A Song of Judges (1919)
We are the judges; behold in us
The majesty regal of law
We wield with an air of the sceptre of might
Of many a fusty old saw.
We fine, we harangue, we scourge, we jail
And we keep the wages of working girls
Low!--Low!--Low!
Fine raiment and linen and houses are ours,
We dine with the propertied class,
We have acres and incomes and pensions and powers,
And we ride on the backs of the mass.
We fine, we harangue, we scourge, we jail
And we keep the wages of working girls
Low!--Low!--Low!
We are judges--ha!--ha!--so we are!
We swatted and slugged when at school;
We learned just enough to keep out of the mud,
And to look not all of a fool
And now, at thousand or so,
We are keeping the wages of working girls
Low!--Low!--Low!
M. [Mary Gilmore]
Notes
From the Sydney Newspaper the Australian Worker Thu 16 Jan 1919 p. 9. War time draconian legal provisions ensured there would be "injustice with the law" as Doc Evert was later ot describe it. The Arbitration Court allowed prices and rents to rise but consistently refused to arbitrate for increased wages. The IWW would be hounded by police corruption and spies and judges would happily condemn its members of treason and to long stretches in gaol until the militant labour movement forced their release. As Mary Gilmore argues above, the all male judges took a predictably dim view of working women's demands for better wages and conditions at work.