Decreto 1743 de 1994 CAPITULO

And weave your winding-sheet, till fair, England is your sepulchred

Although men were mostly what society made them,35 they could resist oppression in all its forms, but in so doing must prepare themselves for the task. They should educate themselves intellectually and morally so that they might become citizens worthy of assuming the heavy responsibility for the welfare of all.36 As humanity had been brutalised by poverty and oppression for so long, it was necessary that people be transformed before it would be possible to transform society. The most urgent topics on this curriculum for revolution were the Social Problems'.3? These could only be tackled when people realised that unless they acted in unison as a class, the aggressive development of capitalism would lead to the pauperisation and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses'.38

Although he toyed with the idea of revolution,39 Anstey seems to have been more interested in one of the more popular contemporary solutions to social injustice; land for all who could work it.40 Referring to the vast tracts of unused land controlled by a few rich men, he noted the view that:

34 Ibid, p 23

33 ibid, p 66, What is the tramp' See also p 127 where he pasted drawings of The Melbourne Larrikin1 * 3 * *, The Sydney Larrikin'; ‘The London Rough’; and ‘The Yankee Hoodlum1 Between them he wrote. The Larrikin The question is, how to abolish larrikin ism, prisons won't do it. That is quite evident'

36 ibid, p 125, Duties of Man’ by Mazzini 37 Ibid, p 117

38 ibid, p 78, Manifesto of the Knights of Labour' 39 Ibide m

40 This was a long-standing radical view that had become entrenched in Australian popular politics It was argued, in the first instance, that land for the people was a matter of natural justice’ This derived, in part, from the romantic notion of the independent yeoman farmer as the ideal typification of an honest, industrious citizen who was ever ready to defend traditional liberties against the encroachments of plutocratic thieves and political tyrants In the

Australian context this became part of a populist mythology that grew out of the Land

Convention in the late 1830s, and lay behind the Selection Acts in the 1860s The objective was to wrest productive land from the hands of large pastoraiists whose tenure could not be justified on either economic or moral grounds In the late 1880s and early 1890s that view was given added force by the popularity of Henry George's writings See, for example, Henry George, Progress

and Poverty An in q u iry Into the cause ofindustrial depressions, and o f Increase o f want with increase o f wealth - the remedy, London, Kegan Paul, Trench 8c Co., 1883, pp 282-286 For a

T is a curse th a t b u rn s and blights,

And t will b u rn and blight till the People rise, And swear w hile they break th e ir hands, That the hands shall h en cefo rth have acres, And the acres h en cefo rth have h a n d se l

He observed, in a m an n er th a t presaged his 1906 book on the land question in Victoria, Land is the source of all wealth. Labour is the creator of all w ealth.'4^ But no m atter w h eth er the masses found th e ir social and moral regeneration on the land or in the cities, the enemy was the same. We must combine and make w ar upon our common enemies; the monopolists, the politicians, the usurers, the legal spongers of society.'43 And w ith th at rin g in g declaration, he concluded his commonplace book.

During these four and a h a lf years of in term itten t tran scrip tio n it is clear th at Anstey’s interests gradually changed. Many of his e arlier en tries were concerned w ith women and sexual passion. Later, his preoccupation shifted to religion. Towards the end of the book he copied m aterial of a more explicitly political kind. There is, of course, nothing particularly rem arkable about this progression of interests during his transition from late adolescence to early manhood. The significance lies in the way he expressed them. His early, idealised images of women switched dram atically to bitter rejection. It was also evident th a t the prize-w inning Sunday school scholar had turned into a young man who denounced organised Christianity as hypocritical cant. Such dramatic changes of attitude were p a rt of a re c u rrin g pattern. He often displayed idealistic enthusiasm for particu lar issues, only to re tre a t into cynicism after it became ap p aren t th a t the cause was lost. This pattern extended beyond ideas into his behaviour. He commonly displayed a degree of petulance at m inor irritations, petty insults or small reverses in his political fortunes. On num erous occasions he set For a discussion of its influence in Australia see Craufurd D W.Goodwin, Economic Enquiry in

Australia, Durham, North Carolina, Duke University Press, 1%6, pp 110-120 ** Commonplace book, pp 37-3&, The Acres and the Hands'

Ibid, p i l l The book was Monopoly andDemocracythe land question o f Victoria, Melbourne, Labor Call Print, 1906 He also copied Emerson's 'Boston Hymn' onto p .122 of his commonplace book

2: An Imaginative Seaman ₃₇

off on journeys at very short notice, with little apparent regard for existing obligations. This volatile element in his character that was matched by a tendency to extravagance in word and deed. Some early signs of this can be seen in the commonplace book where heroic figures and stirring actions were celebrated in dramatic prose and verse. In a sense, it represents an adolescent phase in the development of his romantic imagination which saw Promethean heroes defy the gods, and struggling masses cast off the yoke of tyranny. Perhaps, when re-reading the commonplace book in later life he was able to recapture this spirit, and retouch the canvas of his seafaring years with a broader brush and more vivid palette.

In one sense, Anstey's stories of his adventures at sea had the makings of epic drama. They were, at least in part, exciting tales of larger-than-life characters, of perilous voyages and derring-do. He claimed to have sailed with Bully Hayes, the infamous South Seas rogue. He said that he worked as a blackbirder’ in the Pacific islands labour trade, recalled the brutality of life on some of those ships and recounted thrilling yarns of crippled ships in stormy seas. However, they were not vainglorious accounts of his part in it all. Indeed, in most cases he was either an observer or a victim, rarely did he assign himself the heroic role, His feel for popular tastes was too finely tuned to play the braggart. It was sufficient to be the self- deprecating narrator and allow an aura of adventure to surround his public image. That way, the didactic intentions of his stories were realised in a more subtle manner. His tales of pious captains busily blackbirding’ were not simple self-aggrandizement; they were vindications of his views on White Australia and religious humbug. They were both ripping yarns and political parables compounded in the correct proportions for his audience of the moment. Over the years they became such a central part of his public persona as to encourage the popular belief that, Anstey and adventure can t be kept a p a r t , N o r , it would seem, could fact and fiction.

In fact, one of his favourite stories was entirely fictitious. Always loath to disappoint an audience, Anstey provided A. T. Saunders, an Adelaide journalist, with one of his most imaginative creations. In December 1913 Saunders went to the Parliamentary Library in Melbourne to research a series of articles on Bully Hayes lor the Adelaide Mall 45 While there he spoke with Anstey who spun him a yarn about working on the Lotus during Hayes' last voyage.

He told Saunders that after arriving in Melbourne as a stowaway he sailed to China in the MegMerilles 46 from there he shipped on the Ajax 4? carrying 'coolies' to Singapore, where he was put ashore on suspicion that he had smallpox.48 After a period of beachcombing' he was picked up by Hayes who took him on as a cabin boy out of kindness'. The Lotus was a yacht-like' craft of some twenty tons with a small crew consisting of Hayes as master, Peters as mate, two natives' and himself. Hayes'

companion' Mrs Ford was also aboard,49

He saw no signs of brutality in Hayes. It was only after the captain s death that he learned of his reputation. After leaving Singapore they sailed around the Phillipines, calling at Manila, and proceeded to the Carolines, trading as they went. Finally, they arrived at Jaluitin the Marshall Islands where Hayes was killed. Taking care not to claim that he actually witnessed the death, he told Saunders:

The Lotus anchored, and I was sent ashore with one of the coloured crew in the only boat the Lotus had, leaving Hayes, Peters and Mrs Ford aboard. This was the day Hayes was killed; but I did not see him killed. The first I knew about it was hearing Mrs Ford screaming after

45 Two instalments had already appeared on 27 September and 4 October 1913. 46 A T Saunders, Bully Hayes, p 12

47 According to his Seamen's Union booklet he worked on the Ajax during November 1883 See NLA MS 512/7 However, at that time he was working the Queensland coast around Port Douglas, Bloomfield River and Mackay See commonplace book, pp 37, 38 and 41

48 In two other references to a ’beachcombing' period in Singapore, Anstey said that he jumped ship because of cruel treatment See Labor Call 19 December 1912, p 5 and ’A Life on the Ocean Wave', op ti t

4^ A year earlier he had claimed that Hayes took him on as cupbearer and punkah wallah to his last love Jennie Ford' See Labor Gallic December 1912, p 5

2: An Im aginative Seaman ₃₉