Series 01 Part 02: Hughes family correspondence, 3 April 1917-22 September 1918 - Page 116
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[Page 116]
(4.)
months on sight, for being members of an illegal association.
The strike still continues, but if the Government here remains firm, there can only be one end to it. It has spread to nearly all the other States, & the condition of things throughout Australia is not far removed from civil war. Certainly it is an unarmed revolt against all constitutional authority. I wonder for the future of Australia if this sort of thing, in the middle of a war for our very existence as a free people, is going to be tolerated. The only gleam of comfort is that if the industrial revolt is fought to a finish, we may get something like peace for a time, & may devote ourselves to the only fight worth thinking of at present.
I am afraid this is all very dull stuff for you, but I feel so anxious about it that my pen runs away with me. Processions of strikers parade the streets every day, & it all makes one's blood boil.
I see so few people outside the regular routine of my work lately that I fear I have no news for you at all. We just live for news of you from week to week, and I am afraid we live so quietly that I have little to send you in return. Mother got a note the other day from Mary Strickland at Malta, but I don't know what has become of His Ex, whether he is still at Malta or not.
I hope you get time to see some people sometimes, & are not everlastingly working at high pressure. Did you ever look up Firth's people, or any of the other people you had letters to. If Auntie Mary goes out of London for a time, you will want a London Club badly. What is the Overseas Officers' Club like? It is in the Royal Automobile Club premises.
God bless you & bring you safely back to us is the constant prayer of your loving father
Thomas Hughes.