The Longreach Leader (Qld. : 1923 - 1938)(about) |
Previous issue
Wednesday 7 December 1938
Next issue
Send to:
|
No corrections yet
Some Shearings of Yesterdays
When the sturdy fleet comes over, "When the scent is on the clover.
And the scarlet streaks the blue; When the Western sheds are ringing And the Western men are singing
As their rolling teams come
through,
Then is ho, ho, hu-Wool, Hoi 'For the busy shears are clipping And a stir is in the shipping
And is yo. ho, ho-Wool, Ho!
E . J . BRADY .
A contrast in shearings. On the uover is depicted a scene from a shearing at Northampton Downs, in the Blackall district, where more than 60,000 sheep are shorn annu- ally. Fast teams turn these thous- ands down the shutes in a few weeks. On the left is shown a "busy" day on Noonbah, where some of the .smaller number of sheep running there are being shorn with the old
lin nd shears.
Last year the Christmas "Leader" told in some short summary the story of wool-washing in Australia the cleaning method
that preceded scouring as we know it to-day. But more essential even than cleaning in the tale of WODI and its production is the story of shear- ing-the actual transfer of the wool from the sheep's back to the avenues of trade and commerce where it plays the mighty part it was ordained to play in the industrial and social scheme of things, and becomes an essential ingredient of the great edi lice which we call civilisation.
Thus shearing is a word and a work with a peculiarly significant meaning and connotation in a coun- try based so definitely-as Australia certainly is-upon wool: a work which, social, politically, and indus- trially is interwoven in the very warp and woof of our affairs aw per- haps no other work is; it is the great avenue along which the tide of labour flows in the sparsely settled areas of our Commonwealth; and it was the instrumentality that brought us nearer to an armed clash in our
internal affairs than any other thing. But it is rather with the industrial than the social and political side of shearing that this immediate com- ment is concerned-with its con- tacts and impacts on the great pas- toral undertakings of this country.
As wool itself has its origins in the remotest antiquity, so, too, must shearing in its origins be sought in those far off days when Jason took his first team to Colchis-the storied Argonauts of Greek mythology-to gather the Golden Fleece and so blaze on the heraldry of mankind the imperishable insignia and bear- ings that toll the story to-day hi a multitude of ways. One wonders, in passing, whether those same Argon- auts, or the fellows who helped Abel (we come now to the Bible story) some 4000 years ago, and some 2000 years later helped old Laban with his job when the "sheds" were in full swing-and who were certainly the prototypes of the shearer of to-day sowed some seed that has blossomed In our time Into the strike, and the lock-out, and arbitration and the award system and all the paraphern- alia of our modern scheme of indus- trial aids and hindrances. One won- ders.
Perhaps they were too busy as they hacked off with knives and primitive scissors the fleeces of those olden times-too busy to ponder such fine points for posterity, which is us. Dim to their thoughts must have been such things-dim as the bow shears and the mechanical intri- cacies that have been whisking off the fleece in our own time at a rate that would make Jason and Laban and Abraham sit back and stare. But in their day they rubbed along Laban, one would gather from his location could not have had much trouble with wet 'uns, though pro- bably the fly was bad. They got their fleece.« off and their wool away to the seats of the mighty in Persia and Babylonia and in Greece and 13gypt. But they probably knew something of the bow shears, those squatters and shearers of the old, for there is extant a pair of bow shears reputed to be some 4000 years old, unearthed somewhere in France by questing archeologists.
However, the first reliable record oí bow shears dates from A.D. 406, and again (France is the venue. It is a far cry down the years from then to the days when Jack Howe and Henry Livingstone crowned the bow shears with a wealth of achievement which, in itself, provides quite a chap- ter in the story of Australian shear- ing.
EARLY AUSTRALIAN DAYS.
More than a hundred years ago. James Atkinson wrote "An Account of the State of Agriculture and Graz- ing in New South "Wales." This was probably the first book published dealing with primary industry in Australia. In it he touches on the shortage of good shearers, a matter that has always been one of concern to sheep men. The author advises the settler, in his own interests, "to cause as many of his servants as possible to be instructed In this art
of shearing, which they are very de- sirous to learn. I have always made it a practice to cause any sheep that were to be killed to be first shorn by a man who was a stranger to the art: and when any happened to die, to cause their wool to be taken off in the same manner." From the same writer we learn that "when shearing is performed by hired hands the usual price is 3/6 per score." And, further, that "the average weight of the most improved fleeces may be stated at about 2*lbs. each." In re- gard to the latter statement, it must not be forgotten that the fleeces in those days and for many years later, were washed upon the sheep's back in a convenient creek some few days before shearing, which would reduce weight materially.
"We come to the forties of the last century, and from Curr's "Squatting in Victoria,*' we got a rather humor- ous account of what, at the time, must have been a most exasperating shearing. The author considered himself "very fortunate in being able to muster three extra men for shear- ing and washing, and to avail myself of their services with a humility which became a master of those
times. "
INSISTED ON RUM.
"Those three worthies, of course, fixed the rates at which they were
to be paid, which was, in addition to their rations, one pound sterling per hundred sheep, with four glasses of rum per day. The last requirement 1 thought very hard and arbitrary, as rum, or spirits of any sort, found no part in my stores; and I tried hard to get it commuted to double its money value." The shearers, however, insisted on their rum, and so the Hock owner had no choice but to mount the least dishonest of his servants and send him off to the nearest publican, who lived more than a hundred miles away, which an order for six gallons of rum. This fellow got tho rum alright; but on the return journey he insisted on "shouting" all the shepherds he met on the way, and replacing with water the spirits that had been used in these jollifications. Ultimately he reached the shearing shed with the rum, which, in spite of adulteration, was potent enough to put two of the shearers completely out of action for a day, and so upset the third that he managed to shear only 25 sheep instead of the average 60 or 70." Such was shearing in the forties !
Thirty years later John Kyrie Graham, in his "Treatise on the Australian Merino," writes: "There is no branch of sheep management in Australia that requires a thorough and effective reform so much as
shearing:.at the present day (1S7Ü) the sole object in almost every shed would appear to bo to get the wool off the sheep in the shortest possible time without much regard to how it is dono, provided the animal be completely denuded of its covering. To see a set of shearers at work one might suppose that their very existence was dependant upon the speed they should make with every sheep they catch."
Ile points out that the flockmaster invests a large capital in the pur- chase ol' his sheep and run; spares no expense in "putting upon his Hocks the best fleeces they are cap- able of bearing, washes them with soap and hot Avater by means of an expensive apparatus, and brings them to the shed in as perfect a condition as possible; and when there a care- less, hasty, or unskilful shearer so mangles and mutilates both sheep and wool that a considerable propor- tion of tho squatter's labour and ex- pense is thrown away."
T1I10 OIJD AUTOCRATIC "RINGER"
In the same book, the author con- demns a now long-forgotten privilege of the fastest shearer in the shed. "The presence in your shed," he writes, "of a leading man, or, in shearer vernacular 'a ringer,' ls most objectionable. This man is supposed to be privileged to call smoko-o, or
knock off, etc., and he assumes a sort of leadership which leaves the superintendent himself a divided authority only; and this is plainly subversive of that discipline and good order which should supplant the bustle and haste before deprecated."
The position of "ringer" is to-day still keenly sought after in the sheds as a matter of shearing repu- tation; but the holder of that honor has no more say in the matter of starting and stopping work than the youngest rouseabout who sweeps the board. Those are questions that are now settled in an Arbitration Court mostly situated many hundreds of miles away from the sheds.
Remains principally the right to strike-which is, of course, strangely inconsistent with the spirit of arbi- tration-and it is a formidable wea- pon, seeing that shearing is a skilled operation, and tho fact that it has to he carried out expeditiously at a cer- tain definite time each year.
But the peccadilloes were not al- ways on tho shearer's side. Some of the ingredients of dishonesty and of malfeasance and misfeasance could be unearthed against the squatters of those days too. The diligent searcher after truth will find them well enough indicated, for instance, in Professor Robert's very useful book "The Squatting Ago in Aus- tralia." To be more precise, it is only necessary to recall that in those days-when fleeces were all washed, if not scoured-they were spaded into rude, but effective, home-made wool presses, heavy stones being used to apply pressure, stout iron skewers, maintaining the compression while top filling proceeded. Ten bales weighed about 2.J tons-regarded as a big load in those days-the weight, it is said, often increasing consider- ably just before reaching market destination or place of consignment for abroad, this owing to the dis- honest trick of allowing the dray to stand sometime with its burden in some convenient stream en route in order that the absorbed moisture might add extra weight. But then, as with shearer, so with squatters: "There's so much bad in the best of us, and so much good In the worst of us-" The reader will know how it
runs.
TJIF, STRIKE OP »91.
The old shearing days cannot be left, however, without passing re- ference to the trouble which blazed up in 1891 and provided us with the historic Shearers' Strike of that memorable year. It is too often for- gotten in recalling this trouble that it was associated, primarily, with the great maritime strike that immedi- ately preceded lt, though it was directly due to the Queensland pas- toralists in 1890 on the Barling Downs deciding to employ non-Union labour and Insisting on what they regarded as their traditional rights in freedom of contract. A start was made on Jondaryan Station, and the gauge of battle was immediately accepted by the shearers. In 1891 the Queensland squatters, backed by those in New South Wales and Vic- toria, decided to enforce an agree- ment which involved freedom of contract as distinct from preference to unionists. The shearers decided not to sign on under an agreement which ignored the Union, and the squatters retaliated by recruiting non-Union labour. Trouble began at Logan Downs Station in the central district, where unionists formed a camp and endeavoured to intercept non-Unionists on their way to the sheds. The trouble spread as the season advanced; some leaders were arrested and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment for intimi- dation, conspiracy, or rioting, and the Government sent mounted police and troops to the disaffected areas to prevent disturbances. Shearing was completed mainly with non-union labour. The dispute had threatened to extend to the southern colonies, but a conference was arranged, the Union agreed to allow non-union and Union labour to work together, and a compromise was affected on such questions as hours of work, shearing
(Continued on next page)
SHEARINGS OF YESTERDAYS
(Continued from previous paye)
wet sheep, etc. This agreement was adopted in Queensland also, :iml re- mained in force until April 1SU4, When the squatters decided to draw Up new terms. The Queensland Union and the Australian Workers' Union (which represented shearers und shed-hands in New South Wales and Victoria) prepared to resist, but they had no funds, their request for
a conférence was refused, and the squatters delined to use the mach- inery provided for voluntary arbi- tration. Shearing was begun with non-Union labour. Then unionists, as liefore. for/iiivl ramps near the sta i'i>ris. which (since most of the men were armed j were centres of dis- turbance. .Many sheds were bred; many strikers wen- arrested and sen- tenced to terms of imprisonment. In Queensland-where, according to the < ol<mial Secretary of the day, the strike had developed into ari insur
ruction-an act for the better preser vation of the peace was passed; thi provided that within proclaime areas the carrying of firearms wa permitted only on specified condi tions, and that any person attempt nig to disturb law and order or sus peeted of acts of violence might b arrested, held without bail, und sen tenced to a fine <<f £100 or imprison ment for not more than thre months. Fortunately the officia charged with the enforcement o this act was tactful, and always sue reeded in dispersing the striker without bloodshed. Throughout thi eastern colonies the strike was a com plete failure, and left the men'i unions powerless and moneyless. Not until 1!)04, when the Amalga- mated Workers' Association of Queens- land (which included the shearers arid other biishwoi-kors unions) joined with the Australian Workers' Union, was a return to the membership of the early nineties effected, and then action under the arbitration system that had grown up was more gener- alis- appealed to.
TJI15 MACIIINI5 A«; 15.
Then (rame tho machines. Thc actual beginning of the sheep shear- ing machines dates back to 1888 in Australia, though earlier attempts were recorded from langland. Like all innovations, it had to face the antagonisms and prejudices of both pastoralists and shearers, and, as a consequence-, headway was retarded. 'Fortunately some managers and owners who are more progressive gave the machines a fair trial, and it was soon demonstrated that loss skill was needed by the users and more, wool was won. Against this combination of facts conservatism could not prevail. In time a number <d" sheds proved the superiority of the machines, and in the early nine- ties three rival machines were com- peting for favour. Tho classical date is 1888, when Dunlop shed, in New South Wales, completed the first full dress shearing while a mob of strik- ing shearers, disgruntled and angry, skulked in their tents "on the other side of Jordan." The result was a tribute alike to Mr. Sam McCaughey (later Slr Samuel) the owner, and his ma na ger (Mr. James Wilson), both of whom were never without initia- tive -and enterprise when occasion called for it.
These things notwithstanding, there are still many In this country who remain unaware that sheep shearing by mechanical means devel- oped in Australia. Tho idea, if it was not conceived in the brain of, was certainly executed by, the hand of tho late 'Frederick York Wolseley (brother of the great Field Marshal of that name) who about 1S<>7 or 18(18 was managing a station pro- perty in Victoria. In 187«, on his own propctry near Walgett, in New South 'Wales, he perfected his machine at Its then standard. And still fewer of Australians of the pre- sent generation know that associ- ated with him in tho work was one Herbert Austin, now Lord Austin, K.B.10.. etc., Chairman of Directors of the Wolesley Sheep Shearing .Machine Co. Ltd.. and head of tho groat English 'motor car enterprise thal bears bis name.
In 1XS3 a young English mechanic named .lohn Howard, then recently arrived in Australia, applied the prin- ciple of tho power-drive horso dipping machine. Wolseley bought his ideas outright, and therewith the sheer mechanics of his problem dis- appeared. Tho shearing machine was a reality. And with the great shear- ing on Dunlop, that reality was signed, sealed, and delivered to the industry in Australia. But the heat
a uti dust of conflict was not done with. Bitter opposition continued tc come from both owners and shear- ers. The former continued, against demonstrated fact, to contend that the use of machines would result in a shorter growth of wool, and, con- sequently, a reduced clip in the sea- son following their adoption; the shearers* ease was summed up in all that contempt and abuse which the handicraftsmen so often has for the machine. This opposition, coupled with the mechanical imper- fections of those early machines themselves, delayed their general use, so that it as not until the dawn of the present century that their adoption was practically universal.
Now hand shears are only used for shoaling stud sheep, or in these cases where, for economical reasons, it would not pay to instal machines. If in consequencea of the introduction of machines the occupation of shear- ing has lost some of its old-time glamour and romance, it has gained in stability and cHlcieney, and in better working and living conditions for the men who follow it.
Because shearing is now done al- most wholly by machinery: because every station of any size has its own wool shed ¡ind full installation be- cause, in fact, machinery is now thc wholly accepted adjunct of shearing, and a generation has grown up, or is growing up around us that has Known no other method of removing the wool from the sheep's back? Because of these things the whole process is taken for granted, looked upon hy we moderns, sn to speak, as purl of our heritage, something which has eenie to us by right of succession, and not as something with a history and romance behind it as most of the inventions that genius has bestowed upon us really have. Nowhere is the history «d' the introduction of the machine to shear- ing better told than in a book en- titled "This Century of Ours," being an account of the origin and his- tory during ono hundred years of the house of Messrs. Dangar, fJedyc Air Malloch. of Sydney, edited and compiled by Mr. A. D. Fraser. There the inquiring student of affairs will /Ind a very full account of that whirring thing of combs and cutters that stands for so much in the ap- plication of science to primary in- dustry in this country; so much that is wool, and, therefore, so much that
is Australia.