A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF EDWIN JAMES BRADY - Mallacoota ...

Some of these poems considering man as worker are addressed to the workers
themselves, while others convey a warning to the employers who must carry the
greater part of the blame for the existing conditions. Usually the imagery is purely
revolutionary, the tone often Biblical in its similarity to patriarchal threats of doom to
the unrepentant, and often there is reference to topical events. So “From the South to
the North” assures the northern shearers that their fellow-workers in the south gave
them their full support and sympathy, its influence being extended, as was often the
case, by its being printed in three different papers. 1 This particular poem showed, as
did many others, an almost naive belief in the view that because the workers’ case
was a just one, it would triumph over injustice, whatever its nature or source. It
embodied the theme of mateship, already strong in the social milieu and being made
more explicitly by Lawson’s frequent references to it. As Brady saw the situation: “If
we’re true to one another, Truth and Justice must prevail”. This slogan was to carry
hope and comfort to the striking shearers who were urged to “leave the tyrants’ sheep
unshorn”. The thoughts expressed in these poems were supported by Brady’s
addresses in the Domain on Sunday afternoons, by speeches to women’s clubs and
other organisations and by other political activities.
With this kind of background from The Australian Workman it was not surprising
when Brady’s first Bulletin poem lashed the capitalist employer in an attempt to
arouse some measure of conscience in him to alleviate the workers’ plight before
violent action became necessary. Oversimplifying complex economic issues, he saw
a conscious effort by the ruling class as a necessary step to ushering in the “new”
society – the Utopian world of equality and full provision for wants. As was often the
case, his plea is weakened by oversimplification and overstatement, along with an
excess of sentimentality and an artificiality of poetic effect, but there is still an
urgency and vitality about the verse which must have struck home:
For you, my lord, the millions toil, for you the spinners spin;
For you the workers delve and sweat, for you their daughters sin.
For you, my lord, the mother leaves her own to waste and pine,
That yours may live to feast and fat and drink the mellow wine.
………………………………………………………………
Oh, potent lord! Oh, mighty lord! Oh, lord of earth and sky!
When shall your power and presence fade, when shall your kingdom die?
When the earth is rent and shaken,
When the sons of men awaken,
When the souls of men are strong;
When the hearts of men are true,
When the death of olden wrong
Ushers in the golden new. 2
This contrast of the old with the new – the evil present or past with the Utopian new
which would overcome all mankind’s deficiencies – was a common theme in Brady’s
verse. One of his earliest poems in Truth took this motif as its title, quoting Whittier’s
“Upspringing from the ruined Old I saw the New”. 3 An essential part of this “new” is
a takeover of political power by Labor.
1 The Australian Workman, 2.5. 1891; Truth, 3.5.1891; The Worker (Queensland), 18.4.1891.
2 “The Wage Lord”, The Bulletin, 23.5.1891
3 “The Old and the New”, Truth, 7.6.1891 and The Worker, 14.1.1905
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