Other famous railway strikes were in 1917—which started in NSW, spread
to other states and industries, and involved over 100,000 men; 1946 in
Western Australia (engine drivers); 1948 in Queensland workshops (for nine
weeks); 1950 in Victoria (forfifty-five days). Of interest here are events in
Queensland in the later 1920s. Premier William McCormack, formerly a senior
office bearer in the Australian Workers Union, fought bitterly with the union
over a variety of issues when he was Labor premier from 1925 to 1929.
Railwaymen who had supported a strike at a sugar mill, by refusing to load
‘black’cane, were dismissed. The strike soon collapsed, but the unions cam-
paigned against McCormack in the election of May 1929, and his Labor
government was defeated (Kennedy 1986).
The railways were intensively unionized; and the pursuit of the interests of
railway workers led many into politics and parliament: from the Eveleigh
workshops alone came twenty-five members of the NSW parliament, includ-
ing three Labor premiers: James McGowan, William McKell (later Governor-
General), and Joe Cahill (O’Connor 2005). But the most famous former
railway employee as politician was Ben Chifley, Commonwealth treasurer
and prime minister: Chifley, being an engine driver, was in the working-
class‘elite’; he took a leading part in the 1917 strike.^13
9.2.5Railway Commissions
Atfirst, all the colonies with responsible government placed the enterprises
within a department of railways or public works.^14 Initial efforts to insulate
railway management—associated with Ben Hey Martindale’s recruitment in
NSW—collapsed,^15 and in both NSW and Victoria the systems were run under
ministers whose primary resource was patronage, albeit shared with depart-
ment heads (see Wettenhall 1961, 1987).
Reaction to the extent and nature of political interference camefirst in
Victoria, reflecting the size of the deficits, the excesses of sometime railway
minister (and later premier) Thomas Bent, and the decreasing political pay-off
from patronage. Franchising of the rail service to the private sector was con-
sidered but rejected.
(^13) One of Australia’s largest lawfirms, Slater and Gordon, was founded in 1935 by Bill Slater,
who had been attorney general in several Labor governments, and later Australian minister to the
Soviet Union. In 1923 he opened his own business in Unity Hall, the Australian Railways Union’s
building in Bourke Street, after the Victorian branch of the militant union offered him its legal
work (Cannon 2002). 14
This and the next sections draw heavily from Wettenhall (1961), Serle (1971), Lee (2009)
and Ergas and Pincus (2014), and the 15 Australian Dictionary of Biography.
Martindale was from 1858 the chief commissioner of railways (amongst other posts) in NSW,
holding considerable responsibility until he resigned in 1861, following vigorous criticism from
members of the Legislative Assembly (Abbott 1974). In contrast, John Whitton from 1857 served as
engineer-in-chief for thirty-five years (McMartin 1983).
Jonathan Pincus