Dile al niño que saque el objeto de la bolsa para ver si has acertado 7 Continúa jugando con las demás bolsas.

(and how its secrets were kept)

L, G e n e ra l B larney and th e In te n tio n s o f th e W h ite A rm y Leadership

Sir A lfr e d K e m s le y is a d is tin g u is h e d s o ld ie r and M e lb o u rn e businessperson. H e has been a tru s te e o f th e M e lb o u rn e Shrine o f R e m e m b ra n ce since 1938, w as p re s id e n t o f L e g a c y in 1932-33 and has been a m em b e r o f the Blarney M e m o ria l C o m m itte e since 1954.^ H e was s e c re ta ry to th e re g u la tin g body o f th e S pecial constables who p a tro lle d th e s tre e ts fo llo w in g the 1923 P o lice S trik e , and he is the o n ly s o ld ie r s t i l l liv in g w ho is know n to have been close to th e le a d e rsh ip o f the W h ite A rm y . H e w r ite s :

When you t a lk o f the W h ite A rm y you are on v e ry d e lic a te ground. I was also id e n tifie d w ith i t . T here was a lm o st c o m p le te s e c re c y im posed on each o f us and as those who w e re e n ro lle d w e re s e le c te d a fte r c a re fu l s c ru tin y w e observed t h a t se c re c y v e ry h o n o ra b ly . I confess my p a rt in i t was c o n fin e d to m y ow n re s id e n tia l area w h ic h was a 's a fe ' area and no

paper w h a te v e r passed betw e e n us. O ur C .O ., a M a jo r G e n e ra l c a lle d

o c ca sio n a l m e e tin g s at his h om e... .

A l l I am p re p a re d to say even at th is re m o te d ate is th a t th e 'A rm y* w as c o n tro lle d by e x tr e m e ly c o m p e te n t men a ccu sto m e d by w a r e xp e rie n ce to m u tu a l tr u s t ... I am not p re p a re d to express m y s e lf fu r th e r as to C om m anders or e x e c u tiv e s or any o th e r d e ta ils .

In fa c t , the cabal w h ic h com m anded th e W h ite A rm y was made up o f s e n io r a rm y o ffic e r s . N o t a ll o f them are know n by nam e. H o w e v e r, G e n e ra l Thom as

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Blarney was the supreme commander, and close to him w ere such officers as C ol. Francis Derham, an eminent Melbourne law yer, and Lt. Col. (later Sir) Edmund Herring, a future chief-justice cf Victoria.

Blarney's leadership is beyond doubt. In a co n fid en tia l interview , a member of Blarney's immediate family confirmed that the general led the organisation and seemed surprised that the matter should reguire any corroboration.

Wing-Commander Archie Macarthur was joint regional commander of the White Army for the Gippsland region. In interview he said, 'Blarney was the boss, there was no question about that.'

The New Guard knew that both Derham and Blarney w ere leaders of the White Army, and in October 1931 it made co n ta ct in the unrealised hope that the

2 Melbourne leaders would agree to co-operate w ith the Sydney organisation.

Harold Hewett told me that he was certain th a t Blarney was running it: Everyone who was in on it knew that it was Blarney's show. N o... I don't suppose he was so very popular. But you w ill understand w hat I mean when I say that this new role cast him in a d ifferen t light. He was strong and fiercely loyal. And he was determ ined to rescue us from socialism. That's why I joined.

It seems that one of the few people to deny Blarney's involvem ent is his champion and biographer, John Hetherington. The reasons for H etherington's error are instructive and bear some exam ination.

2. 'Report of calls made by J.B. Horrell when in M elbourne', de Groot Papers, Vol. IX, p. 286.

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H e th e rin g to n w ro te tw o biographies o f B larney. The f ir s t, B larney,^ was published in 1954. The second, Blarney; C o n tro ve rsia l S o ld ie r,^ published in 1973, is a considerably expanded version of th e fir s t, c o m p le te ly re w ritte n but re ta in in g the same s tru c tu re and many o f the o rig in a l turns of phrase. I t is a m ilita ry biography of th e ty p e w h ich depicts its subject as a man of staunch in te g rity and a soldier of re m a rka b le in te llig e n c e . H e th e rin g to n 's Blarney is square-jawed, sensible and s tra ig h t as a die. A lth o u g h H e th e rin g to n sca rce ly m entions d ire c tly that Blarney was m assively unpopular w ith the many servicem en and women who accused him of arrogance, ruthlessness, intem perance and w om anising, much of the book is c le a rly w ritte n w ith the purpose o f v in d ic a tin g Blarney by dem onstrating th a t these charges are the product of te rr ib le m isunderstandings.^

S im ila rly, when w ritin g about Blarney's period as V ic to ria n police commissioner, H e th e rin g to n addresses h im self to the (this tim e acknowledged) charges that Blarney was both a u th o rita ria n and given to tre a tin g p o litic a l ra llie s as m ilita ry ope ra tions in w h ich th e task of his men was to a n n ih ila te the enemy. In the 1954 version, H e th e rin g to n insisted th a t, 'B larney, though not w ith o u t a dash of a u th o rita ria n ism in his n a tu re , was o ve rw h e lm in g ly a champion of dem o cra tic principles.'^ It is a cla im which H e th e rin g to n has p ru d e n tly o m itte d fro m the cu rre n t e d itio n .^ F u rth e rm o re , he now acknowledges th a t Blarney was unpopular

3. J. H e th e rin g to n , B larney, C heshire, M elbourne, 1954.

4. J. H e th e rin g to n , Blarney: C o n tro ve rsia l S o ld ie r, A u s tra lia n War M e m o rial, Canberra, 1973.

5. In a s im ila r vein is N .D . C a rlyo n , I Remember B larney, M a cm illa n , South Melbourne, 1980 - possibly the t it le im plies th a t unfavourable accounts of Blarney com e fro m people who n e ith er rem em ber nor knew him. Edmund H erring's fo rw a rd takes up th e them e of a man who was unpopular because

he was deeply m isunderstood. 6. H e th e rin g to n , Blarney, 1954, p. 61. 7. H e the rington, Blarney, 1973, p. 63.

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with, indeed vilified by, the Labour movement, but he still refuses to acknowledge that the antipathy was mutual. If Blarney were at all to blame, says Hetherington, then it is perhaps true that he showed 'a lack of tact'. Nothing more? Well, Hetherington will also concede that some police ’were doubtless overbearing in manner and rough' in their treatment of the unemployed, but, he pleads, 'the problem of how to keep the peace without using violence now and then would have baffled Solomon.'® Maybe so, but there is no evidence that Blarney addressed him self to that dilemma with any concern.

This biography is not a history. It is a memorial - a memorial in which the determination to vindicate a besmirched reputation before a post-1945 liberal democratic readership has resulted in a failure to locate the man within the beliefs and values of inter-war military conservatives - a group neither democratic by conviction nor pacific by temperament.

All of which brings us to Hetherington's denial that Blarney was involved in the 1931 White Army. In the 1954 version, Hetherington insisted that Blarney opposed the activities of the militiamen within his state, saying bluntly that, Blarney would have no truck with them.' By 1973, he moved ground a little, allowing that 'Blarney had no objection to anything they did so long as they stayed within the law.' However he then added, 'but he would have no truck with little Hitlers.''*'® Quite so. But little Hitlers are not the issue - at least not within the connotations which such an expression carries in our post-war culture. The term is an historical anachronism which misrepresents the cultural standing of the

8. Ibid. 9.

10.

Hetherington, Blarney, 1954, p. 62. Hetherington, Blarney, 1973, p. 63.

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White Army and which cannot, by sheer fact of chronology, accurately represent

Blarney's relationship to it. The White Army was not a bunch of Nazi-

sympathisers. It was a patriotic, British-Australian paramilitary organisation

which believed that it opposed communism, but which defined communism very broadly.

But here's the rub. By the tim e Hetherington came to re-w rite the book, he had learned (or now felt able to mention) th at Blarney had formed a secret army after the Second World War. While still denying that he could possibly have been involved in the White Army during the Scullin period, Hetherington tells us that:

Blarney gave much of his time in the late 1940s to directing an organisation of whose existence most Australians never heard. Many of its members called it The Association; others called it the White Army... An Australia-wide organisation of unpaid volunteers, it reached a strength of perhaps 100,000. The members were all Second World War ex-servicemen ... They banded together in the belief that communism was on the march everywhere and that no country was safe from an

attem pted coup d'etat. ^

It was no coincidence that at the very tim e this later White Army came into being, the Chifley Labor government was facing the bank nationalisation crisis, and once more incurring the old charge that the ALP was in the lap of communism. The 1973 biography contains about 1,000 words of this later White Army. The command structure which Hetherington describes is exactly the same as that used in 1931. The same public facilities were to be protected. Exactly the same divisions of manpower were used. And, writes Hetherington with pride, 'At

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