The following review is by Joe Toscano in the Anarchist Age Weekly Review No 384, 24 Jan - 30 Jan, 2000, Melbourne.

SECRET SOCIETIES AND THE LABOUR MOVEMENT
Display Catalogue and Essays by Dr. Bob James

For the 6th Biennial Conference of the Australian Society for the study of Labour history Wollongong, October 1999.

This thirty two page pamphlet sheds some light on the secret history of the Australian Labour Movement. At the beginning of the pamphlet James makes the comment that at the end of the 20th Century "Profit making businesses increasingly insist on 'commercial privilege' thus claiming legitimacy for the secrecy of 'their' information and Government's increasingly restrict access to their 'sacred knowledge' under Freedom of Information legislation." At the same time this is occurring, Trade Unions are being forced to become "open and transparent" because "most trade-based societies are not sufficiently powerful to publicly argue privilege for much of 'their' information".

James outlines his thesis that the history of Labour in Australia is a history of secret societies. He examines the history of the guilds and how these secret societies operated. The author looks at how the Industrial Revolution forced the guilds to break up into three strands, free masonry, trade based societies and friendly societies. "It's neither accidental nor an aberration that reformers Garibaldi, Mizzini, Charles Bradlaugh and Karl Marx were all Freemasons, as were many Labour Movement people in Australia."

Dr. James goes on to develop his theory about the importance of secret societies in the Australian Labour Movement by analysing the Knights of Labor and their context in the second half of the pamphlet. This pamphlet breaks new ground on Labour history in Australia, it has a useful index and is relatively easy to read.

Whether the reader agrees or disagrees with Dr. James hypothesis on the importance of secret societies in Australian Labour history isn't important. What's important about this pamphlet is that it throws new light on practices that don't appear in traditional and post modern histories of the Labour Movement.

The pamphlet can be purchased from the author Dr. Bob James, 90 Henry Street, Tighes Hill, 2297. Newcastle N.S.W. Australia, or it can be purchased from Anarres Books, P.O. Box 150, East Brunswick, 3057, Melbourne Australia email mailorder@anarres.org.au Web Site http://www.anarres.com.au. or view it online at Takver's Radical Tradition History Site.