The significance is that the
Federationist position was consistent with the class politics which had marked the SPC, and then the CCF.
The second point that needs to be made emerges from the simultaneous publication in the British Columbia
Federationist, the paper of the Vancouver Trades and Labor Council, of an article entitled "Proletarian Dictatorship.
The
federationist group in Sydney included a prime example of a colonial-born 'Irishman', Francis Bede Freehill.
145) The Victoria raids were part of a national dragnet that enveloped labour radicals from Vancouver to Montrdal, with the
Federationist accusing the Dominion government of conspiring, through the RNWMP, "to establish a reign of terror so far as organized labor is concerned.
Within this political climate, a dejected labour newspaper, the British Columbia
Federationist, forecast Gramsci's hegemonic theory by stating that "the powers of state, including the militia, the policemen, the courts, the judges, the jails, the penitentiaries, the press, the pulpit, the civil services, and all that the machinery of government implies, are today in the hands of the employing class.
53) The BC
Federationist, 15 July 1921, lists a strike at Gillies Bay, Texada Island, that involved the LWIU, but it is unclear whether or not the union had a local there or not.
There he made what the labour newspaper the BC
Federationist called "a fighting speech.
24) "Workers' Party Notes," The Citizen (Halifax), 20 October 1922; Samuel Gompers, "Another Attempt at Soviet Dictatorship Unmasked," American
Federationist, May 1922; Philip S.
Among the Imperial
Federationists in Canada (many of whom were Social Darwinists), there was a great deal of concern about immigration from southern, eastern and central Europe, from which increasing proportions of immigrants were coming in the last two decades before 1914.
Education of that kind will be considered biased, subversive and unAustralian, but Bob Menzies would never have thought so; in fact, no conservative politician since the early
Federationists would have questioned the right of our young to unfettered scholarship.
In 1897-98, the Constitution's framers, all committed
federationists (the majority directly elected by the colonies' voters), spent close to a total of four months in meetings around the country, spread out over a full year.
For many years Catholic activists, including
Federationists, had been advocating proportional representation because they believed it would provide the Catholic Church with direct representation in parliament.
