The End of the World

From its beginnings the labour movement in Australia believed that the capitalist-owned daily press was a major obstacle to the achieve ment of Labor's ideals. From this belief and with a simple faith in the power of reason and the justice of its course Labor developed a new dream: that newspapers owned and run by the labour movement would destroy the misconceptions sold by the capitalist press, and awaken the desire in the people for a new world. For decades Labor debated and prepared for the realisation of this dream. Finally, in 1931, when other Australian dreams were turning into nightmares, Labor turned its back on economic reality and launched a daily newspaper, the World. In 1932 the dream faded away when the World ended?to be replaced by a journal which was to foster yet another great and powerful dream. In 1909, after many years of consideration, the Australian Workers' Union decided to establish a chain of union-owned daily newspapers in all Australian capital cities. By 1914 a building had been erected in Sydney and plant installed but publication of the first of the Labor papers, intended for 16 November 1914, was postponed at the start of the war. After 1918 the idea remained, but little was done. The com pany established to run the papers, Labor Papers Ltd., sponsored the World in Hobart between 1918 and May 1924: however, the paper was not a success and it eventually collapsed at a loss to the company of ?41,700.! The scheme received a further setback in 1924 when as a consequence of a faction fight in the labour movement in New South Wales a union group hostile to the A.W.U. began publication of the Labor Daily. At the end of the 1920s the company had a paid-up capital of ?180,000, of which ?130,000 had been paid by members of the A.W.U. and ?50,000 by members of about thirty other unions, principally in New South Wales and Victoria. Control of the company, through its Board of Directors, was firmly in the hands of the A.W.U. And under A.W.U. management the company prospered: profit from rent and interest in 1929 and 1930 was ?19,500.2 Yet there seemed little prospect of the company launching even one paper. Although the A.W.U. Con vention of January 1930 resolved to go ahead with a paper in Sydney nothing was done and a year later the chairman of the company, Senator Barnes,3 said that 'eventually they would realise their great dream'.4

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