Who paid the fines?

The year 1948 was one of industrial unrest. A number of strikes took place including a protracted railway dispute. This degenerated into a general transport workers’ strike with railway, shipping and waterside workers, and eventually miners, taking action in support.

The fear of Communist agitation was gripping governments and individuals. Queensland, however, is unique in Australian politics as it is the only state to return a Communist Party candidate to the Legislative Assembly. Frederick Woolnough Paterson, of Bowen, served two terms from 1944 to 1950.

Street marches took place, including one where an unknown assailant struck Paterson while he had been trying to help an injured striker allegedly hit by police. Mounting tensions and heated exchanges became the order of the day.

Things came to a head during the strike with charges being laid against the supposed ringleaders under the Industrial Law (Anti-picketing) Amendment Act. Max Julius, a Brisbane barrister, Edward Englart, the Waterside Workers Union secretary, and Michael Healy, the Trades and Labour Council secretary, were fined a total of £350 by S. Wilson, Chief Stipendiary Magistrate, for aiding and abetting the strikers. They refused to pay and elected to serve the three months’ jail in default.

A few days later a mysterious envelope addressed to ’Dave Gledson, Attorney-General’ appeared at the department’s enquiries counter in the Treasury Building in Brisbane. It contained £350 in £10 notes. The covering letter said that the payment was for ’Maxy, Teddy and Mick’, and implored Gledson to ’let these men go back to their wives and families. This money will not do the government any good, anyway’. The three men were released immediately.

The then Premier, E.M. Hanlon, ordered a police investigation into the identity of the mysterious benefactor. The Communist paper, ’The Queensland Guardian’, ran headlines ’Hanlon pays fines’ and claimed that the money had been paid by ’an agent of the government’. The Deputy Premier and Treasurer, Vince Gair, took the line that the Communist Party had paid the fines ’to save face’ and that allegations that the government had paid the fines were ’ridiculous in the extreme’. No one ever found out the identity of the benefactor.