Cirrus@Austlit

'The prosperity of the colonial printing industry in the gold rushes of the fifties offered migrant British compositors very high wages and the opportunity to succeed in business as master printers. Their sense of craft and social distinction strengthened, and they worked earnestly at self-improvement. Their typographical societies held aloof from other trade unions, and discarded strike action for co-operation with the ’fair' employer.

'As the gold discoveries ceased to stimulate the economy, the compositor’s sense of distinction waned. Respectable and industrious men out of work for long periods began to feel less in sympathy with their masters and more akin to other workmen. Typographical societies began to rely less on the ’fair' employer, and more on the power of the strike. By the early eighties they were leaders of the trade union movement in three capital cities.' (Synopsis, paragraph one and two.)