Labor’s titan: the story of Percy Brookfield, 1878-1921, Gilbert Giles Roper
Source: Warrnambool Institute Press, 1983, edited by Allan and Wendy Scarfe. Copyright Allan and Wendy Scarfe. This digital edition for Marxists
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Transcription, mark-up: Steve Painter
“I looked upon the offer of the National Party to me as one of the greatest insults which they could hurt at a man. For four years they had denounced me and vilified me in every shape and form which the human brain could conceive, and then, in order to get my support, they were prepared to have me at any price.”
The bureaucratic expulsion of Brookfield from the Labor Party by the state executive served only to raise his prestige with the militant rank-and-filers in the party and the unions. Both the executive and the parliamentary caucus were in bad odour. The party machine was powerless to undermine Brookfield’s solid, affectionate support in Broken Hill. In addition Labor Electoral Leagues in Cobar and Bathurst rallied to his aid. Goulburn Electoral League went so far as to offer him pre-selection for its constituency at the impending election. It also declared the state executive of the party to be “unworthy of confidence”. The executive retaliated against the Goulburn Electoral League. Seven members were expelled and the league was declared to be “bogus”.
On January 5, 1920, to represent the point of view of the state executive of the party, J. Andrews was sent to attend a meeting of the Barrier District Assembly of the Australian Labor Party in Broken Hill. The meeting on this date adjourned, leaving the matter of Brookfield’s and J.J. O’Reilly’s expulsion for attending the unofficial conference in Sydney to go before a mass meeting to be held two days later in the Quadrangle.
Affiliated unionists to the number of 1300 attended this mass meeting. Andrews put the executive case to the men, then Brookfield and O’Reilly replied to his criticisms. The meeting then resolved, with one dissentient:
That this mass meeting of unionists affiliated with the Barrier District Assembly of the Australian Labor Party, having heard Mr Andrews, is more convinced than ever of the highhanded despotism and corruption of the central executive and is as confident as in the past of the bona fides of Brookfield and O’Reilly, and is, therefore determined to immediately proceed with the Sturt selection ballot, including the names of Messrs Brookfield and O’Reilly.[1]
Doubtless even further to Mr Andrews’ chagrin, the meeting also congratulated the Goulburn “bogus” electoral league on its stand against the central executive.
This mass decision produced the curious result that by grassroots support Brookfield was still a member of the Labor Party while the executive considered he had been expelled.
The mass meeting was adjourned and resumed that night in the Broken Hill Trades Hall. Things continued to go badly for the central executive. It was further resolved:
That Mr Andrews be requested to return to Sydney and inform the central executive that the unionists of Broken Hill intend to keep to the previous attitude decided by them in mass meeting assembled and insist on their right to elect any member of any affiliated union or league, for any office, who has a clean industrial and political record.
Andrews immediately declared the Barrier District Assembly of the Australian Labor Party a “bogus” organisation. The Barrier District Assembly of the Australian Labor Party, however, ignored Andrews and carried on with its meeting.
Later Andrews made an attempt to form a rival district assembly. The new outfit met in the Druids’ Hall. Because of the regalia worn by the Druids, the breakaways became known as the “White Whiskers”. The Barrier Daily Truth of January 9 commented:
Mr Andrews frankly admitted that, apart from the “charges” contained in yesterday’s report of his address, there was nothing that could be counted against Messrs Brookfield and O’Reilly. He asked: “What sort of a position would it be to allow men to stay in the party while they were “whiteanting” it?” Well, the executive should know, for they have endorsed numbers of the so-called white ants. The fact is that those “ants” were not as white as Brookfield and O’Reilly. Mr Andrews made that clear when he said, in effect, that Brookfield and O’Reilly were men of influence in the Labor movement, while the others were not. That, of course, is to say that Brookfield and O’Reilly are intelligent men of force, therefore they must be got rid of. Intelligent men are never amenable to executive despotism.
Brookfield issued an impassioned rebuttal to charges leveled against him by the ALP parliamentary leader, John Storey. Answering Storey's accusations point by point, he wrote:
The principle of Labor is to direct its own affairs and select its own candidates for parliament. But persons — the executive — have determined that that principle of democracy must be left in the hands of a few individuals at Macdonell House …
I denied your right, John Storey, to denounce the One Big Union of the class I represent — My campaign on behalf of One Big Unionism was not backed by the capitalist press, but yours was. And why? True, my actions have been made with my eyes open. That is the trouble.
The so-called “blackhand” organisation referred to (by the Labor News) was the anti-conscription organisation that was preparing the people for the fight against conscription should the powers that be decree that such an atrocity be foisted upon the people of Australia. Of that I am proud. It would certainly have been mysterious for Brookfield to have funked such a fight.
I resigned from the (parliamentary) party as a protest against your contemptible cowardice and the despicable manifesto re the twelve unfortunate men whom you were prepared to let rot in jail, lest the demand for justice lose you votes. Consult you, John Storey? Who are you that you should be consulted by me? I do not require your direction, and that is the reason of my expulsion from the ALP. My action was endorsed by the BDAALP, and affiliated unionists, a higher authority than the hoolers and heelers of any party …
I may have failed you, John Storey, but the workers, no … The capitalist class … praised you, when you attacked the men and women who were striving to obtain justice by forging the weapon of the One Big Union — the nightmare of the class whose hatred I have incurred.
Yes, the Broken Hill industrialists have been, and are, waging a bitter war against conditions that the Labor Party refused to change when it was in possession of administrative power. So far as I am concerned, let me say that wherever I am my voice will be raised to defend such men and women, and in every sphere I will plead for assistance for them. Will you, John Storey? …
If it is a rule of the party that I must close my mouth when my class is being stabbed in the back, then I have broken it. But what is rule? It was in August that I withdrew my resignation from the parliamentary party at the request of the BDAALP. So much for that, John Storey.
No scab organisation can live, and the day is not far distant when political scabs masquerading in the guise of Labor will not be allowed to sink principles for place and pay. Whether O’Reilly and myself sink or swim in the cause of organised labour, politically, will be decided at the next election. I will offer myself as the candidate of organised workers of Sturt, and the question of who will sink will then be decided.
P. Brookfield
Through January 1920, the clash between the industrial and parliamentary wings of the Labor movement increased in the run-up to the state election, timed for March 20. The Sydney Labor Council appointed a new committee to lead the agitation for the release of the twelve Wobblies. The council secretary, Jock Garden, announced a program of spending thousands of pounds and of asking all Labor candidates in the election to sign a pledge for the unconditional release of the twelve. Planted among the union delegates in the Trades Hall were police spies who reported this to the chief secretary. Several meetings were held in Sydney. Police interfered with these, causing the Labor Council in March to protest to the inspector-general of police.
By putting the Labor Party candidates on the spot to sign the pledge, the Labor Council made the release of the twelve the pre-eminent issue during the electoral campaigning. Brookfield signed the pledge in Broken Hill. To him the self-righteous “Nationalists” had unjustly “vented their spleen on their political opponents” for too long. In Sydney only two Labor Party candidates signed the pledge. They were P.J. Minahan and Scott Campbell. The Labor Party promptly withdrew its endorsement of their candidacy. The state secretary of the party said the pledge constituted “one of those blunders that may cost Labor its otherwise assured victory at the impending election, because it gives the unthinking electors the idea that Labor is opposed to law, order, and justice”. This action increased unionist suspicion that the Labor Party intended to leave the Wobblies in jail. To save face the party conceded that it was willing to order “an exhaustive investigation into the circumstances surrounding the trial and conviction of the twelve”.
Further restiveness was now growing among ALP supporters following charges of irregularities in the pre-selection ballots for the seats of Namoi and Goulburn. Meanwhile, the rebel BDAALP and its allies were organising intensively and the election campaign was arousing enthusiasm. Brookfield had been invited to visit New Zealand and wrote on February 6: “I have been unable to obtain a passage to New Zealand, and I think someone will have to die to give me a chance. However, I will strike out into the back country towns next week, and put in time there until I can get a passage.”
M.A. Davidson, MLA, criticised Brookfield at a meeting convened by the “White Whiskers” on February 27 at the Don Corner. About 150 were present, and 90 per cent of these were supporters of the three ALP candidates, Brookfield, O’Reilly and Hynes. Davidson said that the AMA had put Brookfield into a nasty position, and then had not been game to get him out of it. (Voices: “Wait till after March 20, and you won't say that!”). “If the Labor Party is returned they will make arbitration effective.” (Laughter). “If Brookfield is not a believer in arbitration, he has no business to stand for parliament.” (Prolonged laughter).[2]
On March 11, the Federal MP Mick Considine point-blank refused a Labor Party executive request that he go to Broken Hill to campaign against Brookfield on behalf of the “White Whiskers”. On March 18 in the Quadrangle, Brookfield, who was received with tremendous enthusiasm, said:
The Central Executive of the ALP … has been exposed in all their villainy. They have made use of fraudulent union tickets to fake ballots. It does not matter how many votes are got in a selection ballot by a man to whom the executive is opposed; they will make sure, per medium of the postal vole, which they manipulate, that there will be a larger number against him … It is certain that men who are prepared to win selections per medium of faked ballots are not going to be honest representatives if elected.[3]
The final rally of the ALP campaign took place on March 19 on the Don Corner. Four boys opened proceedings with unison singing of a parody of All the World will be Jealous of Me, a popular song of the day:
The roses all envy the colour we wear,
And the “Nationalists” envy our smile;
For they fought for conscription, and now they are beat,
So they think now it’s not worth the while.
With Brookfield, O’Reilly and Hynes at our head,
We are all sure to answer their call,
And be all clothed and fed, and have a warm bed,
So wear the Red — it’s the best of them all.
Brookfield was received with ringing applause, and in the course of his speech he said: “The worker who looks to parliament, without the backing of industrial action to rectify his wrongs, is a fool.” Referring to the impending visit of the Prince of Wales, he commented acidly:
One thing is certain — he will not be found suffering from miner’s phthisis. Looking at the matter calmly, I do not blame the prince; he is looking after his job. So many men in the king business have recently lost their jobs that he must endeavour “to strengthen the silken ties that bind the empire together.” “The silken ties!” The empire is held together by machineguns and tanks; British soldiers are holding the empire together in Egypt, India, Ireland and elsewhere. No doubt those “'silken ties” require some strengthening.[4]
Three vacancies had to be filled, and the winners were: Brookfield (ALP), 4354 votes; Doe (National Party), 3873; M.A. Davidson (Candidate of the ALP executive), 3816.
Statewide, the Labor Party gained support. Brookfield attributed this to its policy of restoring their jobs to the unionists sacked for striking in 1917. The Labor Party won an equal number of seats with the National Party. Thus it could only take office if it enlisted the support of Minahan, who had won his seat standing as an Independent Labor candidate, and of Brookfield who was in the party but not of it. In effect, when the new parliament assembled, Brookfield came to hold the balance of power.
It was a volatile session. The National Party members disliked their loss of power, the Labor Party members were triumphant at their gains, and the parties quarrelled over the election of a new Speaker because this altered the numbers. The position conferred personal prestige on the occupant, but it lost the member’s party a vote. Because of the impending visit by the Prince of Wales the Nationalists were anxious to cling to office and they made an approach to Brookfield: the Labour Party tried to encourage Levy, a National Party member, to accept nomination for the Speakership.
Brookfield caused a tremendous stir by making a public allegation that the National Party had attempted to bribe him. The Barrier Daily Truth of April 12, 1920, reported his version of the incident:
Brookfield was not directly offered the Speakership, but the “Nationalist” Party sent for him, and made him an offer that his financial difficulties would be overcome for several years; also they would find him a good position in return for his vote in their favour.
“The ‘Nationalist’ Party did not want my continuous support,” said Mr Brookfield, “only one vote when parliament met, in order to hold governmental office during the Prince’s visit, as a few knighthoods would be possible for the government supporters if they crawl sufficiently to this sprig of royalty; but all offers were refused by me. My concern and duty is to get the best I can for the toilers, not for toadies.”
In a letter to friends at Broken Hill, Brookfield described how he used artifice at the opening of parliament in order to trap the unwilling Tories into corroborating his allegation of attempted bribery:
After the farce of the Black Rod was over, the Knight for Illawarra (Sir G. Fuller) took the floor, and in a very indignant speech, in which he tried to make an impression, he poured out his vials of wrath on Levy (the Speaker). His speech and indignation would have had far more effect on the house but for the fact that the people knew he was crying over the title that might have been, could he have secured one more vote. Fitzpatrick, who, while possibly not after a title for himself, was interested from a material standpoint, also went cold on his erstwhile colleague — Levy. He took a different line of attack to the Carpet Knight, and offered to fight everyone who dared to interject. When he had his anger sufficiently hot, I asked him, “Did the Nationalist Party not ask anyone on the Labor side for support?” Fitz was so angry that he yelled out, “Yes, we asked you, and if we had offered Levy half of it, he would have taken it.” This was just what I wanted, as my statement that I was offered a bribe by the “Nat” Party was very bare; but with Fitz’s corroboration it looks more solid.[5]
Brookfield’s and Minahan’s support for Premier John Storey’s Labor government depended on them being satisfied that prompt action was being taken about the twelve Wobblies. Storey compromised with a promise to appoint a Royal Commission. This disgusted the Sydney Labor Council, which resolved unanimously that a further inquiry “would serve no good purpose”. They demanded that the Storey government release the men “forthwith”. Nevertheless, through April and May Storey considered a choice of judge for the Royal Commission and negotiated for the services of Mr Justice Ewing. He was a Tasmanian judge who had been active in West Australian and federal politics on the Labor side.
During this brief time Brookfield formed a new political party, got himself hated for supporting the November 1917 Russian Revolution and attacking the visit to Australia by the Prince of Wales and espoused the cause of the returned soldiers.
At a general meeting of the ALP at Broken Hill on April 12, it was decided to carry on independently and to assume the name The Industrial Labor Party. Brookfield was now answerable only to the workers at Broken Hill. He stood higher than ever in popular estimation, and could claim truthfully that he had a larger following than any other member of the parliament.
At this period the Sydney Daily Telegraph published the following facetious pen-portrait:
The popular impression of Mr Percy Brookfield, which pictures him as a wild, half-demented individual armed with bombs and an arsenal of lethal weapons, receives a shock when confronted with the jovial reality. He doesn’t wear his hair or his teeth long, neither does he carry any armory. His committee-room, which, as the only member of the Industrial Labor Party, he occupies in solitary state, is innocent of any indication of extremism. He doesn’t even wear a red tie. His countenance, by its plumpness and its readiness to beam with smiles, suggests that the member for Broken Hill is, in spite of what he advocates for others, well satisfied with things as they are.
This description of Brookfield was entirely superficial. He was, in fact deeply concerned with the mounting gravity of local and world problems. In Australia there was widespread industrial agitation for shorter hours, for abolition of Saturday work, and for day baking. The fight was on, too, against the deportation of Father Jerger, a German-born Catholic priest who had incurred the displeasure of Hughes. In Ireland, the Sinn Fein revolt was in full swing, and Terence McSweeney, Lord Mayor of Cork, was hunger-striking to the death in Brixton Prison. Germany was in a state of social flux, while the workers in northern Italy were occupying the factories. Debs had nominated for president of the United States while still serving a jail sentence for socialist antiwar activity. In the newly born Soviet Republic, the Red Army was driving the White Guards from their strongholds.
The November Revolution in Russia caused a certain regroupment of forces in the labour movement in Australia. Translations of pamphlets and theses of the Left Social Democrats were widely read. The IWW disintegrated. Left and right wings crystallised in the Labor Party. Two Communist Parties were formed, which ultimately merged into one. The adoption of the Socialisation Objective of the Labor Party at the Brisbane Conference in 1921 was in no small measure due to the radicalising effect of the Petrograd uprising.
It would be true to say that most Labor people at that time felt that they had much more in common with the Communists than with Hughes and the Nationalist Party. The difference between Labor and Communism was seen as one of method rather than aim. Labor speakers would state publicly that they belonged to the Labor Party because it was the “mass party”. Not until 1929 did the Communist Party completely estrange itself from the Labor Party, a state of enmity that became exacerbated during the [6] regime and was only moderated during the period of the Red Army’s participation in World War II.
Brookfield was never sufficiently naive to believe that a workers’ paradise could be created overnight in the land that had been but recently the ramshackle, backward empire of the Czar, but he offered this sympathetic comment on the publication of the secret diplomatic documents found in the archives of the old Russian government:
One of my most treasured possessions is the knowledge that no word of mine ever cajoled a man out of his country on the specious cry that he was fighting for it. The high and moral grounds on which we went into the war — to protect little Belgium, like a big brother, and so on, were all right for a little while. But when the Bolsheviks published the secret treaties between England, France and Russia that cry had to be abandoned because it was absolutely untrue. Those secret treaties were published in the Manchester Guardian … in which it was pointed out distinctly and truly that there was a treaty in existence between the three countries named to divide Germany up … It was an awful exposure for a nation which went into the war on the high moral grounds on which we entered it. I make bold to say now that had it been known there was any territorial aggrandisement being fought for in this war, not half the men who have gone away would have left Australia.[7]
Twitting the Tories, Brookfield said:
I want to point out the weakness and foolishness of the National Party. [They] believed in the war. [They] wanted it continued until there was not a German left. Now the National Party in England is appealing to the men of England, before their comrades’ blood is dry on the ground, to go and mix with the “Hun”, the “baby-killer”, in order to stem the Red terror. This is what Winston Churchill has to say: “If the Germans will only join forces with Britain and France, and build a dyke across Europe to prevent the spread of the Red terror, they can again be admitted into the councils of Christendom.”
No matter whether the newspapers have inculcated into the minds of the people a hatred of the Russians, Russia is the most powerful government in Europe today. Russia has fought on seven battle fronts against the Allied forces. The Soviet government took over a country devastated by years of war, took over a country in a state of wreck and confusion, and everywhere those denounced men, Lenin, Trotsky, and other Russians, have so organised the scheme and the Russian people that, as I said, they constitute the most powerful government in Europe at the present moment … I am not going to ask honourable members to adopt everything done in Russia and bring it here, but I am pointing out that a change is taking place in Europe which must to some extent have its reflex in Australia.
Brookfield summed-up his perspective of world politics thus:
Whether we like it or not, there is a change coming over the world. You may say that it is the evolution of the world that has been speeded up by this great war … The world must progress, and if you try to stop it you are responsible for anything that may happen … There is only one hope for Europe, and for civilisation as we know it, and that is that capitalism may be knocked on the head. The only hope for Europe is socialism. Another such war as we have gone through lately will bring us back to the caveman again, and back to barbarism.
The visit of the Prince of Wales and the expenditure of thousands of pounds on “useless, senseless decorations” led Brookfield to contrast the official extravagance with the plight of the “big army of unemployed”: “If I were going out decorating I would decorate the bellies of the starving people with beefsteak.” He wrote an article in the Barrier Daily Truth condemning those who would grovel before the prince: “Those who are not already in high fever over the royal visit are being whipped into enthusiasm by the newspapers, the latter being urged on by an unsavoury mob of oily sycophants anxious to do the ‘belly stunt’ before royalty.”
Brookfield was strongly opposed to preference for returned soldiers. “Every man and woman in this country,” he told parliament, “is deserving of a decent living so long as he or she is willing to do something useful to the community; and no man, be he a returned soldier or otherwise, is entitled to a living unless he is prepared to do something useful.” By opposing preference, Brookfield won the support of those worker-servicemen who had awakened to the attempts being made by the RSL, founded for this purpose in 1916, to counterpose them to trade unionists.
Great changes had occurred in the Australian economy during the four and a half years of war. Mechanisation of agriculture had proceeded apace, a series of new secondary industries had been launched, and large numbers of girls and women had been attracted to work in offices, shops and factories. The new farming techniques and the extensive use of female labour more than offset any extra employment for men created by the new industries. Many returned soldiers were demobilised into unemployment, and their plight was pathetic. Some were reduced to peddling camphor blocks, bootlaces, booklets or small articles from door to door, on the streets, or in hotel bars; others earned a crust by “busking”, singing or playing musical instruments in public places.
An indication of the discontent that was rampant among ex-servicemen is given by the following message from Melbourne, published in the Barrier Daily Truth of April 16, 1920:
Last night a deputation from several hundred returned soldiers who belong to the Democratic League marched to Parliament House. and representatives, introduced by Senator Gardiner, saw Mr Hughes, the prime minister, and asked that at least 50 per cent of the war gratuity be paid in cash and that returned soldiers’ representatives in commissions and boards be chosen by ballot and not nominated by the Returned Soldiers League; also that men who have suffered punishment should not be subject to disqualification.
On the deputation returning with the reply that Hughes pointed out that the House of Representatives had dealt with the bill, which was now before the Senate, the men got very angry, and called out, “Bring the bastard out and we will deal with him.”
At the request of the police, all doors were closed until the men dispersed. The leaders declared that they will assemble every night until their demands are granted.
Once demobilised, however, the diggers tended to lose the power to act cohesively. There was little that they could do except to register protests against their betrayal or to mock Hughes’s wartime promise that they were fighting for “a land fit for heroes to live in”.
Some ex-servicemen directed their discontent against the new use of female labour, and asserted that “a woman’s place is in the home”. This altitude met strong opposition from the women workers, who were enjoying their first taste of emancipation from the old colonial drudgery in the kitchens. Employers, for their part, were overjoyed at their successful introduction of female labour, the low award rates of pay opening the door to almost unlimited exploitation. Discriminatory wages for women became the cornerstone of whole sections of industry, a monstrous injustice that has been perpetuated by successive governments and arbitration courts.
It was a strange paradox that Brookfield, the anti-militarist, should become foremost in exposing the frauds of soldier settlement and in demanding jobs for diggers, (despite his in-principle opposition to the doctrine of preference for diggers) and better treatment for war widows. Nevertheless, in this way he attracted great numbers of disillusioned ex-servicemen to the banner of Labor, thus opening the way to the solution of many of their problems.
On June 15, 1920, Storey commissioned Mr Justice Ewing to make an unlimited inquiry into “all facts and circumstances” of the imprisonment of the twelve Wobblies. The case began on June 21 and long queues of people waited for admittance.
Brookfield again assisted in selecting defence barristers and attended the hearings when he could. Mr Ewing heard evidence for fifteen days.
Mr Justice Ewing sent his report to the New South Wales governor on July 28. Newspapers reported it on July 30. He agreed with Mr Justice Street that the Crown witnesses were “liars and perjurers … capable of almost anything”. However he found six of the Wobblies innocent. He found four guilty of seditious conspiracy but decided that they had served sufficient time for their offence. He found King justly convicted but his sentence “greatly in excess” of his offence. For arson, only Reeve remained in jail. Mr Ewing did not pronounce on whether there had been any police complicity or frame-up.
On July 31, Premier Storey made public the recommendation for the release of ten of the men. The capitalist newspapers attacked the decision. Union papers were delighted but not fully satisfied. Boote wrote in the Australian Worker:
A large measure of justice has been done and that is as much as can be hoped for while we are subject to a social system of which injustice is the very basis.”
Cabinet met on August 3 and, notifying as few as possible, had the ten men released at 6.30pm to avoid demonstrations by unionists or “Nationalists”. A few women welcomed them back into society.
Their release was a personal triumph for Brookfield and he met them as soon as he could. He and Judd, Boote and Jock Garden hired the Sydney Town Hall and arranged a victory celebration for August 6. From the galleries they suspended a huge banner, inscribed “Welcome to the martyrs”. A half-hour before commencing time there was only standing room in the galleries. Shortly afterwards the doors had to be closed against the overflow crowd. Young women distributed red camelias through the crowd. Men handed out a leaflet of the words of The Red Flag. Socialist groups sold their literature.
Just after 8pm the official party filed down the aisle and on to the platform. There were nine of the freed men, Henry Boote, Jock Garden, Frank Anstey MHR, Percy Brookfield and other prominent defence workers. The crowd stood as one and cheered themselves hoarse.
The chairman of the Sydney Labor Council, Jack Howie, chaired the meeting and introduced the Industrial Workers of the World men. Someone in the crowd shouted that Hamilton was missing and a search began for him. Jock Garden read a sheaf of congratulatory telegrams from throughout Australia.
Brookfield was the first speaker. When Hamilton appeared, Brookfield quipped: “Well, it is better to be locked out than to be locked in.”
Brookfield said:
The release of the men is the greatest victory of the working classes, and justice and truth have been vindicated.
Referring to King and Reeve, who were still in jail, he said: “Our jubilation is only of a temporary character while those members of the working class are in prison.”
Donald Grant told the crowd:
If it be a crime to raise one’s voice against the taking of men from this country to be slaughtered in Europe, we are proud of being called seditious conspirators.”
The Wobblies pledged themselves to continue working for the emancipation of the working-class. The meeting ended jubilantly with the singing of The Red Flag.
In parliament Sir George Fuller moved a motion of censure of the government for its liberation of the ten IWW prisoners, on the ground that trial by jury was endangered. In support of the censure motion Mr Bavin made a lengthy attack on Premier Storey, who had been goaded into counter-attacking Sir George Fuller. Bavin said:
I quite agree with the leader of the opposition that all the facts that ought to have been known about these men (the Crown witnesses) were not known to the jury [at the Pring 1916 trial].
At this, Storey interjected:
Is it not a fact that at the time McAlister was thought to be an honourable man, so honourable that he was able to meet the honourable member Sir George Fuller in a country hotel and discuss local affairs?[8]
Fuller was not then present, but from his subsequent remarks to parliament it is obvious that Storey’s remark was reported to him. He must have obtained a copy of Hansard, tried to obtain a copy of the official report of the evidence in the Street Inquiry, and, in lieu of this, sought out the Daily Telegraph of August 24, 1918, which had reported on his evidence to the inquiry.
The following afternoon, when parliament resumed, by seeking to make a personal explanation, he was the first speaker. He quoted what had passed the previous afternoon and stated that in the course of the Street Inquiry he had from the witness box under oath emphatically denied “a statement of similar character”. He called on Storey to bring forward the evidence in opposition to his sworn testimony or to withdraw his insinuation. While the speaker tried to disallow debate on this matter Fuller and Storey flung these words at one another:
Storey: If Sir George Fuller denies that on a certain night he was with three gentlemen, one of whom was McAlister …
Fuller: I was never with McAlister.
Storey: In an hotel owned by Tom Mack, and that his signature is in the hotel book, with the signatures of the three other gentlemen, McAlister’s being immediately beneath that of Sir George Fuller, and if I cannot bring proof of the accuracy of my statement I will unhesitatingly withdraw, as I am always prepared to do when I cannot substantiate what I have said.
Fuller: I absolutely deny again that I ever saw McAlister.
Storey: You gave a denial about sending Scully out of Australia![9]
Brookfield made no such personal attack during the following debate, although in an impassioned speech which lasted three quarters of an hour, he criticised Fuller for his “trumped-up, silly and unsavory, foolish action” in moving the censure motion. He reviewed the antagonism Hughes and Hall had created, to the twelve Wobblies, the bias of the jury, the lies of the “scoundrels” Scully, McAlister and the two Goldsteins — “men with fronts of brass who would only tell the truth if the hour suited them”. He attacked the “rottenness” of the New South Wales police, and the especial corruptness of two of the detectives involved in the IWW case. He deplored the bias of the retrial judge, Mr Justice Pring, who “wafted aside alibis with a wave of his hand”, dismissing the fact that one man was in Long Bay jail when detectives swore he was in Sussex Street by saying: “If you were not there on that day, you were there on another day.” Mr Justice Street, he said, had defined sedition in a ridiculous manner — as anyone who conspired to cause strife in the country between employer and employee. He declared that the judge had walked about his room behind the Court before the retrial so agitated with his bias that an attendant had asked him what was the matter and had been told: “The revolution is corning, with these IWW men.”
Brookfield also rebuked the police for their behaviour. With the threat of ten years jail for forgery, they had bullied David Goldstein two nights before the Street Inquiry until he withdrew the sworn affidavit he had given Judd (that he had been asked to plant the fire dope so it could be found in the IWW men’s pockets). He angrily denounced the National Party for its attempts to prevent him from voicing the case and exposing their spiriting of Scully to America.
He reminded the house that Fuller had allowed Hall to mislead parliament about Scully, that Justice Street’s commission had been very limited but even so Mr Street in his report had implied that he thought the jury, if it could have had the witnesses brought before it again, would not have found the men guilty. He indignantly defended Mr Justice Ewing against Fuller’s contemptuous remarks, stating that Mr Ewing had taken into account much of the evidence that Mr Justice Street had refused to allow Mr Windeyer KC to bring into the inquiry.
Brookfield had a talent for drawing a universal truth from his particular experiences, which make his comments as valid today as they were in his lifetime. He concluded his speech by hailing the men’s release and appealing for a compassionate understanding that would better the world:
I wish to say it is a double pleasure that these men have been found innocent and released. It is certainly a pleasure that these innocent men have been given their freedom. There is nothing one can do which can recompense any innocent men who have been imprisoned four years. It was not altogether the four year’s imprisonment, there was also the mental strain in thinking they would have to do fifteen years. That is the iron which enters a man’s soul who knows he is innocently in jail. Nothing can recompense these men for the trials they have gone through. Nothing we can do can give them back those four years of wrongful conviction and captivity …
I think that the result of this trial will have a great effect on other parts of the world. During the period of the war there has been the same damnable oppression and coercion imposed upon the people of every country by the privileged classes. Men and women have been jailed for crimes that in ordinary times would not have been taken notice of. The forces of cruelty and oppression sprang loose on the community, and committed deeds which in the years to come will cause us to hang our heads in shame when we think that the country we belong to perpetrated some of the horrors which have been enacted during the last four years. I hope the result of this trial will spread to those other countries which have a crop of political prisoners in jail, countries where men and women are rotting for the same trumped-up charges, trumped up by the forces of reaction. Let us hope that the result of this trial will travel to those people and inspire them to greater efforts in order to obtain the liberation of those unfortunates in their own country. If such a thing happens, the trial will certainly have had more than a local benefit.[10]
Brookfield continued to demand and work for the release of King and Reeve, and was obstructed repeatedly. King was due for release on February 29, 1921, when he ceased being a prisoner of New South Wales for of New South Wales for seditious conspiracy. He was not released and Brookfield was told King was still serving time for the Commonwealth Government for forgery. Canberra and Sydney passed the buck between them. Brookfield negotiated both with the State Attorney-General and the Federal Solicitor General, was still doing so when the final chapter in his dramatic life was written.
1. Barrier Daily Truth, January 8, 1920
2. Barrier Daily Truth, 28 January, 1920
3. Barrier Daily Truth, March 19, 1920
4. Barrier Daily Truth, March 20, 1920
5. “The Knight for Illawarra” — George Fuller had been recently knighted. The source of this letter was possibly the Mitchell Library, although Roper does not identify it. Its account is borne out by the record in New South Wales Parliamentary Debates.
6. Controversial New South Wales Premier Jack Lang, whose “unorthodox” (by establishment standards) approach to Depression economics eventually led to his dismissal by the governor, Sir Philip Game.
7. NSWPD, Vol LXXIX, 1947
8. NSWPD, Vol LXXIX, 228
9. NSWPD, Vol LXXIV, 264
10.10. NSWPD, Vol LXXII, 209