Series 01 Part 02: Hughes family correspondence, 3 April 1917-22 September 1918 - Page 421
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[Page 421]
5.
I think I told you in an earlier letter that Joynton Smith, the Lord Mayor, was inviting all the heads of the Labour Unions to an evening reception to meet the new Governor, Sir Walter Davidson, & (as was stated somewhere in print) to give him an opportunity of meeting the "real democracy of the State". Well, the party came off the other day, & it beat the band! Of course we weren't there, though we were honoured with invitations, but many of those who did go went in their best bibs & tuckers, & were wedged in a crowd of working men & working women, – one man without a collar, & some women with children in their arms & others holding on to their skirts. The attempt to invite the "true democracy" to evening gatherings was a ludicrous failure, as anyone with a grain of sense could have foretold. Both sections of the gathering were uncomfortable, the men with boiled shirts & women in evening dress, on the one hand, & the men & women in their working clothes on the other. There was some fun in the papers for a few days before the gathering, as many of the Unions refused to allow their members to go, one Union declaring that if their members mixed with aristocrats they would soon become more aristocratic than the aristocrats themselves! Even the Labour aldermen in the City Council were forbidden by their Unions to attend!
The Sixth War Loan closed the other day at about £43,500,000 which wasn't bad. £40,000,000 was asked for, & the Government got £3,500,000 more. The war is costing Australia over £100,000,000 a year, so that plenty more will yet have to be found. You didn't get that £1000 prize in the War Bond Lottery organised by Farmer's & Anthony Hordern's, but you are richer by a £10 War Bond & so is Peter. They got over £1,000,000 by the lottery.