want, I know what they should have, I appreciate their work, I hope they're highly successful in what they do and let the people know by the form they have adopted, let them know what Wonthaggi is, there's such a vast story it's been book written up, not to my satisfaction, but I give good credit to Joe Chambers work, him and his wife

END OF INTERVIEW
Date: September 1988