The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon

As a result of my inquiries I came to the conclusion that it would be more satisfactory if a senior officer on the active list of the Royal Regiment of Artillery was appointed at a fixed salary for a term of years, who would be instructed, at any rate in the case of heavy ordnance, field guns and rifles, to supply none except of a pattern passed into the Imperial Service itself. This recommendation was submitted by me to my Premier at Adelaide on my return, passed on by him to the other Premiers concerned, and finally given effect to, and Lieut. Colonel King-Harman, R.A., was appointed. Little did I think that, within ten years, I myself was to receive the appointment.

I had also intended to pay a visit to the Expeditionary Force at that time operating up the Nile. But the relief or fall of Khartoum was imminent, and the time at my disposal was not sufficient. Khartoum fell and General Gordon was murdered. Who was to blame? I wonder. Have you ever been to see and studied the statue raised to his memory in Trafalgar Square, a replica of which stands in Spring Gardens, Melbourne? If not, do so some day, and look well into his face. Its expression is one of sad thought. So might he have looked as he stood in Khartoum facing death.

I must pass over the glorious days I spent at home; they were the last I spent with my father and mother.

Taking my passage by the Massilia, a sister ship to the Valetta, I set out once more for the fair lands of the South, happy and contented, mentally and physically refreshed, and determined to rise still higher in my profession. On my arrival at Adelaide I received a right royal welcome. I found General Downes going strong. There had been no more talk of Royal Commissions. Major Lovett had settled down to his work and was a general favourite; he himself liked Adelaide immensely. More funds had been made available; my own Permanent Artillery had behaved well during my absence and were doing well. For the next two years nothing occurred out of the usual, either in South Australia or the other colonies, from a military point of view. The end of 1891 was approaching; the general decided to retire. Major Lovett had completed his term as adjutant-general and was returning home. I was asked to step into the breach once more and take up his duties as well as my own. I, of course, agreed, and I was promoted to lieutenant-colonel early in 1892.

The Premier of South Australia was then Charles Cameron Kingston, or, to give him his full title, which he dearly loved, Sergeant Charles Cameron Kingston, B Company, 1st Regiment, Adelaide Rifles. Kingston possessed a charming personality. He was a most able lawyer, could see through most things and most people, could analyse a difficult subject, select what was good, discard what was bad, quicker than most men. As a politician he was highly successful. Rough old Seddon of New Zealand might be reckoned as his closest rival. As a lawyer he was sound as a bell, a most eminent draftsman, and a mighty quick worker when he liked, though he was not a model of industry. As a sergeant he was tip-top. B Company was the best company in the regiment; he seldom missed a parade. As a “sport” he was loved by old and young. They spoke of him as “Good old Charlie.”

General Downes, when leaving, made up his mind to recommend to the Government to secure the services of another Imperial officer on the active list to succeed him who should take over the command before the actual date of his own retirement. Personally I must say I was rather surprised at the general’s action, for by this time I had full confidence that I could carry out the duties myself. I had not by any means wasted all my time during my leave two years before; I had got much information. Then I had been instrumental in obtaining for him his second term of command, notwithstanding that he had retired from the active list himself when he had taken up the duties of secretary to Sir Frederick Sargood. So I had hoped that, while he might express his opinion to the Government, he would not insist on it too much. I must admit that he was quite frank with me as to the attitude he was taking up. His argument was to this effect. It had been found necessary before to supersede local officers. “Surely,” he said, “the same considerations that held good then hold good now. I do not say that you are not qualified to fill the position, but if you are appointed it will form a precedent, and, on the expiry of the terms of the engagements of the Imperial officers in the other colonies the claims of local officers will again naturally be put forward. Then good-bye to the system of obtaining the services of thoroughly experienced officers who have no local interests and no axes to grind.” Meantime, the senior commanding officers of several branches of our forces were, without my knowledge, beginning to interest themselves to have me appointed as successor to the general.

To return to Sergeant Charles Cameron Kingston, let me tell of an incident which may give you some insight into the personal character of a remarkable man. It is one which, except for an accident, might have had fatal results. Kingston was leading the Government at the time; Sir Richard Baker of Morialta was President of the Upper House. Kingston had introduced a Bill in the House of Representatives dealing with arbitration in industrial disputes. Sir Richard Baker was the father of a Bill introduced into the Senate on the same subject. While the aims of the two were identical, the methods by which those results were to be obtained were by no means analogous. Each Bill had its supporters in each House. As the debates proceeded considerable bitterness arose, ending in correspondence in the daily Press. Finally, Kingston and Baker commenced to abuse each other in print. Kingston’s temper gave out. He wrote a letter to Sir Richard which he had delivered at the latter’s office in Victoria Square, together with a case containing a pistol and some cartridges. He could no longer stand what he considered the insults Sir Richard had thought fit to level at him. The letter stated that he would be on the pavement on the opposite side of the street to the entrance to Sir Richard’s office at five minutes to twelve o’clock, noon, next day, Saturday, and asked Sir Richard to take up a position on the pavement outside his offices at that hour, bringing his pistol with him. As soon as the post office clock, which was close to the office, began to strike twelve, each would step into the roadway and shoot at his leisure. A quaint duel, was it not?

The accident which saved the situation was the fact that Sir Richard was not in the habit of attending his office on Saturday morning. His son, or someone in the office, opened Kingston’s letter, and the police were informed. Shortly before noon Kingston was seen walking across from the Government Offices towards Baker’s offices. Two constables in plain clothes followed him and watched him as he coolly took up his stand on the pavement. The hands of the post office clock pointed at three minutes to twelve. The two constables walked up to Mr. Kingston. They politely asked him what his business was. “I am just waiting for Baker to come out of his office,” he answered; “then you will see some sport. I advise you to move a bit to one side. I don’t think he is much of a shot. He might get one of you two.” The constables, who were well known to Kingston, informed him that Sir Richard had not been to his office that morning, so that there would be no sport, but they had instructions from the Commissioner of Police to arrest him for attempting to commit a breach of the peace, and to take him at once before a magistrate. Within half an hour he appeared before a police magistrate, had his pistol taken from him, and was bound over to keep the peace for six months.

In the meantime the news had spread throughout Adelaide like wildfire, and had reached Sir Richard at the Adelaide Club. Kingston’s letter and the revolver which accompanied it had been sent down to the club from Sir Richard’s office after twelve o’clock. No sooner had Sir Richard been told of what had happened than he put the revolver Kingston had sent him into his pocket, borrowed another at the club, and started off to look for his challenger, who, he knew, usually lunched at Parliament House and would at this time probably be walking down King William Street from the Government Offices in Victoria Square. He was not mistaken, for after proceeding a short way up King William Street he came face to face with Kingston. “I am sorry,” he said, “I was not at my office this morning, but here I am now. Stand off, and the first one who counts five aloud can shoot away.”

“I am sorry,” said Kingston, “but I can’t oblige you; the police have taken away my revolver.”

“Never mind,” said Baker, “here is the one you sent me,” handing it over to him. “I don’t believe it will go off. I have one of my own.”

It was now time to interfere. Three of us who had followed Sir Richard out from the club stepped in and good counsels prevailed. As Kingston had been bound over to keep the peace for six months no duel could take place. As a matter of fact, it was not long before the two redoubtable belligerents shook hands and had a friendly laugh over the incident.

Now comes the sequel. By the Regulations under the Military Act, any member of the forces convicted of an offence in a civil court was liable to dismissal. On the Monday morning a full report of the case appeared in the newspapers. Before this took place General Downes had retired and I was once more acting Commandant. The officer who was acting Adjutant-General brought the newspaper report under my notice officially. There was no other course but to order Sergeant Kingston to be put under arrest and called upon to make a statement, if he so wished, before he was dismissed from the forces, in accordance with the Regulations. This order I gave. The Attorney-General at the time, Mr. Homburgh, was very much concerned at my order. A doubt then entered my mind as to whether being bound over to keep the peace amounted to a conviction under the provisions of the Defence Act Regulations. I immediately referred the question to the Crown Solicitor, who said it was a difficult question I had raised, but ruled finally that being bound over to keep the peace was not tantamount to a conviction within the meaning of the Regulations. Whether this was sound law or not I cannot say, but it gave me the opportunity to let Sergeant Kingston off easily. I at once sent orders to his commanding officer to warn the sergeant to appear before me at the Staff Office the next morning, so that I could deal with the case.

I thought the incident was over, and got ready for my dinner. As I was entering the dining-room at the Club Sir Jenkin Coles, the Speaker of the House, a close friend of Kingston’s, spoke to me about it. I told him the decision of the Crown Solicitor left the matter in Kingston’s favour; he had been ordered to appear before me in accordance with the usual custom of the Service to be finally dealt with. Sir Jenkin asked me if this was necessary. “No,” I answered; “if Sergeant Kingston signs a statement to the effect that he is satisfied with the cause of his being placed under arrest and the action taken in this matter by the military authorities I don’t want to see him at the office.” No sooner had I said this than Sir Jenkin rose from the dinner table to return in ten minutes with a written statement, signed by Kingston, to the effect that he was quite satisfied with the action taken by the authorities. So ended this extraordinary episode, but I was told by a good many friends that I had driven a nail in my coffin as regarded the Commandantship. The appointment was practically in Kingston’s hand. But those friends of mine did not know him.

General Downes left Adelaide. The Government gave no indication of their intentions re the appointment of his successor. The mayor’s official ball took place. Charles Cameron Kingston was talking to the Governor. He beckoned me and said: “I have just informed His Excellency that the Government have appointed you a colonel and Commandant of our forces.” His Excellency warmly congratulated me. I thanked Kingston.

My vision was fulfilled.

CHAPTER VII

THE GREAT STRIKES

In 1890 the great maritime strike had its birth in Sydney. The original strikers were the wharf labourers, who paralysed all business. The strike spread rapidly to practically all the chief ports of Australia. The Government at Sydney trusted more to the support of the merchants and producers, whose interests were being so assailed, than to the power that lay in their hands to tackle the strikers by the aid of the military forces. The police, under the able guidance of Mr. Fosberry, then Chief Commissioner, did their work splendidly, but the situation became too critical. Bank managers, insurance agents, squatters, architects and others took off their coats and waistcoats, loaded and unloaded the trolleys, and worked like common labourers. The farthest point that the Government would go towards assisting the police in keeping order was to detail a restricted number of mounted riflemen to protect the willing volunteer workers from the assaults of the strikers.

In sympathy with the action taken in Sydney the Wharfmen’s Unions in all the other chief ports of Australia joined their comrades, and Port Adelaide became a head centre. Previous to this the South Australian Government had entered into an agreement with the Government of Western Australia to train some fifty Permanent Force Artillerymen to garrison the newly constructed forts at Albany. This detachment were just completing their time at Largs Fort, so that the little Permanent Force under my command in South Australia numbered some 130, of all ranks. The strikers at Port Adelaide set to work with a good will. Every vessel in the harbour was picketed, every approach to the wharves guarded. Business was at an absolute standstill. Large mass meetings of strikers were held morning and afternoon. The police, under Mr. Peterswald, reinforced by a large draft from the country districts, could do no more than just maintain order. The situation was more than serious. Mr. Peterswald ventured to appear at a mass meeting one afternoon, hoping that he might cast a little oil on the troubled waters. He came out on the balcony of a hotel, facing the huge crowd of strikers. A quaint scene followed. Some wags called out, “Take off your hat, Peter.” They wanted to get authority – as personified by the Commissioner – to bow to them. Peterswald quickly recognized the position and, lifting his hat, said to them: “I am glad to meet you, men. I hope you will go back to your work and put an end to this serious trouble,” and quickly left the balcony. The majority cheered and laughed. But their leaders were on the job. The word was passed on to the strikers that, about twelve o’clock that night, they would receive definite instructions from their section leaders as to their future action. All their pickets and guards were doubled that night, and specially the guard on the railway bridge across the Port River, which connected Port Adelaide with the shore and the forts.

During that afternoon I had given instructions that every available man of our Permanent Force was to assemble at Fort Glanville, with a view to a gun competition next day. Parliament was sitting. I was at Fort Glanville, much occupied in laying down the conditions for next day’s gun practice. In the course of the evening Mr. Playford, the Defence Minister, telephoned me from Parliament House to be ready to march with my men under arms to Port Adelaide. As this was the first time that – as far as I knew – an order had been issued by any Australian Government to its permanent troops to march under arms to assist the police in quelling civil riots, I asked that the instructions should be sent to me in writing. The final words I heard on the telephone were, “Your instructions will reach you by a mounted orderly in plenty of time for you to act.”

At about eleven o’clock that evening the mounted orderly arrived, and at three in the morning – it was summer time, a moonlight night, practically as clear as day – we marched out of the fort on our way to Port Adelaide, where I found close on 400 police, mounted and foot, all armed. The Government had, therefore, some 500 armed men to cope with the strikers if they persisted in carrying out their threats. Half-past five came. It was daylight. The inspector in charge of the police patrols which had been posted the previous evening at all important bridges and approaches to the wharves suggested that I should accompany him to view the situation. We rode out together. Nobody was to be seen; the port was as quiet as if it were Sunday morning. The strike leaders had become fully aware of the determination of the Government to deal firmly with any attempt on their part to disturb the public peace, and had deemed discretion the better part of valour. The strike was virtually over, and, after providing a good breakfast for my men, we marched back to Fort Glanville in peace and quiet. This was the only instance that I am aware of in the history of the Australian colonies when the members of the Permanent Forces were actually called out and marched under arms to the assistance of the civil power. Let us hope it will be the last.

Hardly were these troubles over when another large body of Australian workers held up one of Australia’s chief industries. The shearers, the clippers of the fleeces, struck work. The shearers are a roving crowd, who move from north to south of Australia’s vast territory and back again. Most of them are well known to the squatters who employ them. The same old story – more wages, better conditions of living. My own opinions as to the rights and wrongs of the shearers’ claims may be of no value, but my sympathies were certainly on their side as regarded, at least, the conditions of living at the sheds.

I had had personal experience of how quickly utter ruin falls upon the squatter. It is a question often of living in affluence one day and having not a penny left within nine months. To record the names of the squatters personally known to myself who had thus suffered would be a sad task. They were many. However, their failure was not brought about by the demands of the shearers. The granting of these demands in prosperous times could not have much hurt the interests of their employers. Providence has a special gift of casting ruin at times broadcast, without, as far as we mortals can tell, any reason or rhyme. A few inches of rain, falling at the right time of the year in any part of Australia, ensures a plentiful supply of green feed and prevents the enormous ravages amongst stock of all kinds which a drought causes.

The squatters fought their battle hard against the shearers in 1891. In Queensland they had a sympathetic Government at the time. The maritime strike had left a nasty taste in the mouths of the producers. The export trade had been held up, and the necessaries of life imported from abroad had been denied to the country districts. It was decided to adopt hard, repressive measures.

The Government summoned to their aid the Mounted Rifles. These were chiefly recruited in the country districts, and most of them were producers themselves, and the strike broke down.

It was just about this time that I accompanied His Excellency Lord Kintore, an old friend and neighbour from Aberdeenshire – then our Governor in South Australia – as far as Brisbane. Lord Kintore had, some time previously, arranged to proceed by sea to Port Darwin and undertake the overland journey from there to Adelaide through the northern territory, which was then under the administration of the South Australian Government. It was a big undertaking, and by no means a pleasure trip. We arrived in Brisbane, but, owing to the breaking down of the ss. Chingtu, we had a delay of some days in that fair capital of what will undoubtedly be in the future one of the richest of the Australian States.

We rather taxed the splendid efforts of our hospitable friends by the length of our stay. But they were not to be beaten. Strike or no strike, they laid themselves out to give us as much joy as it was possible to do in the time. I laid the foundation of many lasting friendships within those few days. Then the Chingtu, with Lord Kintore on board, left for Port Darwin, and I made my way backward to Adelaide.

The Melbourne Cup Meeting of 1891 was a fateful one for me, for I had the happiness of becoming engaged to be married. I had known my future wife for several years. She had been born in Victoria. Her father hailed from County Galway, having emigrated to South Australia with his brother, the late Hon. Nicholas Fitzgerald, than whom no public man in Australia was ever held in higher esteem by all classes. The brothers made Burra Burra, then a prosperous copper field to the north of Adelaide, their first hunting-ground. From there they moved on to Victoria, in the days of the discovery of the goldfields – Ballarat, Castlemaine, Kyneton and Bendigo. At the time I married they had prospered well enough. Later on they lost – for want of food and water – some 400,000 sheep on the various stations they were interested in. My wife and I had hopes of buying old Wardhouse, in Aberdeenshire, from my Spanish nephew. These hopes went by the board. Ours was by no means a singular experience in the history of Australian pioneers in the back country. I know of many friends who – if possible – fared worse.

I was married on February 29, 1892. At the conclusion of our honeymoon, which we spent at Gracedale House, close to the Blackspur range of hills, Victoria, we returned to Adelaide, and once again I became a resident at the Largs Bay Hotel.

When I look back to those happy days I feel thankful that my term of office cost me but small worry. I happened to be successful in maintaining quite cordial relations with the successive occupants of the ministerial chair. I was not hampered by any serious reduction in our financial vote. I was not troubled by any especially adverse criticisms on the conduct of the forces, either in Parliament or in the Press. I was able to carry out reforms which led the way to the adoption of the “Universal Service System” now in vogue in the great Commonwealth of Australia.

CHAPTER VIII

THE INTRODUCTION OF “UNIVERSAL SERVICE,” AND TWO VOYAGES HOME

From the very time that I took over the duties of my first appointment I had thought that a considerable improvement could be made in the organization of the existing forces. I had encouraged the formation of cadet corps, as far as lay in my power, and I had been splendidly supported by the Education Department in my efforts, with the result that, when I assumed the command, the cadet system was a flourishing institution. The success that attended the cadet movement, the support given to it by the parents, and the keen enthusiasm of the youngsters in their work, led me to think that the time was ripe for the introduction of a universal system of National Service, the ultimate aim of which was to ensure that every youth should, by the time that he had reached the age of manhood, twenty-five years, have undergone a course of training, which, without interfering with his civil avocation, would render him a desirable asset as a soldier. With this object in view I submitted a scheme to the Government.

General Hutton, who had by this time been appointed Commandant of New South Wales, arranged a conference of the Commandants of the States in Sydney to discuss several important matters in connexion with the defence of Australia as a whole. Two very important agenda were: (a) the necessity for determining the nature of the heavy armaments of the forts, in point of uniformity and efficiency, and (b) the co-ordination of the several systems of enlistment then in vogue throughout the States.

I informed my brother Commandants that I intended to recommend my Government to merge our Volunteers into the partially paid force, which would be a substantial move towards the simplification of the conditions of service. Further, I suggested that if the South Australian Government carried out the proposed change it would assist them materially towards effecting a similar change in their own colonies.

I did not, however, deem it advisable to mention the plans I had with reference to the introduction of universal service, for the change was a radical one. I knew that if any suspicion arose that it was proposed to introduce a form of military service compelling citizens by law to devote no matter how small a portion of their own time to military training, such proposals would at once be looked upon as simply an insidious way of creating conscription, a compulsory system of service – a form of service absolutely distasteful and foreign to us British, and even more so to British colonists. It was therefore necessary for me to take the greatest care very gradually to prepare and school the public mind so that the term “National Service,” which I had adopted for my scheme, should in no way be misunderstood for conscription, but rather that it should be looked upon simply as a personal responsibility on the part of every youth to fit himself to take part in the defence of his country, just in the same way as it was his duty to attend school or submit to any other laws governing his civil and economic life.