The influence of the Club is briefly touched upon by Dr R.A. Gollan (1) but a fuller examination of the members' endeavours appears to be worthwhile and, in spite of the critics, these endeavours similarly appear worthwhile and to have contributed to the development of working class history in Victoria.
During the 1880s there was great activity in the formation of industrial and quasi-political organisation and a not inconsiderable amount of industrial dispute. Of political activity there was little.
The re-forming of the National Political League on 20 January 1886 and the change of name to the National Liberal League, reconstituted the liberal organisations of 1865 and 1877. On 8 December 1885 the Working Mens Political Reform Association was established but only lasted four months during which time its greatest activity was to sabotage the National Liberal League. Half of the W.M.P.R.A. members were to join the Anarchist Club.
The Social Democratic League of S.A. Rosa did not appear until 1889 and the Progressive Political League (the Labor Party) in 1891. The Anarchist Club filled the gap.
In Melbourne the Anarchists were brought together within the Australian Secular Association which had been founded on 1 August 1882. The A.S.A. propagated Rationalism or Atheism, Charles Bradlaugh being greatly esteemed, but Bradlaugh and Jos. Symes, the President and Chief Lecturer of the A.S.A., were anti-socialist and opposed to anarchist philosophy.
The A.S.A. Journal, The Liberator, edited by Symes, provided the means of propaganda and the A.S.A. also the audience, the members coming from small businesses or thoughtful workers, with minds free from the influence of the churches which were mostly conservative in those days.
On 19 October 1884 "D" had written that "all Governments are necessary evils -- all classes should be represented and both sexes. Anarchy begins where the State does not understand its true position and meddles in matters of private concern". (2)
Sixteen months later David A. Andrade and James Donovan had a running debate. Said Andrade: "The ends of the industrial stage can only be achieved by joining the Anarchists and refusing aid to State Socialists. Republicans and Anarchists are all in combination to protect individuals against State interferences." (3)
Donovan replied: "Anarchists like Christians and Socialists are of varying degree and of widely diverse characteristics." (4)
How true this was to be shown later.
From Andrade's quotations it is obvious he was an admirer and part believer of Herbert Spencer's who had been dismayed by Beatrice Webb's marriage to the socialist Sydney Webb.
Notwithstanding Donovan's feeling the Melbourne Anarchist Club was formed on 1 May 1886, after word of mouth had been the means to circularise notice to Anarchists, Communists, State Socialists, Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, Liberals, Radicals, Nihilists and Royalists, all warmly welcomed.
Nothing narrow-minded about that!
The day of the meeting, 1 May, was interesting as it was the day of the year selected the previous year by the Federation of Organised Trades and Labor Unions (of U.S.A.) to be later recommended and adopted as the day for International Sympathy and the Brotherhood of the Working Classes. This day was specially selected in 1888 as the date of Annual Meeting of the Club and two years later again was selected by the Social Democratic Club (the successor to the Anarchist Club) for a special mass meeting to celebrate in Melbourne the spirit of the first official May Day. I believe these to be more than -mere coincidence and worthy of the attention of Len Fox in his investigation of early Australian May Days. (5)
The first and subsequent meetings until 11 September were held on Wednesday evenings in the Australian Secular Association Rooms, 120 Swanston Street, then between Little Bourke Street and Lonsdale Street. After this date the A.S.A. moved to the "Hall of Science" in Bourke Street East and the Melbourne Anarchist Club moved to Room 9, later Room 7, of the Alexandra Theatre (later burned down) and predecessor of His or Her Majesty's Theatre in Exhibition Street. Here they remained until 7 July 1888 when the Club moved to "The Co-operative Home", the premises occupied by J.A. Andrews in Victoria Avenue Albert Park, until he left in 1889.
The Club met regularly either once or twice a week until 2 March 1889. Sometimes members spoke on Queens Wharf on Sundays.
Declining support led to the Club going into recess for sixteen months, then a reunion on 9 July 1890 gave fresh life until 4 December of that year. However, evidence exists that the Club continued to hold meetings until 1892 in "Liberty Hall" on the premises of the Secretary, D.A. Andrade, who conducted a circulating library and book store at 213 Russell Street. Individuals like Andrews continued activity until 1896 when somebody or someone was still deemed to be affiliated with the Anarchist International." (6)
The Club within a fortnight of its founding issued a prospectus which was read to a meeting of fifty people:
To the People of Australasia
The Melbourne Anarchists' Club extends its greetings to the liberty loving citizens of these young colonies and appeals to them to assist its members in their efforts to remove those public sentiments and public institutions, which have been transplanted here from the northern hemispheres, retard social progress and happiness; and to substitute in their place the enabling principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity!
The objects of the Melbourne Anarchists' Club are:
1. To foster public interest in the great social questions of the day, by promoting inquiry in every possible way; to promote free public discussions of all social questions; and to circulate and publish literature, throwing light upon existing evils of society, and the methods necessary for their removal.
2. To foster and extend the principles of Self Reliance, Self Help and a Spirit of Independence amongst the people.
3. To uphold and maintain the principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. By Liberty we mean "the equal liberty of each, limited alone by the equal liberty of all." By Equality we mean "the equality of opportunity for each individual." And by Fraternity we mean "that principle which denies national and class distinctions, asserts the Brotherhood of Man and says 'The world is my country'".
4. To advocate, and seek to achieve, the abolition of all monopolies and despotisms which destroy the Freedom of the Individual and which there by check social progress and prosperity.
5. To expose and oppose that colossal swindle, Government, and to advocate Abstention from Voting, Resistance to Taxation, and Private Co-operation or Individual Action.
6. To foster Mutual Trust and Fraternity amongst the working people of all ranks, and to turn their attention to their common foes: the Priests and the Politicans, and their co adjutors, attacking principles rather than individuals.
7. To invite the co-operation of all, who have realised the innate evils of our governing institutions, and desire their speedy dissolution for the general benefit of Humanity.
8. To promote the formation of voluntary institutions similar to the Melbourne Anarchist Club throughout Victoria and the neighbouring colonies, and, with their consent, to eventually unite with them forming The Australasian Association of Anarchists. (7)
Thus the objects were expressions of liberty, economic demands, the lessening of Government and sentiments of internationalism.
Much, of course, could be added in detailed analysis. One small observation - members were known as "comrades", the term subsequently used for long years in the Labor Party and later Socialist and Communist Parties.
For twenty-one months after the founding, the Club reports appeared in the Liberator, but the continuous and fierce attacks strained the forbearance of the editor, Jos. Symes (also President of the Australian Secular Association) who banned their appearance.
Symes was to later blame the machinations of the Anarchists for the deep and bitter schism which split the A.S.A. Seventeen Anarchist Club members out of twenty-seven checked graduated from the A.S.A. and no person recorded as being a supporter of Symes is recorded as present at an anarchist meeting, while seven of the anti-Symes group are so recorded. However, many more anti-Symes people are not so recorded, and Symes himself was noted for intemperate expression throughout his stormy career.
The Australian Radical published reports of the Club and from April 1887 the Club published a monthly paper Honesty, printed by the Co-operative Printing Coy and described as an outspoken advocate of social reform on the basis of "Justice, Equity and Liberty" in which the editorial "Our Colors" outlined the aims and aspirations of the paper.
Poor J.A. Andrews then as later demonstrated his enthusiasm and his poverty by contributing to the press fund. Fred P. Upham acted as publisher.
The formation of the Club evoked hope and cynicism as reflected in these two verses.
The Anarchists
We'll trumpet a note to the heart of men
A note to sound in the darkest den
Where sorrow and sickness and sin are rife,
To peal to the poorest of prostrate souls,
And call them back to their own lost right,
To blare and burst when the war drum rolls,
And riot and ring in the rage of fights. (8)
The Anarchist Club
And now our hopes with great hubbub,
Will burn away to embers
For the great and good Anarchist Club
Has half-a-dozen members.
The Government we'll tumble down
The soldiery we'll stifle
We'll confiscate all Melbourne town
Its coffers all we'll rifle. (9)
Critics took exception to the appointment of a Chairman to control the meetings, but Jos. Symes carried the objections further in a Liberator editorial of 23 May 1886:
Melbourne Anarchist Club name is one of the grimmest jokes conceivable. A Club must be an organised body with laws, committees, chairman, a certain order of doing things, mutual restraint of members, it could not exist without government of some sort.
It may be Home Rule, personal rules, autocracy, etc. etc., but rule there must be or no club or society of any sort, no business firm, no kind of united action, bad or good can exist.
Whatever the objects of the Club -- and from what we know of its promoters, we believe them to be good -- it is ridiculous of them to give themselves a name, the sense and meaning of which they must necessarily violate every step. (10)
However, no rules, laws, committees (except for Secretary), chairman or particular order of management were ever recorded for posterity. True, the Club had prospectus of objects in general, had ideas for an Association and apparently ties with the Anarchist
International but these actions appear of little consequence.
The Melbourne Punch described the members as loafers, drunkards and thieves, etc., and brought forth a stinging reply in verse. Needless to say the press then, as now, never permits challenge to its own veracity. However, the verse is recorded in no. 1 issue of Honesty (11) and can be reprinted upon a later occasion.
Besides the Co-operative Home and Co-operative Printing Coy, which printed Honesty, the Club conducted a "Melbourne Co-operation of Laborers No. 1", mainly to combine in purchase, production and exchange based on the cost principle. Labour notes, bearing no interest, would be issued for circulation among members and the public. The capital of the co-operation was to be owned by the whole, each member having an equal share. Taxation by the "organised State" was to be evaded or minimised as far as possible.
It is clear in principle that the Club attempted to establish co-operatives within any field of common purpose amongst its members with common ownership of the enterprise. This was not altogether dissimilar to many of the co-operatives under modern government legislation.
There were sixty-five people recorded as being present at one time or another; twenty-nine are re corded with only one appearance, five on two occasions, one on each of four and five occasions, and three on six occasions, leaving twenty-six who were more regular. Of course, some recorded may not be members.
David A. Andrade and William C. Andrade, brothers, were foundation members, the latter moving to Sydney shortly after joining. The former appears as the Secretary of the Club from forming to finish. Both brothers were in the library and bookselling businesses. W.C. Andrade represented the Melbourne Anarchist Club at the Fourth Annual Conference of Australian Free thinkers in Sydney.
Carl Arndt was an eccentric land surveyor until the 1920s. Robert Beattie and D.W. Brookhouse lectured often. J.A. Andrews was a gentle poet, philosopher, editor, compiler of the Handbook of Anarchy, correspondent to United States, Australian and the local press. Other members included W.A. Gregory, John D. McMillan, Peter J. McNaught, George C. Newberry, Fred P. Upham, John W. Fleming and John White.
Monty Miller had fought at Eureka Stockade in 1854, John White and his father were active in the Chartist uprisings of 1848, Fred P. Upham had experiences among the Chicago anarchists, J. White, F. Anstey and J.W. Fleming brought English experience.
In other directions, John White, J.W. Fleming, S.A. Rosa, G.C. Newberry were to lead the unemployed. Carl Arndt and Kauffman were members of the German Social Democrats (Verein Vorwarts Socialestene, Victorian Branch). John Brunton and P.J. McNaught were members of the Land Nationalisation Society, C. Drake a Secretary and D.A. Andrade Acting Secretary of the Free Discussion Society. T.O. Roper was Architect of the Hall of Science, Marshall Lyle, barrister, and Bernard O'Dowd, poet, must have been friendly. J.K. Dunn wrote the pamphlet Sweating and generally most were capable of addressing a meeting on some subject or another. They were a not inconsiderable force of men of varied experiences, knowledge and education who were supplemented by outside lecturers.
All this during a period when little other political activity took place. Monty Miller continued political work in Victoria and Western Australia and was to be jailed for six months at eighty-five years of age by W.M. Hughes, under the War Precautions Act as a member of the I.W.W. He died a Communist. Frank Anstey became a Labor member of the Federal Parliament. W.A. Trenwith, who may not have been a member of the Anarchist Club, became State and Federal Member of Parliament. J.W. Fleming continued leading May Day Processions as an anarchist for another fifty or sixty years.
L.D. Petrie and S.A. Rosa founded the Social Democratic League which was the predecessor of the Labor Party and which supplied the bulk of the Labor Party's platform of 1891. The former joined William Lane's party to Paraguay where he died, the latter continued activity into the First War Conscription Campaigns in Sydney.
All subjects were orders of the day. Anarchy, philosophical and otherwise, economics, land, capital, labour, co-operation, State Socialism, etc. etc., were discussed. Generally most were dissatisfied with the existing form of society and its government; they varied as to the remedy, some for voluntary co-operation, some state socialists, some socialists and others communists.
L.D. Petrie said:
There seems to be a general belief that we are opposed to all Governments. Certainly we are opposed to all existing forms of government. But you see, the only government we know is a mixture of subjection, roguery and robbery. Governments of today govern the people whereas our Government is a government of the people, for the people.
We are credited with a passion for destruction but I should like our opponents to note what we would destroy -- theft, slavery, misery and starvation of body and mind. The doctrine of Anarchism is almost identical with the doctrine of advanced Socialism, what some people call, scientific Socialism.
Life without Equality and Fraternity is a lie as black as hell. And where is the government in the world where they are supreme. Nowhere and they are only possible under the conditions of Socialism -~ Anarchists would govern by conscience although they might use and advocate force to ensure an earlier emancipation of Mankind. (12)
Thus the older school of philosophical anarchists were faced with growing body of believers in the use of force and the older body of believers in voluntary cooperation were facing a growing number of believers in economic organisation by the State or the people in joint ownership.
Hence we see one group printing a leaflet at the Radical Printing Works, Hamilton, N.S.W., and signing it "Anarcho-Communists, Melbourne". This is one illustration of the division. Another was the constant public addresses by Fleming, Petrie, McMillan, Andrews on Socialist subjects. S.A. Rosa, Petrie and others had in July 1889 formed the Social Democratic League.
Thus the very organisation created the intellectual field in which the minds of members blossomed. Perhaps J.A. Andrews may be left to describe the reasons for the break-up of the Anarchist Club.
Andrews in two articles of 18 and 25 October 1896 in Firebrand (13) analysed the reasons for the split in the Melbourne anarchists. He described "the so called individualist maintaining that liberty was property and property was liberty". He said they admitted "legal" property was authority, because it violated their own idea of property. By "legal" property they meant the privilege of holding land idle, of acquiring rent, property and interest.
The Communists on the other hand thought that authority was property and property was authority.
The Anarcho-Communist idea was no property. They claimed simple freedom without privilege and subject to no limitation. It will be seen that Communism is the only state of society in which there is any certainty of people in general having according to their works.
Thus "the idea of reconstructing society on the direct principle of 'to each according to his works' was easily conceived; but when the means of practice were sought for, a serious difficulty arose".
He then traced the "inherent equity" of exchange and said "Communism itself could scarcely offer a more infamous spectacle".
Andrews then declared that the Individualist idea of a single issue of notes by the collective community organised as a single co-operative association was to transform the "Individualist" society into a Liberal Social Democracy.
Between these schools of thought, the Club foundered, the one half becoming the Social Democrats of the day, the other to continue as anarcho-communist. Monty Miller was a classic example at the founding of the Communist Party.
Thus the wide differences between the Communist theory and the Social Democrats' beliefs were nurtured in the Anarchist Club. The problems which divide the world today were those which divided the Anarchist Club.
Reason today is not the real test. It is nice to be critical from academic shelter some seventy-five years later. The proper perspective is to consider also the conditions at the time of these activities.
Certainly the educational opportunities of today were not available then, neither were there the better economic standards of today. Actual poverty and degradations were the seed-beds from which their politic moralities sprang.
Few gained from their political endeavours and in fact most suffered severely. W.M. Hughes, the critic of Crusts and Crusades, appears to have given vent to childish retaliation for the very unfavourable impressions J.A. Andrews had of him. History does not disprove Andrews' views.
This story of the Melbourne Anarchist Club is not complete, through lack of opportunity, but nevertheless endeavours to give the Club its proper place in Victorian radical history - in my view a very important place.
Bibliography
1. R.A. Gollan, Radical and Working Class Politics, M.U.P., 1961, pp.124-5.
2. Liberator, 19 October 1884.
3. Ibid., 14 March 1886.
4. Ibid., 21 March 1886.
5. Len Fox, "Early Australian May Days" in Bulletin of The Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, no.2, May 1962.
6. From letters headed "The Anarchist International", written by J.A. Andrews; in author's possession.
7. From original Prospectus; in author's possession.
8. Written by "Wyvis" and published in the Bulletin.
9. Printed cutting in author's possession.
10. Liberator, 23 May 1886.
11. Honesty, May 1887.
12. Letter by L.D. Petrie to Liberator of 26 February 1888.
13. Firebrand, Journal of the Anarchist group, Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
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