THE CONDITION OF LABOR IN MELBOURNE.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 30, 15 January 1864, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE CONDITION OF LABOR IN MELBOURNE.

PRINTERS AND PRINTING. (From the Argus.) In a modern civilised community, printers hold, perhaps, the most important position that can ; be given to any class of labor. It is not sufficient to say that their presence find unrestrained action are essential to the maintenance of that ample freedom the subjects of Queen Victoria enjoy ; they and their prosperity represent also the intelligence of society. We have to deal with them at every step of our intellectual progress. All that we have in respect to science, history, politics, scholarship, poetry, facts, figures and a great deal of art, has to go through their hands before the public get at it. They are masters of a sort of intellectual mint, in which the sterling ore, produced by the wisdom of the closet, the experience of the senate and legal tribunals, the fancies of the poet, and the deeds of the great ones, are turned into current coin for general circulation. Jixerything in the world of mind, and much in that of matter, must now-a-days come to this complexion ; and we take up an important subject indeed, when we treat of the professors of the art Guttenburg and Schoeff'er gave us, and the position they hold in this southern metropolis. It is true we are not much dependent upon them for our books, which we muinly import from Europe, but our newspaper press is all our own. In this aspect our subject gains a peculiar interest, and we may well begin our task by writing something of the history of printers and printing in Victoria in past times. Our first printers came here when the age of the settlement was to be reckoned by weeks, and their earliest effort hang — inappropriately enough — on the walls of the Royal Society's building. It is a copy of that newspaper which the lion. J. P. Fawkner published originally in MSS., and then set-up in such rugged, battered, wornout types as could be procured in those primordial days. From this small commencement the press of Victoria sprang; and were ours an antiquarian inquiry, we could trace with much pleasureable emotion the various stages of its earlier progress ; but n_>w we must refer those curious in such matters to the shelves of the public Library, which groan with the Weight of journals priute t in that primitive, but doubtfully happy period. Enough for us if we next write of a time some fifteen or sixteen years ago, when our colony still belonged to New South Wales, and Melbourne was as sm-ill as (ieelong is now. Avid readers and ardent politicians were those old colonists, and, as such, they patronised literature liberally. Storms which are now suffered to rage in a teacup shook the foundations of society then, and petty municipal Squabbles set the people by the ears for weeks together. In and about the metropolis there were nor. one-fifth of the present population, and yet four daily papers flourished. There were The Arc/us, the Daily Neus (formerly the Port Phillip Patriot), the Melbourne Morning Herald, and the Port Phillip Gazette. These were all printed at separate offices, to which small jobbing plants were attached ; and, in conjunction with a little jobbing-office kept by Mr Shanley, of E izabeth-street, they represented dfe metropolitan press. " The provincial press, we believe, consisted solely of the Geelontj Advertiser, the Portland Guardian, and the Warrnnmbool Examiner. Some of these journals were a credit to the time, but the printers engaged thereon were generally of a decidedly inferior order. They were little more than the scum of those brought up in older neighboring colonies, and the major part had only half learnt their business. Thus their knowledge of their trade was inferior, their habits dissipated, and their tyranny over the masters, when they had the power, as thorough as it was absurd. The utmost coaxing, the largest concessions, and untiring vigilance, frequently failed to prevent. them from robbing their employers by deserting their work and injuring newspaper property by delaying publication. The few able and steady men of that time were actually competed for by the masters. They were almost always appointed overseers ; and in nearly every instance now hold more than respectable social positions. The experience of one who is at this moment a first-class Government official, but who was then a journeyman printer, is that of many. When he landed, the masters nearly disputed who should have him, and in five months' time he had risen to the post of manager to the second best office in town — only the stepping-stone to a subsequent useful and honorable career. The price paid to compositors was Bd. or B£d. per 1,000 ; time hands got 355. per week, and pressmen about the same, for nine working hours per day. In the newspaper offices the supply of type was short, and the best news-hand could rarely get the opportunity to set up 60,000 types a week. Printing machines were scarcely heard of, and when the gold fields time came there were only two of a most inferior kind in the colony. Nevertheless, the character of the printing was sufficiently respectable ; the newspapers could compare favorably with many English provincial journals, and jobbing was tastefully and even elaborately done. The ornamental placard printed in honor of Separation Day would do credit to any office in the world, aud we believe was the handiwork of Mr Ferres, the present Government Printer. Copperplate printing was in an unpromising infancy ; but a lithographic press was established by Mr T. Ham, now of Queensland, an able professor of the

art, to whom the colony is not a little indebted for the skill which now makes our survey maps so extraordinarily perfect and valuable. Such was the coudition of tho printing trade in the old times. At last the colony underwent its great changes. Separation was accomplished ; a local Government was formed on July 1, 1851 ; and, eight days after, gold was found within our borders. From this point of time printers increased and niultipliod exceedingly. Under the auspices, first of Mr E. Khull, and shortly afterwards of Mr John Ferres, a Government printingoffice was established. The newspaper proprietors also felt the consequences of a new state of tlrngs. By 1852 the Gazelle had disappeared, the Daily News hadpsifeen swallowed up by the Argus, whose only competitor was the Melbourne Morning Herald, which, after numerous changes of proprietary, has become the Herald of the present time. The influx of population enormously increased the number of readers ; compositors rushed away to the diggings, and wages rose accordingly. In the latter part of 1 851 the wages of time hands were £3 3s. per week. In May, 1552, they reached £3 15s. In August following there was a rise to £4 4s. per week, which in September became £5 55., and in October £6 6s. From this there was no change till March, 1854, when, for a brief period, £7 7s. per week was paid in some of the offices. News hands were still paid by the thousand, and the price of which was rapidly enhanced til it reached Is 6;!., then '25., and settled for a long time at 2s. Gd. The old colonial compositors were for a brief period masters of their situation, and made enormous wages, but they were soon displaced by men who very far surpassed them. Many here can remember the commotion excited among the Working printers of England and Sjotland. when Victorian journals were handed about, above whose leader heads were urgent requisitions for compositors to come and earn wages that seemed fabulous. Quite an exodus followed, but the numbers who landed in nearly every ship that arrived hardly met the demand. For a man, by ordinary work, to earn LiO or Ll2 a week on a daily paper, was not at all extraordinary, and, as what was technically called "fat" was in abundance, the better and more fortunate workman sometimes made as much as L 1 7or LI B in six days. At the Melbourne Morning Herald office prices were, even in 1852, reduced to Is 6.1, but at the Argus office, where the object was to get only first-class W rkmen, the higher rate was paid, and so it remained at 2s (id and 2s per 1000 fur years afterwards. At this time, too, commenced a seres of disastrous strikes among the men receiving the lower rates, which tended greatly to upset the trade. At first they were successful, and the Melbourne Morning Herald having again changed hands, paid the higher price ; but cvt l n;ua ly the dominance of the em.ployp.fs was successfully disputed by the masters, who by organisation and perseverance, cr.rried their point, and have kept it till the present time. The victory was left finally with the employers, when the : Argus proprietors undertook to import i for their own office compositors selected in London from The Times and other offices. Tiie result of this extreme step has been, beyond doubt, of great benefit to the public, for it helped to fix that high standard of workmanship which is now maintained in Melbourne and throughout the colony, and which, it is not too much to say, is unsurpassed in the world. In Melbourne and its suburbs there are now some 300 printers, who in busy times are all employed. Besides, there are some forty or fifty hangerS-On, \vho;n dissipated habits, ill-health, or inferior skill, prevent from taking permanent situations, but who do odd jobs, and manage to get a living in odd ways. There are now about thirty-five new - papers published in Melbourne and its suburbs. A great feature in the printing trad:of Victoria is tho establishment of a country press that is daily increasing, and already irvikeS the number of newspapers printed here more than equal to those printed in the adjoining colonies of New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia, Queensland, and New Zealand, north and south, from Auckland to Invercar- , gill, all put together. The gro.vth has been a steady one. Early iv 1853 the press was established on Bendigo, and the Advertiser was about its earliest development. Within a month or two, a weekly journal was printed in Castlemaine, which was soon swallowed up by the Mount Alexander Mail; and the Ballarat Times too, made its appearance ;on that goldfield about that date. Its ; history was the most eventful of all. It once helped to excite quite a rebellion, and its editor and proprietor suffered twice at the hands of the law for sedition and libel. Moreover, he subsequently fell a victim to the masculine wrath of the famous Lola Montez. Finally, the paper was driven from the field by the Ballarat Star, which now stands at the head of the country newspapers. At this moment every township of note and every new rush has its newspaper press, whose excellent typography suitably accords with the high tone generally maintained in the matter thus disseminated. In Melbourne, particularly, every class of printing is well and cheaply done — books, pamphlets, ornamental placards, circulars ; and all are produced in unsurpassed style, aud it will scarcely be thought presumptious if we ask our readers to judge how well newspapers are printed here by the columns in which these lines appear. We shall state the actual condition of the trade in a future article.