The Maritime Strike Edited by Jim Hagan and Andrew Wells–in Honour of E.C. Fry

On 6 August 1890, the Tasmanian Steamship Co. laid up the SS Corinna after seamen took action over the sacking of a union member. 

Within a fortnight, ships' officers, wharf labourers, miners, shearers and others had become involved in what is known as the Maritime Strike. 

The Strike became the largest industrial conflict Australia had seen and had repercussions which have lasted now for over a century. 

The essays in this volume, written by some of Australia's leading labour historians, examine aspects of the Maritime Strike, exploring contemporary effects and long-range consequences, many of them for the first time. 

The Blessed Reign of Mobocracy George Higinbotham and the Maritime Strike

Stuart Macintyre

A notable feature of the Maritime Strike is the role played by leading liberals who had previously expressed sympathy for the claims of labour. Samuel Walker Griffith the Queensland Premier, approved the placing of guards on arms and ammunition' the swearing-in of special constables and the sentencing of unionists to imprisonment with hard labour.

Henry Parkes, the Premier of New South Wales, also enlisted volunteers and issued them with badges and batons. And in Victoria, mfird Deakin, as Chief Secretary, called out the militia and thus provided the opportunity for Lieutenant-Colonel Tom Price to issue his notorious order to
'Fire low and lay them out'.

Deakin was horrified by Price's excess of zeal, just as Parkes was angered by the inflammatory pronouncements of his deputy and Griffith also resisted the advice of bellicose advisors. All three men insisted that they were not taking sides, merely upholding the law of the land.

Even so, the manifest result of their actions was to assist the employers. For liberal as well as labour history, the Maritime Strike constitutes a watershed: it marks the point from which liberalism as an ideology, a social movement and a political practice was increasingly unable to contain the claims of class.1 But there is a famous exception. George Higinbotham, the Chief Justice of Victoria, wrote on 4 October 1890 to the President of the Melbourne Trades Hall Council as follows:

The Chief Justice presents his compliments to the President of the Trades Hall Council, and requests that he will be so good as to place the amount of the enclosed cheque of £50 to the credit of the strike fund. While the United Trades are awaiting compliance with their reasonable request for a conference with the employers, the Chief Justice will continue for the present to forward a weekly contribution of £10 to the same object.

Despite the vilification that publication of this letter brought down on him, Higinbotham stood firm.