Labor’s titan: the story of Percy Brookfield, 1878-1921, Gilbert Giles Roper
Source: Warrnambool Institute Press, 1983, edited by Allan and Wendy Scarfe. Copyright Allan and Wendy Scarfe. This digital edition for Marxists Internet Archive is published with the permission of the copyright holders. It may be used for private study but not for any commercial purpose.
Transcription, mark-up: Steve Painter
“The government is trying to bamboozle the people. . . . The police system of New South Wales is as rotten as it can be.”
In addition to the physical risks he took to gather evidence on behalf of Donald Grant and the imprisoned Wobblies, Brookfield was the most militant of the campaigners in the New South Wales parliament for the release of the twelve. His efforts over eighteen months were supplemented by the labours of his friends, H. E. Boote, editor of the Australian Workers’ Union weekly paper, The Australian Worker, Ernie E. Judd, Tom Mutch, MLA, and many others. But his parliamentary position gave him the opportunity for freedom of speech and vested his work with special significance, since, after the defeat of the general strike, stopwork action for the release of the twelve was not forthcoming. In Broken Hill Brookfield told an audience of certain suspicions he held about the fate of F.J. McAlister, whose claim that he knew of an IWW conspiracy to put the torch to several big stores in Sydney had started the prosecutions. Brookfield was to repeat these misgivings to the Legislative Assembly:
McAlister died three days before his claim for £2000 against the state government was heard. On the morning of the day of his death McAlister was in good health. At about 11am he went out drinking with some men, and at 11pm he was found in a state of insensibility. He died without regaining consciousness. There was no inquiry. There was also a chemist who was said to have supplied people other than the IWW with fire dope.[1]
At Broken Hill he also repeated his criticisms of the political bias of Judge Pring and the class bias of the jury, pointing out that only well-to-do persons owning £300 of property were permitted to be jurors.
In January 1918, using the evidence Brookfield had collected, the Sydney Labor Council had requested Premier Holman to hold a Royal Commission. He refused.
Brookfield influenced the Labor Council to appoint a new Defence Committee to agitate to have the case of the twelve Wobblies reopened. The committee members were simultaneously involved in the larger issue of bringing the war to an end, for which Judd was prosecuted. For questioning the justice Judd was getting, Brookfield was once more fined, under the following circumstances:
In April, 1918 the governor-general called prominent Australians to a conference to stimulate recruiting. William Morby, president of the Sydney Labor Council, attended and in reporting back to the council moved endorsement of the conference resolution. Judd passionately opposed him, moving that the Labor Council refuse to take part in any recruiting campaign and call on the workers in all belligerent countries to urge their governments to immediately secure an armistice on all fronts and initiate peace negotiations. Judd’s motion won. The Crown promptly prosecuted him for breaking the War Precautions Act.
Brookfield was indignant on his behalf and while addressing a meeting at Wollongong alleged that the commonwealth government was trying to have the venue of Judd’s trial changed from quarter sessions to the criminal court so they could get a packed jury. The Crown fined Brookfield £50 for contempt of court. Judd was eventually fined £25 almost seven months after the war was over.
Brookfield and Judd were furious about their prosecutions and this made them doubly bitter against the former members of the Labor Party who had supported conscription and were now the National Party implementing the War Precautions Act. This antagonism drove them on to try to find evidence of a National Party and police conspiracy against the twelve IWW men. In their anger they were prepared to suspect the worst of their political opponents when McAlister died, and when shortly afterwards another witness, who had allegedly supplied fire-dope, also died.
They were in this suspicious stale of mind when on the night of February 5, 1918 a member of parliament asked the house the whereabouts of Scully, the Crown’s chief witness in the IWW case. Tom Mutch, the ember for Botany, was also one of Brookfield’s Defence Committee. The question apparently aroused his apprehensions for the safety of Henry Scully, the pharmacist who allegedly supplied the intending incendiarists with their materials. Mutch quickly left the house to resume the search that he and Brookfield had earlier made for Scully. He enlisted the help of a journalist on the Daily Telegraph staff and towards midnight they tracked Scully down. There and then Scully, to Mutch’s astonishment, gave the two of them a long statement about his part in the IWW case, about a number of the detectives and other witnesses in it, and said that Grant, Larkin, King, Moore, Reeve and Glynn, to his knowledge, knew nothing about the matters for which they were convicted. After a long circumstantial account of his connection with the matter he told them that the case was a “frame-up” and that most of the men, if not all of them, were innocently in jail.
Mutch and the journalist made notes as fast as they could write, and Mutch arranged for Scully to meet Brookfield and Judd, to whom he showed the notes next day. Mutch had not acted too soon, for on February 6 while he was telling Brookfield about the confession detectives descended on Scully at his place of employment. They told him he would have to get out and change his name.
This timing may have been coincidence. On the other hand someone in the government may have contacted the police, or some informer may have indicated to police that Mutch had visited Scully. Whatever the case, from then until June Brookfield, Mutch and Judd kept trying to find him while the police kept shifting him.
Eventually, on or about June 20, they were able to get Scully to write his confession for them in his own handwriting. Brookfield insisted that they have present five reputable citizens who had no connection with any political party, and he obtained from these impartial observers written statements that they had witnessed Scully’s voluntary testimony. Brookfield and the Defence Committee then tried to cross check Scully’s statements with other witnesses, and Brookfield succeeded in getting another of the informants, Goldstein, to also write a confession, again in front of reputable citizens. Scully told them that his friend Detective Surridge would also confess to cooking the evidence. Judd went to see him but Surridge would not make such a confession.
Brookfield thought that the new evidence they had uncovered was so “sensational” that they must make every effort to corroborate it, and the interviewing of people continued surreptitiously. Another development arose to concern members of the Defence Committee, however — the elusive Queensland pharmacist disappeared again.
Judd was on the train to Melbourne when he got the tip-off in an anonymous telegram that Scully was going to be spirited out of Australia. He left the train and rushed back to Sydney by car. The Defence Committee hastily assembled for an urgent meeting. Brookfield promised to act as soon as possible in parliament to prevent any concealment of their witness. Mutch promised to support him. H.E. Boote was permitted to break the news of the new evidence in his paper, The Australian Worker. Thus at 4.38pm on July 9, 1918, Brookfield attempted at question time in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly to introduce a motion of urgency:
I move, that it is a matter of urgent necessity that this house should forthwith consider the following motion: That a Royal Commission be appointed to inquire into and report on the evidence and the circumstances surrounding the trial and conviction of the twelve IWW men who were sentenced at Darlinghurst on December 2, 1916, to terms of imprisonment with hard labour varying from five to fifteen years, and to adduce any new evidence in relation thereto and bearing upon the justice of the said trial and conviction.
I know I am somewhat limited in the scope of my remarks. All I wish to say is that we have written statements by some of the important witnesses of the Crown.[2]
The Speaker, J.J. Cohen, as he so often did, shouted Brookfield to order, informing him he could not go into the merits of the question, but could only speak on the question of urgency. Brookfield thus tried again:
The urgency of the matter is that we have information and written evidence which in the public mind denotes that there was something framed up.[3]
Again Cohen shouted “Order!” He reprimanded Brookfield for going into the merits of the question, when he could only show why it was urgent for standing orders to be suspended. Brookfield responded:
The urgency rests on the fact that we have fresh evidence bearing on the case, and while there is an impression in the minds of the public that a grave miscarriage of justice has taken place, there can be no doubt whatever as to the urgency of the matter. I feel sure that if honourable members will allow this motion to be carried I shall be able to satisfy them that there is urgent necessity for the reopening of this case.[4]
Mr James got in a brief antagonistic interjection before it was moved that the question be put. Brookfield had been effectively gagged. The house divided. Brookfield’s Ayes totalled 24. There were 29 Noes. The house went on to consider a complaint about the train service to Newcastle. Brookfield’s next chance would possibly occur in private member’s business that night, but at 6.25pm the government moved the adjournment of the house, and again outvoted Brookfield’s Noes 34 to 27.
Next day, July 10, in questions without notice, a fellow Labor member, Buckley, tried to help Brookfield by asking if the attorney general had had his attention drawn to H.E. Boote’s statement in The Australian Worker.
We have new evidence of a most sensational character to submit to a competent commission. We have written statements of some of the principal witnesses for the Crown making serious charges against the police concerned in the affair. Direct accusations of manufacturing evidence are made in these documents. It is declared also that detectives urged witnesses to give false testimony under oath in the courts. Very high officials were implicated in the statements which we hold.[5]
The attorney general, D.R. Hall, easily turned this aside by promising to have an appropriate tribunal inquire into the evidence if the writer sent it along.
During the day the colonial secretary, George Fuller, moved successfully that the house rise the following day. Brookfield, Mutch and Judd were afraid that if parliament did not reassemble for five weeks Scully could be out of the country by then. His written statement only had value if he appeared in court and faced cross-examination. It seemed that Brookfield and Tom Mutch had less than Iwo days left to save the defence case.
The business of the house went on and despite his urgent preoccupations with the whereabouts of Scully, Brookfield could still turn his attention to other matters. There was a heated dispute when Labor Party speakers cast reflections on the sovereign and the lieutenant-governor of New South Wales. When it was asked how the honourable members were to have an oportunity to express their opinion about the governor, Brookfield interjected. “Give him the sack.” The Speaker rebuked him that he must not say that.
Beeby, the minister for labour and industry, introduced a Mining Amendment Bill and again Brookfield made angry interjections. He attacked Beeby for changing the act under dictation from the nominated Legislative Council: “The other chamber has no representative authority, and is jealous of the shaky power it at present possesses.” Beeby retorted that Brookfield had the happy day in view when there would be only one house of parliament. Brookfield would not accept Beeby’s word that parliament would adjourn only for five weeks, telling him “his word was not always to be taken”. When he repeated his suspicion Beeby insultingly invited him, “Come and help us with the recruiting during the five weeks”. Brookfield replied, “I will go recruiting if you will allow me to tell the whole truth about the war”.
At 8.37 that night Brookfield delivered an angry speech for eleven minutes on the Mining Amendment Bill, bitterly attacking the mining companies for their record profits and the deaths and injuries their deliberate miserliness caused to miners. And yet he was still watching for any chance he might snatch to win freedom for the twelve jailed men he believed were innocent. It came at 10pm, when the vote on the Mining Bill showed Brookfield that the National party lacked the numbers to carry another gag motion against him. He obtained from the Speaker the opportunity to make a statement of explanation:
I rise to explain to the house what I was prevented from explaining when I moved a motion of urgency some time ago with the object of showing why it was necessary to consider the advisableness of appointing a royal commission to inquire into the whole of the circumstances surrounding the trial and imprisonment of a number of IWW men. The house, in its wisdom, refused to let me put the facts before it — facts which, had they been adduced, would have led honourable members to support my suggestion for an inquiry of some kind. One of the main sources of information or new evidence comes from the man Scully, who was the most material witness for the Crown. This man states that he was promised £2000 by the government to secure sufficient evidence to convict the men. Scully has made a statement in which he says:
“I was asked by constables Pauling and Turbit if I could place dope into the pockets of some of the prominent IWW men at the IWW rooms before the raid took place. I replied by inquiring how I was going to get the bottles of fire dope. They answered, ‘I need not worry about that — they could get plenty’.
That is one statement made by Scully, who, as I say, was the most material witness for the Crown.[6]
He was stopped by Cohen’s hostile shout “Order!” and the instruction that he was not entitled to read a written statement by anyone outside the house.
“I am only quoting extracts from it,” Brookfield replied.
Cohen called him to order for this, too. Extracts were also out of order. He could only give the purport of the statement.
“The purport of the statement is that most of the evidence given by certain of the witnesses was false, and was arranged by the police force.”
A member asked him two questions. He responded, tried to read more of Scully’s statement, got out two words, and was stopped again by the Speaker.
He tried once more: “The purport of the allegations by this particular witness is that he was informed by Constable Pauling that Hooper put the towel with the cotton waste and bottle in Teen’s[7] pockets.”
Cohen insisted that Brookfield was infringing his ruling. Brookfield explained that he wanted this matter to be put before the house because it was very important. Cohen stopped him again for his irregularity and insisted he might only give the gist of the statement.
Brookfield persisted doggedly against Cohen’s antagonism:
My desire is to give it absolutely word for word. I do not wish that there should be any misunderstanding. It is such a serious matter that I neither wish to add nor take away from that statement. Seeing that men’s reputations and liberties are at stake, I thought you would allow me sufficient latitude to read the statement word for word. Further on the statement goes on to say that arranged evidence was handed to this man, and he was told to learn it by heart — evidence necessary to secure the conviction of these men.[8]
The Speaker again tried to brow beat him into silence, insisting that he could not allow Brookfield to contravene his ruling. It was so easy to give the gist, he held, and hoped that Brookfield would not further infringe his ruling. Again Brookfield tried to put his case:
The purport of the evidence is that Detective Leary said to this particular witness, “We have not got enough evidence against Grant. You can easily fix something up.” “I again refuse, the witness said.”[9]
A member asked him if this were the detective who had been recently accused in court of receiving £100 and Brookfield replied that he thought it was but did not know. Then Bavin jeered at him that it was not fair to say that. Brookfield retorted angrily that a lot of things were not fair, particularly the deliberate interruptions to him making his important statement. Because of his anger and because he was no longer looking at Scully’s statement, Cohen allowed him to add:
This witness goes on to say that he was handed a typewritten copy of his evidence he was to give. In other words, he was told to learn it by heart so that he could reproduce it. The evidence had been prepared by the police, and it was handed to this particular witness. I have his written statement to that effect. But, in view of the restrictions placed upon me, which prevent my reading the statement, I do not propose to say anything further about it, because it is possible that I may not repeat the purport of the statement accurately, and that would be neither fair to the house nor to the people involved. Honourable members can see the handicap placed upon me. I have here (he showed it) a writ or declaration of writ issued by Scully against Whitfield, the nominal defendant for the Crown, from which it would appear that this particular witness had sued, or has threatened to sue, the state government for £2000 for work done. According to this declaration, the work done was the supplying to “the government, the police and detective officers of the said state such information as would lead to the conviction of certain persons being members of the organisation known as the Industrial Workers of the World”. That was the work this witness did, and for which he now claims £2000 from the government.[10]
The Attorney-General, D.R. Hall, declared that the government would not recognise such a claim. Brookfield took his tone to imply it would not deal with such a man. He responded:
I know nothing of the rights or wrongs of this declaration of writ, but the fact remains that the government employed this man and promised him a certain sum of money if he secured such evidence as would result in the conviction of these men. I do not say for one moment the fact of the government offering this man £2000 or, indeed, any sum of money implies that the evidence is false; but I say it discounts the value of his evidence if it is true that he was offered a sum of money to secure evidence which would end in the conviction of these men. It is absurd for the government to say that it had no dealing with this man. Here (he waved the slip of paper) is the government’s receipt for £370 paid to this man.[11]
The Attorney-General retorted that Scully had no promise of a single penny. Brookfield again waved the receipt and repeated indignantly that it was the government’s own receipt. He took up another document and read from it the government’s four-part plea in the case in the New South Wales Supreme Court on September 28,, 1917, in which Scully had sued the government for his £2000, and received £370/10/-:
What I want to point out to the government is that in the interests of justice — and it is the preservation of the interests of justice that makes government possible — these assertions should be investigated.[12]
He demanded to know whether the government did not think that there was some reason for appointing a commission to inquire into the matter. The attorney-general asked if Brookfield had any objection to letting them have copies of his information. Brookfield agreed to supply them next day if he could get copies. The attorney-general suggested that Brookfield could lend them the originals to get copies typed and then he could have the originals back. Brookfield did not trust him. He replied with bland courtesy:
I do not think I can do that. These documents are very valuable papers. They practically say that this case of the IWW men who are at present interned for from five to fifteen years has been faked up by witnesses for the Crown. One witness died in unusual circumstances that have not been explained to the public and another witness, Scully, is today in danger of deportation. Why? To get him out of the way. There are only two other material witnesses left — David Goldstein and Louis Goldstein. Against these two men there was a charge of having forged £5 notes. The Crown withdrew it on the understanding that they were to give evidence for the Crown in this case. They have today to do whatever the police wish, or they would be roped in by the police. We have not only the statements of Scully, but the statements of another Crown witness to fortify us in these allegations, and further, we have five reputable witnesses, altogether outside of party influence, before whom these statements, or similar statements, were made. Those five witnesses can corroborate all the statements.
In the face of that, I ask the government if it is not worth considering the appointment of a commission. Has the government something to hide of which it is afraid? Surely the government will not lend itself as the police officers appear to have lent themselves to this form of outrage. I do not say that the police have not methods of explaining these things away, but we have the statements of the two men — the most important witnesses in the case.[13]
He declined to divulge the name of the second witness whose statement in his own handwriting he held, but he reiterated the respectability of his evidence and again requested a royal commission as the only machinery which could force out this evidence. He pointed out:
Another handicap is that if you go before the court it means an expenditure of hundreds of pounds to get a case properly ventilated, and we have not the money to do it. It would not cost so much if the Crown took it up as an act of justice.[14]
To a backbencher’s question on Scully’s deportation Brookfield admitted that he was speaking only on rumour, not having had time earlier that day to ask the attorney-general during question time whether Scully had been deported. To another question he responded that it was said McAlister had not died from pneumonia but foul play. He concluded:
Now if Scully goes away there will be no one to prove the case against the Crown. No one will take the word of recognised criminals such as David Goldstein and Louis Goldstein who have acted against the law in connection with forgeries and burglaries. I do not know whether Scully has been deported or not, but the rumour is that he has been. If he has been deported or allowed to leave the country we would have great difficulty in proving the case because there is no method of getting anyone to swear to his written statement. Honourable members will see the difficulties in the way. I have no more to say with regard to the new evidence and I do not wish to criticise the old evidence, but I do ask whether in face of the new evidence the government will make some endeavour by the appointment of a royal commission to have this case thoroughly investigated and probed to the bottom. Surely the government does not stand for this sort of thing. It is the most despicable and outrageous case that there has ever been in this country, and the sooner the wrong is rectified the better it will be for all concerned.[15]
The Attorney-General handled this very carefully. He could not naturally express any opinion on the value of the evidence, nor attempt to estimate its value. It might be, Hall stated, that the evidence would impress them like it had impressed Brookfield but until it was considered the government could not decide to appoint any commission or court of inquiry. He had only suggested that he would render Brookfield assistance in the way of typing if he desired it. Of course, neither he nor his colleagues were desirous of keeping any man in jail. Until tonight, he said, he had no idea that Scully had ever gone back on his statement:
I had not heard — and I am sure the colonial secretary never heard — any suggestion of Scully being deported. Still it might be going on without our hearing about it. That is a federal matter.[16]
He undertook, to prevent any possibility of the suggestion that the Crown had desired to get rid of a witness to communicate with the federal authorities next day. He repeated how glad they would be to have Brookfield’s evidence at the earliest possible moment. Although he made an interjection later in the discussion, the chief secretary George Fuller allowed Hall’s remarks to pass without comment. A month later when he had ferretted out further information, Brookfield attacked Fuller for this silence:
When I raised the question as to whether Scully had gone or not, the attorney general led us to believe he was still in this country. The chief secretary sat behind him, and he is the gentleman, I believe, who signed the cheque that enabled Scully to get out of the country.
Fuller retorted that he knew nothing about it. Brookfield added:
At any rate, the business went through the Chief Secretary’s Department, and the chief secretary should have known that Scully had gone. By his silence he acquiesced in the attitude of the attorney general, and allowed him to mislead the house.[17]
Watching anxiously from the opposition benches on July 10, Tom Mutch admired Brookfield’s courage and tenacity in front of his antagonistic audience. Before anyone else could speak he rose to inform the attorney general and the house that he and Brookfield had other evidence than the two written statements. Mutch was apparently in a rage and so made heated and unsubstantiated accusations far beyond Brookfield’s cautious reasoning, but he got his speech out without hindrance from the Speaker, and he spoke for longer than Brookfield had done. He criticised the judge who had tried the IWW men for telling the jury that Beattie ought not to be convicted and then giving him fifteen years jail. The Speaker called him to order for commenting on the judge’s action. Mutch turned his attack on the jury and continued his denunciation.
He demanded an inquiry into the composition of the jury on the grounds that one member had been the manager of the Sydney Paper Mills, who two years earlier unbeknown to Donald Grant had ordered Grant’s dismissal from the firm because he was a Domain agitator. He accused the attorney general of swapping telegrams with Prime Minister Hughes to hurry on the trial so Hughes could make political advantage of it in his conscription referendum campaign. He denied that there had been no more fires in Sydney since the twelve had been jailed. He alleged that someone “in the government employ” murdered McAlister, and attacked one of the detectives, who had been proved to be an absolute liar and incompetent in court, for saying, “It’s a - good job” (that McAlister was dead). He alleged that one of the police inspectors had said that Ernie Judd ought to be taken out and shot, that Brookfield was a menace to society and ought to be got rid of, and that, he, Mutch would have to be shut up. After he had said that the trial had been a frame-up and a royal commission would prove that it had been a frame-up, the government managed to close the debate by moving that the question be now put. It was nearing midnight. The Labor members left parliament in excitement at the revelations but Brookfield and Mutch themselves felt they had achieved very little. They had managed to make public only a negligible part of the statements they held and could not foresee whether circulating copies would lead to any kind of inquiry at all.
Next morning, July 11, was taken up with arranging and supervising the typing of copies of parts of their evidence and delivering these to the attorney-general. They also prepared inquiries for question time in the house. As soon as he could, Brookfield asked the attorney general three questions on Scully’s £2000 and reliability. Hall’s answers were evasive and he denied there was any doubt of the truth of Scully’s evidence at the trial. Hall was then asked a “Dorothy Dixer” as to whether Brookfield had placed the documents in his hand, giving him a chance “to make a statement on the subject” of the IWW prisoners. As the attorney general was speaking, opposition leader Storey in a whisper demanded of the Speaker whether Hall was answering a question or making a ministerial statement — Cohen replied that it was the latter, giving Storey a right to follow up the statement with questions that went into further detail.
Hall now had Brookfield’s documents, but said he had “not had an opportunity of perusing them”. He had assured the house last night that nothing would be done to have Scully deported from Australia. In the intervening hours he had, he said, contacted state officers and federal authorities on the matter. Then, to the astonishment of the house, he admitted: “I learned to my surprise that Scully left Australia last month. I shall go further and inform the house that Scully’s passage from Australia was arranged for by the police. Scully had been hounded from pillar to post in Australia, and there was no living for him here.” Having thus implied that poor Scully had had to be protected from Brookfield arid Mutch, he added that any complaint about inability to cross-examine Scully on his statement could not be laid at the government’s door but was Mutch’s own fault for having kept his information entirely to himself since February. Mutch, by way of a personal explanation in response to this accusation, pointed out that they had not until the previous night completed their investigations.
Brookfield angrily demanded. “When the Attorney-General says last month he does not mean a month ago?” Storey demanded of the attorney-general whether he would ascertain from the police why they paid Scully’s fare out of the country and why they were so largely interested in his leaving the country. He began to comment that Hall had left doubt in the minds of a large number of the people, but the Speaker upheld a point of order that Storey could not make a statement in question time. Storey retorted that Hall had just done this. Then his remarks on the Speaker’s offence against the rules of the house were drowned in an uproar of interjections, National Party members shouting about the rules of parliament and calling Brookfield and Mutch “Bolsheviks” and Labor Party members such as P.M. McGirr, bellowing that the government itself had got Scully out of the country.
The upshot of some minutes of diversionary disputing over parliamentary rules was that the Speaker allowed Storey to make a brief response to Hall’s statement. Whether intentionally or not, Storey sabotaged Brookfield’s and Mutch’s campaign to prove the innocence of the IWW men. Added to Hall’s statement, Storey argued, the evidence they had was sufficient to require the appointment of a royal commission to inquire, not into the conviction of the IWW prisoners, but (only) into the behaviour of the police.”[17]
The attorney general evaded his questions about the reasons for the police behaviour, promising to make a full statement in the (sympathetic) press after parliament had gone into recess. Tom Mutch made four attempts to speak and was shouted to order by the Speaker. Brookfield tried to ask Hall whether there was any legal method of compelling Scully to return to Australia, but the Speaker closed all questions on the matter. It was not until 6.42 that night and at the expense of going without dinner that Brookfield got another chance to attack the spiriting away of Scully. For the following hour he fought Hall’s and Fuller’s attack upon him, trying to influence them to appoint a royal commission and to bring Scully back.
Outside of Parliament Brookfield had been fossicking for evidence and had found out that Scully’s ship had left Sydney on June 28, only a week after he had given them his confession and it was now nearing San Francisco. Brookfield appealed to parliament:
Is there no legal machinery by which it is possible to bring Scully back, or is it so arranged that it is impossible for us to get this man to be cross-examined on the statement which he gave us? Is it possible that this man has been spirited away so that the written statement shall be valueless or what is there behind all this?[18]
To Fuller’s imputation that the disappearance of Scully was their own fault for delaying, he replied:
We left no stone unturned to get these documents properly drawn up so that they would bear inspection. We have not delayed one moment in bringing it before the house. Owing to the rumour about town that Scully had gone, our action was somewhat precipitated, because if it was true that he had gone we wished to have him stopped before he landed in America and got away. We wanted to give the government the opportunity to telegraph to the place where he had gone and arrange for him to be stopped and kept under police surveillance until this inquiry, which the government may possibly grant us, took place. On the government lies the onus of producing Scully, not on myself. I am not a member of the police force. The attorney general said that the police arranged for this man to be taken out of the country — why? Here is a written statement accusing some members of the police force of conspiracy in these cases. I say candidly that I do not think any member of the government would for one moment stand for that sort of thing.[19]
Fuller and Hall asked him for the statements of the five or six reputable citizens and any other information and they would consider the question of stopping Scully, if they were able to do so. “As far as I am concerned.” Brookfield began, “I would give you every bit of evidence that we have and make a clean face of it.” Apparently Mutch returned from his dinner to the house at this moment. He glared and gestured vehemently at Brookfield not to trust Hall and Fuller. “But”, Brookfield continued:
I do not want to give the police evidence that they will have to combat later on. I am not going to trust men who will spirit men out of the country. I say candidly that I do not trust many of the heads of the police department today.
Fuller retorted that the police did not spirit men out of Australia and continued demanding Brookfield’s further evidence for their consideration. Brookfield wanted more than consideration.
This ship … will arrive at ’Frisco in a few days. If this man is gone, the police can turn round and say, “He has got away from us altogether.”
Brookfield said he had every confidence that the members of the ministry would do their utmost to see that justice was done, and he imputed no ulterior motives to them:
But my stipulation is that the statements are not to be given to the police department; they are to be between the attorney general and myself as man to man. I will not have the statements given to the police force, members of which are involved in a charge of conspiracy.[20]
Hall and Fuller continued to badger him for all the evidence he had. He insisted that the fragments he had provided were sufficient to warrant an inquiry, that he and his allies could not be expected to put themselves right into the hands of the enemy, that men’s liberties and reputations were at stake and the police were untrustworthy. He repeated his request to the government to be aware of Scully’s whereabouts in case they might in time convince the government to appoint a royal commission. To Fuller’s taunt that he had provided insufficient evidence he made his final response: “Grant a royal commission, and it is I who will have to prove my charges.”
Mutch again spoke supporting Brookfield’s moral pleading. So did Labor Member P.M. McGirr who said he had been ignorant of the matter until Brookfield raised it, but he had now read the evidence, he believed the IWW men were innocent and demanded Scully be arrested.
Finally Attorney General Hall conceded that if Brookfield gave them as much of the evidence as he could it would be submitted to three senior ministers who would then advise cabinet, which then “might” hold Scully up and get him back. He agreed not to refer to the police the part of the evidence that Brookfield asked should not be referred. He expressed deep disappointment that Brookfield did not trust government ministers.
In the following days Brookfield and Mutch appeared twice before the cabinet, which kept trying to draw their evidence. Eventually cabinet brought Scully back, but only, according to Brookfield:
Because we sprang a plant on the Government. We offered to pay his fare back. I was going to move (in Parliament) as a matter of urgency a motion to get him back, but members on the ministerial side by a brutal majority ruled me out.[21]
Having watched from the public gallery Brookfield’s struggle in parliament, and having heard about it from him and Mutch, the Defence Committee suspected that without mass pressure the government would wangle some kind of cover-up. So they held a mass meeting in the Sydney Town Hall and meetings at the weekend at the Domain where Brookfield told thousands of people the facts of the situation.
Meanwhile cabinet carefully considered whether it could avoid a Royal Commission. Storey had shown that his faction of the Labor Party would be satisfied with a limited police inquiry. The inspector-general of police provided a convenient way out. He asked the government to order an inquiry into Brookfield’s allegations of police corruption. Cabinet much prefered this to a Royal Commission into all the circumstances, because the government could draw out all the evidence the Defence Committee had collected without necessarily doing anything at all about the fate of its twelve political prisoners. Brookfield commented bluntly that the request of the inspector-feneral of police was either “a remarkable coincidence (or) pre-arranged”. The attorney general had the Police Inquiry Act prepared in readiness for the reopening of parliament on August 13 and next day introduced it into the house.
On the 13th Brookfield used question time to try to cover two loopholes:
I desire to ask the attorney general, seeing that Scully, the IWW witness, is about to arrive back, and that he has made certain charges against some members of the police force, will he take steps to prevent the police coming into contact with Scully until these cases are considered? If so, will he also take steps to see that Scully is made accessible to any of his friends who may be in Australia?[22]
Hall replied that Scully would be back next Tuesday. With the assistance of honourable members the legislation could be passed that week, and the commissioner could commence his sittings on Monday. He proposed that Scully be taken directly from the boat to the commission and not made available to police or Brookfield.
Then Brookfield brought forward his next request:
I desire to know whether the Premier … to assist the commission … [will] consider the desirability of granting immunity from punishment of witnesses who may be compelled to alter the evidence they gave on the occasion of the trial of the prisoners?[23]
Holman’s response was jeering. He denied that the judge and jury had been biased or that any miscarriage of justice had occured under his government, and mocked Brookfield that he was only making political use of the situation and would not produce his evidence because he had none. Brookfield interjected angrily, ”We do not trust you.” The Speaker shouted him to order. Brookfield swore violently.
As the clauses of the bill were debated on August 14 the chairman of committees gave Brookfield the uninterrupted hearing that the Speaker had not allowed him in the earlier debates. However, if the members of the National Party were, as they claimed, men whose desire to see justice done was far greater than Brookfield’s, there was no reason for the mocking, jeering and taunting to which they subjected him. His “solicitude and agitation” for “guilty” men was sneered at. He was told to concern himself with the innocent women and children of France and not to distract parliament’s energies from the war effort. Their attitude towards him, Brookfield commented, was “most remarkable”:
Your whole attitude has been one of shuffle from beginning to end. This commission to inquire into allegations against the police is nothing more or less than an attempt to bamboozle the people into believing that you are giving a full, open and honest inquiry. We know that nothing is further from your minds than to allow a full inquiry … we can only come to the conclusion that the government now has something to hide, and does not intend to give the inquiry the widest scope.
Then we come to the police. Inspector-general Mitchell sends along a note asking for an inquiry into allegations against the police; and, by a remarkable coincidence, the cabinet at that particular moment also decides to have an inquiry into allegations against the police. If it was not a coincidence, it must have been pre-arranged … the note from the inspector-general was simply so much flavouring to the whole business.[24]
Brookfield was in the difficult position of having to accuse the government of misdeeds sufficient to get an inquiry without antagonising them to the point where they refused one. He repeatedly made this plea:
I am asking you to do as you would expect to be done by. If your liberty were at stake you would like the fullest possible inquiry.[25]
and again:
I am asking you to act towards these men as you would like to be acted to yourselves. Do not use this as a political expedient. The government party are doing so. [26]
The main thrust of the National Party against him was that he had no evidence and that he must pass over the evidence before they could agree to an inquiry. Brookfield argued at length against this:
There has never yet been a commission appointed in which the evidence was demanded before the comission sat … You are trying to get documents out of us by giving the royal commission the powers … to compel us to produce evidence which we refuse to give voluntarily … we know that no evidence was ever yet demanded before a commission sat. We are really only asking for what has been the order of the day for years. We are not asking anything exceptional … If you are going to depart from the usual procedure, and compel us now to give evidence which we think should only go before the commission, then I say you are shuffling with the question and baulking at a full inquiry.[27]
Over and over Brookfield pleaded with National and Labor Party members to widen the scope of the inquiry:
If you have nothing to hide, give us the biggest and fullest inquiry possible … The commission will cover the allegations against the police and that is all. But we are asking for an inquiry into all the circumstances surrounding these cases. I ask you to put yourself where I am … More than the police are involved in those statements. We ask you to widen the scope of the inquiry so that the commission will be able to deal with every phase of the question and with every person involved … The whole of the evidence is so interlocked in very way that … [it is] absolutely impossible to deal with the allegations against the police without dealing with allegations made against other people. We are therefore asking that the commissioner shall have power to deal with everything in the documents. Surely there is nothing unreasonable in that … Why then, if the government claims to hold the scales of justice evenly, is it willing to grant a commission of inquiry only into the actions of the police?
All I can say is that it will be a most abortive commission if you do not give it the wider powers we are asking for, and a commission which has been set up by the government in order to try to bamboozle the people into thinking that a full and exhaustive inquiry has been made into this case. I hope that members of the government party, if they have nothing to hide, will vote in favour of the commission being given the wider scope we are asking for.[28]
Brookfield also asked for a commission of five, to include two members of the National Party and two of the Labor Party:
When we ask for honourable members of both sides of this house to appear with the judge to assist him in obtaining this evidence, it is because we do not wish the whole of the proceedings to be bound down by legal technicalities. These technicalities always creep in, and the inquiry seems to be restricted. Honourable members not belonging to the legal fraternity would not be bound down by these restrictions. We might be able to gather in evidence which a judge, after perhaps a lifetime in the legal fraternity, might be unable to obtain, but which laymen might be able to extract.[29]
Despite the attitude of J.C.L. Fitzpatrick, who declared. “No commission will be appointed … if it depends on the assistance of my vote”, and of attorney general Hall, who said, “We are not going to set up a criminal aristocracy in this country and give some men rights that are denied to others”, the police inquiry legislation was passed the following day. Brookfield’s persistence had won a limited victory.
In what seems like a last-minute bid to avert Brookfield’s disgust at him, Storey put an amendment to add after the words inquiry into the police force “investigate all the circumstances of the conviction of the twelve IWW men”, but this was defeated 34 votes to 29.
The government appointed a conservative judge, Mr Justice Street, to inquire only into the matter of the charges Brookfield had brought against the police. Under pressure from Brookfield the premier fobbed off the Defence Committee by yielding one minor concession, that should the Street Inquiry reveal a serious state of things the government might consider reopening the case.
Brookfield contributed both to the discussions on the selection of barristers for the defence and to the efforts to collect money from the public to meet the legal costs. The government had Scully brought back to Australia by the police. The Street Inquiry began on August 19, 1918. The Labor Party bombarded the government with its demand that Mr Justice Street should consider whether the twelve had been guilty. When the government conceded this, Labor hopes ran high for the release of the Wobblies by Christmas. Crowds attended the hearing, as did Brookfield, who discussed the case with the Defence Committee. The next crisis occurred in early September. The Committee had run out of money.
The premier agreed to meet a deputation of Brookfield, Mutch and Judd. They asked that the government, in the interests of justice, meet the defence costs. Holman refused initially, but later assented to pay whatever could not be met from public donations. Brookfield and the Defence Committee returned to collecting money at public meetings. They believed they had proved serious police misconduct, and shot enough holes in the Crown case to win the release of the twelve. However, the detectives apparently had had access to Goldstein and Scully, despite what Hall had promised Brookfield in parliament. In court Goldstein now repudiated the written confession he had given the Defence Committee. Furthermore, Scully qualified his writ against the police practically into meaninglessness. Brookfield was not allowed to give evidence. The inquiry went on until November 3.
Then there was a hiatus. Day after day went past without any sign of Mr Justice Street’s report. On November 10, Brookfield asked the premier in parliament to have the minutes of evidence printed and made available to members. Again time passed. Brookfield suspected the government would stall until the Christmas recess of parliament to prevent the tabling of the report and any debate on it, and, above all, the introduction of any legislation that might follow from it — such as the release of the prisoners or the payment of compensation to them for wrongful imprisonment.
On November 11, 1918, an armistice was declared in Europe. The war was over. The antiwar campaign was urgent no longer. But the ordeal of the imprisoned Wobblies continued.
Mr Justice Street’s report was dated December 11. Brookfield learned of it next morning when he picked up his newspaper. In revealing the judge’s decisions the press applauded the government. Mr Justice Street had found the evidence of the Crown witnesses reliable only if corroborated but he had accepted the corroboration the police had provided. No doubts had been raised in his mind, however, as to the guilt of the twelve.
Brookfield was delayed in his consideration and evaluation of the report until Christmas eve, when he eventually received a copy, although no transcript of evidence was forthcoming. Parliament being in recess, his forum for attacking the report was circumscribed, while the sympathetic press had been able to underwrite a propaganda victory for the National Party.
Brookfield did not receive a copy of the minutes of evidence until early in January 1919. Judd, Brookfield, Mutch and Boote issued a press statement expressing their amazement at the Street Report and declaring their determination to carry on their fight for justice. They claimed they had shattered the credibility of the four main Crown witnesses and no jury, knowing what was now known about Scully, the two Goldsteins and McAlister, would have accepted their stories. They pointed out that Mr Justice Street had agreed that the evidence of these men should be not accepted without corroboration but the corroboration he had accepted had been provided by the police, and that had been “intrinsically dubious”. They stressed the fresh facts they had unearthed and expressed their surprise that Mr Justice Street had not found these enough to raise doubts in his mind about the guilt of the twelve.
His honour has revealed a surprising tendency to airily wave aside anything which goes to the strengthening of our case and to stress the smallest point which he imagines to tell against us. No doubt Brookfield said much the same to Donald Grant and the other Wobblies when he visited them in jail and reassured them that he would keep up the fight.
The Sydney Labor Council expressed unanimous disgust at the court findings and began an agitation for a new trial or the immediate release of the twelve. For their campaign, Boole in March 1919 published his most biting attack, Set the Twelve Men Free, a 63-page pamphlet, which accused Mr Justice Street of being blind. Premier Holman responded that there had been no miscarriage of justice. He also had widely distributed a series of articles that he wrote anonymously, and on one occasion police were used to gauge the public response to these.
On August 25, Brookfield held a big meeting in the Sydney Town Hall to deliver his answers to the Holman propaganda pamphlet, for Holman alleged that the workers had “been deceived” by Brookfield, that “the police [had] been amply vindicated by the Royal Commission”, and that Boote and Brookfield had “in a spirit of besotted partisanship for desperate criminals [thought] themselves entitled to systematically malign hard-working and trustworthy public officers”.
John Storey joined the anti-Brookfield chorus. With his eyes on the impending state elections he did not want the unthinking electors to believe that the Labor Party was opposed to law and order. He issued a manifesto about the IWW men. He did not go as far as Holman, who told “the self-respecting and law-abiding trades unionists of Australia [that their] funds and energies [had] been unscrupulously wasted in the interests of desperate criminals”, but to Brookfield his manifesto was “despicable”. He told Storey he was a “contemptible coward” who had “sunk his principles for place and pay”, and tendered his resignation from the Parliamentary Labor Party.
An influenza epidemic hit Sydney and Brookfield too went down with the complaint. Before he had fully recovered he threw himself back into working class activities. He spoke passionately on behalf of the seamen, whose strike lasted fourteen weeks and whose leader was jailed:
If I had been leader of the strike, and the throwing of Melbourne into darkness would have achieved victory, I would have done it. I would do anything which would mean that the strikers get their demands granted.[30]
He and J.J. O’Reilly worked tirelessly trying to raise money from all trade unions to help the seamen and the Broken Hill miners who were on strike for better conditions. He also collected money for the families of unemployed returned soldiers in Broken Hill, sending contributions for unionists or poor to his friend Barnett who was running the Barrier Daily Truth. One poor woman who sent Brooky £1 in a letter for those poorer than she was, told him she knew how hard conditions at the Barrier were because she had a sister buried there. Brookfield and Judd also led a committee agitating for the repeal of the War Precautions Act, a continuing weapon of political persecution even though the war was over, and for justice for its victims. Brookfield, in both Sydney and Broken Hill, denounced the “brutal and inhumane treatment” of detainees at the Holdsworthy compound and the unjust deportations ordered by a magistrate and a military officer there.
Paul Freeman, a friend of his windjammer days round Cape Horn, and also a miner, came to Sydney and was arrested without charge. A demonstration at the docks for Freeman’s release was broken up by police batons and leaders were fined. Freeman was held at the Sydney Barracks until he announced, through Brookfield, that he would sue Smith’s Weekly. He was then hustled secretly to Holdsworthy, and while Brookfield was agitating for Freeman’s right to a public trial the two authorities at Holdsworthy had him deported for the crime of having German parents and being born in America. Brookfield’s sense of outrage was mollified a little by the Australian government’s international embarrassment when the American government refused to let Freeman land.
The Barrier district assembly of the Australian Labor Party expressed its confidence in Brookfield and had him withdraw his resignation. The Barrier Daily Truth supported him loyally, declaring: “Inside the Labor Party, Brookfield was a thorn in the side of the place-looking, principle-bartering fakers, and exposed them at every turn.” [31]
From July 5 onwards there had been a series of meetings of the “industrialists” in the Labor Party concerned with altering the party or forming a new party. A large conference of two hundred delegates from Labor Leagues and trade unions had been arranged for Saturday August 2, 1919. Storey’s party executive declared the conference unofficial and bogus. Brookfield attended, following a direction from his Amalgamated Miners Association that he act as their delegate. He did so knowing that he was giving Storey grounds for expelling him from the party. The conference aimed to form a new Labor Party “to rescue organised labour from becoming the mere tool of politicians and their hangers-on”. Brookfield moved:
That this congress declares in favour of a political party that will fight for social democracy, but in view of the dangers of disintegration that will follow a split in the Australian Labor Party we demand a conference to be conducted under the rules of the Australian Labor Party, under the auspices of the federal Australian Labor Party executive, with a view to settling present differences and realising the objectives we desire; following this that the committee should call another congress to discuss our action.[32]
His motion lost 25 to 86. Instead the delegates carried the resolution that the constitution of the present committee of the Australian Labor Party was politically corrupt and dishonest, and that they form a party having for its object:
The establishment of a co-operative commonwealth wherein the organised industrial workers shall own and control the entire means of wealth production; such production to be for use and not for profit.
The conference continued on Monday, July 7, with 43 unions and 42 Labor Leagues represented. J.J. O’Reilly and Brookfield moved that their new party be named the Socialist Party of Australia. O’Reilly said, “We are out to overthrow capitalism. Why not tell the people so?” Brookfield added:
I was thrown out of the Labor Party when I came to this conference. I concluded that if we are going after a vote-catching mission we will find ourselves in the same position as the Labor Party is today — doing nothing for the workers.[33]
The conference of socialists adopted as their objective: the establishment of a system of society based upon common ownership and democratic control of the means or instruments for producing and distributing wealth by, and in the interests of, the whole community. [34]
Just before adjourning until next morning the conference passed Jock Garden’s[35] , motion for all unionists to give a shilling a week to support the striking seamen and Broken Hill miners and heard Brookfield’s exposure of the conditions at Holsworthy internment camp. He read from a letter, which he also had published in the Barrier Daily Truth:
The Aliens Board is an insulting farce practiced upon those who are unfortunate enough to be interned. The Board consists of one military officer and one magistrate who represent judge, jury and public. After asking an internee a few questions with no exception up to the present they have been deported.[36]
Brookfield was instructed to draft their protest telegram to the acting prime minister, W.A. Watt:
That this conference of delegates representing 180 Leagues and unions of New South Wales, recognising that peace has been signed, earnestly requests you to prevent any further deportation from these shores.[37]
The conference continued until August 16 after making arrangements for meetings in Sydney and country areas, for occupying the Domain on Sundays and hiring Sydney Town Hall. Brookfield’s resolution demanding the release of the twelve IWW men was passed and the delegates sang The Red Flag. Brookfield telegrammed his news to Barnett, who was general secretary of the Broken Hill Amalgamated Miners Association, as well as publisher of the Barrier Daily Truth.
Three days before the conference ended, Storey’s Labor Party executive expelled Brookfield and 29 others and declared bogus any Labor Leagues that supported the new party. Electioneering at Paddington with his eyes on the premiership, Storey denounced Brookfield’s revolutionary socialism:
If the policy of the revolutionaries were endorsed immediately it could not be carried into effect. In fact, even the revolutionaries are so law-abiding that they were afraid of the War Precautions Act and its regulations and obeyed it. Yet they want people to believe in their doctrine of upsetting society. I am an evolutionary socialist but if I find you trying to shoot Australia, I will shoot you. I say to the men who come from other parts of the world and preach revolution: if you don’t like Australia, get out. I respect you, I welcome you, but if you talk about spilling the blood of my children and my wife and relations then, by heavens, I will have a shot at you. There is no actual revolutionary socialism in Australia. There are only a few people who do nothing more than talk about it, but will do nothing when the pinch comes. They, however, mislead others, mostly young people, into wrong ways of thinking. I’ll have none of them and the Labor movement will have none of them. We are evolutionists, not revolutionists.”[38]
Still weak from influenza, Brookfield returned to Broken Hill to report on the conference to his voters. He told them:
The political situation is very cloudy at the minute, just when solidarity is more urgently necessary than ever. The life of the labour movement depends on the solidarity of all sections and it is to be regretted that the ALP executive has taken the extreme step of expelling from the Labor movement several members of the party who held a different opinion to them and also go to the length of issuing a manifesto viciously attacking the militants. [39]
Feeling a new spirit and a new idea, a great tide of protest against the mismanagement of the people in the past, determined that democracy must stop the financiers from another war, and inspired by a great co-operative ideal brought about by the slaughter of the war, Brookfield had resigned from the Labor Party on August 7. His open letter to the party executive said no other course was open to him after recent events. Again the Barrier district assembly of the Australian Labor Party publicly expressed its confidence in Brookfield.
Brookfield told an audience at the Mechanics Institute that the influenza epidemic had stopped the agitation for the twelve IWW men:
“But since Justice Street’s report was published in which he denounced some of the witnesses in the most scathing terms, several of the other witnesses have been proved to be ‘men’ of very low character. Certainly no one could place any reliance upon anything they would say. And so it seems that these men are serving sentences of fifteen years upon the evidence of men who mostly belong to the criminal class.”[40]
He “held his audience in horror” with his revelations of the Paul Freeman conspiracy and called on them for action:
“There is something more than parliamentary action needed if we wish to substantially remedy the appalling conditions of the people. Labor parties have controlled the governments of this country and for thirty years the workers have placed efforts forward to secure parliamentary representalion, and after all these years of struggle, which have often been marked by sacrifices, the lot of the workers is as hard and insecure as it was fifty years ago.[41]
And he appealed to them to bring about the ultimate triumph for Labor — the co-operative commonwealth.
1. NSWPD, Vol LXXI, 758. The National Party insisted that McAlister died of pneumonia, that there had been nothing suspicious about the circumstances and that the government had certainly not disposed of him to save itself £2000.
2. NSWPD, Vol LXXI, 601-602
3. ibid, 602
4. loc cit
5. ibid, 640
6. ibid, 666
7. Teen was one of the twelve IWW accused.
8. NSWPD, Vol LXXI, 666-667
9. ibid, 667
10. loc cit
11. loc cit
12. ibid, 668
13. loc cit
14. loc cit
15. ibid, 668-669
16. loc cit
17. ibid, 678
18. ibid, 692
19. ibid, 692-693
20. loc cit
21. ibid, 755
22. ibid, 702
23. loc cit
24. ibid, 753-754
25. ibid, 754-756
26. loc cit
27. ibid, 753-754
28. loc cit
29. loc cit
30. Barrier Daily Truth, August 7, 1919
31. Barrier Daily Truth, March 23, 1921. Roper quotes this extract here, though it is well outside the chronological order of events in this chapter.
32. Barrier Daily Truth, 7 August, 1919
33. loc cit
34. loc cit
35. Jock Garden was one of the most interesting pioneers of the between-wars labour movement. A founding member (some say the founder) of the Communist Party, he subsequently became a member of the strongly anti-Communist Lang faction in the New South Wales ALP.
36. Barrier Daily Truth, August 7, 1919
37. loc cit
38. Barrier Daily Truth, 10 August, 1919.
39. Barrier Daily Truth, 14 August, 1919
40. Barrier Daily Truth, August 17, 1919
41. loc cit