The belief that various hostile forces have entered into a conspiracy is not far removed from the perception that various suspect elements have taken on a single, malevolent identity. As we saw in the rhetoric which informed the M allee- Wimmera mobilisation of the White Army, C atholics, Langites, communists and the unemployed were scarcely distinguished from each other. More familiar is the conservative habit of condemning unwelcome reform or protest as 'communist* or 'communist inspired', as though thinking and often liberal-minded people are mere
puppets of a faceless and elusive communist master.
An example of this phenomenon, at its least reflective,occurred in the letter written by 'Monsoon Mike' which was quoted in Chapter One. In a letter to The Bulletin in early 1931, this correspondent had argued for the abolition of the dole, the creation of work camps for the 'parasites', and the installation of Monash as a
dictator. He concluded:
Of course it all sounds very impracticable but it is getting to be high time that the plain everyday Australian staged some sort of a definite protest if he does not really want to become the rickshaw-man for Cuttroatski's bosses. 'Monash or Mungana?' would make a good motto for a Fascist movement.^
Here, 'the plain everyday Australian' stands in place of the citizen. Identified as marginal are a series of undesirables who, as the argument progresses, are transmuted one into the other. There are the unemployed and their fam ilies, the Bolsheviks (Cutthroatski), the yellow peril (associated with rickshaw-man) and the allegedly corrupt Labor Party (Mungana). It is not simply that these enemies of
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right-thinking are ranged on the same side. They share a common moral ectoplasm. It is as though the discord in Australia is due to the Mungana phantom in his divers m anifestations. This is th e logic of marginalisation at its most extrem e and least dem ocratic. The consequence is a legitim ation of fascism.
With th a t quotation we have returned to 1931, and the im m ediate circum stances which produced and legitim ated the White Army. One of the reasons for having to undertake a study of the White Army's ideology in so elaborate a fashion is that the White Army itself is a silent organisation. It has said so little of itself, th a t its few utteran ces can be in terp reted accurately only if their tradition and context are first identified. As we've seen, the legitimations and motives of those rural members who mobilised in March 1931 were scarcely articu lated . They prepared, not for argument, but for action. However a sense of th eir implicit legitimations can be gained from a study of a parallel New South Wales movement, which was mobilised at exactly the same tim e, and which was widely publicised in Victoria. This was th e secessionist Riverina Movement. Being both public and on Lang's own te rrito ry , the Riverina Movement was more advanced, both in its organisation and in the degree to which it articulated legitimations for resisting Lang outside the dem ocratic process.
The movement was launched on 28 February 1931 at a great rally of farm ers, graziers, businessmen and tradesm en. It was an indication of the movement's masonic, anti-Irish connections, t h a t its leader should be styled Charles Hardy, 'the Cromwell of Riverina'. They rallied, as the newspapers reported, 10,000 strong on the banks of th e Murrumbidgee a t Wagga. It was an episode drawn
2. The rally was common fare in Victorian country newspapers the following week. Most appear to have drawn th e ir information from the Argus, 2 March 1931.
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straight from the Australian legend; no place could have sounded more authentically Australia, no gathering have seem ed more indigenous, more beyond politics. But in orthodox Australia, to be Australian was to be Anglo-Celtic Australian; as the press photos showed, the flag that flew on the Murrumbidgee that day was the Union Jack.^
The m eeting declared that it had done with politicians - both with the Country Party and with Lang. But there was no doubt that the rally had the support of the dominant culture; the local RSL provided a guard for the platform, and a special squad of police attended in case, it was said, Labor supporters attem pted to disrupt the meeting.^ But at this early stage, the Riverina Movement had only its rhetoric; it had no detailed programme. The assembly represented not so much an articulated alternative as an angry certainty that legitim acy was on their side. In the fa ce of Country Party im potence, Lang was leading the country into chaos. The Riverina Movement, simply because of its cultural standing, was sure that it could provide legitim acy and salvation. As one spokesperson later wrote:
The road along which we have been travelling leads to disintegration with possible reconstruction in sections, some of which undoubtedly favour the Russian ideal of government. The Riverina Movement points the way to a return to British ideals and the welding of Australia into a genuine nation.^
3. Photograph, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 March 1931, p. 10, See also 28