Series 01 Part 02: Hughes family correspondence, 3 April 1917-22 September 1918 - Page 149
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[Page 149]
5.
letter of credit for both.
I haven't been giving you much news, I'm afraid. There is little but about the beastly old strike. Although the trains & trams are running, the service is a good deal restricted & the oversea traffic is almost paralysed. Today negotiations finally broke down between the Government & the coal miners, & the Government is going to run as many mines as possible with free labour. The wharf labourers are still out. These two classes – the coal miners, & the wharf labourers – are the very worst in the community, and until they resume work they are keeping thousands & thousands of their fellow workers idle, owing to the shortage of coal & shipping. The Government has acted splendidly throughout, & the public are quite prepared to put up with a little more inconvenience as long as we are sure of an ultimate victory. There are thousands of men in this country who are positive dangers to public safety unless firmly controlled, & they are getting the shock of their lives in the complete smashing of all their grandiose schemes of absolute labour domination.
I am enclosing two judgments; one on the coal lumpers by Judge Heydon, and one delivered the same day on the waterside workers in Melbourne by Judge Higgins, & a leading article of the Herald on both. The curious thing is that Heydon has his only son at the war, & he is a major, & has won the Military Cross. Higgins' only son was I think a captain in the Light Horse, & was killed at El Arish. Yet the points of view of the two fathers are as wide apart as the poles. The one man puts the Empire first, the other the Labour Party! Is it not a curious study of psychology?
Writing of Heydon's & Higgins' sons reminds me that you told us of poor Pearson's death. I can't tell you how sorry we felt at the news, because in your early days at the Front you were so proud of having been asked for by him as his pilot, & it was such a help to you to have so splendid an observer to work with. We heard from other people