Page:Melbourne Riots (Andrade, 1892).djvu/11

Rh oppression, but we can wait no longer; the blight of capital is fast crushing us out of existence, our wives and children are dying in front of us because we cannot, we dare not win the bread with which to sustain their lives. We have not courted the quarrel; we are in the thick of the fight; capital has its knee upon our throat and is fast strangling the breath from our bodies. Shall we longer endure it? (loud cries of “No”) No, friends, let us bear our quarrel; and let us bear it like true men and women, that those who oppose may admire our courage and determination, and fear our strength, our numbers, and our undying resolve to be free (enthusiastic applause). But how are we to be free? Shall we wait for freedom with our arms folded? Shall we follow the advice of friend Sharples and ask our wealthy oppressors to tax themselves instead of us? (cries “No”) Shall we ask them to free the land when they all exist by keeping it from us, and making us work upon it for their profit because they call it theirs? No, comrades, we are truly told that ‘God helps those who help themselves,’ and we need never hope to be free while we wait for others to set us free; we must free ourselves (applause). The actions of Goldschmidt, Beere &. Co (loud groans) I was about to say that the action of that firm in dismissing their hands, cruel as it is in its effects; upon us, was inevitable under the conditions in which we all live. They dared not do otherwise. You or I in their place must have done the same (cries of “No, no,” and interruption). You disbelieve me friends, but I can assure you it is as I say. Had they not closed yesterday, in a few weeks at most their creditors would have compelled them to close, for their stores are glutted with the goods which we have made, and we, the workers, who should be their principal customers, as we embrace the greater part of the population, have no money to purchase our requirements of them and thus to provide them the revenue with which they pay their own debts (hear, hear). No, friends, we have entered on the labor war, but let us fight to win. Let us get the tools with which we work into the hands of us who use them, instead of letting them bring the revenue to those who work not to create it—I refer to the capitalists. We must learn—and learn immediately—how to co-operate together so as to secure the products of our labor for ourselves, to peacefully acquire possession of the lands which legal robbery has despoiled us of, and to become independent of the speculative individual who under pretext of lending us the requisite machinery with which to work for our own benefit, dips his hand deep into our pockets, depriving us of nearly all we have produced, and makes us the wretched slave of his accursed gold.”

The chairman next called upon Felix Slymer, the remarkable little bullet-headed agitator who sat next to him, and whom we have already briefly described. The applause that greeted this intimation was simply astounding. If the other speakers were popular, Slymer was more than popular—he was their very idol.

Gently rising to his feet, he softly stroked together his delicate and flabby little hands, apparent strangers to toil from their appearance, and slowly bowing before before them he delivered himself deliberately and in a markedly simulating manner of the following:—“Mr. Chairman, fellow