The Rush & Eureka Gold
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Stockadists were also currently negotiating with government figures, diggers rights for return of value for their licences of better facilities than un-serviced tent cities, no roads, no protection, easy gold was running out and the families suffering trying to buy food and supplies shadowed by the exorbitant unrealistic licence fees demanded by indolent fat controllers. A stockade was built around part of the diggings in order to exclude troopers from turning up unannounced as frequently as they wished haul diggers up ladders and interrupt their work on a whim and harassment. Simple pit props assembled to form a rough compound and raise a Prussian Blue flag with the Southern Cross bearing witness to calls for matters of principle, decency and consideration.
Among the diggers were people from Britain calling themselves chartists having submitted various requests for equality in democracy, voting rights for the working classes, 8 hour working days, 6 day week, timely and fair pay, access to property, political and legal representation. These calls were well received among the Australian population whose families were enduring torrid treatment emerging from the dark ages of convict settlement. Virtual lawlessness of authorities and humanitarians were a rare minority, Governors Phillip and Macquarie were exceptional among a variable run of ship captains made governors of the colony to finish off their careers. Convict labour appeared to be a cheap labour force legal loophole in lieu of slavery banned in Britain in 1807 and lingering on in America until 1865 civil war between the north and south. Southern plantations of tobacco, cotton, sugar had not yet mechanised and industrialised. Britain sent convicts to Western Australia delaying granting of self government to 1868 where convicts to the eastern states were sent until the late 1840s. The people becoming enslaved instead to bankers and money lenders for inflated land prices, consumerist gadgets and housing standards set beyond the capacity of family incomes. Commerce and enterprise skimmed by government and upper echelons of town. Published copywrite SOS-NEWS April 2012 www.sosnews.org Author: Scientist/Farmer - Noeline Franklin