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

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Henry Lawson (“Joe Swallow”) was writing verses on a similar theme at this time, as
were others, and although it is not demonstrable, it is conceivable that their verses
contributed in some measure to the success of Labor in the elections of 1891. Brady
wrote of this victory: “Let the fiat flash forth on the wind-wooing wires / The
slumbers of Labor are over at last”. 1
It was a vast disappointment for Brady however, when he learned that having a Labor
government did not automatically mean an amelioration of bad conditions. He inside
view of the internal wranglings of the party and the surrender by some of its members
of their principles in an effort to remain in office, hastened this disillusionment.
Following the paean of “The Triumph of Labor” of June 1891 was the return by
October the same year of the old themes of oppression and reform, nothing how
anxious faces among the workers still waited for knowledge and evidence of justice
and peace; but “the mill-wheel turns the faster, and the furnace keeps it red, / Till our
faith is tired and shaken, and the hope in us is dead”. 2 Over the next two decades in
particular, these themes of Labor were sounded in infinite variation. Brady purported
to have sought no reward from these poems, for he was not paid for most of them
(with the possible exception of those in The Bulletin, for this was Archibald’s policy).
But he had no illusions about the seriousness of the struggle, knowing well the
strength of the forces arrayed against the workers; he urged them, nevertheless, to
support the Labor cause against all odds, until “the earth’s enraptured face / Smiles
beneath a golden future and a god-like human race”. 3
There are many occasions where this same theme is taken in its general form and
examined more closely by reference to particular cases of hardship. For example in
“The Worker’s Wife”, a long narrative, attention is given to the plight of a young
married couple and their struggle to earn a living in an inhospitable environment. The
husband strikes for better conditions, but the resultant starvation of the family makes a
strong case for unionism and solidarity of workers to prevent individual victimisation.
But Brady’s weakness in this kind of poem is his over-sentimentalising of the
situation, which is poignant enough to speak for itself, and a self-conscious labouring
of the point (“Can you read it, men and brothers, with a calm unmoistened eye?”) 4
But even though the families of workers gain his sympathy, it is the men themselves
who merit most attention. The difficult life of the ship’s stoker, for instance, is
deplorable with its “frizzle, frizzle, frizzle,” in the heat until “you faints beside the
bunkers and they drags you to the air”. 5 Yet all seamen have their particular
difficulties to contend with, as the ill-treated crew in “Curse of Ages” 6 who finally
refuse duty with the result that the ship, under full sail, is sunk by a sudden squall. No
punches are pulled in this revelation of hardships, where the only redeeming feature is
the blind courage of the worker. Take the twenty men whose ship, deserted by rats at
Plymouth, is over-insured by its owners, filled with cargo and sent out to meet her
fate:
1 “The Triumph of Labor”, Truth, 28.6.1891.
2 “The Toilers”, The Australian Workman, 31.10.1891.
3 “The Songs of Freedom”, Truth, 3.1.1892
4 “The Worker’s Wife”, Truth, 17.1.1892.
5 “Stoking on the Line”, Truth, 28.8.1892
6 “Curse of Ages”, Bird-O;-Freedom, 15.9.1894