Samuel Albert Rosa

“ A community of simple, honest, truthful, unsophisticated white people!
For some distance through the Desert the explorers travelled without meeting with anything but the traditional burning sand and blistering stones, until, almost without warning, they found themselves in hilly country, and green growths began to show between the interstices of the stones. As the explorers ascended, the air grew cooler, and the glare of the sun on the soil less painful to the eyes. Soon the travellers were astonished and delighted to observe what appeared to be human habitations in the far distance. ”

“ Pure Democracy is, I believe, the only form of Government which is theoretically sound, and were the people possessed of the advantages I have just mentioned, and were there no wealthy class, but only a wealthy people, pure Democracy would be possible and beneficial. But, hitherto, wealth has been the monopoly of a class. Wealth is power, great power, whoever possesses the wealth of a people, will rule that people, consequently, we have had in Australia, what was in name a Democratic Government, but, in fact, an Oligarchy, composed of the few man who owned Australia's wealth. ”

“ The organised toiling and poverty-cursed inhabitants of Australia have at last achieved a great and glorious victory over the wealthy oligarchy which has so long compelled the men and women of the poor to prostitute their intellect, their beauty, or their strength for the purpose of keeping in luxurious power a class which is without conscience, compassion, or sense of justice. ”

“ The features of the men and women who composed this mob, rendered savage by want, suffering, and oppression, were distorted by hate, the desire for vengeance and lust for destruction, while they were lit up by the huge fierce flames which issued from the rapidly perishing but once magnificent building. ”

“ We are assembled here to-day as the delegates to a Convention which is probably the most important gathering which has ever taken place on Australian soil. We are the bearers of the mandates of an indignant and wrathful people who have chosen us to consider and devise for them a Constitution which shall be, for the first time in our history, a just one. ”

“ Australia is large enough to enable me to help the Anarchists to form a settlement somewhere in the interior, where they may live according to their ideas and without government, if they can. Let us talk no more of politics, let us rather talk of love, which transforms even the deformed, but makes of the beautiful the angelic. ”

“ The marriage ceremony was performed by the Registrar-General, Oliver, although not an Atheist, had no belief in any of the current religions, nor had his wife. The Dictator also desired a secular marriage, in order that he might avoid the possibility of stirring up sectarian strife, as, had he been married by the priest or minister of any Church, he might have reasonably been supposed to be a member of that Church.
They left the Town Hall arm-in-arm, amid the admiring plaudits of the multitude, who were charmed and transported by the extraordinary beauty and grace of the Dictator's wife. ”

“ The new comer was no other than Oliver Spence and on the young woman perceiving that it was indeed he, she fell, in a half-fainting condition, into his arms—for he was her lover. Our hero looked every inch the hero, the fire of genius flashed from his eyes, while his broad massive brow stamped him as a thinker, and his well-defined nose indicated that, he possessed sufficient force of character to enable him to carry his thoughts into execution. ”

“ Among the most deep-seated causes of the outbreak, although not its actual occasion, was the annihilation of the small-property-owning middle class by the operations of the Sydney financial rings. The middle class had been a decided safeguard against revolution, and a powerful conservative force. To members of that class, "everything that was, was right," so long as it did not interfere with their possession, or possible possession, of small 'properties'. They had served as a sort of buffer between the hungry proletarian poor and the surfeited, sybaritical rich. ”

“ Oliver: "It is sad enough, my dear, but true, and what is more, the higher the civilization the greater seems the need of political surgery. If a tree shows signs of disease, we lop off the infected branches to prevent the spread of the disease, in the same way, when society becomes corrupt, it is necessary to cut out that corruption in order to save society from complete rottenness, and ultimate disintegration. ”

“ Over half the Oligarchy's forces had been killed and the Revolutionists had also suffered severely. Spence had conducted the battle with great skill and personal valor. Four horses had been killed under him, and at one time he had been temporarily blinded by the blood which gushed in his face from a comrade whose skull had been shot away.
War is a dreadful thing, but is sometimes as necessary to save and secure the lives and liberties of peoples, as on occasion a surgical operation may be, to preserve the life of an individual. ”

“ The Australian people are not only free, but happy, and the happiness which follows freedom from care is a glorious boon."
"Do not talk of dying, my own dear Oliver," answered his wife, "we have many more years to live, and much good to do, even yet. There are people called Anarchists, who object to the payment of taxes and desire to do as they please, free from all governmental interference. ”

“ It is twenty years after the demolition of the Austral Bank by the Revolutionists, under the leadership of Oliver Spence.
The sun is shining brightly through the trees, the sky is as beautiful in its heavenly blue as only an Australian sky can be, the birds, filled with the joy of living, are twittering merrily. ”

“ Oliver and Mary proclaimed that in future no Australian Government or municipal council should be empowered to borrow money from any person, or from any institution, other than the National Bank. The debts of the National Bank were the only debts which, together with the taxes, were compulsorily paid. In enforcing their payment however, the greatest care was taken to avoid the infliction of undue hardship, and in no case was a debtor reduced to the condition of destitution and abject poverty which was so prevalent during the reign of the financial rings. ”

“ Though the masses had the vote, there was no real Democracy, only Plutocracy, or Government 'by the wealthy. The masses could read, but they were not educated, they had neither means, nor leisure, to obtain a knowledge of economics, and of the processes by which they were robbed and degraded. ”

“ Hours passed away, and the sky became stormy, red, and flaming, as the sun sunk down like a dying Revolutionist. amidst the blood-tinged clouds, but the lovers beheld it with serenity and confidence, for they knew that to-morrow it would rise upon a land of peace and plenty, where the insults of the rich and the whines of the slave were alike unheard ”

“ In numbers the insurgent forces were but seventy thousand men, while those of the Plutocracy numbered one hundred thousand. The Insurgents, however, made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in numerical strength, while their opponents were held together chiefly by the promises of plunder, position and pay, made to them by the Oligarchy; and it was strongly suspected that many would desert to the insurgents if there appeared any reasonable probability of the Revolution being ultimately successful. ”

“ The travellers were told that the country which was there mountainous, was well watered by the springs and streams which abound there. The origin of his people the Elder could not tell. They appeared to have been there for many generations. He could only tell them that he did not believe they had always been as white as the explorers now saw them. Many generations ago, a party of white explorers, under the leadership of Dr. Leichhardt had come among them in a famishing, fevered, half-delirious condition, and the good people of the valley, had nursed them back to health again. ”

“ Yes, for not only have the government teachers of economics been abroad, but people have now had several years convincing experience of the happiness that is possible in a land where the usurer, the land-monopolist, and the profit-monger are things of the past. ”

“ The Revolutionary Committee is certain that in all its present onerous work it will have the active support of all those who have suffered from plutocratic tyranny, for the poor have nothing to lose by revolution but sordid misery and odious slavery. ”

“ The career of the Brotherhood had been distinguished by acts of heroism, fortitude, audacity and fidelity which far surpassed anything recorded of previous secret bands of conspirators. Monopolists who had rendered themselves particularly odious to the populace by the ostentatious display of their possessions, or by open and cynical disregard of the feelings of those who were forced by necessity to minister to their desires, we frequently killed in their own houses by men or women who, prior to making their escape stamped upon the bodies of their victims the seal of the Brotherhood. ”

“ If we had waited for the majority to rebel, then we might have waited an eternity, for they were so brutalised by excessive toil, and dispirited by the evidences of the enormous power of wealth, that they had become ox-like in their lives, and suffered to continue that oppression which it had become well-nigh impossible to-remove by pacific methods. ”

“ Religion was left entirely to the various religious sects. Nothing in the nature of State assistance, for any purpose whatever, was granted any church. It was generally felt that in the past, religion had been used for the purpose of chloroforming the intelligence of the poor, and that the ministers of religion had acted as a sort of spiritual police, maintained (chiefly by the rich) for the purpose of enjoining the poor to be content with their poverty, and not to lay violent hands on the ill-gotten possessions of the wealthy. ”

“ The most terrible financial crisis ever experienced in Australia immediately followed. Millions of sovereigns were rapidly withdrawn from the banks by "those in the know" and lodged for safety in the Sydney Money Stronghold, and the immediate and complete collapse of all the banks was only prevented by the action of the Federal Government in legislatively compelling the acceptance of the Banks' notes as a "legal tender." ”

“ It is true that we have been elected by a National Electoral Convention, consisting only of the delegates of the Revolutionary minority, but the nation knows definitely who its rulers are, and can rise and overthrow us if it does not approve of our rule. ”

“ After the statesmen of Australia had succeeded in bringing about the federation of the Australian states, the natural result was the formation of a large standing army, which, as our readers are aware, the Federal Government, from its headquarters at Albury, made ample use of as a valuable auxiliary in their determined maintenance of "law and order," "freedom of contract," and the right of the syndicates to employ men at as low a wage and as long hours as the necessities of the laboring people might compel them to accept. ”

“ Any person who, after the payment of the tax on land values, and the interest on money borrowed from the National Bank was found to have an annual nett income of more than three hundred pounds sterling was cumulatively taxed oil that income, as it was considered that the possession and enjoyment of a larger income than the sum named tended to foster the excessive luxury in one class, and resultant poverty in another class, which had already destroyed the world's greatest civilizations. ”

“ History repeats itself. A scientific theory is propounded, discussed, later on accepted as irrefragable truth; suddenly some savant detects a fallacy in the theory, the theory shrinks, crumbles, and fades away. ”

“ You and I, Mary, are entrusted with power for a period of three ears, and the eyes of the whole nation are upon us, we two, and we only, are held directly responsible by the nation, who could, if they so desired, depose us and appoint others in our stead; but in a Parliament, the responsibility is scattered over such a number that it cannot be definitely fixed, so that the majority of members always remain the instruments of plutocratic cliques. ”

“ The explorers proceeded, and could hardly believe their eyes when they found themselves walking along a rustic road, with smiling fields, and picturesque houses and cottages, the invitingly open doors of which, seemed to offer lavish hospitality to the hungry and weary travellers. The houses and fields appeared to be deserted, however, and although the travellers called a halt, and cooeed, no answer was received. Exhausted nature could hold out no longer, and the travellers marched into one of the largest of the houses. ”

“ Everything worth doing in the past, has been done by the sword in the hands of a determined minority. Majorities may crucify a Christ, poison a Socrates, and hang innocent men, like the so-called Anarchists, who, many years ago were judicially murdered in Chicago, but they do not reform abuses, or radically change systems. ”

“ The Great Problem of how to provide with suitable occupations those who, though perfectly willing to labor, were by unjust social conditions precluded from earning bread for themselves and those dependent on them, had reached the acute phase where the proverbial worm is said to turn—and it had turned with a vengeance! ”

“ She fondly followed her husband's every movement, and impatiently longed for the time when they would be alone together, that she might throw her arms around his neck and devour him with her burning kisses. ”

“ Such, our Federal Explorers gathered from the Elder, were the character, resources and customs of this strange, primitive and amiable people. They were charmed, and felt inclined to follow the example of Dr. Leichhardt, and marry and settle down among them. But in a few months ambition gained its victory over them and they returned to civilization, their return being hastened by the discovery in the valley, of immense natural deposits of jasper and other precious stones. ”