Series 01 Part 02: Hughes family correspondence, 3 April 1917-22 September 1918 - Page 110
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[Page 110]
(6.)
Trades Hall crowd for a generation. There is no middle course, and in all the dust & confusion of the present struggle it is impossible to see the end clearly. We can only go ahead, & do our best.
Of course the conscription issue, although not declared, is the real thing in the whole fight. The victory of the Nationalists everywhere at the last Federal Election has made the Labour Party believe that conscription will yet come unless the National Party is paralysed outside Parliament. We all knew this struggle had to come, & we all know now that the card system in the Railway Workshops had no more to do with the General Strike than the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand had to do with the European War. Just think of it! Australia indulging with in the fiercest internal struggle ever known in its history, & this at a time when every able bodied man is wanted on the Western Front! Unless the decent people of this country stand together now, & crush this Strike, I shall despair of our future.
So much for our troubles here.
We are so sorry to find that all the strain is telling on Auntie Mary & the girls. I read a most graphic account by Scrivener of the Commercial Bank, in London, of the air raids of 6th or 7th of June, & the last one of 11th July, when bombs fell next door to the Bank in Birchin Lane, but did not explode. I hope if Auntie Mary moves out of London that she will not go to some place where you can't easily reach her, or it will be very lonely for you.