Labour History in Song

So wrote Tom Barker of the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies as they became known. In their brief but vociferous career in Australia, just before, during and after the World War I, they stood up very strongly against the government's plan to introduce conscription. When the people of Australia twice voted against conscription, the government under W.M. Hughes (The Little Digger') decided to make the IWW illegal. This it did by fair means and foul. Mainly the latter. Barker was, at the time, editor of the IWW newspaper, Direct Action, and he was gaoled for printing a cartoon of a soldier, crucified on a guncarriage while Mr Fat, the Financier, raised his glass to war profits

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