Larry Petrie (1859-1901)
Australian Revolutionist?
Bob James
[Reprinted from
Red and Black, an anarchist journal. Summer 1978-79]
Lawrence (Larry) D. Petrie (Larry de Petrie) (b. 1859, d. 1901)
was a warm hearted, warm blooded man eager to match his life with
his beliefs, impatient for change, and prepared to coax destiny
along with direct action. He participated in the formation of the
most significant radical groups in Melbourne and Sydney in the
period 1889 - 1893, and in a number of other not so radical, but
also important, organisations of the time. He was a participant in
the New Australia experiment and throughout a turbulent life
seems to have retained the respect and affection of most who knew
him. He wrote little about himself, and most information comes from
recollections of people who associated politically with him.
W.G. Spence recalls:
- "Petrie was a man of good education and it was stated that
he had an uncle, a Scotch baronet, though Larry never referred to
him; but was proud of an ancestor who cut off his thumb to avoid
being taken for a soldier by the press gang."
Jack Andrews:
- "I met him first at the Melbourne Anarchists Club. He was
also known as George Frederick Howard ..... the name Howard
adopted in deference to the wishes of a relative ..... in Scotland
to whom he had to look, when disabled in a carriage accident for
financial assistance. Later he found it convenient for the purpose
of breaking through the boycott which was being applied against
agitators. In fact, outside of the movement and of his circle of
old acquaintances it was the name by which he was known, and
nothing could be further from the truth than the impression that
in travelling on the 'Aramac' he assumed a fictitious
name, Howard, as a disguise for the occasion." (This was
claimed at the trial. See below.)
"I have known many rebels," said Ernie Lane in Dawn
to Dusk, "but Petrie, generous to an unbelievable extent,
was in the super-class. (He) used to sing in a good, baritone voice
The Marseillaise to gather a good crowd around him .... Raising his
only arm when he sang 'to arms, my citizens' was always good for a
laugh ..... In the Domain, on street corners and all the time Petrie
passionately called on the workers of Sydney to take up arms and man
the barricades. He would at the slightest provocation sing the
Marseillaise, his eyes flashing, and his black moustache bristling.
Both the cynical crowd and the police looked on Petrie as a joke,
and he was allowed to go on with his revolutionary outpourings."
(It will be argued elsewhere that Lane is mistaken in his sanguine
view of the relationship between Petrie and the authorities). "Yet",
continues Lane, "this wild rebel was appointed as Australian
Workers Union (AWU) Secretary-Organiser in Sydney, and even then the
AWU was certainly not a revolutionary body."
Beliefs:
- "....... We see fraud and oppression practised by means of
the law as well as by breaking it, and in fact on a larger and
more serious scale. But why should the words of a statute or
precedent be permitted to sanctify and give privilege to wrong?
The Anarchists simply contended that public opinion especially
when trained to a higher moral standard than that of mere
'legality' would be a truer guide than any set of laws and should
be relied on instead of enactments which can be twisted into means
of oppression." This was Petrie's Anarchism. He believed that
an armed revolt for the emancipation of the workers and the
regaining of the land and wealth now monopolised by a few, was a
matter of necessity. He was also in opposition to the majority of
members of the Club in being a Communist. They advocated "to
each according to his works" rent, profit and interest being,
not works, but robberies, but Petrie was too warm hearted to form
a social ideal based on accounts and arithmetic, however
equitable, and for him the vital principle was "from each
according to his capacity, to each according to his needs",
which he not only preached for the future but made the everyday
principle of his private life doing his best to help friends and
strangers in need, as well as the movementt, at any cost of
self-sacrifice.
Petrie himself wrote in the 'Liberator' of 26 February 1888:
- "There seems to be a general belief that we are opposed to
all Governments. Certainly we are opposed to all existing forms of
government. But you see, the only government we know is a mixture
of subjection, roguery and robbery. Governments of today govern
the people whereas our government is a government of the people,
for the people ..... We are credited with a passion for
destruction but I should like our opponents to note what we would
destroy - theft, slavery, misery and starvation of body and mind.
The doctrine of Anarchism is almost identical with the doctrine of
advanced Socialism, what some people call, Scientific Socialism
......"
Kenafick comments,
- "This (last) is a statement that might well be disputed by
both Anarchists and Scientific Socialists; and in fact, Petrie
himself seemed to have little clear realisation of theoretical
differences, for in May 1889, he helped to launch in Melbourne,
the organisation of the Knights of Labor which ..... was neither
anarchist nor Scientific Socialist and in July 1889 he also helped
to found the Social Democratic League, whose objectives were so
mild that they supplied the bulk of the Labor Party's platform
when it was founded in 1891."
Kenafick himself equates Communist Anarchism with the last and
logical stage of Marxian Socialism, but it is clear that Petrie
seems less concerned with ideological purity than with helping into
being organisations that might just push on the work of social
reform. It is in this light that the apparent conflict between
Andrew's:
- "the non-State Socialists Left" (when Rosa and
supporters altered the constitution of the Socialist League to
turn it into the milder Social Democratic Federation)
and Kenafick's above statement that:
- "Petrie helped the SDF into operation"
should be seen. Petrie was the sort of person who would remain
agreeable to both sides of a dispute within the camp of what he
would call socialism. The conflict will however bear further
research, especially in the area of Petrie's and Rosa's relations
with one another.
Petrie continued:
- "....... Life without Equality and Fraternity is a lie as
black as hell. And where is the government in the world where they
are supreme? Nowhere. And they are only possible under the
conditions of Socialism ..... Anarchists would govern by
conscience although they might use and advocate force to ensure an
earlier emancipation of Mankind."
Personal History:
I have no information about Petrie's arrival in Australia. He
describes the earliest part of his history this way:
- ".... When I was born, in 1859, the doctor declared I
couldn't live. I was supposed to die, mother gave in and I was
named George Frederick Augustus Howard Carlyle Petrie ......."
Later his mother christened him Lawrence ....... "My arm I
lost ..... (through a quarry) accident ..... shunting metal trucks
for W. Loud of Albert Park, Melbourne. On that occasion I also had
my ribs crushed ......" and a leg broken. The doctor wanted
to amputate his leg, but Larry refused, left the hospital and with
the aid of a lady friend saved the leg but the arm withered.
This probably occurred in the late 1880's.
Petrie is apparently a late-comer to the Melbourne Anarchist Club
(MAC), as Sam Rosa is, leading debates on 9th June 1888 on
'Anarchy', on 10 August 1888 'the Chinese', on 3rd November 1888 ("Individualism"
the topic) and 8th December 1888 ("Equity"). He spoke
frequently at the Queen's Wharf and 'travelled' in tea taking the
opportunity to talk with his customers about social change,
especially women in slum areas and prostitutes 'for whom he had
great sympathy.'
Andrews again:
- "One of the founders of the first Socialist League, a
broadly constituted body which was established when the Anarchist
Club had decayed through internal dissension and tendencies to
dogmatism ..... Petrie in this new role helped organise meetings
outside the Golden Fleece Hotel, (Russell Street, Melbourne). The
group did good propaganda work until the constitution was changed
by the State Socialist group led by S.A. Rosa." The non-State
Socialists dropped out at this point. "Petrie was also
instrumental in forming Melbourne's Knights of Labour and
endeavoured, without success, to institute a Six-Hours Movement."
The period 1890 - 1893 is of vital importance in considering
Petrie's anarchism, but there are still numerous gaps. It is
possible that he came to Sydney on the demise of the MAC, possibly
with Jack Andrews and helped organise the conspiratorial group which
met for a period near where the southern end of the Harbour Bridge
is now and which was broken up by a police raid or raids. He drifted
to country NSW where, at Berry Jerry Station, in a fight with a
non-unionist, his withered arm was broken again and "through
the meanness and anti-union spirit of the squatter who refused him a
vehicle" Larry had to ride a horse (lent by the shearers who
bought it from a passing traveller) 35 miles to Wagga Hospital. A
major operation was performed, the bone removed from the shoulder
joint and since he had nothing else with which to thank his nurse,
Petrie presented his 'angel' with the bone.
The Hummer records in early 1892 show that Petrie was
doing 'good work' for the Wagga Branch of the General Laborers Union
and 'Is down along the Corowa - Culcairn Line this week'. He later
came to Sydney where he roomed with Ernie Lane, and worked with Rose
Summerfield as secretary of the GLU. He is recorded as being at the
Australian Socialist League (ASL) May Day meeting in Sydney and
organising 'the women workers of Sydney, a good number of whom are
joining the Women's Division of the AWU'.
Besides 'soap-boxing' from May to September 1892, he debated the
relative merits of socialism and 'Georgism' with Bob McCook, a Henry
George supporter, in the columns of The Hummer and the (Sydney)
Worker.
When the GLU shifted Head Office to Sydney and became the AWU,
Petrie's services were 'no longer required' and he went to the
country with a mate, the latter doing odd jobs, sharpening saws,
etc, while Petrie secured the customers. Petrie indicates that
little if any work was found so he returned to Sydney, where he was
engaged by the AWU. Thus, in September 1892, he donated as
Organising Secretary for the AWU, a gold ring to the Union Prisoners
Assistance Fund to be raffled.
Conspiracies and Direct Action:
- "Unemployment and strike demonstrations were often held at
Queen's Statue and attempts to march on Parliament House were
invariably repulsed by strong bodies of police." (Dawn to
Dusk, p.42.)
The Sydney Morning Herald report of the May Day
Demonstration (May 2, 1892), (led into with sensationalist cable
items from France on bomb 'outrages' and alleged threats), is headed
'Revolutionary Speeches'. Included is the text of a motion moved by
Petrie as Organising Secretary of the GLU:
- "That this meeting affirms the resolution carried at the
International Labor Congress at Paris in the year 1889, viz, that
on the first day of May the workers should hold a demonstration to
show the solidity (sic) of labour throughout the world."
The report then paraphrases what Petrie said in support of the
motion:
- "At that present moment there were over 2,000,000 workers
in France celebrating that day and they were being assisted by the
women. It was the universal love for principles of socialism they
would assist in hurrying on revolution, which, although not
apparently a bloody revolution, was such because the workers were
bleeding through the hardships to which they had been subjected by
the capitalists."
Ernie Lane says that Petrie was of French ancestry on his father's
side and accordingly had a supreme contempt for the stolid British
worker whom he considered a slave. On one occasion when William Lane
(influential labour journalist) was in Sydney, he and Petrie argued
about the virtues (the militancy) of British and French workes. Lane
said, "Anyway, if you believe in revolution why don't you put
it into practice ...... go down George Street (Sydney's main street)
and build a little barricade of your own?"
Petrie, according to Ernie Lane replied, "I will, I will.
Within a year I will be in jail." (I don't know whether this is
a comment on the efficacy as well as the need for direct action or
not.)
Ernie Lane describes how he and Petrie used to multigraph, in the
AWU office, leaflets and appeals to the workers, generally strikers,
to take their courage in their hands and storm the capitalist
stronghold. At night they used to paste these appeals around Sydney.
Jack Andrews, Robert Beattie, Arthur Desmond and Joseph Schellenberg
are others whose involvement in these nocturnal activities can so
far be definitely established. Press notices provide the wording of
some of the pamphlets:
- The following revolutionary document was distributed in the
Sydney domain on Sunday last by somebody who evidently aspires to
be an Australian Ravachol:
Men of Australia !!
Why do we work and sweat and force ourselves into premature
graves, that our masters may revel in blind luxury and pass their
lives in idleness and splendour? We toil, not for ourselves, but
for them, and while our children grow into slaves and lackeys,
their children get all the riches of the earth, riches that are
produced by our labour.
Fellow Workers Arise !!
Let us throw off our vile apathy, hurl defiance at our robber
landlords, and throw in our lot with those who are fighting for
Justice! The cursed robbers that grind us down laugh at our woes
and prostitute our daughters. They are heartless, and when cold
want comes home to us, they help our starving families by throwing
a little charity at them, even as they would at a 'mongrel - yea,
look upon us as mongrels. They despise us, and would not save us
from damnation if it touched their interest in the least.
Agitate ! Organise ! Revolt !
Justice demands it for the sake of your wives and children.
Long live the Social Revolution !
- "A Ravacholist, on paper, pasted on the Sydney wharves
during the seamen's strike some manifestos to show Australian
capitalists that like causes are going to breed like effects
either side of the Line."
- "Here is another blood and thunder circular with the red
flag stuck glaringly in the centre, which has been distributed in
Sydney. Lots of smoke may mean some fire:
"No. 2 Leaflet - Fellow workers: Again we urge you to rise
from your apathy and fight hard for justice. Force, and force
only, can strike fear into the hearts of our oppressors. Moral
suasion and constitutional reform?
- One is still-born, the other an abortion. Not the ballot box
but the rifle and the -- alone can free us from our degrading
slavery. Remember Broken Hill. Behold the force lawless law
oppresses us with! !Prepare for the Revolution! Seize arms - buy
arms. But not afraid! Be men! and organise ! Agitate ! Revolt !"
- "The Queens' Statue, Chancery Square, Sydney is garnished
with yellow placards running:
"Anarchy is Liberty / Read 'News from Nowhere'"
I'm prepared to accept that these are the Lane-Petrie - etc.
pamphlets. The question then becomes whether Petrie was prepared to
practise what he preached. And if he was, and did, did he act alone
or as part of a group? If part of a group, which group, and who were
the other members of it?
Kenafick speculates that the strike years of the '90's brought out
Petrie's excitability and produced a more violent attitude than he
had in Melbourne. I'm inclined to the reverse of this idea, namely
that the use of the strike was a sign that the moderates were
already in the ascendancy, that the time had already passed when
direct action could have been expected to produce significant
change. For Andrews, Petrie was, in his Melbourne days, already an
'ardent revolutionist'. In Melbourne the Anarchist Club's the
logical place to look for plots and conspiracies, but in David
Andrade's hands it was always excessively open and moderate. (See
biog.) Not that this rules out secret plots. It would appear in fact
that the Club split over precisely this question, in the wake of the
Haymarket affair. This is discussed elsewhere. At the moment I have
no definite information to link Petrie with a 'gunpowder plot'
before he reached Sydney.
In this context, the Knights of Labor is intriguing. Originally a
secret industrial organisation of garment-cutters in the USA, its
secret rituals and structure paralleled the Lodges which were
spreading rapidly at the time. It may have been the conspiratorial
nature of the K of L which appealed, or it may be a sign of the
consciousness of the times.
In any event, I'm sure the following will bear closer scrutiny.
The seal attached to the copy of Secret Work and Instructions
for the K of L held in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, has:
- a circle containing an outline of the Americas overprinted 'AK
the 9th' and an equilateral triangle. Outside this is a 5 - sided
figure shaped rather like a letter-box. Outside this is a circle
inscribed 'Prytaneum North America, Jan lst, 1878'. Around that is
a 6 - sided figure, then a circle inscribed, "That is the
most perfect government in which an injury to one is the concern
of all", then come the points of a 5 - pointed star.
There are no references in the text to sabotage, violence or
industrial action. (See also p. 136, Labor's Pioneering Days).
In the Sydney of the strike period conspiratorial groups were
doubtless widespread. In one such group Petrie is listed along with
Ernie Lane, Ralph Baynham, (described as a 'revolutionary
anarchist') Sousa, and 'enthusiastic' Rose Summerfield. The
fictionalised group William Lane describes in Workingman's
Paradise is probably based on this group but the characters are
composites drawing on, as well as those already named, Henry Lawson,
Mary Gilmore, refugees from the Paris Commune and Mazzini's Italy,
the Rose Soleys, Phil May, E.J. Brady and Lane himself.
The Active Service Brigade is the most likely group to have
produced the above pamphlets but in its early days, 1892 say, it was
not a very coherent group at all. Later, Ernie Lane appears not to
have been associated and neither was Petrie. A further section will
deal with the ASB in detail.
Mary Gilmore, first woman member of the AWU and a member of its
Executive provided insights into her views on direct action when she
told (National Times, May 6 - 11 1974) of an earlier
unsuccessful attempt to blow up Circular Quay involving Petrie. No
date is given, but it's probably 1892.
- "In the early movement there were those who advocated
violence. I was against it, yet even the violent trusted me and so
I was told by poor Larry Petrie that he had planted a bomb in the
outfall vent on the righthand side of Circular Quay to blow up the
shipping and that part of the Quay. I told W.G. Spence. 'The
fools', he exclaimed, 'they will have the Red Coats out on us'.
It was arranged that I, J. C. Watson and Arthur Rae were to go
to the Quay ..... My part was to walk along in front of the
Customs House till opposite the spot, and then leave, so that I
would not be implicated if arrests followed.
When it came to dark the men met at the sewer, and Arthur
being the small one, had to crawl in and get the bomb. When he
came out with (it) and stood up, white-faced and shaking, he
said, "I never knew before why God made me so small but I
know now."
After telling Ernie Lane he was off to blow up a non-union ship,
Petrie booked a passage on the S.S. 'Aramac'. On board at
midnight on 27 July near the entrance to Moreton Bay there was a
tremendous explosion in the forecabin. "The funny thing was"
said Petrie some years later, "that the moment the bomb went
off my first and only thought was to save people's lives."
Fortunately there was no need to save anyone. A pillar of flame shot
through the roof of the cabin and two women nearby were slightly
injured. Petrie's presence on deck immediately afterwards,
especially since the companionway was blocked with debris, aroused
suspicion, his 'fake' name did also, and he was arrested as soon as
the ship berthed and charged with attempted murder.
Some of the significance of this explosion can be seen from the
uses to which it was put. The Sydney Morning Herald
editorialised on the 4th August 1893 that:
- "....... The Aramac explosion makes the eighth
trouble on board ship within almost as many days. The Burrumbeet
and the Sydney dynamite incidents ..... then came an
extra-ordinary accident between the Ellingamite and the
Guilding Star, the latter vessel foundering .... Next the
wreck ..... of the steamer Hilda ..... and the blow up of
the barque Argo in Sydney Harbour are occurences the
origin of which continue to be regarded by many persons with grave
misgivings; and latterly the sinking of the steamer Franklin
at Townsville, and the accident to the Corea. Such a
Chapter of maritime disasters is probably unparalleled in
Australian shipping history within the same short period."
Attempting to set the scene, a week earlier the same paper had
said;
- "....... In some circles it (the Aramac explosion)
is held to be the death-knell of unionism in the colonies."
(p.5, 31 July 1893).
Petrie was well-known to both Henry Lawson and Mary Gilmore was
probably a good friend but his 'case' was additionally important to
them. Dame Mary tells of writing a poem about an incident in
Petrie's bush career while he was in jail, on suspicion of blowing
up the 'Aramac'. This poem begins "The crows kep'
flyin' up, boys!" and is the poem, according to the authoress (Adelaide
Register, August 30, 1924) that Lawson was so affected by that
he came to her house in City Road, "with a trembling lip".
In his hand, he held the cutting he had torn from The Worker,
9 Sept., 1893). "You have beaten me on my own ground .....
there isn't room for both of us. One of us must give up ....."
Although Lawson wished to give up for her, after a protracted
argument, complicated by their emotional regard for each other, she
finally convinced him that she would give up the style and content
for him, but she also prevailed on him at this time to "cease
writing revolution, and write Australia". Whatever else may be
said about the reminiscence, Dame Mary had the wrong ship (she says
The Warrego) and the wrong year (1890). Professor Roderick
in his The Formative Years of Henry Lawson, where he says
Lawson met Petrie at Leigh House, repeats the above story, but
elsewhere in the same article refers to the boat as the 'Aramac'
and provides the correct date of July 1893. Sylvia Lawson repeats
the story in her biography of Mary Gilmore and provides many of the
words.
Lawson, for his part, quotes the poem as 'an (anonymous) old bush
song' in The Hero of Dingo Scrubs the plot of which bears
marked resemblance to that of the poem.
The Government Analyst's report said that he examined tin and hair
found at the scene (of the Aramac explosion) and 'found a
soapy looking substance which proved to be gelatine dynamite.' A
second parcel showed traces of tar as of a fuse. Gelatine dynamite
consisted of gun cotton and nitroglycerine, also nitrate of potash
and wood meal.
- According to The Bulletin of 2nd September 1893, p.8
(with Petrie 's photo)
"So far, the suspicions against the accused seem chiefly to
rest on some wild , bilious remarks he made months ago in Sydney
against 'double breasted parasites' and an expressed yearning for
explosives, in order 'to make an example of some of the
plutocrats'."
Arthur Rae, Ernie Lane and others raised money for his defence
and engaged as solicitor Marshall Lyle, who if not a committed
member (Ernie says he was a member) had certainly attended
Anarchist Club meetings in Melbourne, probably was Andrews'
contact with the Criminological Society and was known for his
progressive views. He also wrote that he thought Petrie wouldn't
hurt a fly. At the police court hearing Petrie claimed he was in
his bunk at the time of the explosion. He was committed for
trial.
"All the prosecution needed was evidence of where Petrie had
obtained the explosives," according to J.D (an anonymous
contributor to Tocsin) "..... All the detectives seemed
to be able to do was to go around the Sydney explosives stores and
ask who had bought dynamite. As if a real anarchist would buy
dynamite while Government blasting operations were in progress in
half a dozen Sydney suburbs, and the storeman in charge o'nights
could be enticed to an adjacent corner hostelry for a much needed
drink." Despite constant postponements, apparently the best the
government could come up with was a man called Fitzpatrick who was
prepared to swear Petrie had offered him bribes for dynamite. Arthur
Rae got wind of this, was able to show the Attorney-General that
Fitzpatrick must be lying, threatened a public exposure of police
malpractice, so the Attorney-General filed a No-True Bill and Petrie
was discharged.
Whilst in jail Larry told those in charge that if the Premier of
Queensland would come to see him he, Larry, would tell him who was
responsible for the blowing up of the Aramac. The Premier
was told and he visited the gaol and interviewed Larry who told him
that it was he (the Premier) and his colleagues in the Queensland
Parliament who wore responsible. By their attitude towards the
working classes and their tyranny generally they drove men to
anarchy, etc.
The (Brisbane) Worker editorialised that the evidence
available in the Aramac explosion pointed 'to a put up job'.
It then went on to quote Petrie, as interviewed on his release:
- "I know absolutely nothing of the cause of the explosion
.... I was astonished to hear that a tin cannister was found in my
trunk. I had at no time either in my trunk or luggage anything of
the kind, or any explosive. Had I such a thing I would not be at
liberty today ....."
"Fitzpatrick I know ..... He was recommended to me by Mr.
T. Houghton, MLA, as a useful man to whom I might give credit
books for the purpose of enrolling men in the GLU .....
Fitzpatrick appeared glad to take the books, and enrolled
several members. I cannot think what possessed him to fabricate
such a story ..... unless it (was a 1arge reward).
"My one arm should show them that I couldn't carry about
heavy explosives without being detected by some person ......."
"I consider myself badly treated by authorities ......."
not by gaol warders he said, but by prison officials who tried
fear, bribery (250 pounds and a free pardon) to get evidence
implicating someone. He was in solitary for 4 weeks, fed only on
bread and water, and when he complained he was put in with a
'forger' who urged him to accept the bribe, (Petrie thought him
a detective) and allowed other food if he paid for it. He
complained again, he was moved to another gaol and his treatment
improved. All told he was in prison 10 weeks and Andrews says
his health was damaged as a result.
The article concludes with a letter from Marshall Lyle
(Melbourne, Aug. 15, 1893). It says in part, after declaring
belief in Petrie's innocence,
"Your work among the outcasts and the poor in Melbourne
was well known to me, and indeed to all interested in
philanthropic work. ..... anything I can do for you I gladly
will...."
It is significant that Active Service Brigade (ASB) leaflets begin
appearing in Brisbane upon Petrie's release. They are reported in
New Zealand and in the (Brisbane) Worker of November 25,
1893, which reprints a pamphlet from the Brisbane Courier:-
"Bushmen, mates, whose
joyless lives excite the sympathy of all true men, let me address
you. The squatter kings, callous and brutal, intend to try to
reduce your wages from the beginning of 1894 .... (moral
suasion a fraud - continues - BJ) ..... you must strike -
and with a 'little devil' make it uncomfortable for the squatter
or his manager to live in the bush ..... How are you to do it? You
know how. One man can do the work if he likes. It is not necessary
to have a million. But do not take too many into your confidence
..... Finally, avoid injuring innocent people .....
By Order, Active Service Brigade, Queensland, 9th November, 1893."
|
The (Brisbane) Worker comments, that this suggestion is no
surprise since the squatters' methods of blacklisting, victimising
and the unjust reference system have intimidated men from combining
openly and there is nothing left for some men but secret
organisation ..... The (Brisbane) Worker advises the Courier
and others to 'discourage grinding of poor, etc, in order to
discourage Ravachol - type people from appearing.
Andrews later provided, in Petrie's defence, some further
background:
- "As told in the Tocsin about a year ago, there had
been for some months a capitalistic move to create a dynamite
scare for financial reasons, and certain agitators had received
warning, confidentially, that they would be the ones upon whom the
guilt of what was to he done would be thrown when "it would
not be Chicago, this time, but Sydney". It was ascertained
that Petrie was one of these probable victims and he was implored
to be cautious, lest he should be led into some compromising
action, for which he was hot-headed and bold enough, but he
laughed at the forebodings. (The methods of the enemy were two;
they worked by pimps, and by fizgigs or agent provocateurs. A pimp
creates actual circumstantial evidence of a kind that will appear
to corroborate a false accusation intended to be made. Thus, the
Frenchman, a detective's employee who endeavoured on the pretence
that he had made an invention which he wanted to place on the
market, but did not know the English names of the chemicals, to
get from me a recipe for an explosive in my handwriting was a
pimp; whilst he who seeks to induce or inspire someone to really
do something, with a view to arresting him for it, is a fizgig,
or, if the object is less the arrest of the person doing the deed
than to create a pretext for general repressive measures, an agent
provocateur). About 7 months later came this Aramac case."
Andrews then describes Petrie's defence and goes on "and as 3
or 4 people made precisely similar overtures to members of the ASB,
Petrie's version bears the hallmark of exact truth ......."
"The last time I saw him was just prior to the Royal Tar's
(second) departure." Andrews was just out of gaol after 3
months' sentence for not having the 'correct' information on his
Handbook of Anarchy, and Petrie said to him as parting
words, "You see, it's better to be prosecuted for something."
This could be taken to mean he did blow up the Aramac but
Jack Andrews sees it otherwise "....... as meaning that a
serious charge cannot be so readily dealt with in a prejudiced
manner, with out fair trial, or made the means of a prosecuting
conviction as a trivial and technical one. He made no statement
whatever as to what had occurred on the Aramac .... it could
have been him, perhaps provoked by agent provocateurs or perhaps he
didn't want to remove suspicion from himself because that would have
meant someone else." Andrews' strenuous attempts to
disassociate Petrie from the explosion are very interesting, as, if
there is any substance to the police reports of secret
organisational documents speaking of murder, etc. (see Andrews
biography) he is the person most centrally involved. In the Tocsin
of June 27, 1901, to J.D., he says,
- "We could name (the agent provocateurs) if it would do any
good; suffice it however to say that Desmond showed that some
sixty thousand pounds of secret service money had been already
expended in Sydney some time before the Aramac affair. As
to the latter we know positively of half-a-dozen or so attempts to
egg various other people on to use dynamite, three attempts to
manufacture false charges of using it by means of artfully
contrived misleading appearances, and one case of a wilfully false
accusation being laid for the purpose of getting rewarded with a
Government billet, whilst a couple of petty explosions that
occurred on shipboard were attributed by public opinion to the
shipowners themselves. Petrie may have had 'something' to do with
the Aramac explosion, but if so the primary moral
responsibility was elsewhere and there are serious reasons for
believing that his physical responsibility was, at any rate, much
less than you suppose."
J.D. had also contended that Petrie naturally lost many friends by
his "posed connection with the outrage but this seems doubtful.
It's clear from constant references in the labor press that he was a
well-known and respected figure and that this regard preceded him to
North America. Macarthur of the Coast Seamen's Journal, San
Francisco, in his 'American Letter' for the Australian Workman,
September 22, 1894 says "Larry Petrie not yet arrived, when he
does I will do all I can for him." Judging from his letters
Petrie was good friends with Mrs Cameron, Mary Gilmore's mother and
in one letter he implies that she gave him a fortune-telling before
he left Sydney. Souter recalls him singing 'con brio' in the
McNaught's parlour at Hunter's Hill (Sydney) the song "The Men
of the New Australia' written in 1893 by Mary Cameron (Gilmore) and
A.E. Mason-Beatty. Petrie says he received a warm invitation from
Cosme io join them when on his way there and there is no
reason to dispute he received just that. He clearly retained
Spence's affection and that of Sam Smith, Seamen's Union official.
According to J.D. he reckoned on losing friends ....... "If
the ship had gone down, so would I; then my friends could only have
shown their disapproval by refusing to wear mourning. I daresay my
wraith would not have wept therefore."
J. D. appears to have the final say on the Aramac
explosion, however. "He long afterwards calmly told (the
writer) ..... that he expected the vessel to become a total wreck,
but that the bomb (if it was a bomb) had partially failed because of
the absence of weight on its top side."
Petrie came out of gaol approximately 11 October, 1893. Andrews
again, "After this Petrie came to Melbourne where he had hard
times with poverty and ill-health. He wandered about for a while and
eventually made arrangements to join New Australia.
New Australia - An Anarchist Utopia?
That three of the above press reports of 'Anarchist' handbills
appeared in the (Brisbane) Worker is just one of the links
of this philosophy to William Lane. He had by mid-1892 resigned as
editor to co-ordinate the New Australia, a settlement in
Paraguy, but was still contributing items. Working Man's
Paradise, published early in 1892, shows Lane's belief that
anarchism is the noblest social philosophy of all, and through the
novel's philosopher, Geisner, he relates his belief that society may
have to go through a period of State Socialism to achieve the higher
ideal of Communist Anarchism. Geisner is a refugee from the Paris
Commune (Lloyd Ross says the father of one of Lane's friends was
such a refugee - Kenafick chapter 9, p. xxvii). He has the following
conversation with the hero Ned (partly based on Lawson, according to
Kenafick) beginning by telling Ned 'Where The Evil Lies' and
contrasting State Socialism to 'anarchical communism' based upon
'voluntarism and opposed to force whether of governments or
otherwise'.
| Ned: |
"Then Anarchists aren't
wicked men?" |
| Geisner: |
"The
Anarchist ideal is the highest and noblest of all human ideals. I
cannot conceive of a good man who does not recognise that when he
once understands it. The Anarchical Communists simply seek that
men should live in peace and concord, of their own better nature.
without being forced, doing harm to no one, and being harmed by
no-one. Of course the blind revolt against oppressive and unjust
laws and tyrannical governments has become associated with
Anarchy, but those who abuse it simply don't know what they do.
Anarchical Communism, that is, men working as mates and sharing
with one another of their own free will is the highest conceivable
form of Socialism in industry." |
| Ned: |
"Are you an Anarchist?"
|
| Geisner: |
"No. I recognise their
ideal, understand that it is the only natural condition for a
community of general intelligence and fair moral health, and look
to the time when it will be instituted. I freely admit it is the
only form of Socialism possible among the Socialists. But the
world is full of mentally and morally and socially diseased people
who, I believe, must go through the school of State Socialism
before, as a great mass, they are true Socialists, and fit for
voluntary Socialism." |
It is interesting to note that Mary Gilmore (used to model the
heroine Nelly) wrote to Kenafick saying that 'the whole book is true
and of historical value as Lane transcribed our conversations as
well as those of others'. It is also interesting to note that
Kenafick's equation of ultimate Socialism with Communist-Anarchism
parallels that of Lane though Kenafick says Lane's knowledge of Marx
is minimal and probably hadn't penetrated. Kenafick of course is the
author of Marx and Bakunin and was very widely read in
Socialist literature, in French as well as English. Just before Lane
resigned the editorship to co-ordinate New Australia, the
(Brisbane) Worker began to publish 'The Communist
Manifesto'.
It is reasonable to speculate that Lane had an anarchist utopia in
mind when thinking of and planning New Australia. Note that
Petrie, Robert Beattie (see biog.), the two Lanes, Mary Gilmore and
Rose Summerfield all went to New Australia. (Henry Lawson
wanted to go, but as with Ernie Lane in 1893, had no money for the
fare, and thought of stowing away.) A number of writers on New
Australia have referred to the major ideological conflict in the
settlement as being between a group they call anarchists and others.
Because of anarchists' anti-State view, the Paraguayan settlement
is also important as showing the appearance of disillusion among
certain more aware activists about the efficacy of the parliamentary
road to social justice. Just as the labour movement and attempts to
have labour representatives in the legislatures are part of a world
wide phenomenon, the disillusion is also expressed at the same time
in Australia as elsewhere. In Australia, just as the Royal Tar
leaves for Paraguay, David Andrade leaves Melbourne for the
Dandenongs to effect his communal utopianism (approximately 85 other
groups in Victoria alone) while numerous other settlements are
attempted around Australia including a remnant of the Barcaldine
shearers' camp which is settled near the Alice River. Significantly,
Lawson goes to New Zealand and Jack Andrews tries the hermit life on
Bombira Hill.
Not all the disillusioned thought as Petrie did. In the same issue
of the (Brisbane) Worker that carries Petrie's donation of a
ring for a raffle, Gilbert Casey, later to lead a secession from the
New Australia settlement, blasts the proponents of physical
force:-
- "Physical force, bah! It is the greatest jobbery, the most
stupendous tommyrot imaginable. The men who talk revolution are in
many cases the cowards who dare not call their own ... if they
have not the heart to do that which is near them and easy, is it
likely that they will be courageous enough to do that which is
hard ......."
Whether this difference of opinion has any significance for events
in South America is again speculation. Petrie describes Casey as
having 'become quite an anarchist' in a letter to Spence, 4 August
1899. In any event no glory accrues to anarchism even should New
Australia be validly claimed as an anarchist colony; the colony
failed, Lane capitulated and hardly practised anarchist theory in
any case.
Petrie travelled to Honolulu on the 'Royal Tar's' charter voyage
(carrying coal) in 1894 and arrived in time to join (unsuccessfully)
in a revolution, but escaped arrest and worked his way to San
Francisco. Sam Smith, Secretary of the Seamen's Union had given him
letters of introduction and these helped him to some extent, in both
San Francisco and New York, but his own spirit was what counted.
Riding the rattler, 'packed in among the merchandise on freight
trucks and hairbreadth escapes from heavily booted and irate railway
conductors were just some of the hazards of travel on the North
American continent of the time. In a letter enclosing Petrie's to
Spence because Larry had no money for a stamp to Australia,
Macarthur said Petrie stayed some months in San Francisco .....
- "working hard at odd jobs (including selling shoe laces in
the street - J. D. ). He made a good impression upon the trade
unionists in this locality as a man of courage and sincerity.
..... Since he left San Francisco he has tramped across the
country, footsore, cold and hungry, a great part of the time, to
say nothing of the indignities of tramp ordinances in some
places. He has had a terrible time of it that only a man of his
indomitable grit could have withstood."
In New Orleans he was befriended by a church sexton and his
family, and in New York after being hassled by non-unionists and the
authorities and appealing to Spence for help, he obtained a berth on
a ship going south.
In September, 1896, he was able to write to Spence from Cosme;
- "Communism is alright ..... I do not mean to say that we
are perfect but I do say that I have not felt mad with anyone
except myself since my arrival."
He rapidly became part of the work and social activities, e.g., he
lectured to the Literary and Social Union on Fiji and Hawaii.
Mary Gilmore at this time was equally optimistic about the
settlement but for her, Petrie, Rose Summerfield and many others,
the charm didn't last. Fittingly, the point of contention was
authority. Letters from many of the participants clearly show that
the people disillusioned with William Lane expected a more
democratic form of decision-making, in other words
libertarian-communism.
When New Australia divided and William Lane and his supporters
began again at Cosme, ostensibly over the expulsion of Sims
and Pinder(?) for drinking in 1899(?), Petrie sided with the Gilbert
Casey (?) group. He kept on good terms with some Cosme
people, often being mentioned in Cosme News. He wrote
letters to Australian friends which are among the most telling
criticisms of the experiment:
- "Whiffs of dogma, stacks of selfishness, yards of words,
and absolutely no liberty" was how he described Cosme
in 1898.
"Therefore as my ideas and the ways of Cosme did
not harmonise I got." His opinion of William Lane was even
worse. "He is a madman" wrote Petrie to W.G. Spence, "a
knave seized with the madness of ambition, overpowered with a
sense of the divinity of himself and his mission, and for that
he will barter truth, justice and the whole world plus the
handful of bigots he terms the faithful. I believe everybody can
perceive how shamefully he betrays his friends, cheerfully
leaving them to bear a burden of reproach which he at least
should share." Although "all the cream of the movement"
had gone, he felt confident after a few months there that "time
and a gradual increase of population will find us nearer our old
ideals than all the law and compelled communism of Cosme
will ever achieve."
J. D. concluded his reminiscences this way:
- "Two years' communism was more than enough for the
restless firebrand, and he went out into the world again. He got a
situation as railway watchman at Villa Rica, and expected to
shortly have enough money saved to take unto himself 'with my one
remaining arm', a soft-eyed Paraguayan wife. 'I am now,' he wrote
quite recently, 'Senor Lorenzo de Petrie, and am almost persuaded
to become an individualist. But I guess I'll be a one-winged angel
first.' He probably guessed correctly."
One day in March, 1901, he jumped onto the line to push a child
out of the path of an on-coming train and was killed himself. His
body was claimed by Mrs. Rose Cadogan (Summerfield).
