Lalor the businessman
The wonderful historian of Ballarat, Weston Bate, wrote that "the role of landowner and company director seemed to suit Lalor more than that of rebel". We couldn't agree more, except we would add "or politician" to "rebel". At least Lalor doesn't appear to have been as monstrously corrupt as the squatter "Big" Clarke, who was so blatantly awful a crowd chased him down a street outside parliament with every intention of hanging him from a lamp post, but had to settle for ripping off his trousers, following which a sympathetic shop owner allowed him to escape through his shop.
Nor does Lalor appear to have been anywhere near as bad as the notorious Tommy Bent. What an appropriate name, and we bet we're very far from the first to write that. Nonetheless, Lalor was part of a parliamentary faction (there were no parties at this stage, except the sort in a brothel at which Tommy Bent is quite wrongly accused of losing the parliamentary mace given to Victoria by the Queen of that name) comprising landowners, capitalists, land developers, and the like, who made the most of all their opportunities to benefit themselves at the expense of their employees, the few remaining First Australians, and anyone "silly" enough to pay their taxes
If Lalor had not already disgraced himself in the eyes of left wingers and workers, he, in Bate's words, "disgraced himself ... by trying to use Chinese as strike-breakers at the Clunes mine, of which he was a director. He was absolutely ruthless in using low paid Chinese workers to get rid of Australians seeking better and safer working conditions." Pointing up Lalor's perceived faults, Bate goes on to write, "In parliament he supported a repressive land Bill in 1857 which favoured the rich. There were 17,745 Ballarat signatures to a petition against Lalor's land Bill. Withers [an early Ballarat historian] and others were puzzled and hurt that the folk hero should prove to be a better fighter for money and political position than for the people's rights."
Nor does Lalor appear to have been anywhere near as bad as the notorious Tommy Bent. What an appropriate name, and we bet we're very far from the first to write that. Nonetheless, Lalor was part of a parliamentary faction (there were no parties at this stage, except the sort in a brothel at which Tommy Bent is quite wrongly accused of losing the parliamentary mace given to Victoria by the Queen of that name) comprising landowners, capitalists, land developers, and the like, who made the most of all their opportunities to benefit themselves at the expense of their employees, the few remaining First Australians, and anyone "silly" enough to pay their taxes
If Lalor had not already disgraced himself in the eyes of left wingers and workers, he, in Bate's words, "disgraced himself ... by trying to use Chinese as strike-breakers at the Clunes mine, of which he was a director. He was absolutely ruthless in using low paid Chinese workers to get rid of Australians seeking better and safer working conditions." Pointing up Lalor's perceived faults, Bate goes on to write, "In parliament he supported a repressive land Bill in 1857 which favoured the rich. There were 17,745 Ballarat signatures to a petition against Lalor's land Bill. Withers [an early Ballarat historian] and others were puzzled and hurt that the folk hero should prove to be a better fighter for money and political position than for the people's rights."