[Editor: This article, by Hector Lamond, regarding the development of The Worker (also known as The Australian Worker), was published in The Australian Worker (Sydney, NSW), 28 May 1914.]
Another move forward.
The Worker has again outgrown its home and seeks a new one.
A look back and a peep ahead.
To-morrow the Australian Worker will instal as its eighth Editor, Mr. H. E. Boote, already too well-known and loved by good Australian Labor men to need an introduction.
Mr. Lamond vacates the chair in order the better to supervise the important work of providing a new home for “The Worker,” and later on to give form and substance to some long-cherished dreams of further advancement.
A word from the Manager.
The present occasion seems fitting for a look back at the past and a peep into the future.
When the first Editor of “The Worker,” now Speaker of the House of Assembly of Tasmania, sat himself down upon the kerosene-case which did service as an editorial chair, “The Worker” was not so imposing a publication as it is to-day. Its second Editor, who now adorns the Senate of the Commonwealth, saw the paper through the troublous early nineties, hard pressed upon every hand. His successor, the late Mr. Medway Day, third Editor, found the editorial chair no bed of roses, for by 1895, when he took command, the Union had fallen upon disastrous times which lasted long enough to threaten the very existence of the paper.
After the Conference of 1897, indeed, “The Worker” did cease publication for a time, and in the latter part of that year when, after a year of management, the writer took the Editorial chair, he faced the task of starting all over again. For a time a fortnightly issue of four small pages was all the resources of the Bourke Branch, then sole proprietor, could furnish, but from that small beginning the present paper, with its valuable plant and offices, has been built.
“The Worker” never had any capital; it has had to buy all that other papers buy with capital, out of the savings made from ordinary revenue. Yet on Monday next, when I complete eighteen years’ management of “The Worker,” our assets will exceed our liabilities by over eighteen thousand pounds. I don’t think I can be fairly charged with egotism if I admit that I feel proud of the achievement.
Someone has suggested that the retiring Editor should write a page or two of reminiscences. They would certainly prove interesting, but I shrink from the task. I don’t know whether we value the living less than the dead, but looking back over the years that have seen “The Worker” grow from the leaflet of 1897 to the high-class product of 1914, it seems to me that the dear dead comrades whose unselfish zeal made these things possible have left few peers behind. In truth, such men as Donald Macdonell, Tommy White, Medway Day, and others whose mark is graven deeply on the history of the paper, had but few peers while they lived. Anyhow, “the time is not yet ripe” to write of many of the men whose actions are inextricably interwoven with the history of “The Worker,” which is almost a history of the Labor Movement itself.
“The Worker” has had four city homes. I shall never forget my first entry into the old office in Palmer-street, Sydney. It was a floor over a bakehouse, and I fear must have been jerry-built, for as the little printing machine did its work it danced a polka-mazurka that justified long odds that one fine day it would be precipitated into the dough-trough beneath. I sometimes think the action of this machine may have inspired the inventor of the Turkey Trot and Rag-time.
Very soon we moved, first to Castlereagh-street, and later to Kent-street, where the foundations of the present business were firmly laid. Here, with some trepidation, we installed a printing press that printed from reels at a speed far exceeding our previous rate of production, and erected our first linotype machine. From that day we never turned back, and by 1905 we were doing so well that new premises had to be secured. The Board decided to become its own landlord, and in a few months our building in Bathurst-street was erected. Three storeys was the height of our ambition at that time, but I doubt whether any pair of newly-weds ever entered their new home with greater pride than was ours when the wheels first went round in our new offices. The premises were palatial compared with those we had previously occupied, and we were by no means annoyed that their appointments aroused the envious comments of certain of “our reptile contemporaries.”
A brief three years saw such an increase in the business that more room was needed, and another two storeys were added to our offices in 1908. That was a little over five years ago, and we again find ourselves like the growing lad whose legs will push too far through his trousers and whose waistcoat buttons will persist in flying off.
Last year we saw an opportunity of securing a specially suitable site not far from our present offices, and the Board promptly decided to make the purchase. The block has more than twice the area of the present site, and has fifty feet frontage to two streets, thus affording facilities of light and access that to such a business as ours are almost invaluable. The new site is situated immediately in front of St. Andrew’s Anglican Cathedral, and adjoins the Town Hall. On this site we are now erecting new offices for “The Worker,” which when completed will rank among the most convenient and best lighted newspaper offices in Australia.
The plan provides for four large floors affording space equal to eight storeys on our present site. The building is being constructed so substantially that it may be carried to seven or eight storeys when the future development of the business demands it. The bricks used are the new sand-lime bricks from the State Brickworks at Botany. They are a white brick, and will give the offices a very distinctive appearance.
Additional space is also being provided for the Head Office of the A.W.U. The growth of the Union in recent years calls for largely increased accommodation for the Head Office, which is now greatly hampered for want of office room.
The future.
Offices are only a means to an end, so the efforts now being made to provide more accommodation for “The Worker” will not end with the erection of the building and the installation therein of the plant and machinery, which make the production of “The Worker” possible. When the financial burden of the new departure has been adjusted, we hope to make further improvements in the paper.
“The Australian Worker” is a very good paper as it stands to-day. For quality and quantity of reading matter it has few compeers among the English-speaking peoples. But we are not satisfied, and never shall be. Like most other businesses, the progress of “The Worker” will depend upon good seasons and good government and some other things. But, given a continuance of past good fortune, we hope in the next few years to produce a paper that shall be as superior to our present production as that is to “The Worker” of years gone by.
“The Worker” is already posted direct to more Australian homes than any other paper in the Commonwealth. Its certain destiny is to become the most widely circulated family paper in the Commonwealth. And no better vehicle for the dissemination of social-political views could be devised.
What a wonderful paper “The Worker” would be if we could make it just what we wish it to be. But all these things cost money, and even the most unworldly of poets nowadays becomes silent when the treasury is empty. So we have to bide our time. All going well, we shall be able to do a little better towards the end of the year, and 1915 should see still further improvement.
Looking back over a long span of one’s life is not always a cheerful occupation. So much might have been done; so much had better not been done. The strange dispensations of Providence that cut off in the prime of life the best and most useful of mankind, while prolonging to a ripe old age many useless or even baneful existences, cannot fail to impress one. Such, however, is Life.
The history of “The Worker” is in the main a cheerful document. Its pages are full of inspiration and encouragement. For who of those who saw the first copy of “The Hummer” printed in Wagga in 1891 could have dreamed of “The Worker” of 1914? And all this has been done by working men. Not by working men each going his own way and carrying his own burden, but by working men banded together in unity and by their union making possible the things that are impossible without co-operation and mutual self-sacrifice.
“The Worker,” successful as it has been, is but one outward symbol of much greater achievement in the sphere of the organization of the working classes. Who can calculate the millions of money placed in the pockets of the workers by the same organization that has made “The Worker” of to-day a possibility? And who shall estimate the value to human progress of the uplift which those millions and the more humane conditions that have accompanied them have given to the human race here in Australia and elsewhere?
The man who carries his swag across the continent-nation may not appear a great man to those he passes on the way, but he has hewn a path and shown a way along which untold millions shall travel in comfort denied to him. To the Bushworker of Other Days the Labor Movement owes most that is good and enduring in its inspiration and equipment, and by no means least of his good gifts to humanity is the Labor Press of Australia.
Long may it increase and prosper!
Source:
The Australian Worker (Sydney, NSW), 28 May 1914, p. 5
Also published in:
The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), 4 June 1914, p. 5
Editor’s notes:
The first five editors of The Worker (Wagga; Sydney, NSW) were:
1892-1893: Walter William Head (later known as Walter Alan Woods) (1861-1939)
1893 (temporary editor): Arthur Edward George Rae (1860-1943)
1894-1897: John Medway Day (1838-1905)
1897-1914: Hector Lamond (1865-1947)
1914-1943: Henry Ernest Boote (1865–1949)
In the reprinted version of this article, published in The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), the word “Labor” was changed to “Labour” in all four instances of its use.
A.W.U. = Australian Workers’ Union
See: “Australian Workers’ Union”, Wikipedia
bakehouse = a bakery (a building, room, location, or place where bread and other baked goods are preparing and baked); a bakeshop (a shop or location where bread and other baked goods are sold)
baneful = bad, evil; causing destruction, great distress, much damage, woe (may also refer to something which causes death, especially poison)
Commonwealth = the Commonwealth of Australia; the Australian nation, federated on 1 January 1901
compeer = someone who is a peer, being equal in rank, status, ability, or accomplishment; a close friend, associate, colleague, comrade, or companion (plural: compeers)
Donald Macdonell = Donald Macdonell (1862-1911), shearer, trade unionist, and politician (Australian Labor Party); he was born in 1862 in Stuart Mill (Victoria), and died in Melbourne (Victoria) in 1911
See: 1) Frank Farrell, “Donald Macdonell (1862–1911)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Donald Macdonell (Australian politician)”, Wikipedia
H. E. Boote = Henry Ernest Boote (1865-1949), Labor journalist, editor, and author; he was born in Liverpool (England) in 1865, came to Australia in 1889, and died in Rose Bay (Sydney, NSW) in 1949
See: 1) Frank Farrell, “Boote, Henry Ernest (1865–1949)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Henry Ernest Boote”, Wikipedia
hewn = cut down or mown down; crafted, formed, made or shaped by chopping, cutting, or whittling down
The Hummer = a trade union newspaper, based in Wagga (NSW), which was the forerunner to The Worker (Wagga, then Sydney, NSW) and The Australian Worker (Sydney, NSW)
See: 1) “The early years of the Worker”, Australian Workers’ Union
2) Judy Wing, “Humming in History Again”, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History
3) “The Australian Worker”, Wikipedia
jerry-built = badly, flimsily, poorly, or shoddily built (especially built from materials which are cheap, low quality, and/or substandard); ramshackle, rickety, shoddy, slipshod
Lamond = Hector Lamond (1865-1947), a printer, editor, newspaper manager, and politician (for the Australian Labor Party, and then the Nationalist Party); he was born in Broughton Creek (Shoalhaven, NSW) in 1865, and died in Bowral (NSW) in 1947
See: 1) Coral Lansbury, “Hector Lamond (1865–1947)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Hector Lamond”, Wikipedia
linotype machine = a type of typesetting machine (Linotype was a brand name)
See: “Linotype machine”, Wikipedia
Medway Day = John Medway Day (1838-1905), clergyman, journalist, and editor; he was born in Bedford (England) in 1838, came to Australia in 1866, and died in Hobart (Tasmania) in 1905
See: 1) Margaret Allen, “John Medway Day (1838–1905)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “John Medway Day”, Wikipedia
pound = a unit of British-style currency used in Australia, until it was replaced by the dollar in 1966 when decimal currency was introduced in Australia
Providence = (usually capitalised) God, or benevolent care from God; care, guidance, help, or protection as provided by God, or as provided by coincidental circumstances or Nature
swag = a swagman’s bundle, being a number of personal belongings rolled up in a piece of calico, tent-fly, or blanket, secured tightly together (e.g. with rope or straps), or placed inside a cloth bag (such as a flour sack); swags were hung from the shoulder, making them easy to carry whilst their owners tramped many miles; a swag was also commonly referred to as a “Matilda”, “drum”, or “bluey” (from the colour of the blankets, which were often blue)
Tommy White = Thomas White (1858-1913), trade unionist (at one stage, the General Secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union); he was born in North Melbourne (Victoria) in 1858, and died at Hamley Bridge (South Australia) in 1913
See: 1) “Another veteran gone: Tommy White dies in harness”, The Worker (Sydney, NSW), 9 January 1913, p. 17
2) “Late Mr. Thomas White”, The Sydney Morning Herald, (Sydney, NSW), 8 January 1913, p. 17 (Second Edition)
3) “Death of Mr. Thomas White”, The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), 9 January 1913, p. 9
4) “The death of Mr. White: Funeral at Waverley: Large attendance of Laborites”, The Worker (Wagga, NSW), 16 January 1913, p. 13
[Editor: Changed “make the puchase” to “make the purchase”.]
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