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The miner's oath is empty rhetoric to most Victorians especially Premiers Steven Bracks and John Brumby. They have paved the road to hell with misguided and ignorant good intentions. They have already done a lot to destroy democracy in Victoria by such actions as making secret deals with the Police Union against the Westminster doctrine of the separation of powers. The Bracks/Brumby government has banned free speech on religion in the Bracks/Brumby fire sale of civil liberties.
How would the miners react to being made to supply police with a blood sample after an error prone saliva test for drugs?
Any racial jokes, like Irish jokes could now be illegal. An Irishman walks into a bar... "Six months jail". Bracks has banned Catholics speaking about Islam. If Sharia law were imposed we would be unable to criticize it under Section 8. Catholics have been banned from speaking about Islam. If you cannot act yourself to stand together to defend our rights and liberties, please support those who do stand against the Bracks/Brumby government's constant moves to abolish our rights and liberties.
All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing.
One of the peaks of success for the miners was in 1851 at Golden Point where miners were able to average 10oz a day per man.
In 2007 prices gold is not far from $800 Australian dollars an ounce. About $6,000 dollars per day per miner. Prices paid on the goldfields however were about 25% lower than they were in England and some miners sold their gold in England by sending it on the long voyage in order to be paid the best price.
There were depressions and some quiet times in Ballarat after surface alluvial gold could not be found and before the miners dug through basalt rock to new rich gutters of gold at 90 ft under the ground. Mining was an adult male dominated working environment. Drinking at sly grog tents was a panacea, some visitors estimated that every third tent sold alcohol. In earlier Australian history, rum had been the preferred currency. Every sailor in the Royal British navy, was issued with a pint of rum a day, enough to get half a dozen people over .05 blood alcohol content every-day.
Politically and legally, women were treated as second class citizens. By 1854 there were 4,023 women on the Ballarat goldfields, compared to 12,660 men, - 208 women were in paid employment. The majority of these were domestic servants, 8% were storekeepers and others were needlewomen, dressmakers, milliners and shoe-binders. Only 5% of all women were single. There were only about 200 single women in Ballarat in 1854!
Even the BALLARAT REFORM LEAGUE was asking for "manhood" suffrage, not universal suffrage for women as well! Australia was a pioneer in universal suffrage, but half a century later. Women were not considered on the goldfields, they did not even need to buy a miners licence to mine gold. Conditions for women must have been very bad indeed? What was the infant mortality rate, medical records were not kept until 1867!
Dissentry was rife, especially in the summer due to the bad water and the population also suffered from malnutrition and scurvey due to a lack of fresh vegetables. Conditions improved in 1854 when publicans such as Bath plowed fifty acres and planted vegetables. In April 1854 many miners built log huts to protect them from the Ballarat winters.
Hard work by day, blazing fire in the evening, and sound sleep by night at the music of drunken quarrels all around.
The Goldfields Police
Some of the earliest police appointed in 1851 to the goldfields were aborigines who were largely uninterested in prospecting for gold. The police were able to make money as they were able to keep half the fines imposed on sly grog sellers and those who did not have a miner's licence. This provided them with an incentive to be harsh. There was a prohibition on alcohol on the goldfields which caused as much unrest as the miners licence fees.
Most police were signed up without question and many of them were failed new chums who had failed as miners. Many refused to follow orders. There were no provision for locking up prisoners and the miners was outraged that men could be chained all night to a tree in the Ballarat winter.
The Irish especially had historical reasons to resent English oppression more than most. From struggles and rebellions in Ireland, many Irish rebels were sent to Australia.
The were many rebellions by convicts and decades later, by miners. The seeds of dissent were always there against English rule, even in England itself with the Chartist movement members among the miners, or in France, with the revolution of 1848.
The year before the Eureka Stockade, a large peaceful protest was held in Bendigo, against miner's licence fees and English rule. Even the English and Irish diggers could not agree, hundreds of them had an all in brawl in Ballarat on 9th and 10th December 1853.
It took a year for the strong emotions in the peaceful Bendigo protest to turn into angry contempt against brutal police authority, harsh English colonial government taxing, and no political representation.
A Miner's Licence allowed a miner to work a 12 foot square claim for 30 shillings a month ( a large sum at the time ).
This discount was available of three months for two pounds.
Travel to buy the claim could involve two days walking.
The police would conduct licence hunts on the goldfields, chasing miners everywhere and jailing them for not having a miner's right and extorting up to five pounds for their release on bail. The gold commission and police authority, were both brutal and corrupt. The harsh Gold Commissioner, Robert Rede later presided over the hanging of Ned Kelly in 1880.
Both the miners on trial for treason and later Ned Kelly, had the same judge Redmond Barry, the miners were acquitted, but a 30 thousand signature petition to request Ned's release had no effect on the hanging judge, Redmond Barry, a philandering and harsh judge by some accounts. As Geoffry Blainey commented, we wouldn't remember Ned Kelly, if he ended up as Beechworth Mayor!
Summary of factors which led to the building of a stockade.
AN inquiry into conditions on the goldfields met at Bath's Hotel from November 2nd to the 10th 1854. The inquiry interviewed 58 witnesses and listed complaints about goldfields officials, but almost all the complaints were dismissed. The most pressing grievances were:
Licence hunting
The sly grog conviction and six months jail of a miner Carey
The case of Father Smyth's servant
The trail of James Bentley
Major factors leading to the building of the stockade were:
Expensive Miners licence fees
The Prohibition on alcohol
The first acquittal of James Bentley of murder charges
Twice weekly licence hunts ordered by Hotham breaking his promise
Maladministration by Commissioners Rede and Johnstone and police corruption
Harsh policing of miner's rights and sly grog sellers
The Influence of British Chartists demanding manhood suffrage
The Influence of American miners demanding independance from Britain
In the aftermath of the battle, the traps started bayonetting anyone in the area. The brutality of police brought the population to support the miners who they previously regarded as rogue elements. Some groups are still demanding an apology from the police for their brutal role in the killing of unarmed miners. Time for an apology. This is not likely given the insanity of today's corrupt Victorian police culture, instead of an apology they deny any wrong doing by police. After the Eureka battle was over, innocent bystanders were killed, see Michael Tuohy's account of blood-thirsty scoundrels. The police also set fire to the miner's tents and destroyed all they could find.
After the battle was over and won, police brutality murdered unarmed men and women. Many elements of society considered the miners to be lawless elements, until the police violence caused the population to turn against them. The miner's were acquitted by a jury as they had the public's support.
There were protest meetings to support the miners in Geelong Melbourne and Ballarat. Public support was overwhelming.
Carboni was the leader of the International brigade of men from many different non-English speaking countries. He was well educated and we are lucky and grateful to him to have his account. He was Italian, but also spoke French,Spanish,German, and some Latin; compared to most miners he was an intellectual aristocrat, great with a latin quote, but perhaps not much help in a fight.
He described himself as a, (1850) Bloomsbury Square professor and interpreter of the above languages.
Carboni seems almost like a by-stander dragged along into recording his view to vindicate his actions rather than being a passionate revolutionary, he was one of the only highly literate eye witnesses who recorded in some volume, his memory of the events.
His account was written a year after the Stockade and he has a particular view and personal motives for writing his account to exonerate himself morally from any involvement with the miners and to defend himself from aggressive newspaper reports. His personal account is not one from an objective historian. He is writing his own moral defence, after being acquitted of treason and tried by the press.
Rene Carton, a relative who knew Carboni's cell-mate Michael Tuohy, said that Michael always spoke well of Carboni and we know that Tuohy was not shy about speaking up against injustice. Michael Tuohy would probably be arrested under 2005 Australian sedition laws.
Carboni portrayed a public contempt for old England, but was privately impressed by and tried to impress the educated and cultural elite.
By 1800, it was common to use the art of physiogomy-reading a person's character by their physical features. This was expanded on by Franz Gall (1758-1828) to reading 27 personality traits from bumps on the head. This theory was thoroughly discredited by Pierre Flourens (1794-1867) with a series of experiments in the 1820s.
From a modern day psychological personality theory point-of-view, Carboni's description of participant's personalities describes their looks rather than behaviour. He does not mention the theory as it had existed for 30 years when Carboni would have been a student. It was common practice to evaluate personality on looks alone, rather than behaviour. Phrenology was supported as the science of the day. It went much further than judging on looks, stating that various areas of the skull shape determined many aspects of personality and behaviour. Carboni appears to be using phrenology to evaluate others.
Phrenology Reading personality from bumps on the head.
They were correct about one thing, there are discrete areas of the brain optimised for different physical and mental tasks, such as the frontal lobe being more verb orientated and nouns being further back towards the temporal lobe. The real localisation of function is fluid and neurons can change their links. The neural biology underlying the skull though, has no relationship with external skeletal shape. This view survives today in stereotyped beliefs, e.g. that attractive people are often assessed as also being more intelligent.
Personality characteristics localised by phrenology have nothing to do with the actual neural speciality for that area.
Is Carboni seeing things?
If you follow the link to the phrenology site, have a look at the categories that are located. There are about 30 regions identified, none of them in the classical description of phrenology have characteristics of "dreaming" or mention the plough as associated with dreaming. The frontal areas are approximately from the forehead down XIII-benevolence, XXX-comparison, XXIV-space, XIX-individuality, X-self love.
Carboni was using the deterministic philosophy to evaluate others, but he did not really know anything about phrenology as it was then expoused to explain human behaviour. Mention of dreams came about 60 years later with Freud and notions of an uncouncious element in behaviour
If he was a "Professor" as he claims, he could easily have discovered Pierre Flouren's experiments, disproving the link between external appearance and personality.
He also states that he has observed the British in London and they have a "Characteristic to make fun of the calamity of fire." He seemed to miss the point that the Bentley Hotel fire was revenge for the murder of a miner alleged to be James Scobie, how the revenge occurred was probably immaterial to the miners. Indeed the murder of Scobie may have been a complete fiction as recounted by Catherine Bentley who wrote that Scobie was spirited out of Ballarat to disguise the murder of another miner named Martin who was killed in a claim jumping war. Would anyone rational, in 2004, state this of the British, that they enjoy the calamity of fire? Maybe! Guy Fawke's night supports his case, this 5th November, be on the lookout for British arsonists. He spends half a page mesmerised on the "ashes" of Bentley's Hotel, but says almost nothing on the significance of the revenge taken by the miners.
Manin, who had been the leader of the Venetian Republic in defiance of Austria during 1848-9, signalled a conditional acceptance of Italian monarchy in the Italian peninsula in a statement addressed to Victor Emmanuel II which appeared in the Italian Republican press in September 1855.
"If regenerated Italy must have a king, there must be only one, and that one the king of Piedmont ... Convinced that before everything else we must make Italy, as that is the principal question, superior to all others, it (the republican party) says to the House of Savoy: 'Make Italy and I am with you. If not, not."
The sympathies of many in the Italian peninsula who were supportive of a more politically integrated "Italia" found a potent leadership after July 1857 when Manin, a Lombard nobleman named Giorgio Pallavicino, and a Sicilian named Giuseppe La Farina founded the National Society. This society hoped to achieve "the marriage of the Italian insurrection to the army of Piedmont" and took as its slogan "Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy" in the hope that monarchists, federalists, liberals and also those disenchanted with Mazzini's hitherto unavailing leadership of "Italian" republicanism could unite under a common cause.
Carboni seems to be in the Manin mould, according to which he would limit the scope of the miner's claim, to be pragmatic and try to have everyone on board, royals and all. But he was not even interested in suffrage. He could play both sides of the fence. He also criticizes Father Smyth for the letter of support he wrote to Hotham on the day he addressed the miners, but he did little more himself and when the attack came, he may have stood by clutching his licence when the soldiers attacked.
There were reports he wrote himself, that he attended to the wounded, but why did he not burn his licence and fight himself?
There seems to be a lack of consistent chronologically ordered historical references to Eureka, that the Stockade was forgotten, maybe even a cause for shame soon after the event. There was opposition to any celebration of Eureka.
A similar thing happened after the Vinegar Hill rebellion in Sydney in 1804, authorities tried to expunge that rebellion from history and it was only recently researched, documented and remembered.
After the initial euphoria and changes to Victorian government, "the results of the stockade", it seems to not be mentioned much again until four decades later, until the 1890's when Mark Twain called it the finest thing in Australian history.
Maybe we needed an American aware of British colonial domination to point that out for us, but a preliminary search of papers from 1854-1900 show there was opposition to celebrating a rebellion?
Eureka has only become fashionable in modern times, the fact was that the miners got a beating which was not something to celebrate in itself. Thomas Hanrahan's father Michael Hanrahan had been a leader at the Eureka Stockade 1854, but his son Thomas never heard his father speak about it at all. Thomas also was not one to converse with his sons. The boys often obtained information from uncle Michael (1872) and Dan. Was Michael Hanrahan the same. One example where he seems to have been, was regarding the death of his brother Thomas in 1901 who died by suicide which was not spoken of to later generations, perhaps for religious reasons as well?
The stockade seems to have been a cause for shame contrary to Mark Twain's (Samuel Longhorn Clemens) observations.
Perhaps he associated with the more liberal elements of Melbourne and Ballarat on his visit?
Maybe Mark Twain missed the Catholic influence of the condemnation of violence or the social trauma caused against King and country by the rebellion. Caroline Chisholm had expressed sympathy for the diggers, but likewise condemned the rebellion which had "stained the hands of the people with blood". Michael Hanrahan's wife Mary would surely have known the Catholic Priest, the fact that two of her daughters became nuns, leads to the conclusion that maybe Michael did not want to mention the Stockade, as it was abhorrent to their religious beliefs?
Perhaps there was a form of social post traumatic stress disorder following Eureka, the shock the rebellion had on a largely stable British Empire, when Britannia ruled the waves and Australia did as Britain ordered. The Australian constitution is an act of the British parliament 1901. "For King and Country" was often the cry from Australians enlisting to fight in English wars, as if they still lived in London.
After the first Kangaroo series stamps were introduced in 1913 conservative elements were outraged at the removal of the King from stamps and when the Cook government was elected by 1914, they introduced the King George V series stamps. General euphoria for the British empire was as strong as ever at the time Michael died in 1912.
Australians had volunteered to fight for British colonial conquests up to WW1. Many Australians recently voted to retain the British Monarch as head of our Parliamentary democracy and not to become a republic with an elected head of state.
Eureka would be covered up, a cause of shame and fear reminiscent of the French revolution a few years previous in 1848 and the Chartist movement in England, the English aristocracy feared a revolution, perhaps especially from the long history of the rebellious Irish. England has transported many rebels from Ireland to Australia in chains, they had every reason to suppress the memory of a rebellion.
Another Eureka man related to Noreen (Rene) Carton who married Edmond Hanrahan Michael Tuohy did attend this reunion and is the front row fourth from the left.
The first picture is a private photo and the second is taken from The Leader newspaper. A book of Eureka Reminiscences is available from the website. It gives accounts rarely told about Eureka.
An eighty-four page Illustrated Eureka book, with a comprehensive index.
The low resolution pictures of this reunion in 1904 show that almost every gentleman has a grey beard, making them all look similar.
It is almost impossible to be certain if Michael Hanrahan is in these reunion photos? Please contact the authors at
if you can identify anyone else in these pictures.
The view that the Stockade was not spoken of in conservative circles is evidenced by local opposition to the 50th anniversary. "That 50 years was not long enough for the wounds of battle to be healed." The celebrations committee was admonished for having acted indiscreetly.
Local enthusiasm for commemorating the anniversary of Eureka waxed and waned over subsequent years, although the Eureka Reserve became a popular recreational area due to the efforts of the Eureka Progress Association. Throughout the 1930s, newspaper accounts of the anniversary activities suggest that local anxieties about the propriety of celebrating a "rebellion" had eased.
"It is a truism, perhaps, that the importance of an historical event lies not in what happened but in what later generations believe to have happened." Prime Minister E. G. Whitlam QC, MP, unveiling the restored Eureka Flag, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, 3rd December, 1973.
Perhaps there are other cases where battles have been forgotten a few decades after? When the fight and bloodshed is a cause of much shame at the inner barbarian unfettered nature. Like war veterans who refuse to speak of the war.
Without the stockade rebellion we would have suffered English tyranny for many more decades. There are many causes of natural justice and human dignity Michael might fight for proudly today-without a pike.
Maybe the saying that a "Prophet or Rebel with integrity against injustice is never recognised in his own household" might not be drawing too long a bow, but more in the political rebellious manner rather than saintly style. Maybe Michael's Christian dignity, humility and wondering when he, like the old horse he knew, must inevitably visit each paddock, kept him-quiet and content.
The former hypocritical Victorian Premier Steve Bracks reminded us that this year 2004, the 150th Anniversary celebration of the Eureka anniversary is a celebration of democracy; no taxation without representation and the right to dissent.
He did not mention property rights and compensation for the victims of the violence the Bentley's.
The main reason Hotham would not listen at all to the Ballarat reform League was because they "demanded", instead of more meekly "petitioning and praying". We demand the restoration of preemptive property rights in Victoria Premier Brumby.
Noted Australian historian Geoffry Blainey stated that Eureka was not really the foundation of Australian democracy as South Australia achieved self government within a year of Victoria with-out the agitation of a rebellion like Eureka.
Demands of The BALLARAT REFORM LEAGUE went beyond complaints of police corruption. South Australia may have been very much influenced by the actions of miners at Eureka as they had many convicts transported there from Ireland up to the early 1850s.
South Australia had as much to fear a rebellion as anywhere else, especially with a large number of transported convicts.
Let us hope in our lifetimes that we do not have to survive a famine or put our lives on the line as Michael Hanrahan did, that we have his brave spirit, industrious nature, generosity to family, humility, awareness of mortality and the strength to resist ubiquitous Victorian Police corruption which has prospered for 150 years.
I wonder what Michael might say about Police Corruption in Victoria today, when other Australian states have external investigations of Police corruption and integrity testing, Victoria has not. Police Corruption in Victoria a brief History.
The Gold Commissioner Mr Rede. "It is all nonsense to make me believe that the present agitation is intended solely to abolish the licence. Do you really wish me to make me believe that the diggers of Ballarat won't pay any longer two pounds for three months? The licence is a mere cloak to cover a democratic revolution."
The miner's oath to the Southern Cross and each other.
WE SWEAR BY THE SOUTHERN CROSS TO STAND TRULY BY EACH OTHER
and FIGHT TO DEFEND OUR RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES AMEN
Speech to the "Monster Meeting" by Carboni
For what did we come to this colony? Chi sta bene non si move is an old Roman proverb. If then in old Europe we had a bird in hand, what silly fools we are to venture across two oceans, and try to catch a jackass in the bush in Australia.
We must meet as in old Europe--old style--improved by far in the south--for the redress of grievances inflicted on us, not by crowned heads, but blockheads, aristrocratical, incapables, who never did a day's work in their life. I hate the oppressor, let him wear a red, blue, white or black coat.--I called on all my fellow diggers, irrespective of nationality, religion, and colour to salute the Southern Cross as the refuge of all the oppressed from all the counties on earth.
Political changes contemplated by THE REFORM LEAGUE:
Carboni called this "worn out twaddle imported from old England". 150 years later on 11th November, this document was presented to and accepted by the Victorian parliament for the important place is has in early Australian democracy.
"The people demand", we do not petition and pray to be heard, we demand.
1. A full and fair representation.
2. Manhood suffrage.
3. No property qualification for members of legislative council.
4. Payment of members.
5. Short duration of Parliament
Ballarat Mayor presents miner's charter to Victorian parliament 11th November 2004.
Left to right the back row, Frank Pigott, Dan and Tom Hanrahan, Tess Power, Anna Walsh, Josie Paton, Eddie, Jim and Jack Hanrahan.
The front row left to right, Bess Pigott, May Cusack, Francie Doyle, Mena Pigott and Katie Torpy.
A lot has happened in Austraia over the last year, since the 150th Anniversary of the Eureka Stockade, the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Howard has passed an undemocratic anti-terrorism bill. In fact, the bill is anti-democratic and brings back feudal notions of sedition.
The Bill provides penalties of seven years jail for anyone inciting violence of praising a terrorist act. Under these laws, any reporter writing about the Eureka Stockade in terms praising the miners, could be jailed for seven years.
The miners would be turning in their graves that John Howard has invoked laws to prevent criticism of the state, a move against free speech.
It was a distressing sight for any pikemen descendants to see, armed police in force with a mobile jail. Are they megalomaniacs, or do they expect trouble? The miners were good men, like Michael Tuohy and Michael Hanrahan, always benevolent, famous for being very-hard-working even on Melbourne Cup day, quiet, gentle, humble and never caused any trouble their whole life, except once in one critical few months in 1854, when pushed to extremes.
Would Hanrahan or Tuohy ask Victoria Police to leave and honour the memory of miners armed with pikes, killed by mounted police. Thank goodness, the police horses were not there, that would have been too much for any Pikeman to bear.
It is impossible, not to be more politically aware of times and events right now, when you have knowledge of past fights against corruption, brutality or a say in government. Like those in the Eureka story we should not let civil liberties and democratic structure be attacked. Anyone reciting the miners oath in a confrontational situation, no matter how just their cause, can now be arrested and jailed for seven years.
On 6th December Assistant Police Commissioner Simon Overland stated that, "Tackling crime will mean a sacrifice of some civil liberties" Simon Overland thinks that it is better for the innocent to suffer, than for one guilty person to go free. Civil liberties under attack by Simon Overland. Would Michael Hanrahan or Michael Tuohy, if they were alive today, complain to the Police Ombudsman about the indiscrete and intimidating presence of police at a service to remember miners who fought for democratic freedoms, killed by police? I think they might have felt like sharpening their pikes, in memory of miners killed by Victoria Police. Michael sought compensation for the police burning his tent to the ground and all his worldly possessions. 10,000 miners could have stood in vain, yet 150 years later, we seem like Dr. Who to go backwards in history much further than 150 years.
With the history of corruption in Victoria Police from 1854 and capitulating governments, all who stand truly under the Southern Cross and swear the oath, need to be vigilant about civil liberties, already paid for with our great-grandfathers comrades lives. The freedom hard won, should never be lightly handed over 150 years later by the descendants of the miners who were there. Some more uptight than Menzies ever was, may think it was a rebellion, but the men involved were the most moral, non-violent and principled men.
All the evidence for moral and legal guilt points at the police, that miners had a just cause and police were the "blood thirsty scoundrels" from family accounts by Michael Tuohy recounting police trying to bayonet him after the battle was over. They burned every tent to the ground and even stopped the Catholic priest Fr. Smythe administering last rights to the dying and comforting the wounded. Police numbers were drastically cut a few months after Eureka.
Democratic reforms were not for everyone: Aborigines and women were second class citizens. a. What does the term terra nullius say about attitudes to aborigines? b. When were women first given the right to vote and by what state?
What religious beliefs prejudiced Europeans against aboriginals?
Apart from being seditious, Did the miners demands and Ned kelly's Jerilderie letter have anything in common?
Henry Seekamp was the fiercely pro-digger editor of the Ballarat Times, a new newspaper which appeared in March 1854. He was very critical of the government and the police (traps) over the license hunts. After the Stockade, Henry was charged with sedition, and sentenced to six months prison. He sold the Ballarat Times in 1856, and is thought to have then gone to Queensland.
Try and imagine that you are the new replacement Editor of the Ballarat Times, it is late December 1855, your employer Henry Seekamp who supported the miner's rebellion has just been arrested for sedition and you have been asked to take over the publishing of the Ballarat Times.
Unlike the 13 miners arrested for treason who were acquitted, Henry Seekamp was found guilty of sedition and served six months in jail.
The miner's leader Peter Lalor is in hiding and writes you a letter to the editor to publish which justifies the miners' violent rebellion.
You know that the British government is looking for Peter Lalor who is in hiding and the government is ready to jail anyone for sedition to prevent anyone encouraging others to be rebellious against English rule, especially the Irish and Americans who are considered a bad influence with a history of being rebellious against the British.
Would you publish Lalor's letter and risk being jailed for sedition like your employer? If so why?
Could you edit Lalors' letter to make it less liable to be seditious?
Edit Peter's letter to remove all references to overthrowing the government by force or violence.
Would your edited version of his letter retain the author's intended meaning?
What are the legal implication of Australian 2005 Terrorism laws for reporting a rebellion like the Eureka Stockade. A Media Watch Opinion.
Make a list of other international rebels like Nelson Mandella who went from being jailed criminals to being respected leaders of state.
Your competition, The Argus newspaper did publish Peter Lalor's letter on 10 April 1855, when Lalor was still in hiding from the government, Peter Lalor's Letter to the Editor.
Justify your position to your loyal readers, why you did not publish the letter in the Ballarat Times in 1855 and also why you might not publish the same letter in 2007.
Instruct your cadet Ballarat Times reporters, how should they report the Eureka rebellion, without breaching sedition laws enacted by the Howard government in 2005.
For example, this quote from Lalor's letter; miners"have been forced to take up arms" might be promoting violence in response to injustice and would probably breach current Australian sedition laws, including the praising of terrorist acts.
Make a list of seditious quotes that could be encouraging the violent rebellion and the miner's actions. Make another list of quotes praising the miner's rebellious actions.
Try and Imagine you are the Chief of the AFP, the Australian Federal Police, or head of ASIO the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, under the 2005 law of sedition and praising terrorism related to the 1854 Eureka Stockade rebellion, who would you first arrest and why? You already have Henry Seekamp in jail and 13 miners charged with treason. You are furious when you see Lalor's letter published in the Argus. You think that Lalor is a criminal inciting violence, a traitor against British colonial rule who killed police, a criminal on the run. But Lalor, is in hiding, so who do you immediately arrest for two weeks detention without charge and who else do you formally charge with sedition or treason? The publisher or editor of the Argus newspaper, the cadet reporters, the printer, the author quoted (when caught), the distributor, or even the readers of the paper?
Withers William Bramwell. The History of Ballarat
From the First Pastoral Settlement to the Present Time
Queensberry Hill Press, Carlton, Vic., 1980.
First-hand accounts of the Eureka rebellion(EDP1:158)
This discount was available of three months for two pounds.
Travel to buy the claim could involve two days walking.
The police would conduct licence hunts on the goldfields, chasing miners everywhere and jailing them for not having a miner's right and extorting up to five pounds for their release on bail. The gold commission and police authority, were both brutal and corrupt. The harsh Gold Commissioner, Robert Rede later presided over the hanging of Ned Kelly in 1880.
Both the miners on trial for treason and later Ned Kelly, had the same judge Redmond Barry, the miners were acquitted, but a 30 thousand signature petition to request Ned's release had no effect on the hanging judge, Redmond Barry, a philandering and harsh judge by some accounts. As Geoffry Blainey commented, we wouldn't remember Ned Kelly, if he ended up as Beechworth Mayor!
