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Category Archives: The Irish Question
213. Sectarianism after WW1
This post provides an overview of the extent, nature and causes of the sectarianism that characterised life in the Shire of Alberton in the immediate years after the War. It is based largely on reports in the local media from the time.
Sectarianism in the local community was hardly new, and it has been covered in numerous earlier posts. Essentially, in terms of causes, there was the centuries old clash between Roman Catholicism and British Protestantism. There were significant differences in terms of dogma, the role and responsibility of the related clergy and fundamentals such as the significance of the Bible in the quest for personal salvation. There was also a long, bitter history between the two religions that had featured persecution on both sides.
There was also the vexed issue of Ireland. In part, this represented a religious clash between Irish (Roman) Catholic and British Protestant. But it also covered Irish nationalism and the fight – both political and military – for an Ireland completely free of British control. There was also the determination by Protestants in the north (Ulster) to remain within the United Kingdom.
Prior to the War itself, there had been the threat of civil war in Ireland. It was largely averted by the British promise of Home Rule after the War. This background was covered in Post 67. Ireland, Empire and Irish-Australians. However after the War and, more particularly, the Easter Uprising of 1916, there was a different political dynamic in play. The 3 years immediately after the War featured armed conflict between Irish nationalists and the 'occupying' British troops and Auxiliaries. Then, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, and the realisation of a form of Irish independence, the conflict with the British was superseded by a bitter civil war between those who supported the treaty and those who opposed it and wanted a complete break with the UK. Overall, the political situation in Ireland in the years immediately after the War was dire and the obvious hostility towards the British In Ireland was inevitably reflected amongst the Irish Catholic community in Australia. Where in 1914, Australians, including those from the Irish-Catholic community had flocked to join the defence of the Empire, by the end of the War – after two divisive conscription referenda, the Easter Rebellion and the British campaign to crush the rebellion and execute the ring leaders – support for the Empire amongst the Irish Catholic population in Australia had softened considerably. The dynamic situation in Ireland in the years after the War compromised Irish-Catholic Australians' support for the Empire even more, particularly when Protestant clergy in Australia declared, in effect, that Roman Catholicism itself and the Pope posed an existential threat to the Empire. In part, this argument was a reworking of the conscription debates of 1916 and 1917.
Beyond several centuries of religious differences, the ripple effects of the ever-present conflict in Ireland and the strident claims of Catholic disloyalty to the Empire, there were still further drivers to the increasingly bitter sectarianism that characterised post WW1 Australia. As noted in several previous posts, schooling was a constant flash point and, arguably, its effect was even more pronounced in rural communities. Catholic efforts to establish their own schools, operated by religious orders such as the Sisters of St. Joseph, were viewed negatively by others in the the local community. The negativity was not just because of religious differences or the view that the local Catholics were choosing to remove their children from the local state school and effectively set them apart from the other children, but also because of the challenge of providing schooling in rural communities where the issue of student numbers was always critical. Any new Catholic school made the challenge more difficult. The end of WW1 saw the push for increased secondary schooling in rural communities and, as the likes of Bishop Phelan pushed for Catholic secondary schooling in Gippsland, tensions increased over the impact of such schooling on equivalent state school initiatives.
The sectarian tension associated with schooling went beyond the issue of its provision, because there was also a very significant background issue round the question of Bible or Scripture study or lessons in the state school. For a long time there had been a push from the Protestant Churches for some form of 'non sectarian' religious instruction, based on Bible reading or study, in Victorian state schools, even to the extent that such instruction could be given by the teachers themselves rather than visiting clergymen. However, such a position was, in theory at least, at odds with the non-sectarian and 'secular' nature of the state school system which had been established in all the various colonies in the 1870s and 1880s. After WW1, in the midst of heightened sectarianism, Protestant groups accused the Romand Catholic Church of undermining their attempts to bring about such Bible instruction in the state school. From the Catholic perspective there was indeed an element of wariness about the motivation behind the push. Beyond issues of dogma and theology associated with Bible reading per se, the wariness stemmed from the degree to which during the War the local state school had been pressed to serve the British (Protestant) Empire. There was Catholic concern that Protestantism, as well as having been declared the 'natural' religion of the Empire, was also being proposed as the natural religion of the state school.
There were still more dimensions to the ugly sectarianism of post WW1. Interestingly, one emerging dimension concerned Australian nationalism. Throughout the War, such nationalism had been incorporated within the total commitment to the Empire. The true Australian was one, first and foremost, loyal to the Empire. However, in the sectarianism of post WW1 this simple equation began to unravel. Irish Catholics were increasingly concerned by what they saw as British repression in Ireland. For them, the Empire had become an oppressor. At the same time, on the other side, there were strident claims from some Protestants that Roman and Irish (Australian) Catholics, led by the anti-Christ Pope, were effectively 'traitors' to the Empire, and, in fact, had been throughout the War itself. Not surprisingly, the very idea of Australian nationalism came under great pressure and Catholics inevitably looked for an expression of such nationalism outside the (Protestant) Empire.
Another dimension involved national politics. Irish Catholics tended to support the ALP and, obviously, they had been largely identified with the anti-conscription cause – itself interpreted as an anti-Empire push – during the War. Politically, they were seen as left, even radical, and also definitely anti-Empire. On the other side, Protestant Churches were largely represented as politically conservative.
One final dimension worth noting concerned individual personalities. For both sides, the bitter sectarianism both threw up and was itself defined and driven by key personalities. As we will see, such personalities attracted intense interest and their individual appeal and actions definitely shaped what happened.
All these dimensions are evident in what follows.
Loyalty by numbers
One of the key background issues to the intense debates at the time covered the extent to which Irish Catholics had been 'loyal' during the War. For many, this question came down to numbers: the numbers of local Catholics who enlisted. Throughout this blog, I have attempted to plot enlistments relative to the religious affiliation described on the enlistment papers. I have also attempted to tie these figures to what we take to have been the levels of religious affiliation in the local community itself. None of this analysis is as simple or easy as it might appear. Take the case of the levels of religious affiliation in the local district. The 1911 Census gave a figure of 21,349 males who were identified as Catholic for the County of Buln Buln. This suggested a figure of 19% of the total male population for the county. We could extrapolate from this and assume the same level for the Shire of Alberton. However, there are some qualifications. First, while the Shire of Alberton is located within the county of Buln Buln, the county is considerably larger than the shire. There could well have been variations in terms of Catholic settlement density across the whole county that affected the precise figure for the number of Catholics within the Shire of Alberton. Second, the overall figures are not broken down by age-cohorts. Such information would help identify the numbers of men who were actually eligible to enlist at points throughout the War. There are also problems with the designation of religious affiliation on the men's enlistment forms. True, virtually everyone identified with a religion, but there is no way of knowing the strength of the religious conviction or the commitment to the associated religious beliefs and practices. So, strictly speaking, the statistics refer only to 'in-name' affiliation. Also, sometimes with brothers you have different religions given and there appears to have been a tendency to use 'Church of England' as a sort of generic religion. With all these qualifications in mind, the following points can be made:
The complete list of men with a definite association to the Shire of Alberton who enlisted between 1914 and 1918 and who indicated a religious affiliation – there were only 13 cases where a religion was not given – was 807. Of this number, 109 men described their religion as 'Roman Catholic'. This number represents 13.5% of the total Shire enlistments.
Previous analysis – in earlier posts – indicates that the percentage of Roman Catholic enlistments varied over time. For example it was at its highest in the first half of 1915 (17%) and it remained around 16% through 1916. It was lower from 1917, but it is difficult to be precise about the exact decline, principally because enlistments as a whole declined significantly from that point and the numbers are too small to be able to make definite observations. For example, whereas total enlistments in the Shire for 1915 were 302, there were only 31 enlistments in the first half of 1917, with 3 of these Catholic. With this significant qualification about the numbers involved, it appears that there was a drop-off in the rate of Catholic enlistments in the Shire from the start of 1917. This is hardly surprising given the background of the conscription referenda.
In a real sense, the issue here is not one of statistics but community perception. With more than 100 Catholic enlistments over the period of the War, the perception in the local community would definitely have been that the Catholic community had 'answered the call'. It is also worth noting that the local Catholic priest, Fr Sterling, served as a chaplain with the rank of captain in the AIF over 1916-1917. In the local press at the time this service was noted and praised. It would have served as a very visible example for other potential Catholic enlistments.
Also in terms of perception, it is worth noting that of the 79 names on the cenotaph in the main street of Yarram – the memorial to the dead of the Shire of Alberton – 13 of the names are Catholic (16%). The fact might not mean much today, but 100 years ago locals would definitely have known the individual men and noted the significance of their religion.
Overall, in terms of enlistments and sacrifice, the Catholic community in the Shire of Alberton had proved its loyalty over the course of the War.
The following is an overview of episodes that illustrate the nature and extent of sectarianism in the local community in the first few years after WW1.
The test of loyalty and the increasing the number of Catholic schools in Gippsland
The first episode has already been covered in a previous post – 154. The start of the 1918 school year and yet more division – but it is included here because it touches on another aspect of the critical issue of loyalty. Throughout the War years, Bishop Phelan of Sale had pursued an ambitious church and school building program in Gippsland. He had enjoyed significant success with new churches at Bairnsdale, Maffra and Yarram and convent schools at Leongatha and Yarram (opened for the start of the 1918 school year). Further, his ambitious plan for a major Catholic boys' secondary school – St. Patrick's – at Sale was keenly promoted. It would open in 1921. Part of the motivation behind the ambitious program was clearly to lift the profile of the Catholic community in Gippsland and emphasise their right to exercise civic and political power. For example, Phelan was quoted – Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative, 26/4/18 – in relation to the proposed Catholic boys' college at Sale:
My ambition is that the Catholic boys of Gippsland should have in their own province a college where they would receive such a secondary education as would equip them to take a leading part in civic and national affairs.
But in the same article, Phelan noted the challenges he had faced in his ambitious building program. He noted the inherent difficulties in the geography of the diocese where the Catholic community was spread thinly over such a vast area. He also noted the competition for funds and specifically mentioned … the innumerable demands made on the people on account of the most terrible war in history. He then stated:
But the greatest difficulty experienced was the wall of prejudice raised by narrow-minded people who endeavored to howl down every movement for raising funds except for Red Cross or Imperial purposes. But the stirling Catholics of Gippsland, like their fighting brothers at the front, did their duty towards all the demands of the Empire, and broke through every barrier that prejudice and bigotry would raise between them and their own field of labour.
The Catholic community in Gippsland was aware that fund-raising on their part during the War for their own parochial interests could be interpreted as an act of disloyalty to the Empire. An earlier post – 84. Schooling, religion & Imperialism, Part B: Secularism – considered the issue in more detail. It described how the proceeds from the St Patrick's Sports Carnival, held in Yarram in March 1916, were passed in entirety to both the Red Cross and the Victorian Sick and Wounded Soldiers' Fund. The amount was very significant – £720 – and it was to that point; and probably for the entire period of the War – the single most successful fund-raiser for the War effort. It was also significant that it came just 2 weeks after the official blessing of the new Catholic church in Yarram which itself had been funded by a far more parochial effort.
Clearly, throughout the War years, there was the perception on the part of the Catholic community that its loyalty to the War effort and the Empire was always under question. The loyalty itself was measured in a range of ways and the scrutiny was intense.
Fr Sterling's 'loyalty' comes under question
The second episode involves a letter to the editor published in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 1/5/18. Again, this was obviously before the end of the War but it is important for setting some background to the hostility directed at the local Catholic priest – Fr. Sterling – in the years immediately after the War. Fr Patrick Sterling had been born in Ireland in 1882. He served as parish priest if Yarram from 1914 to 1949. As already indicated, he also served as a chaplain with the AIF. At the time he volunteered, his service received widespread praise in the local community.
The letter in question, signed 'Returned Soldier' wanted to know why Sterling had not been invited to a recent function for returned men. There was a clear inference that his absence was a sleight to the returned Catholics in the district:
Kindly allow me to inquire through your valuable columns of those responsible for the Returned Soldiers' Smoke Night, why the Rev Father Stirling's name was omitted from the invitation list. He is as much a returned soldier as any of us and his non-inclusion was keenly felt by at least the Catholics present.
The event had been held in the Shire Hall on Thursday 25/4/18 and the report in the local paper on 1/5/18 indicated that … nearly 100 local and district residents' received invitations.
There was a letter in response from the local branch of the Returned Soldiers' League published in the paper on 3/5/18 which argued that there had been a direction from the State Executive of the organisation that … troopship chaplains are not eligible for membership of the Returned Soldiers' League and are not classed as returned soldiers by the Defence Department. The letter continued that as there were limited places it was not possible to include Fr Sterling. There are at least two possible interpretations here. One is that the local committee, acting neutrally, was merely applying the letter of the law. The second is that it was exploiting a technicality to exclude Fr Sterling from attending and, at the same time, intimate that his service with the AIF had not been all that significant. It, effectively, did not rate. The significance of the second interpretation will become clearer later. Certainly, there were some in the local community keen to minimise and denigrate Sterling's service as a chaplain with the AIF
Intensified attacks on Fr Sterling
The third episode also involves Fr Sterling. From the end of 1918 through to the first part of 1919 there was an extended series of 'welcome homes' to local men returning from the War. They were written up in the local paper. Typically, they were hosted by a local dignitary, often the local councillor and invariably a recognised Imperial Loyalist. The conventional patriotic sentiments were always evident.
However, the welcome home staged at Stacey's Bridge on Friday 10 January 1919 was definitely not in the normal style. It was reported at length in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 17/1/19. This report itself prompted a series of animated letters to the editor over the next few weeks. There were several highly divisive issues on show and the degree of hostility evident is revealing. It points to major fault lines in the local community.
The actual welcome at Stacey's Bridge was put on for two sergeants – John Cantwell and Aloysius Cotter – and a stoker from the RAN named McKenzie. The two sergeants had survived the full war. They were part of the original group of 4 men from Stacey's Bridge that left from the Alberton Train Station in September 1914. The original four men were Cantwell, Cotter and also Patrick Sexton and John Babington. Cantwell and Cotter made it through the War and were at this reception. Sexton was killed in April 1918. Babington was not finally discharged until October 1919. Of the four from Stacey's Bridge who enlisted in September 1914, three were Catholics – Babington was Presbyterian – and it appears that this Catholic background was the distinguishing characteristic of the welcome home.
It was a very large community gathering. The paper reported that some 300 people attended the reception and there were at least 3 local councillors present: McLeod, McGalliard and Barry. The focus of the report however was on the comments made by Fr Sterling.
Fr Patrick Francis Sterling was thirty-seven at the time. As already noted, he had been born in Ireland – Thurles – and his mother as next of kin was still living in Borrisokane, County Tipperary. He had been serving in the parish at Yarram for two years when, in October 1916, he applied for and was given a commission as a captain in the AIF and served as a chaplain until April 1917. In that time he served on ships transporting troops to and from the UK. It was not a long period of service; but he obviously did have experience in the AIF and he could claim to speak with some authority.
Father Sterling's speech is all the more interesting for what was not said, very deliberately not said. In fact, as reported by the paper, he began by stating that he regretted that he … could not do justice to the occasion by speaking exactly what he felt … because … if he did he ran a big risk of getting six months in jail.
By this point, Catholics had had to develop a particular perspective on the War. They were reluctant to support the claim that the War had been fought to preserve the integrity and supremacy of the British Empire. After all, as they saw it, the Empire was the core problem in Ireland. Yet uncompromising and total dedication to the Empire had been one of the constant themes hammered home in Australia throughout the War and well before it. In the popular mind, the defence of the Empire was a given – even a God-given reality. Moreover, 300,000 thousand Australians had enlisted in the AIF – including many from an Irish Catholic background – to defend the Empire. So there was this fundamental dilemma for many Catholics: how to bypass or downplay the issue of Imperial loyalty – and avoid being seen as pro-British – while at the same time honouring the achievements, sacrifices and unique character of all the Australians who had enlisted.
On this occasion, it is clear that Sterling opted for a pro-Australian and anti-British position. Of course, his comments are being reported to us by the local paper and they may have been coloured by the editor; but they certainly do suggest that Sterling was not being as pro-British and pro-Empire as the times demanded.
He [Sterling] reminded the audience that the credit of winning the war was due in one essential matter solely to the Australians. The British authorities have now admitted that on the occasion of the last big German offensive, every preparation had been made to transport back to England every British soldier in France. As a last resort, and as a desperate gamble, four Australian divisions were hurried up at a critical time, and at Villers-Bretonneux stemmed the German advance once and for all. In plain, sober fact the Australians on that occasion won the war, and saved the world's freedom. (Applause.)
This idea that Australian troops had in effect 'won the war' was reflected in other articles at the time. While the claim was greatly overblown, it did at least reflect the high praise accorded to the AIF by various heads of state, newspaper editors, foreign generals etc. The more important observation here is that Sterling's comments champion the Australian cause while at the same time questioning British efforts and character. Sterling went on to make other highly complimentary remarks about … that gallant fighting force, the A.I.F. which had earned for itself in deeds of bloody glory a monument "more splendid than gold and more enduring than brass."
The event itself was taking place just 2 months after the end of fighting. To this point, most other welcome-home events or Armistice celebrations had promoted a conventional narrative of God's grace in bringing victory, the final triumph of good over evil, the resoluteness of the British fighting spirit, the unvanquished greatness of the Empire, the final defeat of German militarism, the outstanding achievements of the AIF etc. But Sterling started to raise the more awkward questions to do with what, in the end, had been achieved. He argued that for a war that had been waged for … freedom and democracy, and a lot of other high sounding things … the outcomes were decidedly uncertain. He even suggested that the 'four years of hell' that the Australian boys had been through 'to make the world fit to live in' were currently being compromised by the actions of some of the Allied powers themselves. He singled out France for its determination to maintain conscription and the USA for its declared intention to create a navy which, as Sterling put it, … will make her boss cocky of the seas. Sterling also included an attack on the 'repatriation scheme', which he referred to as a 'huge farce'. The criticism was that the boys had volunteered for war on the solemn promise that they would be looked after when they came home. But now the promise appeared false:
The departing soldiers were told that nothing would be too good for them on their return, and the best would not be good enough for them. And so on ad nauseam. If they wait until these promises materialise they had better make Rip Van Winkle their patron saint. (Applause.)
He then gave an account of a returned soldier who, only recently, had had to cadge from him the 'price of a bed and a feed'. Coincidentally, less than two weeks later there was a detailed story in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on the plight of a returned soldier who had well and truly fallen through any repatriation safety net. It is not clear if the subject of the article on 29/1/19 is the same person with whom Fr Sterling dealt. However, it is very evident that both the challenge of repatriation and the implicit fear that the returned men were not being sufficiently supported were very much in the public mind.
Fr Sterling also could not let the occasion pass without mentioning that he had been … blackballed from the Yarram Club … and … passed over at Armistice celebrations.
There was singing – 'Coming Home', Mother Macree' etc – and dancing at the function. But there was no mention of standard Imperial tunes, nor any mention of the National Anthem.
Unsurprisingly, the article on Fr Sterling's comments at the welcome home at Stacey's Bridge prompted a response. A letter appeared in the very next edition of the local paper on 22/1/19 by an anonymous correspondent who signed himself as 'Loyal Australian', with the clear implication that Fr Sterling on the other hand was not loyal. In fact, the gist of the letter was that if he – Fr Sterling- risked six months gaol for speaking his mind then, clearly, his sentiments must have been disloyal. 'Loyal Australian' also challenged the priest's remarks about the British preparedness to evacuate from France and he suggested that no one would believe such a claim. He appeared to confirm that Fr Sterling had been banned from the Yarram Club and passed over for Armistice celebrations. He also claimed that Sterling had also been … turned down by the Returned Soldiers' Association.
Fr Sterling responded in the next edition of the paper (24/1/1919). By now the debate was indeed heated. Sterling began by attacking 'Loyal Australian' for hiding behind the mask of anonymity. He argued that without any idea of the writer's identity there was no way of testing his own loyalty. Sterling implied that the claimed loyalty might be fake. In fact, he suggested that the cloak of anonymity certainly pointed to a lack of courage. Sterling talked about varieties of loyalty and it is clear what he had in mind:
Loyalty… has so many meanings and ramifications. Loyalty to pocket and flag-flapping loyalty are common specimens. There is also the loyalty of the man who sools others on to fight for him, and who tells his substitute what a fine fellow he is, and what a lot of things will be done for him on his return – if he ever returns.
Fr Sterling continued his claim that the Yarram Club was selective and discriminatory by alleging that a sergeant involved in recruiting [presumably, William Newland] had also been blackballed; and he used this claim as a justification for questioning the very integrity of members of the Club. The criticism was full-on:
Did "Loyal Australian" resign from the Club when a recruiting sergeant was subjected to the indignity of being blackballed? They must be a hard lot to please in that exclusive club of aristocrats. Possibly the sergeant with his honourable wounds was deficient in the Club brand of loyalty. How many shirkers are on the roll call of the Club? Is "Loyal Australian" himself one of them? Is he in good health and physically strong, and as well able to endure the hardships of campaigning, as many others on the too-young-side and the too-old-side have done? Has he enlisted, or tried to do so, even for home defence? Let us wait and see if the boasted loyalty is merely camouflage for humbug.
Fr Sterling also attacked the 'War Precautions Act' and Hughes whom he referred to as the 'livery P.M.' Sterling referred to national politicians – Hughes, Cook and Pearce – as the 'tin gods' of the likes of Loyal Australian. He also made another specific reference, in the context of the repatriation system not working, to a returned soldier living in a tent at the back of newspaper office waiting for a job. The reference in important because the same theme – possibly even the same case – was taken up the paper itself in a major article the next week (29/1/1919).
Not surprisingly, given what he had said about the Yarram Club, there was a response to Fr Sterling's letter in the next edition, 29/1/1919. It was long, over-written and pompous in tone. Once again the writer was only given as 'Loyal Australian'. But this letter included a piece of doggerel, penned by another anonymous scribe, 'Spokeshear'.
The effort was clearly intended to damage the priest's reputation and image in the community and make him look a fool. Amongst other insults, it questioned both his military service and his religious life. It mocked his Irish brethren. Aimed at a highly public figure in the local community and penned anonymously it was a nasty effort. It is surprising that the paper published such anonymously vindictive attacks. Perhaps the editor believed Sterling's 'disloyalty' justified the attack. The complete effort – under the title of 'Cinderella's Voyage' – is included below. It is worth reflecting that while the Great War was over, longer and deeper conflicts that touched on issues of class, nationality and religion were still very much alive. Those from the land of 'bogs and hogs' would have been less than amused.
Cinderella's Voyage
I'll tell you of a brave, bold Sterling chap
Who was spoiling for a scrap,
And was soon on board a transport
On a fairly decent job,
With clothes and boots and tucker free,
And a daily one and twenty bob.
And when he reached the land of bogs and hogs
His cobbers came to meet him by the score
But they couldn't sight his togs,
They seemed to make 'em sore,
But chappy didn't care a dam-
For sure those togs were only sham.
And bad luck he didn't stay,
But he wasn't sorry that he went,
For he had a bonzer trip,
And it didn't cost a cent,
And we know this Cinderella chappy
Didn't mix up in a scrappy,
And wicked people say
He didn't even – pray.
And soon he reached Australia fit and well,
And if he didn't fight like hell or pray too well,
He surely wasn't qualified to be supplied
With bread and beef and beer at a patriotic club,
So now perforce he lines up at the "pub"
And soaks his beer and damns the Club.
And now, alas, this poor Cinderella youth
Declines to mingle with these men uncouth,
Whom you'll find among the "angels" at the Yarram Club.
Formation of local branch of the Protestant Federation
The fourth episode worth attention involved the formation of a local branch of the Protestant Federation in Yarram in August 1919. The motto of the Protestant Federation was 'For God, King and Empire'. It had been established in Ballarat at the time of the second conscription referendum in 1917. By the time the local branch was set up in Yarram the Federation claimed a membership of 100,000. In part, it was influenced by the Protestant revivalist movement of the time. It spoke out against moral decline and population peril, and it actively supported causes like prohibition and social justice initiatives such as social housing. Imperial loyalty was its very DNA. Lastly, it was stridently anti-Roman Catholic. Archbishop Mannix was a particular target, as was John Wren.
The local branch was formed in Yarram on 1/8/19 at a meeting held in the Shire Hall with about 50 people present. The local meeting was reported in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 6/8/19. The meeting was presided over by Rev W E Lancaster (Methodist). In his remarks Lancaster noted that the federation … had done a great deal to check different menaces to the country, and to prevent many things that did not tend to promote the welfare of the Protestant community. One particular 'menace' that Lancaster highlighted was the Roman Catholic Church. He quoted Gladstone to claim that … where the Church of Rome is weak it is crafty, and where it is strong it is tyrannical. He added:
The past of the Roman Church was dark with intrigue and red with the blond of martyrs.
Then he launched into claims that the Protestant Federation was promoting at the time. They were claims about Roman Catholic perfidy in the recent War. The Roman Church was an enemy of the Empire:
During the war evidence was available to show conclusively that the Roman Church had had a hand in the awfulness that had taken place. The speaker [Lancaster] advised those present to study the Rev. F. A. Hagenauer's pamphlet describing the relationships of the Papacy to the Kaiser in the war. When Belgium was over-run and France was outraged no protest had gone out from the Vatican, nor was there any papal protest when the Lousitania (sic) was sunk. While Germany was busy submarining Allied and neutral vessels, ships flying the papal flag were immune from attack. While masquerading in the guise of a church the Romanish sect dishonoured the King and endeavoured to bring about the destruction of the Empire. Politically that Church was prepared to sell its influence to the highest bidder, and Protestants should be careful to combat its evil influence wherever and whenever possible. (Applause).
Also present the meeting were Rev M G Opper (Church of England) and Rev S Williams (Presbyterian). Opper spoke briefly about the aims of the Federation: … to substitute liberty for bondage, truth instead of error, and purity instead of corruption. He also mentioned threats to the Empire – 'social unrighteousness' and 'industrial unrest' – and, again, one such threat was the Pope. He noted that the Federation … wanted to rule out the supremacy of the pope. The first principle of Protestantism was loyalty to God and loyalty to the King.
It was resolved that the president of the local branch was to be George Bland (Methodist) and the 3 vice-presidents would be the three local Protestant clergymen: Revs Melchior George Opper (Church of England, appointed to Yarram October 1918), Samuel Williams (Presbyterian, appointed to Yarram November 1917) and W E Lancaster (Methodist, appointed to Yarram early 1919).
There had been earlier connections to Yarram for some of the influential figures in the Protestant Federation. Rev F A Hagenauer, who at this point (1919) was at Castlemaine, had earlier ministered in Yarram and, in fact, he had recently been relieving in the district when Rev S Williams had been on holidays. Rev G A Judkins, another key figure, had also served for a term in Yarram. He had left in 1904. As we will see, Judkins returned to Yarram to speak on behalf of the Protestant Federation.
The decision to establish a local branch of the Protestant Federation prompted a letter to the editor (8/8/19) from Fr Sterling criticising what he saw as the group's anti-Roman Catholic bias. Sterling's letter attempted to make fun of the allegations about the Roman Catholic Church working in concert with Germany. Essentially, Sterling dismissed the claims as nonsense. He also gave his version of what the real motivation was:
Now that the big war is over, and there is no sensational subject for the Sunday sermon, it is not unexpected that a local sectarian war will be dragged in to do duty. Anything to fill the empty pews. However, it won't worry us. There will be mass at St. Mary's as usual next Sunday, and the local annual collection for the Pope will most certainly eclipse all records this year. That is the best reply to make to the snuffling slanderers.
Sterling's letter set off a minor war of correspondence with Rev F A Hagenauer. Hagenauer (13/8/19) challenged Sterling to shown where the Protestant Federation had given 'false or unreliable' evidence. He also added the allegation that Stirling, personally, had spoken 'disrespectfully' of the Prince of Wales.
In turn, Sterling replied on 15/8/19. It was clear that he was not keen to pursue a debate that he considered nonsensical. He also claimed that the debate was designed to boost sales of Rev Hagenauer's book(s). Then Stirling tuned his attention to the claim that he had shown disrespect to the Prince of Wales
The Prince of Wales has proven himself during the war to be above all things – a man among men. He is no namby-pamby drawing-room fop, nor yet a tin god on a swirling piano stool. From what we have learned of his character he is not the type that wants grovelling slobberers running after him labeled as spittoons.
But as well as praise, there was also the clear rejection by Sterling of any sense of mandated servility. He continued:
His [Prince of Wales] manly character and his exalted position demand the ultimate expression of respect, but it is not necessary for me to stand on my head every time his name is mentioned.
On 20/8/19 Hagenaeur followed up with another letter but the debate with Stirling had effectively petered out.
Then in the local paper on 24/9/19, there was advice of an address by Rev G A Judkins on 'The Papal Army in Australia'. It was to be held on behalf of the local branch of the Protestant Federation. The paper also noted that Judkins had previously ministered in Yarram, that he was key figure in the Methodist Church and that he was … held in high esteem in Protestant circles.
The meeting took place on 26/9/19 and was written up in the local paper on 1/10/19. The paper's report was extensive and noted that it was the first, formal function of the local branch. The address took place in the Mechanic's Hall and 'there was 'a very satisfactory attendance.' The meeting began with the National Anthem and prayers. Rev Opper, vice president, presided and set the tone. It was the Empire against Roman Catholicism.
The speaker deplored the apathy manifested by Protestants in the fight against the influences of Roman Catholicism which was a great menace to the Empire and to Australia.
For his part, Judkins claimed it was the Roman Catholics not the Protestants responsible for the conflict. Again, the Roman Catholic Church was trying to destroy the Empire:
The conflict would never have come into existence had it not been for the wicked aggression of the Roman Church. Rome had promised faithfully to lay aside her weapons during the progress of the great war, but she had not done so. While they were giving their sons in order that the Empire might be saved and liberty preserved for themselves and heir children, the great organisation of Rome was doing its utmost to spoil the Empire, and praying that it should be beaten down to the very dust.
According to Judkins, there was a universal conspiracy:
A papal army existed in Australia, and not only in Australia, but in every other land; and its definite object wherever it existed was to bring that country under the absolute control of the church of Rome.
Amongst other wild accusations, Judkins claimed that because France had 'thrown off the papal yoke', Rome had been keen to bring about the defeat of France and had allied with the Kaiser. Rome was behind the War itself:
France was to be punished because she had broken away. The intriguing hand of Rome was responsible for the great war, just as it was responsible for some of the other greatest tragedies in history.
With such a shocking history, Judkins warned that the threat of Rome could not be taken lightly. Rome was the Devil's agent:
People did not realise it but an organised minority was infinitely more powerful than an unorganised majority. People talked foolishly when they argued that Romans compromised only a fifth of the Australian population, and they could not do anything. Rome was one of the mightiest forces that the devil employed; and it was working to bring the whole world to the feet of the Pope. He [Judkins] appealed to those present to organise and to keep organising, in order to combat the great menace which existed in their midst today.
Judkins continued on about papal espionage, the Church of Rome as the 'anti-Christ', a papal plot for world domination and, specifically, the conquest of all Protestant lands, with England the chief target.
Specifically in relation to the situation in Australia, Judkins claimed that Mannix had been reported to have said,
If I had my wish there would not be a Protestant in Australia.
There were additional attacks on the local Catholic clergy as being under the control of Rome and … working to injure our country. The Catholic Church was also said to be in alliance with the ALP … which she was using as a tool to be cast side when it had outgrown its usefulness. Similarly, Rome was in alliance with 'Sinn Feinism and Bolshevism'.
Judkins also argued that Protestant attempts to bring scripture back into the State schools were being undermined by Catholics. The Catholics had even deliberately left some of their students in State schools so they could oppose the introduction of scripture. The Catholic Church was also '… cramming our [State] schools with Roman Catholic teachers.
The local paper noted the applause at the end of the address.
It was hardly surprising that local Catholics were upset by Judkins' attack. On 3/10/19, there was a letter from John W Biggs a local Catholic who had had 3 sons serve in the AIF: Robert Biggs (2616), Charles Ignatius Biggs (1313) and John William Biggs (427). All survived the War.
Biggs recorded his 'disgust' at Judkin's address which he described as … a tirade of abuse of the Catholic Church and all belonging to it. He identified Judkins and his supporters as 'pro-conscriptionists' from the War who had tried … to force our young Australian youth (boys merely) to fight for the defence of the Empire. He rejected the claims of disloyalty and claimed 60,000 of the AIF had been Catholic. He claimed this figure of 60,000 was … their full quota according to population. Biggs asked … did ever a body get such abuse as the Catholic parents of such soldiers?
Biggs briefly revisited the conscription debate:
No doubt a good many Catholic young men did not join the army but could you blame them when the majority of the Press and the wowser parsons were abusing their religion right and left.
Biggs also claimed that many young Protestants had not wanted to join AIF and had also opposed conscription; but they had not had to bear the same level of abuse as the young Catholics.
Biggs also disputed many of Judkins' historical claims and was critical of the conditions of the British working class – housing, wages, living conditions – under Protestantism. He suggested that Judkins should focus on substantial issues, such as the housing problem in Melbourne and 'profiteering' and 'race suicide'. Biggs finished his letter:
I will now conclude by informing you, that being the father of three soldiers, I was very much hurt on reading the insults and abuse showered on Catholics by Mr Judkins, to which denomination my boys belong. I may state that the Catholic percentage of population of Australia is 20.68, and the Methodist 16.3. The percentage of enlistments of Catholics is 18.9 and Methodists is 13.8.
St Patrick's Day processions
The next episode to highlight the bitter sectarianism evident in the local community after the War involved St Patrick's Day processions in 1919 and then 1920. The first covered events in Sale, Gippsland and the second in Melbourne.
Sectarianism was strong in Sale where Bishop Phelan was based. Against this background, the civic authorities insisted that for the 1919 St Patrick's Day procession through the town the Union Jack had to be carried at the head of the procession. The flag also had to be larger than any other flag in the procession. Additionally, no 'Sinn Fein colours' were to be worn or displayed by members of the procession. Lastly, there was to be 'no allusion' in any display in the procession to the 'unhappy incidents of Easter, 1916, in Dublin, or any sequel thereof'. The organisers of the march agreed to the obviously 'political' terms, but when Phelan heard of the demands made by the mayor he railed against them. He described the mayor as a 'petty tyrant' and a 'fool'. The local press – Gippsland Times, 27/2/19 – reported that Phelan called off the procession because of the demands and the manner of the local authorities:
We will not march to the grounds [where the associated St Patrick's sports carnival was to take place] under the humiliating conditions which our local ruler would impose on us this year. (Tremendous Applause).
Phelan then organised an alternative garden fete. He invited Mannix to attend the event and it was clear that this was a definite strategy to raise the profile of the occasion, underline the perceived attacks on the Catholics in Gippsland, and encourage a large attendance. Additional trains were put on to bring people from Bairnsdale and Traralgon. Mannix arrived at Sale by train on 5/4/19 and was met by very large crowd. Led by a car carrying Phelan and Mannix, the large crowd then processed thorough Sale to the cathedral. There was no Union Jack. The Gippsland Times (7/4/19) reported on comments by Mannix:
His Grace expressed his great pleasure at being present. In Melbourne they had been hearing a good deal of Sale lately – (laughter) – and some of the trouble arose in connection with St. Patrick's Day. Here, as in other places, obstacles had been placed in the way of celebrating St. Patrick's Day. They wanted to prevent the people of Sale from marching in their own streets, but today a great part of Gippsland had marched in spite of them. (Great cheering).
After the 'procession' or 'march', the mayor of Sale set out to prosecute the organisers, on the basis that clearly a march had occurred – a large one, led by Phelan and Mannix – but that the appropriate permission for the march had not been either requested or given. Some of the councillors saw the episode as an attempt to undermine local authority; and they were incensed by what they saw as Mannix's gloating. The Gippsland Times, 10/419 reported one councillor:
Cr. Futcher said there was not the slightest doubt that there had been a breach of he regulations. What made matters worse was the fact that Archbishop Mannix went out of his way to gloat over the fact that they had marched in spite of the authorities. … Had it not been for the gloating that had been indulged in by church dignitaries, he would have been prepared to let the matter pass.
The council initially narrowly voted to institute a prosecution against the organisers and Mannix. The 5-4 vote was on sectarian lines. The vote saw all the Catholics on the council walk out and division in the local community reached new levels. In the end, the prosecution did not go ahead.
The following year -1920 – saw Mannix put on his own version of the St. Patrick's Day procession in Melbourne. This time it was a far grander spectacle than the one staged in Sale the year before.
The St. Patrick's Day Procession in Melbourne in 1920 was reported extensively in the press. The Argus, 22/3/20, detailed how the route started at St. Patrick's and ended at the Exhibition Building (the interim Federal Parliament). The crowd watching was a record and the paper noted:
Long before the starting time people commenced to assemble on the streets. Soon after 1 o'clock there was a large crowd behind the barriers, and all available space on Federal Parliament House steps and the Post-office steps was occupied.
The route itself was lined with 400 police on foot and another 100 mounted police accompanied the procession. There were also plain clothes police in the crowd. On the day, there were no reports of any disturbances or problems.
It was a large procession. The paper estimated that 20,000 people participated in the actual procession and that it took an hour and 12 minutes for the procession to pass a given point.
The procession underlined how determined Mannix was to demonstrate not just the sacrifices that the Catholic community had made in terms of the War but how significant they were in terms of state and national politics. At its head, the procession featured the Australian flag, not the Union Jack. In fact, there was much press speculation about how the Union Jack would appear. The report in The Argus noted that it appeared about half an hour into the procession and … it came and went without many people realising it. At the same time, With the exception of one or two isolated individual cases, there was an absence of Sinn Fein colours or emblems. The dominant colours throughout the procession were green and gold.
First in the procession came 14 Victoria Cross winners on grey horses. Next was Archbishop Mannix in a motor car with several returned chaplains, with … a small body of mounted troops as an escort. Then there were 6,000 returned soldiers and sailors. More cars followed with nurses and returned men and other cars with clergy. There was also a long line of Catholic boys from Catholic schools and colleges. There were also Catholic societies and schools with banners and some floats. There were also various bands including the Melbourne Pipe Band. Finally, the paper noted that … the rear of the procession was brought up by a body of about 140 horsemen.
Archbishop Mannix and the VC winners, 1920. Courtesy State Library Victoria
Mannix clearly sought to emphasise the martial character of the procession. He personally 'took the salute' in front of Federal Parliament House (Exhibition Building). He stood with the VC winners and was cheered by each section of the procession as it passed.
Following the procession, there was a major sports carnival on Exhibition Oval, which included 4,000 school children giving a physical culture display. Rain in the late afternoon forced the cancellation of the planned concert that night.
By any standard, it was an impressive turn out and certainly demonstrated the ability of Mannix to draw a crowd. It was also very much an expression of Irish-Australian identity.
After the procession, Mannix was quoted in The Argus (22/3/20) as acknowledging the opposition that had been raised. He was keen to state that those who had opposed the procession … will never prevent Irishmen showing their sympathy with Ireland, while yielding in none in their loyalty to Australia and to the Empire. But, clearly, this particular trinity – Ireland, Australia and the Empire – was a hard one to juggle. For Irish Catholics the actions of the Empire in Ireland were a real problem. In fact, the very next day The Argus again covered more of Mannix's response to the procession. This time it was in relation to the 14 VC winners who had accompanied him on the day. He was keen to use them to boost the cause of Irish independence, or at least 'self-determination'.
In the course of a long speech, Dr Mannix said that St. Patrick's Day demonstration last Saturday would remain a memorable one as long as Melbourne was Melbourne. He also stated that the V.C. winners who supported him in the procession had unanimously agreed to a motion which they intended to cable to the British authorities, demanding that England should give to Ireland the self-determination which they fought for on behalf of other nations.
Scripture lessons in State schools
The sixth episode of sectarianism sees a return to Yarram and the activities of the Protestant Federation in the middle of 1920. Ostensibly, the issue was the push for a referendum – at state level – to determine the question of whether scripture lessons were to be taught in state schools. At the end of the meeting, the following resolution was passed.
That this meeting records its conviction that the great majority of Victorian parents desire Non-sectarian and Non-compulsory Scripture lessons in the school course, with equal opportunity for direct religious teaching by representatives of the various churches, under conditions that work smoothly in four other Australian States; claims that this issue should be placed before the Electors by a simple referendum question at the forthcoming elections; protests against a selfish minority [Catholics], largely hostile to national education, being able to continue to deprive the majority of the Non-sectarian Scripture instruction it deems beneficial to the community; and calls upon the Scripture Campaign Council to organise a deputation, at an early date, to urge Government and parliament to provide Referendum machinery for testing the mind of electors at the next general elections.
However, while, as indicated, the meeting was ostensibly about Scripture lessons, it was more remarkable for another full-on attack on the Roman Catholic Church. Judkins' focus was on the threat the church posed to the Empire. As Judkins saw it, the church was openly and actively plotting to destroy the Empire. He worked from the proposition that the Empire itself was 'God's handiwork'. The Empire was also the bulwark against Rome:
God has not only established it [the Empire], but preserved it. This barrier [the Empire] between Rome and the realisation of her principles has been divinely built. It is because the Empire constitutes that barrier, that leaders of Roman Catholicism burn with so intense hatred against all that is British.
The link between the Bible and the defence of the Empire – and therefore the necessary push for the proposed referendum – came from what Judkins saw as the Roman campaign to undermine the Bible as a means of destroying the Empire. He described … two directions in which the energies of the Church of Rome are being exerted in an attempt to establish herself in a position of temporal and spiritual supremacy. She aims at the destruction of the British Empire, and the prohibition of the use of the Bible by the people.
For Judkins, the Bible and the Empire were fundamentally linked. The Bible had a form of geo-political significance:
We shall lose the Empire if we lose the Bible.
Judkins then gave another history lesson going back to the Spanish Armada and Rome's attempt to subdue England and ending with the supposed alliance between the Pope and Germany in WW1.
Specifically in relation to the then current conflict in Ireland he claimed to see the hand of Rome involved and saw it as yet another attempt by Rome to overcome the Empire. He stated:
The happenings in Ireland, the endeavour to create a state [Irish Free State] close to the heart of the Empire have as their object the realisation of the long-cherished desire of Rome.
He then went further and claimed that the same plot was being played out in Australia:
Attempts are being made to make Australia another Ireland, and with the same object in view.
Whether it was the strongest attack against Roman Catholics made to that point, it was certainly extreme. Interestingly, some allies thought that the likes of Judkins had finally gone too far. One was Rossiter, the editor of the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative. As noted before, Rossiter was a firm Imperial Loyalist but, this time, apparently, Judkins had crossed a line. As editor, he would certainly have been aware of the impact this type of address – published in his paper – was having on the community and in particular on the level of sectarian conflict. It did not appear to have been such an issue for him in the past, but this time he intervened. In an editorial (2/7/20), he noted that the issue of Scripture lessons had hardly been covered in Judkins' address and that it was more just an unbridled attack on Roman Catholicism. He stated:
If Bible lessons are to be taught in our State schools a scheme acceptable to all denominations will not be hastened by violently attacking the Church of Rome for acts done by her devotees hundreds of years ago.
If every Protestant clergyman held and enunciated views as does Mr. Judkins, what strife there would be.
On that very point, he singled out Rev Opper who had also been at the meeting. He claimed that Opper had been more 'temperate' and 'constructive' in his comments than Judkins.
And the apparent backlash against Judkins continued. In the local paper on 2/7/20 Rev Opper had a letter announcing that he had resigned his position as vice-president of the local branch of the Protestant Federation:
With your permission, I wish, through the medium of your paper, to dissociate myself from the violent attack upon the Church of Rome, made by the Rev. G. A. Judkins on Sunday night last, and published in your columns this morning. The meeting was arranged for the purpose of urging support for a referendum on Scripture Lessons in State Schools – a movement which has my fullest sympathy – and not for the purpose for which it was used. In order to avoid being placed again in a false position, I am forwarding to the secretary of the local branch of the Protestant Federation my resignation as president. Still remaining a good Anglican, and, I hope, a good Protestant. – I am …
Previously, Opper too had been a strident critic of the 'Roman Church' but perhaps, as a local minister, he had grown concerned at the impact that such wild accusations were having on the community.
But for any local disquiet about the level of sectarian conflict in the community and the impact of extreme accusations being made against Roman Catholicism, the local branch of the Protestant Federation continued the fight. In February 1921, Rev R Ditterich – president of the Methodist Conference of Victoria and Tasmania – addressed about 50 people in the Yarram Mechanics' Institute. It was written up in the edition of 9/2/21. Ditterich was President of the Australian Protestant Federation and had been previously very involved in the Victorian branch. The talk focused on the question of 'Why are we Protestants?' He lamented that few people had a sound understanding of the history of Protestantism. The version of history he gave that night started with the persecution of Protestants by the Roman Church and highlighted the despotic power that Rome had over its faithful:
The Church of Rome exercised a power over the will of their people, who knew no liberty of thought, and no freedom, and they also tried to exercise a power over their politics and education, in fact, the Church exercised a power when and wherever it chose.
In terms of the recent War, Ditterich claimed that … Catholic France was saved by Protestant England.
Overall, Ditterich had nothing positive to say about Rome:
As Protestants they had no thanks to pay the Roman Catholic church for any single liberty which the people enjoyed today.
Perhaps the vote of thanks that night was more circumspect than usual:
Rev. Lancaster said they were deeply indebted for the address, which should inspire them, not in a spirit of hatred, but thankfulness for their freedom.
As noted, Rev Opper by this point had severed contact with Protestant Federation.
Local celebrations at the time Ireland gained 'Free State' status
The last episode to cover involved the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty was to provide for a measure of Irish independence and put an end to the three years of fighting between Irish nationalists and republicans and British troops and special units. The treaty had broad backing in Australia but, in fact, in Ireland itself it presaged the bitter civil war that was to follow very quickly. But certainly at the time, the news of the treaty – even with its qualifications – was received warmly in the Catholic community in the Shire of Alberton.
As an indication of just how close the political situation in Ireland was to Irish Catholics in Australia, the local community in the Shire of Alberton organised a special celebration for the announcement of the treaty. It was written up in the local paper on 23/12/21. There was a 'large and enthusiastic audience' at Thompson's Hall in Yarram. The Yarram Band played before the concert started. Items at the concert included the songs: 'Ireland I Love You', 'Come Back to Erin' and 'Irish Eyes Are Smiling'. There was no mention of the National Anthem. There was also dancing. It was a great success and … everything passed off without the slightest hitch.
The end of WW1 did not see the end of the sectarian conflict in Australian society which had been exacerbated by the conflict over the two conscription referenda. In fact, more extreme Protestant groups doubled down on the fundamental question of 'loyalty' (to the Empire) and routinely portrayed Roman Catholicism as inherently anti-British and anti-Empire. They even argued that the Church of Rome had sided with the Germans in the War. Additionally, Roman Catholicism was represented as a form of intellectual, political and spiritual tyranny. And, for good measure, the Pope was the anti-Christ. Similarly, the struggle for Irish independence was portrayed as an existential threat to the Empire itself.
In response to such criticisms, and constantly looking to the political situation in Ireland, the Australian Catholic community chose to become more assertive in their role in society and politics, and more determined to protect their religious and cultural identity. Most significantly, they moved to a sense of Australian nationalism that effectively sought to remove the previously core element of the Empire.
The sectarianism experienced in the local community was intense and often highly personal.
Synan. T 2003, A Journey in Faith: A History of Catholic Education in Gippsland 1850-1981, David Lovell Publishing, Ringwood Victoria
Various. 1992, Companions on the Journey 1892-1992, Centenary of St. Mary's Parish Yarram 1892-1992, St. Mary's Parish, Yarram
Gippsland Times
Note 1: for more background on the 1920 St Patrick's Day Procession in Melbourne see the following article by Paul Daley in The Guardian 22/4/16: Divided Melbourne: when the archbishop turned St, Patrick's Day into propaganda.
Note 2: Father Sterling's name often appears as Stirling. The signature on his enlistment forms is definitely Sterling.
This entry was posted in Divided Community, Post War, Religion & Community, The dead, The Irish Question on January 29, 2021 by pcashen.
154. The start of the 1918 school year and yet more division
This post continues to explore themes raised in earlier posts, particularly Post 84 and Post 68.
At the start of 1918 there were 2 very significant developments in the provision of schooling in the local community. At the Yarram State School, higher primary grades commenced and, nearby, the new Catholic primary school – St Mary's – was opened.
The local community had been calling for a higher primary top to the local state primary school – even a separate high school – for several years. Just days after the outbreak of War, the Director of Education (F Tate) visited Yarram (10/8/14) at the invitation of the local school board to consider the provision of higher primary/higher elementary schooling. The basic agreement reached was that continuing classes – to Intermediate level – could be set up in (new) buildings on the existing primary school site, with the local community agreeing to contribute an amount of £350. In theory, the money was to be raised by the local council setting a special levy. But then the reality of the War intervened.
By late 1917, the push for the higher elementary school picked up again after the Victorian Government set aside funds (£2,000) for a higher elementary school in Yarram. Again, the local community was expected to contribute financially. The amount was now £400, over 4 years. This time the money was to be raised by subscriptions, not a special levy via the council. Tate visited Yarram again in January 1918 and by the end of February, 60 students were enrolled. Initially they were accommodated in existing buildings on the site but new buildings, specifically for the higher primary years, were planned in mid 1918 and officially opened in April 1919.
The provision of higher primary or higher elementary schooling was very significant. Students could now pursue formal education beyond the primary level, without having to leave the district. Other neighbouring towns – Sale, Warragul and Leongatha – had already established equivalent, and in some case even more impressive, post primary schooling. The establishment of the higher primary school – on the grounds of the Yarram Primary School – was proof of civic worth and status. When Tate had first visited in August 1914, he was reported – Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative, 12/8/14 – as stating that he believed that Yarram warranted the higher primary school and that the community could well afford it. He had observed the … substantial appearance of Yarram with its fine hotels and other buildings.
The overall success of the initiative was qualified in one critical way. At the speech night at the end of 1918 – reported in the local paper on 24/12/18 – there was an urgent appeal for a 'hostel' to be set up in Yarram to accommodate students from 'outside parts' over the school week – Monday to Friday. Such a facility had been established at Leongatha and it was recognised that an equivalent boarding facility was required in Yarram if students from other townships and settlements in the Shire were to be able to take advantage of the improved schooling. In the same speech, it was noted that while there were 42 students from Yarram attending the new higher primary school, there was only an individual student – or in a few cases 2 or 3 students – coming from Balook (3), Wonyip (2), West Alberton (3), Jack River (1), North Devon (1), Womerah (1), Tarraville (1), Lower Bulga (2) and Welshpool (2). Clearly, the benefits of higher primary schooling were largely restricted to those living in Yarram. Families with sufficient finances who were keen for their children to have a complete secondary education – generally with a view to pursuing a degree at Melbourne University – had traditionally sent their children to a boarding school (college) in one of the larger rural towns – e.g., Geelong (Geelong Grammar School), Ballarat (St. Patrick's College) – or Melbourne. This pattern continued after the extension of primary schooling at Yarram.
The opening of the Catholic primary school – St. Mary's – for the start of the 1918 school year was a very pressured business. The building had only just been completed and the accommodation for the Sisters of St Joseph – the teaching order to run the school – was only finalised in the week leading up to the opening. The frantic pace was captured in an editorial in the local paper – 1/2/18 – which also praised the determination of Bishop Phelan:
The Catholic community in this district has accomplished a great deal. They built and opened a large brick church – an ornament to the town – built a school, and have now purchased Mr. Brennan's property for the comfortable housing of the teaching nuns. When Bishop Phelan gets to work things move apace.
Phelan had made it clear to the Catholic community that he expected a Catholic primary school to be established and that it was to serve not just Yarram but the surrounding district, with students, initially at least, boarding at the convent. But Phelan had also made it clear that the school had to come after the new church had been built and after suitable accommodation had been arranged for the nuns. The church, the convent and the school were all to stand as proof of the strength and social status of the local Catholic community in the district.
Interestingly, much was made of the new teaching order of nuns, the Sisters of St. Joseph. From the late 19 C, a French order of nuns – Sisters of Our lady of Sion – at the invitation of Bishop Corbett, had been operating schools in Gippsland – at Sale, Bairnsdale and Warragul. But for the new school at Yarram, Bishop Phelan had been successful in securing 'local' nuns. The following appeared in the local paper on 6/2/18. The claim of Scottish ancestry was, presumably, for the benefit of the large Scottish demographic:
With regard to this particular order of teaching sisters, the branch now established at Yarram is purely Australian. The Mother Foundress of this Order, Mother Mary McKillop, is of Scotch descent, and was born in Brunswick St., Fitzroy. So that the sisters of the Oder which she established are for the most part Australians. They have houses, schools, orphanages from West Australia to New Zealand.
Both these significant developments in the provision of local education took place at the start of the fifth year of the War and, as been argued in previous posts, at a time when, in theory, all fundraising was focused on the War effort. The issue is whether either or both of these initiatives attracted any criticism.
In the case of the local state school there was certainly no criticism. The commitment to establish a higher primary top to the primary school at Yarram had been there well before the War. The community had always been strongly behind the proposal. The Victorian Government had placed the proposal on hold because of the War and the local community had, patriotically, accepted this decision. But now, at the start of 1918, the Government had found funds for the proposal to proceed, accepting that the local community also contributed. Further, the local committee appointed to secure the £400 of local contribution was heavily representative of local Imperial Loyalists. Three members of the small committee stood out: A J Rossiter, the editor of the local paper; Rev C J Walklate, the local Methodist clergyman; and A E Paige, the head teacher of the Yarram SS. These 3 high profile figures would have provided an effective 'guarantee' of the appropriateness of the fundraising. Additionally, many of the most generous contributors to the public subscription – names were published in the local paper – were also high profile Imperial Loyalists. The lists included people like B P Johnson (£5), T G McKenzie (£10) and Dr Rutter (£10). Importantly, the change from a Shire-imposed rate increase to a voluntary subscription must have also reduced the potential for conflict. Additionally, the change avoided conflict with the Catholic community who could have argued that they were being forced to contribute, through increased rates, to a school system that they would not use, or even – from the perspective of Catholic faith – could not use. The Catholic Church already argued, on the broader scale, that this was the case with State taxation to support state schools. It appears that subscriptions to raise the £400 came overwhelmingly from Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians. The records, published in the local paper, are incomplete but it appears that Catholics were under-represented, notwithstanding a large contribution (£5) from Michael O'Callaghan, a Catholic grazier from Jack River.
Overall, there was very strong support for the higher primary schooling at Yarram SS and there was no evidence of any opposition to the fundraising associated with it. The situation in relation to the new Catholic primary school at Yarram was a more complex affair.
Ironically, there was an immediate and very significant positive associated with the opening of the Catholic primary school. The forty or so enrolments in the new school reduced the numbers at the state primary school and this meant that the new higher primary students could be accommodated in the existing facilities at the school. The need to build new classrooms was not immediately pressing.
However, such an immediate benefit hardly compensated for the major fault line which was revealed by the opening of the Catholic primary school.
On the surface at least, there did not appear to be any overt hostility directed at the fundraising associated with the new Catholic school. No one appears to have used the local paper to attack these particular fundraising efforts. Indeed, as noted, editorials at the time were complimentary of the Catholics' efforts. However, there must have been un-reported opposition to the Catholics' church and school building projects over the course of the War. Bishop Phelan himself made this point, explicitly, in a talk he gave on the visit of the Apostolic Delegate to Sale in April 1918. His address was reported in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 26/4/18. Talking about all the difficulties he had faced in his ambitious building program post March 1915, Phelan noted:
He specifically cited the school at Yarram in the same speech; and he used the same emotion-charged language:
Already two convents and two schools, Leongatha and Yarram, have been added to our brave army fighting the battle of Catholic education.
But if fundraising for the Catholic primary school was not a major public concern at the time, there was still considerable controversy associated with its opening.
The new school – with the exception of a brief interlude for an earlier version of St Mary's primary school, Yarram (1885-1890) – marked the first time that the Catholic community of the Shire of Alberton had withdrawn their children from the local state school(s). Effectively, all the young, local Catholic men who enlisted from 1914 had been educated at the local state school(s). Even though their family background, for the most part, was Irish-Australian, they had been schooled, via the state system, in absolute loyalty to Britain and the Empire. Now, in the fifth year of the War, and with 2 failed referenda on conscription – with much of the 'blame' for the failure sheeted home to Catholics – the local Catholics were withdrawing from the state school.
The significance of the opening of the school at that point – the start of 1918 – also needs to be seen in the context of the continuing conflict between Catholic and Protestant over the issue of scripture lessons in state schools. The conflict over scripture 'readings' or 'lessons' was a constant and while it might seem by our standards, 100 years on, as minor and even trivial, it went to the core of the Protestant – Catholic divide. It was a passionate debate, for while the Protestants argued that any form of state aid to support the independent Catholic sector would be in complete breach of the principles of the 'Free', 'Compulsory' and 'Secular' education acts of the 1870s – and only further entrench the Catholic tendency to separation and exclusivity – the Catholic Church argued that any 'non-dogmatic' scripture lessons, taught by 'non-sectarian' mainstream teachers was nothing but a brazen attempt to incorporate Protestantism in the state school systems and would therefore also be in breach of the same principles. The politics of the day meant that neither side could prevail; but each could antagonise and frustrate the other.
The conflict over scripture lessons was hardly new. For example, for an insight on the complexity and centrality of the issue, consider this account of the 1913 debate – Catholic Educational Claims – held in Melbourne where the proposition was – That the Roman Catholic claims for financial aid from the State treasury toward their denominational schools are not just, and would be destructive of our State system. Speaking for the proposition was Rev J Nicholson, spokesperson for the Scripture Campaign Council, the body representing the Protestant Churches pushing for scripture lessons in state schools. Speaking for the negative was Thomas C Brennan of the recently formed Australian Catholic Federation. The debate was in front of an audience of approximately 1,000 people and while the proceedings were civil it certainly exposed the stark differences between Catholic and Protestant at the time.
The division over the push for scripture lessons in state schools – there were attempts to have referenda on the issue put to the Victorian people – was certainly evident in the Shire of Alberton. In fact, the issue was raised, very publicly, in the lead-up to the opening of the Catholic primary school. In mid September 1917, Bishop Phelan gave a sermon in Yarram. It was reported, in detail, in the local paper on 12/9/17. In brief, Phelan instructed his congregation that in the upcoming state elections they could not vote for any candidate who supported the call for a referendum on the introduction of the scripture lessons in state schools. He saw this referendum as an attempt by the Protestant majority to … crush the Catholic minority.
Phelan must have provided a copy of his sermon to the editor of the local paper because the reporting of the sermon is so detailed. There is an entire section on the Virgin Mary. Citing Luke's Gospel, Phelan went into great detail outlining the centrality of Mary to Catholic faith, teaching and veneration. The intention behind this specific focus on Mary was to highlight the chasm, between Catholic and Protestant, on the issue of 'Bible reading'. Phelan pointed out that, irrespective of what the Bible said, Catholic teaching on the role of Mary, and devotion to her, were both anathema to Protestants. He reminded his congregation that up to the very recent past, British monarchs had had to … declare before receiving the crown that "the adoration of the Virgin Mary and the sacrifice of the Mass, as they were used in the Church of Rome are superstitious and idolatrous" . Prior to the Accession Declaration Act of 1910 – in time for the coronation of George V – the wording of the new monarch's 'declaration' had been, in part:
… I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever: and that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous.
The declaration also denied the authority of the Pope.
In the face of such diametrically opposed positions – based in large part on Bible reading – Phelan argued that the idea of a 'non-sectarian' lesson of Bible reading – conducted by mainstream teachers in state schools – was a myth. For him, the idea of a 'non-dogmatic' Christian faith was a nonsense. For him, there could never be, as it were, a 'generic' Christianity. For the Catholic, the Bible was to be read and interpreted through a person's faith, which itself had been formed by the teaching of the Church. But from the time of the Reformation, Protestantism had had a very different take on the relationship between the Bible and the individual. The Catholic Church saw the bible lessons in state schools, within the promise of 'non-dogmatic' and 'non-sectarian' scripture readings, as a thinly disguised attempt to proselytise in the name of Protestantism. It would never accept it.
It would be a mistake to see this particular dispute merely in terms of differences in religious dogma between Catholic and Protestant. Other references in Phelan's sermon that day show how the tension of the difficult history between England and Ireland was ever present. It coloured everything. Speaking of the efforts of the Irish in England from mid 19C to fight for their faith and the provision of Catholic schooling, Phelan made this extended reference:
The men and women who fought for Christian education in the land of the Saxon were the sons and daughters of Ireland driven from the home of their fathers in the middle of last century by a trinity of evils, the awful visitation of Providence, the famine of '47, the worst landlord system that ever cursed a nation, and a Government whose policy at that crisis can only be described as diabolical. When Lord John Russell was asked for ships to bring food across the Irish Channel to a starving nation he peremptorily refused, declaring that "such a use of Her Majesty's navy would interfere with the legitimate freights of the shipping industry of Great Britain." And the London "Times" spoke enthusiastically of the good time coming when "a Catholic would be as rare on the banks of the Shannon as a red Indian on the banks of the Manhattan."
The not very subtle sub-text was that the persecution of Irish Catholics at the hands of English Protestants was both historical and ongoing.
Not surprisingly, Phelan's sermon prompted a vigorous response. The first letter appeared one week later (19/9/17). It was from Joseph Nicholson, Superintendent of the Scripture Campaign, the body driving the push for a referendum on the issue of bible reading in state schools. Nicholson was arguably the most high profile advocate for the cause. He had appeared in the 1913 public debate referred to above. Nicholson argued that it was possible to have (scriptural) lessons of 'absolutely unsectarian character'. He emphasised what he saw as the Catholic Church's reluctance to have its followers read the Bible:
It is no doubt difficult for a non-Romanist to understand the fears of the Roman Catholic clergy concerning the effect of Bible reading by their people.
Further, he insisted, even if the Catholic clergy were that terrified about their members reading the Bible – by themselves – the lessons in the state school were not to be compulsory:
While we do not share the fears of the Roman Catholic clergy concerning the disasters that are likely to follow from Scripture reading, yet, in our scrupulous desire to protect Roman Catholic children from what they disapprove, we insist on their absolute freedom from Scripture lessons, and make provision for secular studies instead.
This letter was followed by one from Father Stirling which was published on 21/9/17. Stirling made claims about the misrepresentation of the Catholic position but overall his letter read more like an attempt to defuse the situation. This letter was responded to, again by Rev Nichoslosn, who dismissed Fr Sterling's 'feeble comments'. The letter was published on 26/9/17. There were more claims of misrepresentation amid pointed claims that … this infallible church is not uniform in its teachings. Nicholson argued that the arrangements for 'non-sectarian' bible reading lessons in Victorian state schools for which the Scripture Campaign was advocating, were in place in other education jurisdictions, both in Australia (NSW) and overseas. Nicholson chose to represent the dispute in terms of the rights and responsibilities of the 2 parties, one the minority and the other the majority. As he saw it, the Catholic minority was at fault:
The Roman Catholic opposition to "unsectarian" Scripture lessons is … intensely selfish in seeking to interfere with the Protestant majority that is tenderly considerate of the Romanist minority. We give them safeguarded liberty, but refuse Romanist domination of Protestant liberties.
This particular iteration of the struggle over the teaching of 'non-sectarian' or 'unsectarian' or 'non-dogmatic' scripture lessons disappeared from the local paper by the start of October 1918. However, as we will see, the issue itself certainly did not disappear. Throughout 1918, Catholics continued to block this Protestant proposal. For their part, the Protestants maintained their absolute rejection of any 'state-aid' for Catholic schools.
Leaving aside the symbolism of the local Catholic community establishing its own primary school and withdrawing its children from the local state school, at the very time Imperial Loyalists were calling for a single, united and focused War effort – and also at the very time that the community as a whole was trying to extend the range of post-primary state schooling throughout the district – it is clear that Bishop Phelan's unrelenting focus on Catholic education during WW1 served to heighten division within the broader community. Effectively, he forced the Catholic community in Gippsland as a whole, and not just in the Shire of Alberton, to assert their separate identity and status through education. The problem was that this identity was overlaid with so many religious, cultural, social and political associations that the loyalty of this minority, at that particular time of National crisis, would inevitably be called into question by the Protestant majority. As much as locals wanted to downplay or ignore the division, it was always there. Equally, while their opposition to conscription is routinely presented as the distinctive behaviour of the Catholic minority in WW1, it is clear that considerably more than this single issue was at play. Indeed, as an immediate example of just how complex the issues were, Thomas Brennan – referred to above as the key Catholic spokesperson in the 1913 education debate and also the first president of the Australian Catholic Federation – supported conscription and was an outspoken critic of Mannix on the issue. Bishop Phelan was said to be neutral on the same issue. In short, the Catholic question went well beyond the issue of conscription.
Synan, T 2003, A Journey in Faith: A History of Catholic Education in Gippsland 1850-1981, David Lovell Publishing, Melbourne
Adams, J 1990, From these Beginnings: History of the Shire of Alberton (Victoria), Alberton Shire Council, Yarram, Victoria
This entry was posted in Divided Community, January to June 1918, Prominent Citizens, Religion & Community, School & Community, The Irish Question, The role of the Press on March 14, 2018 by pcashen.
150. The second conscription referendum (Dec 20, 1917)
In its Christmas Day edition (Tuesday 25/12/17), the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative featured only limited coverage of the second conscription referendum, held just a few days earlier on Thursday 20/12/17. It limited the coverage to a breakdown of the vote and a short, local anecdote.
The voting returns, to that point, showed that whereas the No vote had succeeded in Victoria, the Yes vote in the Yarram poll had come in at 67% which was essentially the figure achieved in the first referendum. Both the Shire of Alberton, and Gippsland, retained their status as amongst the strongest supporters of conscription. The anecdote that the paper made a point of including was clearly intended to stand as an editorial comment on the failure of the referendum:
An incident worthy of notice occurred at the Yarram polling booth on Thursday. A lady voter, Mrs. Hamilton, second eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Bland, was borne in on a stretcher, having only a few days previously undergone an operation for appendicitis. It will be remembered that Mrs. Hamilton lost her husband at Gallipoli, and with true Anzac spirit, at all events was determined to have revenge in an effort to send "more men.'" Unfortunately the Commonwealth has decided that our boys at the front shall not be relieved.
Essentially, the anecdote was intended to serve as a lesson in moral failure. Once again, beyond all expectation, understanding and exhortation, the Australian Nation had suffered a moral failure.
For the local Imperial Loyalists, the conviction that there was a lack of moral integrity abroad had been expressed regularly in the months leading to the second referendum. The constant claim was that people refused to accept their obligations in terms of the War effort. Three years of War had compromised their sense of responsibility and their inherent selfishness had come to the fore. At a poorly attended welcome home for a soldier (F J Card) in late September 1917, B P Johnson was reported – Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative, 3/101/7 – as stating:
The war had been on three years and some people had got tired of saying good-bye, or wish (sic) a welcome to the men returning or to say "thank you, old chap." It showed a tremendous want of feeling or thought. It seemed to be the same all over Australia. They heard people say Australia had done enough. The 320,000 gone had made a name throughout the world. Those men deserved credit. Other men would not go, nor even give those returning a shake of the hand. He felt very strongly about it. They did not realise the protection they had from the British Empire, and did not care how the boys felt.
While the vote in the Shire of Alberton in the 2 referenda was substantially the same, the second referendum was characterised by a far more visible level of division and antagonism within the community. Such discord was set to worsen in 1918. Its most obvious manifestation would take the form of increasingly bitter sectarianism.
Anti-conscription meetings
Reports in the local press indicate that there were 3 public anti-conscription meetings in the shire in the lead up to the referendum. The first of these was held in Port Albert, on the reserve, in the afternoon of Sunday 2/12/17. The key speaker was Mr McGowan, an ALP candidate for St Kilda in the recent state election. Substantially, this meeting was similar to the single anti-conscription meeting held during the first referendum (Post 91): the speaker was someone from outside the local district, there was no indication that any locals were involved in running or even setting up the meeting, and the reception was overtly hostile.
There were about 100 present at the meeting and they had come to disrupt it. The report in the local paper (5/12/17) noted:
In anticipation of some fun, a number of visitors went to Port Albert on Sunday afternoon, to hear Messrs McGowan and Taylor, billed to speak on the reserve on Anti-Conscription. Mr. McGowan was heckled from first to last.
That afternoon, over the abuse and hectoring, McGowan attempted to argue that the Government could not be trusted on the issue of the number of reinforcements required. He maintained the Government was not able to give an accurate number of how many 'eligible' men there were nor how many reinforcements were required. Further, it had given conflicting figures. McGowan cited his version of the numbers to prove that compared to others – Canada and the US – Australia had done more than its share. McGowan also pressed the issue of the lack of support for returned soldiers. He told the crowd that invalided soldiers' pensions were being reduced, those returning could not find work, and their dependents were facing hardship. McGowan actually proposed a collection for returned soldiers but the crowd voted it down.
The next night (3/12/17) McGowan spoke in the Mechanics' Hall in Yarram. It was a full house. In the previous week, he had spoken at both Wonthaggi and Leongatha. The report in the press indicated that McGowan received a better hearing at this meeting but there was no indication at all of any support for his position.
McGowan was critical of the wording of the referendum – Are you in favour of the proposal of the Commonwealth Government for reinforcing the Australian Imperial Force overseas? – as manifestly biased in favour the Yes vote. He argued that some Nationalists – William Irvine was the most prominent – were directly advocating the introduction of conscription by legislation and Hughes' pledge to introduce it only through a referendum was therefore compromised. He also claimed that the vote of married men had been bought at the expense of young, single men who did not even have the vote. He accused the Hughes Government of using wild claims about the IWW and Sinn Fein to create division in society.
At the meeting, McGowan shared the stage with 3 returned soldiers. The advertisement for the meeting had declared that these men would present … the views of the Returned Soldiers' Anti-Conscription League of Australia. The criticism of the men was that the Government had not looked after the men who returned from the War either wounded, suffering from illness or medically disabled in some way. It was a critical issue. More and more men were returning home and, while welcomed as heroes, they faced all manner of problems. Moreover, the casualty rates were increasing. The second half of 1917 had been a disaster for the AIF and the level of casualties from September had been one of the very reasons Hughes had decided on the referendum. However, the clear implication was that the Government had not provided adequate care and support for those men returning and therefore had no moral right to compulsorily send even more. McGowan's claim that Australia must do much more for her returned men and their dependents was met with applause.
J R Boucher, one the soldiers present, claimed:
In this country the returned men were promised this and that; brass bands played – but not for them. He referred to a returned soldier, named Divett, whose pension, he said, had been reduced to 15/- a week – a man pronounced by the doctors to be incurable.
One of the other soldiers there introduced the issues of class and wealth:
Returned soldier W Taylor stated he was a committeeman of the Returned Soldiers' "No" Conscription League, 1500 strong, and every man of them has heard shots fired. He contended that while soldiers offered their lives, wealth should lend money free of interest instead of pocketing 4 1/2 per cent.
McGowan and the soldiers also argued that the unions were not disloyal, working people's conditions and wages had been reduced and, following the Great Strike, unionists had been persecuted and discriminated against. All this while the promises of jobs for the returning men were not being honoured.
The report of the meeting in the paper makes it clear that the soldiers on the stage were challenged and hectored and the fact that none of them were local returned men would not have helped their cause. However, the issue of repatriation was a key one and, as already noted – Post 148 – it was already creating tension in the local community. There was real concern over the issue. Indeed, at the meeting that night a collection for returned men in need was organised on the spot, and it raised £6.
The meeting at Yarram would have been a difficult one for McGowan and the returned men, but at least they got a hearing. As mentioned, McGowan had spoken the previous week at Wonthaggi, a mining town. His reception there had been very different from the one at Yarram. According to the report in the local paper at Wonthaggi – Powlett Express and Victorian State Coalfields Advertiser, 30/11/17 – the meeting was a clear success for McGowan, and at the end of the meeting the following motion was passed unanimously:
That we the citizens of Wonthaggi will endeavour to do all that lays in our power to secure a No vote on December 20 .
The report also notes that McGowan again stressed the lack of Government support for returned men. Given the more like-minded audience he also made more of the threat conscription posed to Australian unionism and the conditions and employment of Australian workers generally. He also argued that in the UK where the union movement had actively supported the government, working conditions had declined. He pushed the claim that conscription, by its very nature, was an attack on the working class and the union movement.
There was a third anti-conscription meeting held on Tuesday 11/12/17. It was reported, briefly, in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on Friday 14/12/17. This particular meeting was originally scheduled for the day before (Monday 10/12/17) and a large crowd turned up but there were no speakers and no indication of what had happened to them and why the meeting did not proceed. Once again, there was no mention of local people involved in the planning of the meeting. It was, apparently, a completely 'outside' affair. The crowd broke up with no one knowing what was going on. The paper (14/12/17) even suggested that the cancellation that night and the rescheduling the next day were part of a ploy to keep the Yes people away, particularly those from Alberton and Port Albert. The disruption of meetings, on both sides, was certainly commonplace. Indeed the same edition of the local paper reported on how local men were even going to Melbourne to break up meetings:
Returned soldiers in the metropolitan area, on the affirmative side, have adopted tactics to break up "anti" meetings. They speak for a while as "No" men, and receive the applause of the audience, but when they make known their true views the air is rent with boo-hoos, and the order of the meeting is gone. Sergeant Newland, of Yarram, was one of these speakers at St. Kilda the other evening, gained his purpose in creating disorder, and was lost in the crowd outside.
The third Yarram anti-conscription meeting did go ahead the next night. It was held in Thompson's Hall and did not finish until 11.00 pm. Once again, there was a large crowd. The key speaker was Mr Guido Barrachi. The chair was occupied by another returned soldier but, again, he was not a local. Apologies were given for the cancellation of the meeting the day before. Bad roads were given as the reason.
As indicated there was little detail in the local press about the second Yarram meeting. However we do know something about Barrachi and we also know that earlier that day Barrachi and another key anti-conscriptionist, the Rev Frederick Sinclair, had addressed a meeting at Mirboo North. That particular meeting was a very rowdy affair and … at times it looked as if serious trouble would brew. (The Argus, 12/12/17). Part of the problem at Mirboo North was the statement by Sinclair that he wanted to talk to the young people, not the 'bald headed' ones.
Both Rev Sinclair and Guido Barrachi were avowed socialists. Not long before he appeared in Yarram, Barrachi had given a lecture on 'Socialism as an Economic System' as part of a series of free public lectures chaired by Archbishop Mannix. Barrachi was a law student from Melbourne University. He was very involved in the anti-conscription movement and appeared at many meetings. For example, in the week after his appearances in Gippsland he was in Geelong where he appeared at street corner meetings with Vida Goldstein. Baracchi would eventually be prosecuted under the War Precautions Act – both Sinclair and McGowan were also prosecuted – and imprisoned for 3 months.
There was no report on the detail of what was said at the meeting in Yarram, but Barrachi's opposition to conscription, from a socialist perspective, would have been, arguably, the most strident anti-War sentiment the people of Yarram ever heard. As an example of his position, in July 1917 he had clashed with the board of Melbourne University for publishing the following in the university's student publication:
The war, whatever the jingoes and junkers may tell us, is not primarily our affair. Essentially it is a European war, fought by the Allies against Germany to maintain the balance of European power. And Australia is not Europe. This is the true explanation of our recruiting figures; the exact index of the nation's war interest. Nevertheless, through a connection with the British Empire, on the whole rather tragic, the Commonwealth is deeply involved in the European cataclysm, and the event is for us, and for the rest of the world, well nigh as significant as the fall of Lucifer. (Labor Call, 19/7/17)
Pro-conscription meetings
There were 2 major pro-conscriptions meetings in Yarram in the lead up to the referendum. Both were reported extensively in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative. The first was held on Saturday 7/12/17 in the Shire Hall and reported on 12/12/17. The second was held on Thursday 13/12/17 and reported on 19/12/17. Both meetings were advertised in advance, attracted large, supportive audiences, involved outside speakers as well as prominent local backers of conscription and both passed, overwhelmingly, resolutions in favour of the Yes vote.
The first meeting was chaired by the Shire President – Cr McGalliard – and proceedings opened with the National Anthem, "God Bless Our Splendid Men", "Rule Britannia" and 'other patriotic airs'. At the end of the meeting the following resolution was passed:
That we, the citizens of Yarram and district, express our determination to wholeheartedly support the Government in adequately reinforcing the men at the front, and to that end pledge ourselves to work for a huge "Yes' majority.
In opening the meeting, the Shire President praised Hughes for honouring his commitment not to introduce conscription without a referendum. He also noted that Australia was the only place where conscription had not simply been legislated for, as many wished. However, he continued, the stakes were much higher now than in 1916. Critically, Russia had effectively left the War. The threat from Germany was greater than ever. McGalliard also warned that if the referendum was defeated, Hughes, to honour his pledge, would resign and the nation would be thrown into chaos. Finally, he appealed to the Catholic voters. Italy and Belgium, 2 of the strongest Catholic countries in Europe, were fighting with the allies. People had to put the issue of sectarianism aside and face the greater threat of Germany.
Cr. Embling (Herbert Arthur Embling, Mayor of Prahran) as the invited speaker, took the high moral ground, reminding everyone that Australia had pledged support to the last man and last shilling. Further, the setbacks in Europe – Russia was out of the War and Italy had been badly set back – justified conscription. Without reinforcements the Australian divisions would continue to reduce in number. The UK had stood by Australia, even buying the wool and wheat it had no hope of transporting back to England. It proved the UK stood by Australia. There was also praise for the UK unions and workers who were totally behind their government.
B P Johnson, in introducing the motion of support for conscription, spent time attacking the claims made by McGowan at the earlier anti-conscription meeting. He also claimed that the local returned soldiers would not support the claims made at that meeting by the soldiers on the platform with McGowan. Johnson was keen to remind everyone of the last referendum:
Yarram gave a magnificent "Yes" vote at the last referendum, and it was to be hoped that a bigger majority would be given this time. (Applause)
Rev Cyril John Walklate began by detailing his own unsuccessful attempts to enlist. He declared that he would never hide behind either his marriage or his calling as a clergyman. He recounted how he had only recently been rejected on medical grounds. Further, in a barely disguised attack on Fr Sterling, he claimed that if he had been able to enlist as a chaplain he would have insisted on serving the men in the front line and not by taking the role of chaplain on a troopship. This public attempt to belittle Fr Sterling's efforts as a chaplain was to continue through at least 1918.
Walklate disputed all the figures that the antis had cited in their claims that Australia had done enough. In his mind, the arguments about numbers and 'share' was a false one. The real issue was loyalty to the Empire. What he wanted was equality of sacrifice from families, not colonies. Given his audience, he had no compunction in stating that not only had conscription been introduced in the UK but .. the labor of the working man had also been conscripted as well (Applause). His claim – ironically, one of the key fears of the Australian labour movement – was in line with the overall argument about shared sacrifice.
Walklate tended to make the most extreme claims in these public meetings. He made a range of claims about Germans, including that … the children were fed scientifically on raw meat. Further, if … a woman happened to get in front of a military officer in Germany she was thrown aside, and should her husband interfere he would be slashed with the sword.
Walklate also referred to the recent death of his brother at the front: Captain Harold Vernon Walklate, 14 B kia 22/10/17.
Finally, as reported, Rev Walklate gave a somewhat convoluted reason to explain why so many soldiers had voted no in the 1916 referendum.
At the last referendum tens of thousands of soldiers voted no because they had never seen the firing line.
The general consensus amongst historians is that in 1916 the troops in training in the UK and on the troopships tended to vote Yes, precisely because they had not experienced the western front.
It was also somewhat odd that Walklate laboured the number of desertions from the AIF – principally in Australia, prior to embarkation – at the meeting. He was trying to argue that the figure of total enlistments used by those opposing conscription, had to be adjusted to take into account the 67,000 men who had deserted. While this made some sense from a statistical perspective, the audience could hardly have warmed to such a claim. Certainly, it did not fit with the popular image of the AIF.
The second Yes meeting saw many of the same claims repeated. G H Wise, the local federal member and the guest speaker, again hailed Hughes as an honourable person who had determined to keep his word and not introduce conscription without a referendum. This was despite all those, including some in Hughes' government, who argued that the Government should use its numbers and legislate for conscription. But where Hughes was honourable, Wise claimed that those opposing him were not. They were insincere and blindly following the (ALP) party line:
He knew from his own knowledge that those men's speeches are not sincere, and that they are only spoken from order and not from the heart. (Applause.)
Wise also stressed that the current situation was dire, far worse than in 1916: The position is blacker today than it has been since the war started. He noted that Russia was effectively out of the War, Italy was struggling and … Roumania is down and out.
In a stretch of logic, Wise argued that the reinforcements were not required because of the casualty levels but to give the men at the front a rest.
Again there was the contrast to the labour movement in the UK. In Britain labour stood behind the Government but in Australia the ALP … are the only ones not standing behind their Government. And there was the rhetorical question on what would happen if the referendum was lost and Hughes, to honour his word, resigned. He warned of the chaos to follow.
The first local speaker that night was W G Pope. He presented the motion to be put to the meeting:
That this meeting of the citizens of Yarram and district pledges itself to support the Government in this national crisis, and to use very effort to secure an overwhelming majority for "Yes" in the coming referendum.
Pope warned how real the threat of the German conquest of Australia was. Then he launched into an idiosyncratic claim that those enlisting only stood a 1 in 20 chance of being killed. It is difficult to know what those in the audience would have made of it, particularly as there was no equivalent figure for the odds of being wounded, having your health ruined or being left disabled for the rest of your life. Many would have found his claim inappropriate or misleading and certainly counter-productive:
Life Insurance companies say that they may safely insure men going to the front at a premium of 5 per cent above that of civilians. That means that after a careful investigation of all the figures, the added risk of men being killed at the war is 1 in 20, and about 80 per cent. may be expected to return.
On the question of death rates, Pope felt compelled to argue that, ultimately, it didn't matter. What mattered was not the degree of sacrifice but the integrity of the sacrifice:
If Australia gave her last man and her last shilling she would not have done too much.
The motion, which was of course passed overwhelmingly, was seconded by Rev C J Walklate. He obviously knew he was speaking to the converted:
The thing that stood out in his [Walklate's] mind was that the "Yes" platform is a statement of facts, and the anti platform a concoction of lies. (Loud Applause.)
Extraordinarily, Walklate justified one of the key arguments employed by those opposed to conscription: the threat it posed to the maintenance of the White Australia Policy. As far as Walklate was concerned, even the risk of undermining this policy was not enough to break the sacred promise to the men at the front:
If we are going to deplete Australia, and colored labor comes here, is that any reason why we should break our promise and leave the soldiers there to die?
He finished with an analogy about married men and bolting horses. Again, it could not have meant much to the audience, particularly given that under the conscription proposal married men were to be protected:
If a team of horses bolted up the road, and a man's life were in danger, and married men looked on and said because they were married men they could not risk their lives to save that man, what would you call them? (A voice: Cowards.)
Essentially, the 2 pro-conscription meetings held at Yarram were set pieces. Their key purpose was to demonstrate the strength of support for the Yes vote in the local community. The arguments put forward for the second vote were the ones that had been promoted at other public meetings – farewells, welcomes, recruiting drives, religious memorial services – for most of 1917.
In addition to the large, formal meetings held at Yarram, there were at least 2 public meetings held in local townships. One was at Hiawatha (Fairview) on Friday 14/12/17 and the other at Binginwarri on Monday 17/12/17.
The meeting at Hiawatha was reported in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 19/12/17. It was addressed by speakers for the Yes vote: Rev Walklate and E T Benson, the secretary of the local branch of the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia. The report noted that it was the first ever public meeting on the issue of conscription held at Hiawatha. The meeting was peaceful. There were some interjections but overall … the meeting was very orderly and no doubt educational. While there was no formal motion of support for the Yes vote, the audience closed the meeting with God Save the King. Overall, it was uneventful. In fact, the key point raised in the report was the delight that the car load of speakers had been able to mange the drive, at night, to Hiawatha. It was cited as proof that Hiawatha was not as isolated as some locals believed.
The meeting at Binginwarri was very different. It was reported in the edition of 19/12/17.
The report suggested that the speakers knew there was gong to to be trouble. It noted how fortunate it was that Senior Constable McLeod accompanied the speakers that night. It was again a pro-conscription meeting and the first 2 speakers – W G Pope and B P Johnson – 'got a good hearing'. However when Rev Walklate spoke 'at length' the mood changed significantly.
Walklate attacked the views of Dr Mannix and claimed that in fact other Catholic clergy supported conscription. Walklate then stressed that Mannix's opposition to conscription was because he, as an Irishman, blamed the British for Ireland's problems.
Presumably, the Catholics in the audience did not appreciate being lectured by a local Protestant minister on either the nature of the Catholic position on conscription or the political situation in Ireland and its relevance to them as Irish-Australians. Perhaps Walklate had been determined to provoke a response.
The meeting became very lively. The report noted that people got up and walked out and eggs started flying. At the meeting's end, a tense stand-off followed outside the hall – it was near midnight – and as the car of speakers left it was pelted with eggs:
As they moved off the party were pelted, obviously intended for Mr. Walklate, whose strong utterances aroused the ire of "No" voters.
Walklate himself was convinced that he was being singled out because of his views on conscription. In an editorial in the local paper on 12/12/17 there was a claim by Walklate that, in an earlier incident, his dog had been shot – not fatally – because of his outspoken comments in favour of conscription. However, the editorial noted… but it is more than likely that his canine was amongst a flock of sheep and got a charge of shot.
The report of the trouble at Binginwarri is the only substantive report in the local paper of sectarian conflict as a feature of the referendum. However, previous posts have tracked the significant divisions – cultural, religious and political – between the Protestant and Catholic communities in the Shire of Alberton. Conscription brought the division to a head but it itself was only one aspect of a very complex picture. Moreover, there had been real efforts to moderate the divisions and strive for a common approach to support the War effort, at least to the end of 1917. Following the defeat of the second referendum, sectarianism became far more public in the community.
There was one additional source of tension for the local Catholic community in the political landscape that existed post the 1916 referendum. In late September 1917 the Hughes Government passed its so-called 'Bachelor Tax'. Essentially, single men who had not enlisted were hit with a levy. It was specifically intended to promote enlistments and raise money for the repatriation of those who had served in the AIF. However, the Catholic Church took great exception to the law and saw it as an attack on its priesthood and male religious orders. Celibacy was a central plank of the religious life and therefore, unlike other religions where the clergy could marry, the Catholic Church argued that it was being singled out.
Catholic opposition to the legislation was significant. One outspoken critic was Bishop Phelan of Gippsland. At a function in Maffra in mid November 1917, Bishop Phelan not only condemned the 'bachelor tax' but directed his congregation to … Refuse to contribute to every patriotic appeal when that appeal is in the interests of the Government which framed this iniquitous law. This was all reported in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 23/11/17, in the lead up to the referendum. For patriots and Imperial Loyalists this was further proof that Catholic support for the War was, at best, highly qualified and compromised. For Catholics, the legislation was further proof that the Hughes Government was targeting them. Importantly, even though the point was not made specifically, the following directive from Bishop Phelan, in the context of the impending vote on conscription, could have been interpreted as a more general call to withdraw all support for the Government:
To the Catholics of Gippsland I say, follow the example of your pastor, to very demand made on you for Red Cross, Repatriation Fund etc, say: – We have to pay a bachelor tax for our priests, and as long as that law remains unrepealed we refuse to help the Federal Government. The Win-the-War Party may then see that their ill-considered action has helped to dry up a source which was the glory of Australia, namely the tens of thousands contributed by voluntary offerings.
The farmers' vote
The tone of formal appeals to farmers to vote Yes in the referendum became almost hysterical. The editorial in the local paper on 30/11/17 featured a detailed appeal from the Reinforcements Referendum Council. It began:
The farmers' vote will be the decisive one on December 20th. If the farmers unite and work to secure a "Yes" vote the Commonwealth Government's scheme will be carried. If they hang back, if they are indifferent as to the result, if they lack enthusiasm, and if they accept the view that one vote more or less does not matter, the the referendum will be defeated.
The language sharpened considerably as the appeal continued:
If the farmers, who have responded so generously to the call of Empire, and who have aided so liberally the cause of the democracy, fail to exert the whole of their strength on this occasion, they will be acting as traitors to their relatives and friends in the trenches. They will be acting, moreover, as enemies of their country.
In this particular appeal the true enemy was the IWW which had caused so much damage in the recent industrial unrest and which played with the incredulity of the working class:
The memory of the great hold-up in August and September is still fresh in the minds of every man on the land. The I.W.W. play upon the credulity of the big mass of the working class, and they used the deluded workers as an instrument to crush and despoil the farmer.
The formal appeal to the farmers from Hughes was published in the local paper on 14/12/17. In it, Hughes gave the IWW and Sinn Fein as the 2 forces behind the No vote. He depicted the IWW as the natural and historical enemy of the farmer. He warned the farmers:
If you by your vote defeat the Government's proposals, then you hand over the reins of government to extremists, the I.W.W. and the Sinn Fein. That is the responsibility that rests upon you.
Most of Hughes' appeal sought to counter the claim that conscription would deny the farmers workers. Clearly, for Hughes the constant claims and counter claims over numbers in the referendum debate was having a negative effect. He stressed that the number of 7,000 men per month was the maximum that would ever be required under the conscription proposals. However, in the same equation that sought to reassure the farmers that there would be no labour shortage, Hughes stated that of those soldiers returning to Australia – those repatriated and discharged on medical grounds – 50% would take up their former occupations and another 25% would be fit for 'light work'. In other words, the low target of 7,000 per month was in part based on the assumption that 75% of those members of the AIF being repatriated would slot back into the workforce. This claim would not have matched the actual experience of farmers in the Shire of Alberton, or other farming areas. They saw with their own eyes that many of those returning would never work again. Moreover, statistical claims about labour availability meant very little if the direct experiences of farmers confirmed that there was a labour shortage. If anything, statistical arguments tended to confirm the weakness of Hughes' position.
The returned soldiers' vote
As indicated earlier, returned soldiers were present at anti-conscription meetings in Yarram, and they claimed to be members of the Returned Soldiers' Anti-Conscription League of Australia. But these men were dismissed as 'outsiders'.
The official position of the local branch of the RSSILA was published in the local paper on 30/11/17.
Mr. W. A. Newland, hon. secretary of the Yarram sub-branch of the Returned Soldiers' Association (sic), has received the following letter from headquarters, which is deeply interested in the reinforcement referendum campaign.
The position was:
That knowing the urgent need for reinforcing our comrades at the front, this committee of the Victorian branch of the R.S.S.I.L.A. urgently appeals to our members and to the public to vote in favour of the proposals to be submitted on the 20th Dec. next.
The position of the local paper
The final editorial published in the local paper on 19/12/17, the day before the referendum was also very telling on the issue of statistics. A J Rossiter, who signed the particular editorial, noted
Much twisting of figures has been perpetrated by the "Antis" in an endeavour to make it seem that there are ample men and that Australia has done enough.
He then attempted to debunk some of the claims. However, the reality was that by that point. figures did not mean a great deal, either to those who believed that Australia had done enough and the cost had just become too great or to those who believed that, ultimately, no sacrifice was too great.
Rossiter wanted to claim the high moral ground:
To-morrow Australia will decide whether reinforcements are to be sent to our brave men in the firing line. We cannot conceive that any right-thinking man will have been so influenced by anti clap-trap to record "No" at the polling booth – tantamount to signing the death warrant of thousands of our boys in the trenches.
As indicated, the vote in the Shire of Alberton was overwhelmingly in favour of conscription. The Shire had not been affected by the 'clap-trap' of the 'Antis'; and its moral compass and unswerving loyalty to the Empire remained true. It could start 1918 confident that it was one of the few places in Australia that had remained 'loyal'.
This entry was posted in Conscription, Divided Community, July to December 1917, Prominent Citizens, Religion & Community, The Irish Question on January 18, 2018 by pcashen.
104. Hughes and Mannix, late 1916 – early 1917: the national and local scenes
Even though he had lost the support of his own party and his referendum on conscription was defeated, PM Hughes continued to drive the political landscape in the 6 months from the end of October 1916 through to the overwhelming success of the Nationalists at the federal election in May 1917. By the end of this period, Hughes had re-established himself as, apparently, the only one who could provide the necessary war-time leadership. He had triumphed, while the ALP itself had been broken and defeated.
Over the same period, Archbishop Mannix emerged as the most high-profile, outspoken critic of the War. He became the focus of Hughes' anger and frustration. Hughes and his supporters saw Mannix as undermining the War effort. And Mannix's politics and status raised the fundamental issue of where the Catholic Church stood.
As well as playing out at the national level, the same tension and conflict began to emerge at the local level in the Shire of Alberton.
The national scene
The formal end to the ongoing division within the ALP over the conscription referendum and Hughes' leadership came on 14/11/16 when Hughes broke away, dramatically, with 23 of the 64 members of the federal caucus. The breakaway group took for itself the name 'National Labor Party'.
Hughes managed to retain his position as PM when, with support from the Liberals, he survived a no confidence motion in the House of Representatives on 29/11/16. Over the next 2 months he was able to establish the new National Party, as an alliance between his National Labor Party and the Liberals, under Cook. Even though his numbers were smaller, Hughes remained as PM in the new party and he even managed, against much opposition, to retain Pearce as his Defence Minister.
In March 1917, Hughes was forced to a federal election. His National Party won the election (5/5/17) with majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Clearly, Hughes was the driving force in Australian politics. His success at the time was in large part due to the image he had established of himself as the 'natural' war-time leader. In 1916 in the UK he had been feted in the press – both in the UK and back in Australia – as a no-nonsense, tireless, inspirational and decisive leader. He was closely identified with the AIF. He was an Imperialist of the highest order. He was also a survivor of consummate political skill and he promised a safe pair of political hands. His political messages were simple and consistent.
Hughes also retained the powerful support and backing of the media, business and the Protestant churches which he had enjoyed in the conscription referendum. Hughes and his backers found it relatively easy to portray the old ALP – the 'Official' ALP – as confused and contradictory in both its commitment and policies to pursue the War. It was also portrayed as 'unrepresentative' and driven by the industrial rather than than the parliamentary wing. It was claimed to be more interested in pursuing and destroying Hughes and settling factional disputes than it was in forming a national unity government. It was said to have become more 'radical' and 'socialist' than the original ALP and it was unduly influenced by 'outsiders', even Americans. Against the apparently enormous political risk the Official ALP presented, Hughes and the Nationalists promised a unity government that had risen above party politics and was committed to the single-minded pursuit of victory. Hughes also pledged to honour the results of the referendum; but he also made it clear that he had not given up on the idea of conscription. The deal he made with the electorate was that it would never be introduced without a (successful) referendum.
In the reductionist politics of the time, with Hughes presented as the single person who best represented Australia' s commitment to the Empire and the War, the arch-villain of the popular press had firmed as Archbishop Mannix.
With Mannix, the critical episode appeared to be the report of his speech at the opening of a Catholic school at Brunswick on 28 January 1917. The speech was reported the next day in The Age (29/1/17 p 7) under headline: Cause Of The War. Archbishop's Remarkable Utterance. 'An Ordinary, Sordid Trade War'. As reported, Mannix's assessment of the War's cause was bound to stir outrage:
They had heard much during the progress of the war of how the war came about and how they were fighting for the rights of little nations. They could believe as much of this as they liked, but as a matter of fact this was a trade war – simply an ordinary, sordid trade war.
The response was both predictable and immediate. The papers were full of denunciations and demands for Mannix's prosecution under the War Precautions Act. And it was not just Imperialists and Protestants. Many of the letters to the editor attacking his claim was signed by the likes of 'Loyal Catholic' or 'Irish Catholic' or 'Australian Native' or 'Catholic Loyalty'. Similarly, individual members of Catholic associations denounced his views as unrepresentative of Catholic views and sentiment.
Not surprisingly, Mannix was damned even more when his position was supported by the Socialists. The Argus (1/2/17 p 9) reported, under the headline Archbishop Mannix. Socialists Approve:
At a meeting of the Socialist party held last night, the following resolution was moved by Miss Adele Pankhurst (organiser), seconded by Mr. R. S. Ross (secretary), and carried unanimously: –
"That this meeting of the Socialist party of Victoria expresses its warm admiration of Archbishop Mannix for his recent bold and clarifying utterances on the nature of the terrible European war, and deems it its duty to put on record its appreciation of Dr. Mannix's splendid courage especially on account of the malicious abuse and misrepresentation to which he has been subjected…. "
At the time Mannix's claim was clearly incendiary. It stripped bare the dominant narrative of the War. His simple phrase of 'sordid trade war' denied the official narrative of the War as the monumental and defining conflict between democracy and civilised society on one hand and German militarism and barbarity on the other. The comment undercut the high ideals of 'supreme sacrifice', 'Christian love and duty', 'liberty and justice' and 'Imperial loyalty and patriotism'. Mannix had definitely crossed a line; and his opponents demanded that the Government prosecute him. Mannix at this point was still only the Co-adjutor Bishop of Melbourne – he did not become Archbishop of Melbourne till Carr's death in May 1917 – and he had only been in Australia for 4 years. However, as far as Hughes was concerned, Mannix's role in the referendum had been the deciding factor that led to the success of the No vote. Now, not only was Mannix anti-conscription, he was also challenging the very nature of the Empire's struggle against Germany.
Hughes himself addressed Mannix's claim a few days later in an address at Ballarat East. It was reported in The Age (31/1/17 p7). Remarkably, as reported, Hughes' claims actually appear to support Mannix's observation on trade as the root cause of the War.
People had been told the other day that the war was a trade war, a mere sordid struggle for self, but the causes of this war were not to be sought in the effort to obtain trade. Germany had already secured trade during times of peace to an extent that her claws were in our very vitals. Had Germany's competition continued in peace for another ten years Germany would have got the kernel of the world's trade, leaving us and others the shrivelled husk. Germany had fought the American millionaire in trade on his own dunghill and beaten him. Australian trade and commerce before the war was finding its way by devious channels into the maw of Germany. This was not a trade war. It was a war that sprang out of Germany's lust of world empire.
In the same speech, Hughes also decried the news reports from Germany that represented the defeat of conscription as proof that Australians were 'against the war' or at the least 'war weary'. He urged the people there to show that, even though the referendum had been lost, they still supported 'the continuation of the war' and they were prepared to 'lay aside party feeling, and fight as a united nation'.
As far as Hughes was concerned, the War was now to be waged not just against Germany but also, at home, against public indifference, political infighting and the deliberate sabotage of the likes of Mannix.
The local scene
The sense of disappointment in the Shire of Alberton following the referendum defeat has been covered in Post 93. The common belief was that patriotic and loyal regions such as Gippsland had been betrayed by the voters in Melbourne. There was also a sense of disillusion which translated to a withdrawal of support. For example, by the end of December 1916 the local recruiting committee had disbanded. Correspondence from the Shire Secretary ( G W Black) dated 5/12/16 noted that while he was still prepared to assist with recruiting on a personal basis, the local recruiting committee itself 'has ceased to exist'. On 18/12/16, the Shire President (Charles Nightingale) called a public meeting to set up a replacement recruiting committee but, as reported in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative ( 20/12/16), There were not half-a-dozen present, and the meeting had to be abandoned. The paper also reported (15/12/16) the views of Cr Barlow – a prominent member of the previous recruiting committee – expressed at the December council meeting. Barlow believed that … the men whom the country could ill-afford to lose would join the colors now, while the shirkers and cold-footers would still remain behind, as nothing had been done to make them go. He stated that while he was still prepared to help, he … would not take the same interest in recruiting as before. The local recruiting committee would eventually be re-established in late April 1917; but in the immediate aftermath of the referendum defeat there was considerable anger, and support for conscription remained as strong as ever in the Shire.
As indicated in earlier posts – see for example Post 91 – there was not even any organised support for the No vote in the Shire of Alberton in the first conscription referendum. Also, while there were significant differences over religious belief and, importantly, schooling, and also obvious tension over Ireland, Catholic loyalty and support for the War had not been questioned. Fr Sterling, the local parish priest had only recently (October 1916) joined the AIF as Captain Chaplain.
The St Patrick's Sports offered further proof of Catholic loyalty. As has been mentioned previously, local sports competitions were very important in the local community. Such sports competitions – involving athletics, wood chopping, bike races, horse competitions, novelty events …. – were held annually at locations including Yarram, Carrajung, Won Wron, Madalya, Fairview (Hiawatha), West Alberton and Goodwood. Of all of them, the most important was the St Patrick's Sports at Yarram, held round the time of the feast day. It was a major Shire event and while it was run by the Catholic parish it was so large that its organizing committee and the judges and officials were drawn from a much wider circle than just the local Catholic community.
The sports carnivals were also important local fund raisers. Typically, the smaller ones at places like Madalya would return approximately £20, while the St Patrick's carnival at Yarram would bring in £100. In 1914, St Patrick's raised £94 for the Catholic parish and in 1915 the amount was £100. Then, as explained in Post 84 , in 1916 the Catholic parish donated the funds raised to 2 charities – the Victorian Sick and Wounded Soldiers' Fund and the Red Cross – related to the War. The amount raised and donated (approximately £700) was very significant and, in fact, would have represented the largest donation raised at a single event in the Shire over the course of the War. It was yet further evidence that the local Catholic community was behind the War effort.
At the same time, the 1916 arrangement was intended as a one-off, and in 1917 the profits from the St Patrick's Sports were directed once again back to the Catholic parish. Approximately £200 was raised, and the money went to pay off the debt associated with the construction of the new St Mary's church.
Against this background, the following letter which appeared in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 19/1/17 is not as innocent as its author implies. It came immediately prior to the first meeting of the organising committee for the 1917 St Patrick's Sports. It was written by Rev Francis Tamagno, the local Presbyterian minister.
Through the co-operation of many agencies last St. Patrick's day a handsome sum was raised for the Red Cross and the Australian Soldiers' Fund. I hope that somebody at the meeting next Monday night will suggest that the money raised this year by St. Patrick's sports be given to the Belgian Fund. Belgium has given many lives for Australians and her sacrifice demands and requires our sincerest sympathy. Belgium is pronouncedly a Catholic country.
While local Catholics would have found the letter patronising and the accusations thinly-veiled, others in the community would have agreed with its sentiment: now was not the time for Catholics, of all people, to be raising money from the local community for their own sectional interests.
The claim that local Catholics had a particular responsibility to Catholic Belgium was a common theme. An editorial in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 30/3/17 focused on a pastoral letter to the Belgians written by Cardinal Mercier. Mercier was an outspoken critic of the Germans, many of his priests had been killed and he himself had been imprisoned. The theme of the pastoral letter covered the need to speak the truth about the evil of the German occupation. It began:
The truth must be above all, for sincerity is the most essential of all duties. We cannot without cowardice allow untruth to run unencountered. We have protested against violence….
and it ended:
We have made our voice heard for the safeguarding of the liberty of home and labor, demanded the respect due to the dignity of man; and you have stood faithful by our side. We bless God for having made you understand your duty so well. It is nothing less than the fulfilling of the fundamental law of Christianity.
At this point, Rossiter, as editor, added:
Australian Catholics with others of military age will fulfill that law by enlisting.
Again, the local Catholic community was being singled out and, effectively, preached at. Also, the focus on German ruthlessness and atrocities undercut Mannix's apparently simplistic assertions about a 'sordid trade war'.
While the 2 examples raised here appear low level, it is the very deliberate way that they have been fed into community discourse that is telling.
By the end of the period under review (May 1917), the antagonism towards and suspicion of Catholics had become far more apparent for the local community.
Reporting on Anzac Day commemorations at Port Albert, the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative (27/4/17) stated that Rev Tamagno praised Hughes and the 'Nationalists' for their non-partisan approach to the urgent challenges facing the nation, and publicly denounced Mannix as a 'missioner of mischieviousness since he has come to our land.' Rev Walklate attacked the backers of the No vote for not supporting the soldiers and praised the Anzacs as 'descended form British stock.' Both clergymen attacked those who refused to enlist. They wanted them shamed and punished. It was as if the conscription campaign was still running.
A week earlier, GH Wise, local member of the federal parliament, had addressed a packed meeting at Yarram. There was a very detailed report in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 20/4/17. Wise was an outspoken supporter of Hughes. According to Wise, Hughes had proved himself in the UK in 1916 when he had been … 'admitted to the secret counsels of the Empire'. Hughes had returned aware that conscription was required to maintain the AIF in France but he had been blocked by the ALP platform. After the defeat of the referendum Hughes had risen above the party politics of the day and created a genuine National Government. And it was only the National Government led by Hughes that could win the War.
Mannix is not mentioned in Wise's panegyric of Hughes but it is very evident that Wise promotes the War as a moral struggle of the highest order. It was certainly not some 'sordid trade war'. He gave a striking – even bizarre – anecdote to establish German evil:
They had read recently of the trial of an outraged French girl for the murder of her child. She did not speak till the trial, when she said she strangled her child because its father was a German, and she was acquitted. Could anyone who had any thought for the women and children and for the aged, not realise the horrors of a German invasion without resolving to do all in his power to keep the war 12,000 miles from Australia? Did they not realise that it was time to throw party politics aside, and make a united effort to win the war in the name of civilization. (Applause.)
Mannix had been mentioned in another report that appeared 2 days earlier in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative (18/4/17). It was headed Dr. Mannix and the War. and it detailed a Presbyterian meeting at Bendigo on 10/4/17 by Rev F A Hagenauer. The meeting passed, unanimously, a motion … the effect of which was that the Presbytery of Bendigo, believing that the whole energy of the nation ought to be directed towards winning the war, was of the opinion that Dr. Mannix should be prosecuted for his recent statements. [sordid trade war].
However, the focus was broadening beyond Mannix, for the same meeting explicitly called into question the loyalty of Catholics generally. Hagenauer noted that it had become … necessary to discuss the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church. He presented 2 scenarios: the Catholic Church agreed with Mannix … or might disagree, but be impotent to silence him. Even though he acknowledged that many individual Catholics had criticised Mannix, Hagenauer was inclined to believe that Mannix's views were supported by the Church:
What evidence was there that the church as a whole agreed? There was the silence which representative Catholic bodies and societies had maintained and the approving receptions given to Dr. Mannix.
He added that Mannix … claimed that he spoke expressing the views of the Catholic Church, and was applauded.
For good measure, he also refererenced the 'official' view that … the Irish vote killed conscription in Australia.
The threat that the Catholic Church now posed to the successful pursuit of the War was being made very public in the local press:
If the Catholic Church did agree with Dr. Mannix, it was a menace to our liberties, second only to the menace of German militarism. If it disagreed with him but was impotent to silence him, the position was almost as serious, for the influence of the Roman Catholic clergy upon the laity was admittedly great.
By the end of April 1917, local Catholics in the Shire of Alberton were reading in their local press that their Church was being charged with disloyalty. Increasingly, they were being forced to choose between the 2 extremely polarising figures of Mannix and Hughes. The ambiguity and respected – and respectful – differences that had characterised past community relations were under extreme pressure. This was the local community that Fr Sterling returned to on 17/4/17 when his appointment as Captain Chaplain in the AIF finished.
Archives, Shire of Alberton
(viewed 2014)
The activities of the 1916 Yarram Recruiting Committee came from:
Shire of Alberton
Archive One
File Number 703B
"Recruiting & Enlisted men"
Bundle headed "Defence Department, Enlisting Recruits 1914-15-16"
For a detailed account and assessment of Mannix's speech at Brunswick see: Brunswick Coburg Anti-Conscription Centenary.
This entry was posted in Conscription, Divided Community, January to June 1917, July to December 1916, Prominent Citizens, Recruiting, Religion & Community, The Irish Question on February 14, 2017 by pcashen.
91. Conscription Referendum 1916: the (public) No vote
On the strength of the meeting held for the No vote at Yarram on 12/10/16, there was little evidence of any public support for the anti-conscription case in the Shire of Alberton. This was in sharp contrast to the high level of support for conscription evident in the very public, organised and ongoing campaign for the Yes vote, as detailed in earlier posts.
The meeting on 12/10/16 was written up, in great detail, in both the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative (18/10/16) and the South Gippsland Chronicle (18/10/16). The sole speaker for the No case that night was Senator Blakey, one of the Victorian team of ALP senators. Blakey was on a tour of Gippsland and he knew that he was in for a tough time. He had tried to speak at a similar public meeting at Leongatha 2 days earlier (10/10/16) but, according to the report in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 13/10/16, he had not even managed to make himself heard:
The largest public meeting ever held at Leongatha took place last Tuesday night. Senator Blakey attempted to deliver an address against conscription, but he was hooted, and as soon as he rose to speak the audience stood up and sang the National Anthem. As Senator Blakey tried to make himself heard a cabbage thrown at his head inflicted a cut in his forehead. … He was on the platform for about an hour and a half, but he was not allowed to give expression to his views.
Two days later at Yarram things were only marginally better. While nothing was thrown at him and he did manage to deliver his speech – albeit with a barrage of interruptions – the reports make it clear that the very rowdy and antagonistic audience was not on his side. The meeting started on a negative note when Cr Buckley, introducing Senator Blakey, made the point that while he was prepared to introduce Senator Buckley as a guest speaker he wanted to make it clear to everyone in the audience that he personally intended to vote Yes. The clear message was that the Shire council was decent enough to support Blakey's right to speak but they certainly did not support his position.
Not surprisingly, Senator Blakey's opening remarks were a plea for a fair hearing. He hoped that there would be no … repetition of of the drunken orgy at Leongatha … because the … matter was too great to treat in a spirit of levity and hoodlumism. But the interruptions were constant. Blakey struggled to get his argument across in any coherent, planned way. Finally, at the end of the meeting, in an obvious attempt to hijack proceedings and make Blakey look foolish, the following resolution was put:
That, in view of the voluntary recruiting not being sufficient to meet the requirements of our army and reinforcement of men at the front, this meeting pledges itself to vote "Yes" at the coming referendum.
The resolution was seconded and put, but the vote in the end was indecisive, with only a handful voting either way. The newspaper report suggested people were either confused or annoyed that the motion had been put. Even the avowedly pro-conscription Rev Walklate … protested against a speech advocating "Yes" being made at a meeting in a hall paid for by those advocating "No". Such niceties aside, it was abundantly clear that the meeting would never have been able to pass any resolution in favour of the No vote. Further, the reports make it clear that Senator Blakey was by himself. There were no references to other individuals or groups supporting him, either on the stage or in the audience; and most of those who asked questions at the meeting – Rev Tamagno, Rev Walklate, R E H Newberry, J Bett, F C Grano – have already been identified in earlier posts as backing conscription. Blakey would have cut a lonely figure. As a formal attempt to galvanise the No vote in the local community the public meeting was a complete failure.
There are no references in either of the local papers to any other meetings for the No vote held in either Yarram or the shire as a whole. Similarly, there are no references over the period August to October 1916 to the formation of a committee to promote the No vote. Nor is there even reference to specific individuals in the local community advocating the No vote. In short, there is no evidence that there was an organised, public – or even visible – No vote campaign in the Shire of Alberton for the 1916 referendum.
It is also worth looking briefly at the arguments presented at the meeting, both by Blakey himself and his opponents. Blakey argued that conscription per se was morally indefensible. He claimed that Hughes himself had gone back on his word, given in 1915, to not introduce conscription. He held that Australia had done its 'fair share' and that the cost of introducing conscription and committing to an even greater sacrifice was beyond the nation's capacity. He criticised the metropolitan papers – the The Age and The Argus – as shamelessly biased. He raised the fear that even married men would be conscripted, and there was the usual aside on the fear of cheap 'yellow' labour. There were also claims that Hughes was using the censorship laws to stifle the No campaign. For those opposed to Blakey, the major issue was that the AIF had to be reinforced and supported – it was the clearest example of national duty – and conscription was the only way this end could be achieved.
Importantly, none of these arguments were tied specifically to the Shire of Alberton. Blakey could just as well have been addressing an audience In Melbourne. There was no local dimension to the debate. Nor was the audience divided on any 'partisan' basis. Most significantly, there was no mention of any organised Catholic presence at the meeting. In fact, there is no reference to Catholics at all in the extensive reporting of the meeting.
Interestingly, in his history of the Shire, Adams (1990 p186) presumes that the Catholics in the community did represent a bloc opposed to conscription.
Conscription became an important issue late in 1916 and a committee was formed in Yarram with B.P. Johnson as President to forward the movement. When the conscription referendum was held in November [sic] 1916, Yarram voted 1144 to 573. There was a strong Catholic "no" vote reflected in this result.
[Adams' figures give the Yes vote 67% and the No 33%.]
However this argument appears too simplistic. Certainly for the 1916 referendum, there is no evidence of a Catholic bloc opposed to conscription; and it is too easy to assume that Catholics were the ones who voted against conscription.
The Catholic question was complex. We have already seen that the Catholics enlisted in numbers that generally matched their place in the Shire's demographics. The argument of the pro-conscriptionists that the men at the front could not be abandoned – this appeared to be the strongest argument in the community – would have been as appealing to the Catholic families of men who had enlisted as any other group. Moroever, the most recent high-profile Catholic enlistment at the time was Fr Sterling, the parish priest, who had enlisted as recently as 21/10/16 as a Captain Chaplain. His enlistment would have been seen as a very public demonstration of loyalty and duty.
There is no evidence that the local Catholic community campaigned against the 1916 conscription referendum. Moreover, previous posts have shown that the local Catholics had actively supported the War effort over the preceding 2 years. It is also relevant, closer to the 1916 referendum, that the assistant priest – Fr W H O'Connor – who arrived in June 1916 to support Fr Sterling, was keen to lend his voice to support for the War effort. In fact, unlike Fr Sterling, Fr O'Connor was even prepared to speak on the same platform as some of the most outspoken patriots – and also pro-conscriptionists – in the community. For example, as reported in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 9/8/16 Fr O'Connor was one of the key speakers at a public meeting to celebrate the second anniversary of the War. The others on the platform with him were the Shire President, Cr Bland, B P Johnson, Rev Tamagno and the Federal MHR, G Wise. Fr O'Connor spoke at length in favour of the Allied efforts and against German tyranny. He spoke about the local men who had … made the sacrifice and who died nobly and well and who … had offered up their lives for the cause. And he made it clear that in his previous parishes he had called on members of his faith to enlist:
In other parts it was my lot to encourage men to enlist, and [ I ] need only to tell them of their duty and they would go forth and do it. The young men from this district have done likewise and responded to the "Coo-ee" call for assistance.
At the same time, Catholic support for the War was not as unqualified as that of the local Protestants. Bishop Phelan's position, for example, that the Catholic Church was 'neutral' on the matter of conscription, and his significant qualification that the individual citizen's vote should be shaped by an informed conscience, was at great odds with the very public and uncritical support for conscription from the Protestant churches. Moreover, previous posts have pointed out how fundamental differences in areas such as schooling encouraged sectarianism in the community over the War years. Additionally, events in Ireland post Easter 1916 definitely saw many Irish Catholics question the Australian Government's total support for the Empire. They also, inevitably, chose to see the AIF not as a component of the British (Empire) Army but as as a distinctive, independent and truly nationalist Australian force, which meant it was possible to support the AIF – and to a lesser extent continue to justify the War – and be anti-Imperialist. But none of these important shifts were on public view in the Shire of Alberton in the lead up to the 1916 referendum.
Overall, there is no hard evidence that for the 1916 referendum, in the Shire of Alberton, there was an organised, public campaign amongst the local Catholics for the No vote. It is possible that Catholics followed Bishop Phelan's advice and voted according to their conscience. But if they did so it was a private choice made via secret ballot. In any case, given the appeal of the dominant political argument of the day, it makes more sense to believe that the Catholic families would vote Yes, to support the reinforcement of their men at the front.
While it is not possible to identify a Catholic bloc publicly supporting the No vote, there was even less chance that there was an organised and visible bloc of 'industrialists', radical unionists, IWW agitators or even just ALP supporters campaigning for the No vote. Most of the rural workers had enlisted and, in any case, there had never been an organised labour movement in the Shire. Individual ALP voters might have opposed conscription and voted No, but, again, it was via secret ballot. It was a politically conservative community. The local papers were full of anti-union stories. They reported how the 'machine' of the industrial wing of the ALP was undermining PM Hughes' authority and destroying the party itself. There were regular stories of how unions generally were undermining the War effort. Unionists were described as 'traitors' and 'shirkers'. But all this was happening in Melbourne and the other capital cities.
Overall, there is no evidence that there was a public, anti-conscription campaign in the Shire of Alberton in the lead up to the 1916 referendum. Instead, we need to look at the reality of the private No vote in the Shire. On Adams' figures above, it was one-third of the voters. In a community where there was no public campaign for the No vote and, instead, apparently overwhelming support for the Yes side, it was a significant private vote.
South Gippsland Chronicle
This entry was posted in Conscription, Divided Community, July to December 1916, Recruiting, Religion & Community, The Irish Question, The role of the Press on November 6, 2016 by pcashen.
84. Schooling, religion & Imperialism, Part B: Secularism
Post 68. Schooling, religion & Imperialism, Part A: a natural trinity considered the extent to which the War sharpened the perception for Irish Catholics that the state school was both Protestant and Imperialist. This was particularly the case after Easter 1916.
This post looks chiefly at Catholic attempts from 1915 to establish a school in Yarram. It highlights the significant fault lines that existed in the community, and reveals how the religious division between Catholic and Protestant was exacerbated further by the desire to create a Catholic school. Catholic opposition to the Protestant proposal to teach the Bible in state schools was another major controversy at the time. The post provides a case study of the bitter sectarianism that became a feature of Australian society and politics as the War progressed, and also in the period after the War.
The Catholic school, St. Mary's, at Yarram was not opened until the start of 1918. This meant that in the period leading to the War, and for most of the War, all Catholic children in the Shire of Alberton attended the local state schools. This common experience of schooling helped to reduce the level of religious difference in the local community, at least until Easter 1916. In fact, as noted in earlier posts, over the early period of the War there was little apparent conflict between Catholic and Protestant. Catholics enlisted at rates equivalent to their numbers in the local community. Importantly, the promise of Home Rule had neutralised the key political difference between Great Britain and Ireland.
Arguably, the clearest example of the unity between Catholic and Protestant in support for the War came in March 1916 with the St Patrick's Sports Carnival. In February 1916, Fr Sterling suggested that the proceeds from the annual sports carnival should go to support wounded soldiers. St Patrick's Sports was the biggest sports carnival held in the Shire of Alberton and it was normally used to raise funds for various Catholic charities and works. Fr Sterling's offer was written up in both local papers: South Gippsland Chronicle (2/2/16) and Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative (9/2/16). It was seen as a very generous and patriotic offer. There was a large working committee set up to manage the event and, significantly, its membership went well beyond the local Catholics and covered all sections of the community. For example, it included at least 2 members – B P Johnson and A E Paige – from the Church of England Board of Guardians. Alfred Paige was in fact the head teacher of the Yarram State School. As well, many of the committee members also served on the local recruiting committee or other groups such as the local Belgian Relief Committee. Overall, the working committee featured some of the most outspoken Imperialists in the local community.
The total profits raised by the 1916 St Patrick's Sports Carnival was £720 and the detailed breakdown of the day's takings were outlined in an article in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 3/5/16. The profits were divided between the Red Cross and the Victorian Sick and Wounded Soldiers' Fund. The whole day was acknowledged as a stunning success and it was easily the single, most successful fund-raising event for the War effort staged in the Shire of Alberton to that point. As the local paper put it (3/5/16) the effort … will stand for many a year as the district's biggest effort.
However, by the time the profits were counted the Easter Uprising in Dublin had occurred and long-standing differences were building. Moreover, it is possible that the efforts of the local Catholics in supporting the War effort via the St Patrick's Sports Carnival were at least partly driven by the sense that there was real pressure on them to prove their loyalty and demonstrate that they understood the need to make financial sacrifice for the war effort.
There was a significant local background issue. Just 2 weeks after the local Catholic community offered the St Patrick's Sports Carnival as a fund raiser for the War effort, the newly built St Mary's Catholic Church was blessed and opened in Yarram. The cost of the new church was £3,500 and by the time it was opened most of the funds for it had already been raised. It was a dramatic achievement by the local Catholic community to fund and build the church in only one year. So in early 1915 the Catholics had the newest and most impressive church in Yarram. However, there must have been misgivings, if not opposition, to this development, with the argument that the time was not right for such fundraising and building programs. All attention should have been focused on the War. In his history of Catholic education in the area, Synan (2003, p. 144) makes the claim directly:
In reality World War I was not a prime time for the Yarram Parish to proceed with a new church and school. Because of patriotic fervour, the wider community took a dim view of Catholics using scarce resources to build parish facilities when all the nation's energies were being directed towards winning a war against Germany.
However, the situation was more complex than this claim. In his account (1/3/16) of the opening of the new church in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative, the editor, A J Rossiter, wrote in praise of the local Catholic community and the new church. In Rossiter's view, other religions in the community needed to follow the Catholics' example:
The Catholics have set an example worthy to be followed by at least two other denominations in the town. As with them, wooden structures had to suffice in the times when the people were struggling, but all that is changed. People are well off comparatively, many have grown rich, and were that zeal displayed in spiritual matters which was characteristic of our fathers, there would be no wooden churches to-day in Yarram. It is a disgrace that the very worst buildings in the town are certain churches. From Sunday dates a new era in the Catholic Church in this district. There stands on an admirably adapted site a church that is an ornament to the town, and in the minds of all devout Catholics there must abide a feeling of pride and thankfulness.
It is also worth noting that a new Anglican church was also built in Yarram in WW1. The foundation stone was laid on 6/2/18 and the new church was dedicated on 24/7/18. So the establishment of the new Catholic church was not, in itself, a direct cause of division in the local community. However, the creation of a new church school was a different matter; and from early 1915 the Catholic community was committed to such a move.
There had been a Catholic primary school (St Mary's) in Yarram from 1885 -1890. However without access to a Catholic teaching order it had not been able to compete against the local state school. The situation changed dramatically with the appointment of Bishop Phelan to the diocese of Sale (1913-26).
Patrick Phelan was born in Kilkenny, Ireland. He was ordained in 1888 and arrived in Melbourne the same year. He was consecrated bishop in 1913. He was a keen supporter of Home Rule. As the new Bishop of Sale, he made Catholic schooling a major focus for his work. He wanted more parish primary schools across Gippsland. In the report from his ad limina visit to Rome in 1914, Phelan noted that there were twice as many Catholic children in state schools across the diocese as there were in Catholic schools (Synan, 2003 p. 138).
Specifically in relation to the Shire of Alberton, Bishop Phelan set out his plans for a Catholic school in Yarram in a visit to the parish in May 1915. The grand scheme was described in detail in a report in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 5/5/15. Phelan made the initial focus that of the education of girls. He emphasised the importance of a Catholic education for girls … the future women who have the making or marring of the future. If they have the ladies – the real Catholic ladies – they sanctify the home. He spoke of a Catholic school in Yarram where families who lived out of town could send their daughters 'as weekly boarders'. Critical to the success of the plan was his promise that he would attract an order of teaching nuns who would set up a convent and run the school. However, he also made it very clear that there was no chance of attracting a teaching order of nuns to the town until there was a new church. He was reported as stating:
He had spoken of a community of nuns, but for them they needed a decent church. So long as this disgraceful church stood to their credit – or discredit – there was no chance of a convent.
For Bishop Phelan the contract with the local Catholic community was that a new church had to be built before the convent and the school were established. As indicated, the church was funded and built in less than one year.
In early 1915 when Bishop Phelan set down this contract with the local Catholic community, relations between the various religions in the community were, apparently, unremarkable and, as already noted, there was certainly no difference in terms of support for the War. Yet, even then it did not take much to stir religious controversy. In his preaching that day, Phelan focused on what he saw as the evil of 'secularism' and he used France as his example. Secularism for Phelan equated to godlessness and religious persecution. In fact, secular schooling, as far as Bishop Phelan was concerned, was in large part the cause of France's parlous situation. In the same sermon he was quoted as claiming:
The present state of France is due to the secular education imparted by a masonic and infidel government in the public schools to the last generation of children. … In his opinion the present awful war was in one aspect due to the iniquities in France, which are directly traceable to infidel education imparted in the schools. It was up to Almighty God to chastise that nation and bring her back to a right sense.
The risks involved with such sweeping condemnations of secularism and secular education became very quickly apparent. One week later (12/5/15) in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative there was a very extensive letter from Francis Blanc – farmer from Alberton West – highly critical of both Bishop Phelan and his arguments. Not only did he attack Phelan for being hostile to the French, he actually made the claim that Phelan was a 'friend' of the Germans. He also aired the (conspiracy) theory that the Vatican was supporting the Germans. As well, based on his own experiences as a school boy in France in the 1860s in Catholic schools, he blasted the failings of the very education system that Bishop Phelan advocated. Essentially, Blanc argued that in his personal experience the 'learning' in Catholic schools in France had covered not much more than religious dogma and indoctrination. Further, he argued that the weakened state of the Catholic Church in France was the direct result of the Church's involvement in politics and, in particular, its support for the restoration of the Bourbons. Finally, in praising the contemporary secular system of education in France, Blanc also noted that it was the same as the Victorian model of compulsory and secular schooling.
Two days later (14/5/15), Fr Sterling felt the need to defend Bishop Phelan with his own letter to the editor. Stirling did not engage in the argument on the claimed failures of secular education. Nor did he tackle the issue of church-state relations in contemporary France. Rather, his primary intention was to defend Phelan against the charge of disloyalty;
I am in a position to know that the Bishop is thoroughly anti-German in the present war, and when in Ireland made several speeches to the Nationalist Volunteers urging them to go to the front.
Additionally, Sterling refuted the claims about the Pope supporting the German side, or, more correctly, the claim that the Vatican had not been prepared to support to the cause of Belgian relief. He also made a point of praising both France and the French, and he pointed to his own family's close association with the country – at the time he had 3 siblings living and working in France. The letter stands as an urgent exercise in damage control.
Bishop Phelan's views on the contemporary secular state and, more significantly, its State system of education represented one of the fundamental fault lines in early 20 C Australian society; and this particular episode showed just how much tension and division there was to draw on and how quickly the old enmity could flare up.
The Catholic position on education was that children's religious growth and development were at least as important as their mastery of the conventional – 'secular' – curriculum. For Catholics, both components of education had to be delivered, preferably by a religious order, within a school that was distinctly Catholic in its culture and daily practices. Moreover, the local Catholic primary school was seen as a highly visible manifestation of the strength of the local Catholic parish. Bishop Phelan's deeper message to the Catholics of Yarram in early 1915 was that they needed first to build a church that truly represented their standing in the wider community, and then establish a Catholic primary school that would develop the Catholic identity of the local children, strengthen Catholic families and serve as proof of the strength of the local Catholic community.
The Catholic position was commonly seen by many as divisive and exclusive. It effectively removed Catholic children from the mainstream, secular state school and denied that a common education could characterise Australian society. It also meant scarce resources were compromised. The push for the Catholic school occurred at the same time as the community was lobbying for a higher elementary school in Yarram.
But there was yet another tension in this overall picture from mid 1916. Under the Education legislation of the time, religious denominations had the option to conduct religious instruction classes in the state school. Even though the option was taken up by all denominations, including Catholics, it was certainly not the preferred option. For Catholics, it could only ever be a compromise solution until a Catholic school became available in the local area. But for Protestants it was also an unsatisfactory arrangements. Their preferred model was that the state school teachers themselves – and not the local clergy coming in to the school on an occasional basis – taught 'bible lessons' as part of the school curriculum. But Catholics saw this plan as an attempt to turn the state school into a Protestant institution.
The debate was a long-standing one but the War appeared to give it some additional momentum, in the same way that the temperance movement gained considerable traction. Indeed, the backers of bible instruction for (Victorian) state schools advocated a referendum on the issue at the same time as the referendum on early closing. An article in the The Argus on 28/6/16 reported that the (Victorian) Government wanted to make clear that it was not going to follow the advice of the Scripture Instruction Campaign Council on the timing of any such referendum. Indeed, Cabinet also made it clear that it understood how divisive the issue was in both parliament and the community, and that it believed that even those who favoured the idea of the referendum… did not favour it while the war was in progress, and in no circumstances would support at this time a proposal of that kind, which might cause great division among the people.
However, there clearly was lobbying at the time for the referendum for 'scripture in schools', and those in favour of the referendum had a very different take on the issue of the timing of the referendum during the War. Ironically, given Bishop Phelans' earlier attack, the argument ran on the presumed evils of secular France. For example, J Nicholson, Superintendent, Scripture Council, wrote in a letter to the editor in The Argus on 29/6/16:
The plea for postponement of all efforts to honour God's Word in our national education until after the war is singularly lacking in moral perspective. If ever there was a time for "acknowledging God" in our national "ways" it is surely now! France was the first to lead in "secular" education, and the banishment of God from national thought; but this war has done much to correct that blunder in France. May we do likewise.
Even though the proposed referendum was formally put on hold, it continued to be pushed and this prompted the Catholic hierarchy to respond. On 2/8/16 the South Gippsland Chronicle reported in detail on a sermon delivered by Bishop Phelan in Sale. In his sermon, Phelan told Catholics that they could not vote – in State elections – for anyone who supported the proposal to conduct the referendum. For Phelan, the backers of the referendum were determined to teach the Protestant religion in state schools and have all taxpayers, including Catholics, pay for the arrangement:
To put such a question to a popular vote would be to ask the people as a whole to say, first of all, whether the State – which has no religion – should in future teach the Protestant religion in the State schools; and whether Catholics should be called on to pay equally with Protestants for the teaching of the Protestant religion.
He added an argument which was to take on far greater meaning at the end of 1916:
No man has a right to record a vote [in a referendum] to coerce the conscience of another.
Not surprisingly, Bishop Phelan's position attracted criticism. Specifically in relation to the Shire of Alberton, it set off a series of letters-to-the-editor that ran for all of August and into September 1916, with the 2 key letter writers being Rev F Tamagno (Methodist) and Fr. P F Sterling (Catholic). Once again, Sterling was required to step in and defend his Bishop's comments.
Rev Tamagno's first letter in the South Gippsland Chronicle was on 4/8/16, just 2 days after Bishop Phelan's sermon. Tamagno certainly did not back away from the idea of having the Bible … inculcated in the State school curriculum.
The State Government lately decided against a referendum on Scripture lessons in the schools. … We Protestants do not accept the Government's decision as final. We must organise (like our Roman Catholic friends) to send men into Parliament who will endeavor to have the Bible firmly established in this State's schools.
Rev Tamagno argued that such scripture or Bible lessons would not equate to the teaching of Protestantism and would not promote sectarianism. He also took exception to the claim made by Bishop Phelan in his letter that the Catholic schools were saving the Victorian taxpayers £300,000 pa. In his view the amount claimed was overblown and yet another of the Catholics' 'fanciful grievances'. Further, he held that if the Roman Catholics faced financial hardship it was because of the 'arrogant claims on education' made by the 'Romish Church'. The implication appeared to be the naive and gullible Roman Catholics in Gippsland – and all of Victoria and all of Australia – were being manipulated by the autocratic Roman Pope in the Vatican. On the issue of Church-State relations, Tamagno certainly saw the weakness of the modern, secular state but he argued that Church and State needed to work together – as in the case of the referendum on scripture – and that Protestants were far better placed to do this than Roman Catholics who were ultimately answerable to the (foreign) Pope. However, as indicated, he did admire the political organisation of the Catholics and urged his side to adopt the same tactics.
Fr Sterling replied to Rev Tamagno, in the same paper, on 9/8/16. Sterling argued that Tamagno's letter was a typical attack on Catholics. He claimed Tamagno wanted to represent Catholics as … a terrible nuisance always growling about their grievances. Sterling's tone was sarcastic and in his attempt to reveal what he saw as Tamagno's condescending tone, he put words into Tamagno's mouth, literally, and had him claim:
We [Protestants] even gave them [Catholics] permission to enlist in the army and fight and die for their country and still they keep on grumbling.
Sterling was making the point, directly, that Catholics were not second-class citizens. Nor could their beliefs be ignored or simply dismissed as the product of unthinking or blind obedience to Rome. In fact, Sterling was pointedly critical of Tamagno's language:
The church to which I have the honor to belong is known to its members and to most outsiders by the designation of the Catholic church. Officially we are styled Roman Catholics. This term is ridiculous and self-contradictory, but we tolerate it because we must. No gentlemen and no man of education, except a piebald bigot, ever uses such terms as Rome or Romish.
Fr Sterling also covered the main argument that Catholics were right to fight against the teaching of scripture – as part of the curriculum – in state schools because, in his view, this practice would in effect make the schools Protestant. Sterling saw the proposal as an attempt by the Protestants to get their religion into the state schools 'on the cheap'.
As indicated, this controversy continued in the local press for at least 6 weeks. It would have been impossible to ignore.
The events and positions described in this post show clearly that, leaving to one side both the complexities of the broader conflict between Irish Nationalism and British Imperialism, as played out in Australia, and the divisive issue of the first conscription referendum in late 1916, there was considerable potential for suspicion, mistrust and outright enmity between Catholic and Protestant in the local community, with much of this tied to very particular interpretations of 'secularism', particularly in the context of education. As much as people in the local community worked to promote a sense of unity in the face of the War, the fault lines between Catholic and Protestant were very substantial and undeniable. In this particular case, the commitment by local Catholics to reject 'secular' education and establish their own school, and at the same time deny Protestant influence in the state school, definitely compromised the ideal of a united local community.
This entry was posted in Divided Community, Prominent Citizens, Religion & Community, School & Community, The Irish Question on September 30, 2016 by pcashen.
68. Schooling, religion & Imperialism, Part A: a natural trinity
The last post looked at how political events in Ireland from the very start of the War affected the Irish-Australian community. However, the tension between Irish Catholic and British Protestant went well beyond the immediate political situation in Ireland. There were several hundred years of division and conflict to draw on. There were fundamental differences in religious faith, identity and practice that directly affected people's everyday lives, for example, in areas such as marriage or, as it was more commonly described, the particular case of 'mixed marriage'. Moreover, the differences in faith were overlain with differences between class and culture, with the Irish-Catholic Australians generally characterised as working class and even represented as lower-order citizens. However, notwithstanding long established enmity between Irish Catholic and British Protestant, the start of the War and the promise of Home Rule did see an attempt on both sides to play down the differences and unite against the common enemy.
This particular post is the first of two to show how sensitive relations were between these 2 dominant religious and cultural groupings in the local community. The specific focus is on education. Differences over the provision of schooling in the local community demonstrated how deep the divisions went and how apparently insurmountable they were. The War focused even more attention on these differences.
The provision of schooling in rural areas in late 19C and early 20 C Australia was always a problem. Settlements and townships were small and isolated. Schools could be created overnight and disappear as quickly. Most were one-teachers schools and many were part-time. There was competition between communities for the provision of schooling. Schools were often not set up in purpose-built buildings but in local halls with very rudimentary facilities. It was hard to attract and hold teachers. It could be difficult for students to access the school and many parents were reluctant to forego their children's labour.
If anything, the problems faced by the Shire of Alberton in setting up schools across its district were more challenging than in other rural settings in Victoria. This was particularly true in relation to the spread of settlement into the very difficult and isolated 'hill country' of the eastern Strzelecki Ranges from the 1880s.
Analysis of the WW1 honor rolls of the local schools reveals that students often attended more than one local state school. In part, this represented the movement of rural working-class families across the district as they followed work opportunities. But it also highlights how the schools themselves opened but then closed, shifted from full-time to part-time, relocated to another site and so on. The following extract from the standard text on the local history of the Shire of Alberton (Adams, 1990) gives some indication of the situation. It is looking at the provision of state schooling in the specific location of Darriman round the turn of the century.
At Darriman two schools were opened in the 1890s, one at Darriman, no. 3013, in the kitchen of the public hall erected on an acre of E. Kuch's selection, and opened in 1892, and the other at Darriman West, no. 3070, off the main Sale road in a building leased from Mr. Geddie, with Charles Barchan, the first teacher. Numbers were poor and in 1893 Darriman closed to be reopened in 1896 half-time with Darriman West. The Darriman school closed again in 1907 while Darriman West school no. 3070 was worked part-time with Woodside until 1911. (p. 169)
Clearly, the difficulties facing the individual local communities in establishing, maintaining and improving schooling – and it was essentially primary-level schooling – were major and constant. And this level of difficulty related solely to the provision of state schooling. If the provision of Catholic schooling were to be added to the equation, all the difficulties would be magnified considerably. Two systems of schooling in such a rural environment had to increase inefficiency and compromise viability.
The reality was that, with one exception, following the legislation covering the provision of state schooling in Victoria in 1872, there was no Catholic school in the Shire of Alberton, at least up to the period of WW1. The exception was the short-lived (1885-1890) initial iteration of St Mary's primary school in Yarram. And even before 1872 and the 'free, compulsory and secular' legislation, there had only ever been very limited Catholic schooling in the Shire. Setting up another, stand-alone school system, particularly in small townships and settlements, was not a realistic option. Moreover, local politics would certainly have discouraged such moves as being wasteful of limited resources and unnecessarily divisive for the community.
Importantly, the lack of Catholic primary schooling in the Shire of Alberton meant that all the young men who grew up in and enlisted from the Shire had shared a common experience of schooling, in the state system. That system was explicitly and unreservedly Imperialist in outlook and practice. Whatever the boys were told at home – and most of the Irish-Catholic families in the district still had very close relations with wider family back in Ireland – at school they were given the full and glorious version of the history and greatness of the British Empire. In her comprehensive account of the critically important role played by the Victorian state school system in WW1, Rosalie Triolo leaves no doubt of the Imperial outlook that shaped the Department and its schools:
Tate [ Director of Education], Long [Editor of the Education Gazette and School Paper] and most members of the Department's community, especially at leadership levels, were imperialist. They were products of their culture, educational background and era. They were 'militarist' before and during the war in allowing a surfeit of war-related material in the Education Gazette and School Paper, especially on the Empire's strengths and successes. They encouraged school boys to join the navy, and… conveyed views to their community during the war that able-bodied men should enlist. They gave three main reasons for believing that Australia should be involved in the war: the greatest Empire the world had known was protecting Australia from Asia and possibly other invaders; it ensured the continuation and development of trade between Australia and many countries; and, it ensured that Australians could continue to enjoy what they considered to be a morally, politically, economically and culturally superior standard of life grounded in British ways, systems and institutions. (p14)
Triolo also argues that the Department effectively backed conscription. She quotes Tate, after the 1916 referendum:
I think the 'Yes" vote on the referendum in Victoria [it was successful in Victoria] was a good deal influenced by the war work of the State Schools. (p59)
While the legislation of 1872 had ostensibly provided for free, compulsory and secular education, all 3 ideals were compromised in serious ways. In terms of the idea of 'secular', while state funding had been withdrawn from all denominational schooling, the prevailing tone of schooling was certainly religious. There was no suggestion whatsoever that state schooling was non or anti-religious. Every Monday morning, round the flag pole, the children would recite: I love God and my country; I honour the flag [Union Jack]; I will serve the KIng and cheerfully obey my parents, teachers and the laws. In addition to the constant presumption of a Christian God shaping all moral instruction in the school, there was provision for ministers and priests to come into the school and take religious instruction.
Within this common or 'non-denominational' Christian ethos in the state school system, Protestantism enjoyed one highly significant advantage. Protestantism was the established religion of England and the assumed religion of the British Empire. Apart from the fact that Protestant missionary zeal was a key force driving the Empire, and the common conviction that the very success of the Empire was proof of the inherent worth and destiny of Protestantism, the Protestant faith had naturally assumed moral and religious ownership and control of the Empire. In Australian at the time, to the extent that the state school system presented the Empire as the bedrock of political and moral belief, it accepted Protestantism as the 'natural' religion of the school system. This reality was not lost on Irish-Australians and, in part, it explains the 'sectarianism' that became so evident during and after WW1.
The extent to which the interests of Empire, Protestantism and state schooling could effectively overlap and create a trinity of purpose and direction was certainly evident in the case of Yarram SS. At the start of WW1, Yarram SS was by far the largest school in the Shire of Alberton (180+ students) and it was lobbying for the creation of a higher, post-primary level. The three-way overlap was most obvious at Empire celebrations and other patriotic activities that either focused exclusively on the state school – concerts, fund raisers, unveiling school honor rolls etc – or relied on the participation of students from the state school.
Both the composition and dynamics of the management committee of the Yarram SS highlight the three-way interchange between the state school, the local Protestant faiths – primarily the Church of England, but also the Presbyterian and Methodist churches – and Imperial loyalty.
The committee itself was relatively small and, in addition to the head teacher – A E Paige – there were only another 5 or 6 members.
One member, until he enlisted in the AIF in August 1915, was Rev George Cox (Church of England). Cox was one of the most public Imperialists in the community. He was, for example, the driving force for having the 1915 Empire Day celebrations focused on the state school when, as he alleged, the Shire Council, to its shame, was unwilling to organise an appropriate celebration. Cox himself was a member of the local Recruiting Committee and the Belgian Relief Committee. He was also very active in the temperance movement as 'Chief Ruler' of the local Rechabite Tent. Temperance was strongly promoted by the Empire and the Royal Family at the time. Cox was also a regular speaker on Imperialism at the school. In short, the local Church of England minister was very closely identified with the local state school.
In something of a reciprocal arrangement, Alfred Edmund Paige, the head teacher, was on the Board of Guardians for the Church of England in Yarram. He was also a member of the Soldiers' Farewell and Welcome Committee, and he regularly took groups of students from Yarram SS to soldiers' farewells at the Shire Hall. The students would form a guard of honour. More importantly, they effectively made up the numbers at such occasions when too few townspeople made the effort to attend. Poor attendance at the farewells was a constant irritation for the committee.
Another member of the school management committee was Augustus John Rossiter, the editor of the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative. Coincidentally, Rossiter was also a member of the Church of England Board of Guardians. He was another outspoken Imperialist and a member of both the local Recruiting Committee and the local 1916 National Referendum Committee – local committees set up all over Australia, at the urging of PM Hughes, to promote the Yes vote in the 1916 conscription referendum. Rossiter used his paper to promote all the patriotic causes, including conscription, with which he was associated. He was a keen backer of Rev Cox.
Thomas Whitney, the chair of the school committee, was the manager of the South Gippsland Creamery and Butter Factory. He was also on the 1916 National Referendum Committee.
Another member, George E Ruby, a local land and finance agent, was on both the local Recruiting Committee and the Soldiers' Farewell and Welcome Committee. He was also a steward of the local Methodist Church. Whilst neither the local Methodist minister (Rev Walter Johns) nor the Presbyterian minister (Rev Francis Tamagno) was on the school committee, both clergymen appeared regularly at school functions and both were strong Imperialists. Rev Tamagno in particular was a leading and highly provocative Imperialist who served on the Soldiers' Farewell and Welcome Committee, the Recruiting Committee and the 1916 National Referendum Committee.
The interconnections between all the relevant committees in the local community overlapped even more than this short description suggests, and they will continue to be explored in future posts. However, it is apparent that people at the time would have seen and assumed that there were common interests and associations between the local state school, Protestantism and the ideal of Imperial loyalty. While the school was 'secular', its Imperial identity inevitably cast it as a Protestant-like institution and the War itself intensified this perception. Given, as argued earlier, that Protestantism was the religion of the Empire, this state of affairs would have seemed perfectly natural to all true patriots and Imperialists. However, for Irish-Australians who, post Easter 1916, were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with calls for complete and unquestioning loyalty to the Empire, the state school was viewed with increasing suspicion.
Part B will look at the moves to establish a Catholic school in Yarram during the War and the tension that this challenge to the existing arrangements created.
Triolo, R 2012, Our Schools and the War, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne
membership of local committees, boards etc taken from:
This entry was posted in Prominent Citizens, Religion & Community, School & Community, The Irish Question on July 7, 2016 by pcashen.
3. Empire Day 1914
Even though she was long dead, Queen Victoria's birthday (May 24, 1819) fell on a Sunday in 1914 and that meant that Empire Day was celebrated in Victorian schools on Friday 22 May.
The common arrangement across all public schools in Victoria saw the morning devoted to lessons or talks on the Empire, and the afternoon to extra-curriculum activities.
The following account of Empire Day 1914 is based on a series of articles that appeared in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative at the time. The schools involved in the articles were: North Devon State School, Yarram SS, Hedley SS, Carrajung South SS, Bulga SS and Binginwarri SS. This is certainly not the complete list of public schools in the shire at the time, and Hedley SS was not even in the Shire of Alberton, but the reports taken collectively certainly give a lively account of what Empire Day looked like in state schools at the time.
Commonly, there were several days of preparation and on the day the school was decorated with flags, bunting and floral displays. In the morning, special guests – local councillors, the Shire President, clergymen, school committee representatives, visiting dignitaries etc – would attend and present stirring speeches on the theme of the British Empire. For example, at North Devon, Cr. Barlow spoke about the Union Jack … the emblem of unity, peace and honesty. He reminded the boys that the red of their flag stood for bravery. At Yarram SS that same morning, the Rev. Geo Cox (Church of England) spoke on the "Symbol of Empire" and his religious confrere, Mr Rymer, covered the topic of "Freedom within the Empire." While at Bulga SS, the President of the School Committee (Mr S Wills) addressed the children on … their duties, as children of the Empire.
In some cases the children read their own reflections on the Empire and there were also special topical lessons. For example, at Yarram the staff had prepared lessons for the day covering: "Why we keep Empire Day," "The Royal Family," "The Union Jack," "The Australian Flag," "The Possessions of Britain" and other topics of a suitable nature.
There was also plenty of singing and recitation. At Bulga SS the children sang "Rule Britannia" and "The Sea is England's Glory" ( J W Lake, 1885) and keeping up the nautical theme they also recited, "Jack the Sailor". Here is the first verse of The Sea is England's Glory which you would have heard had you been there that day:
The sea is England's glory!
The bounding waves her throne;
For ages bright in story,
The ocean is her own.
In war the first, the fearless
Her standard leads the brave,
In peace she reigns so peerless,
The Empress of the wave!
To modern ears the lyrics might sound jingoistic or at least embarrassingly simple, but at the time the British Navy was the most significant asset in Australia's external defence policy.
The other key piece of formality in the morning was the ritual of saluting the flag and singing the national anthem: At noon the Union Jack was saluted and the usual oath recited, after which cheers were given for the King, the Empire, the Flag and for "Australia, our Own Land" (Yarram SS)
If the morning was given over entirely to outpourings of imperial loyalty and scripted lessons on Australia's place and destiny within the Empire, then the afternoon was a far less formal affair. The most common pursuit was a sports carnival with a picnic or special lunch to precede it.
One variation on the children's afternoon entertainment saw their parents also participating in in the sports with their own events. For example, at Carrajung South SS, the afternoon crowd swelled to some 300 people as parents joined. The same applied at Binginwarri SS, and at Hedley SS the parents appeared to take over because while the children's sports ran from noon to one o'clock, the parents' events started immediately after and ran through to dark.
There were variations. Yarram SS did not go down the path of the sports carnival. Instead they opted for a skating afternoon at the Mechanics Institute. Some of the children brought their own skates, while others were provided with those so generously lent by the Yarram Town Band Committee.
With all these events involving parents and others, Empire Day reached well beyond the local school to the wider community. Moreover, in many locations the activities went well past the normal school day. Admittedly Yarram SS finished its celebrations at the child-sensible time of 5 o'clock but other communities continued well past dusk. For example, at Carrajung South SS A dance was held in the school that night to terminate the days enjoyment, when about 40 couples tripped the light fantastic... At Binginwarri SS the dancing went to midnight. At Hedley SS the community organised a major bonfire with fireworks, before the dance; and the dancing did not end until 2.00am the next morning.
Empire Day in 1914 across the Shire seems to have been a rather relaxed celebration. There was a balance between the formality of the local primary school's focus on both the central place of the Empire in every aspect of Australia's national life, and every child's corresponding duty to the Empire, and a more relaxed opportunity for people, not just the children, to come together, have some fun and celebrate the sense of belonging to the greatest empire on earth. Most importantly, there was no sense at all that the Empire itself was under dire threat from external forces or a major war was about to engulf Europe.
However there were challenges to the Empire and while it would have gone unsaid at the celebrations in all the schools on Friday May 22, the most significant threat came not from without but from within. It was, of course, the ever-present question of Ireland. Consider the timing. The Home Rule Bill was passed by a substantial majority in the House of Commons on May 25 1914, the day after Empire Day.
Ireland then was an Imperial flash point even before the War began. It was the one part of the Empire that did not share the narrative on the greatness of the Empire and its manifest destiny. Further, the fundamental issue of Home Rule was not settled before the War began. It was merely put 'on hold' but it was clear to all that it was by then a compromised package.
While there was a significant separation between what was happening in the United Kingdom and what was happening in Australia, the conflict from 'Home' – whether England or Ireland – did play out in various forms in the new Commonwealth of Australia.
Specifically in relation to the celebration of Empire Day, it is worth looking at how parallel tensions ran in Australia at the time. Empire Day was seen by the Catholic Church hierarchy in Australia as a distinctly British celebration. Its implementation from 1905 had been driven by the British Empire League and it was viewed with deep suspicion by the Catholic Church. In direct response, from 1911 the church hierarchy directed that May 24 was to celebrated as Australia Day. The day would be one where 'patriotism' was equated with commitment to Australian nationalism. The flag would be unfurled and a special Australian National Hymn was to be sung. There was also the option of a holiday with entertainment for the children. May 24 happened to be not only Queen Victoria's birthday but also the feast day of Our Lady Help of Christians, the patron of Australia.
It is not clear how keenly the Australia Day celebration was taken up by the Catholic schools across the Nation but, not surprisingly, merely the suggestion of opposition to celebration of the Empire prompted incandescent outrage. The Argus on 29 May 1911, p.6 reported a speech by O R Snowball MLA, who was also Grand President of the Loyal Orange Council of Australasia. His comments are informative because they tend to confirm Catholic fears that the version of the Empire promoted by the likes of the British Empire League was decidedly Protestant. Snowball stated categorically, The Empire rested on Protestantism. … He trusted that the Protestant people would more and more realise that it was not material wealth, but sturdy Protestantism, and its observances and spirit, which had made and would maintain the empire. It was because the Lord God of Hosts was with us.
But not only was the Empire a Protestant creation, the Catholic Church was its mortal enemy. Even then, in 1911 – three years before the War! – the claim that WW1 was a Vatican plot was being floated:
It was common knowledge that the aims of the Roman Catholic Church were a danger to our national life. He hoped that Protestants would deal with that church in the way it deserved. The head of that church in Australia had declared himself in unmistakable terms that he would have none of this empire celebration recognised by his church. This church was a great standing menace to the British people. German hostility to Britain was being engineered by the Vatican which hoped to set the two great Protestant powers at each other's throats next year. That would never be. (Applause.) Protestants need not charge the Roman Church with disloyalty it charged itself, and declared itself. It was a treacherous influence which would tear down our flag and trample it underfoot.
So in the lead-up to WW1 there were major tensions over such as the celebration of Empire Day and Home Rule for Ireland, and sitting behind these flash points there was the more fundamental issue of whether Protestantism, the natural religion of the Empire, was also therefore the proper religion of the Nation; and even behind this there were other concerns: for example, was it possible for the new Commonwealth to have any distinctive identity outside the Empire. But none of this was evident in the reporting of celebrations for Empire Day in the Shire of Alberton in 1914. There is no reference to tension of any kind. The day was simply an unqualified celebration of the British Empire and a chance to have some fun.
It is also worth pointing out that the lack of Catholic primary schools in the Shire at the time meant that great majority of Catholic children were exposed to the same strong messages on the Empire. For children across the Shire it had been a near universal experience for many years, even before the formal introduction of Empire Day in 1905. Catholic children had been schooled, in the state sector, to honour and identify with the Empire. Most of the young men from the Shire, both Protestant and Catholic, who enlisted in the AIF over 1914-1918 had been well and truly taught all the prescribed lessons on both the the glory of the Empire and the loyalty they owed it.
As a final observation, it is hardly surprising that the Catholic Australia's National Hymn did not take hold as any sort of national anthem. It just swapped the jingoistic British Empire for a higher order, but far too ethereal, Heavenly Empire. The following version was published in the Freeman's Journal (Sydney) – later the Catholic Weekly – Thursday 11 May 1911, p25. It ran to seven stanzas with the three below recommended.
God bless our lovely morning-land!
God keep her with enfolding hand
Close to His side,
While booms the distant battle's roar,
From out some rude, barbaric shore,
In blessed peace for evermore,
There to abide!
Love lives in promise otherwhere,
But we are brothers – in the care
Of one birthright;
One God above, one home below,
One foot against our country's foe,
And – if needs be – one ringing blow
The wrong to smite.
God bless thee, lovely morning-land,
God keep thee with enfolding hand
Close to His side!
Make thee the home of liberty,
While sweeps the Murray to the sea,
And lifts a proud front dauntlessly,
The Great Divide!
'Empire Day. Yarram', 27 May 1914, p.2
'Empire Day. Bulga', 29 May 1914, p.2
'Binginwarri. Empire Day', 3 June 1914, p.4
'Empire Day. Hedley', 3 June 1914, p.2
'Empire Day.Carrajung South', 5 June 1914, p.4
'Australia Day. Ne Temere Decree. Mr. Snowball's Criticism', 29 May 1911, p.6
Freeman's Journal (Sydney)
'Australia Day', 11 May 1911, p.25
This entry was posted in Before the War, Religion & Community, School & Community, The Irish Question on July 3, 2014 by pcashen.