1851, to’ become premier of a short- Nanaimo We brought the coal samples to Vic- toria, got no more from his dis- Covery than the repairs made to musket, a bottle of rum and 4 titl—he was now known as Coal Tyee. But the original seiz- Ure of the coal lands was to be dwarfed by that being prepared by Robert Dunsmuir, his son ames; and a’ group of American associates, Charles Crocker, Le- land Stanford and Collis P. Hunt- Ingdon, three members of the hotorious ‘Pacific Quartet” which had rifled the resources of Cali-. fornia. Robert Dunsmuir was a Scot- lish immigrant who came to the Colony of Vancouver Island in His son James, who was tived British Columbia govern- Ment in 1900 and one of the Wealthiest and most hated men Mm the province, was born at Fort Vancouver in the old Washington Territory while his parents were _ 9n their way to the colony. The Dunsmuirs settled in a log Cabin at Colville, as Nanaimo was Officially known until 1860. There, by using the political connections _ Yeadily acquired by an unscrupu- lous man who was one of the Pioneer settlers, Robert Duns- muir obtained his first grant of . 4000 acres of coal lands on an Undertaking to develop them. ‘And this was only the beginning. In 1884, the year that Coal ' ‘Tyee died, Dunsmuir and _ his American associates carried through a seizure of natural re- sources which was to have no Parallel in the province for 65 Years, not until the giveaway” of hydro and forest resources to U.S. monopolies in our own times. For a promise ‘to build ‘the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway, 78 miles of line from Victoria to Wellington, they received 1,900,000 acres of land and a cash 8rant of $750,000. ye That giveaway was subsequent- ly estimated to have been worth $200 million, and the figure is Still rising as the successors of the Dunsmuirs, the Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian Col- lieries, continue to exploit the People’s wealth given away by ‘long-dead. politicians. Between 1884 and 1902, when James Dunsmuir became sole Owner of Wellington Collieries and the E & N Railway, until 1911, when he sold his interests to MacKenzie and Mann for $11 million, the Dunsmuir family ac- Guired one of the largest for- tunes in the province. Out of this (Dunsmuir), Ltd. was organized. But what of the pioneers, the Staffordshire miners who dug - the original pits, and the men from other lands, the Chinese, Italians, Czechs, Ukrainians, Scots and Americans, who worked in the mines and laid out the streets and built the city of Nanaimo? Not without reason were Frye and Strickland streets running back from the original waterfront known as “Poverty Row.” Not without reason were the mines of Nanaimo and Wellington called the most dangerous in the world. Over the years there were many widows and orphans along these streets. : The record of mine accidents over one 30-year period — from 1879 to 1909 — reads like a battle casualty list, as indeed it was, the unceasing battle of the min- ers against inhuman conditions and ruthless exploitation. : April 17, 1879: 11 killed in explosion at Wellington. May 3, 1887: 148 killed in ex- plosion at No. 1 mine, Nanaimo. September 10, 1901: 17 killed in fire at No. 2 mine, Extension. October 5, 1909: 25 killed in explosion at Extension. It was out of their struggle deal Canadian Collieries marks the centennial of ifs pioneer TAR UIRIUE TRUE | miners MM Ce ED Le Lo against such conditions as these that the workers of Nanaimo, and first among them the miners, built a proud labor tradition that has left its indelible stamp upon the history of this province. The first recorded miners’ strike, of several months’ dura- tion, was in 1870. And there- after strikes occurred with in- creasing frequency, culminating in the historic strike of 1912 which shook Sir Richard Mc- Bride’s corrupt Conservative gov- ernment to its foundations. In 1877 the British warship Rocket was sent to Nanaimo to cow striking miners at Welling- ton and when the miners refused to be intimidated the government sent a militia force to evict them from company shacks. And again, jn 1890, the government sent an artillery battery to Welling- ton to break a miners’ strike. \ The miners answered this com- bination of company and govern- ment against them — and with James Dunsmuir as premier of the province in 1900 the combin- ation became obvious—by organ- ‘iring their own political strengh. Nanaimo and Newcastle consti- tuencies became strongholds of ithe old Socialist Party of Canada —and the miners were the main strength of the local parties. At the provincial election held November 2, 1903, the first in the province to be fought on party lines, the Socialist party scored ‘its first victories in Nanaimo and Newcastle. In Nanaimo, the miners’ vote elected 36-year-old, Irish - born Sames Hurst Hawthornthwaite. _And in neighboring Newcastle the same vote sent Parker Williams to Victoria as the second Social- ist member to sit in the legisla- ture. Over a 15-year period Nanaimo and Newcastle continued to elect Socialists to the legislature until government gerrymandering of the seats swamped the miners’ vote and division in the labor movement destroyed its political unity. Hawthornthwaite held Nanaimo from i903 to 1912 when he was succeeded by John Place. Parker Williams held Newcastle even. longer, until 1916, and two years later, in a byelection in 1918, Hawthornthwaite regained the seat for the Socialists. Haw- thornthwaite was succeeded by Sam Guthrie, one of the leaders of the 1912 strike, who lost the seat by gerrymander, to win it ' Nanaimo as it appeared in 1862, twelve years before it was again years later, in 1937, this time for the CCF. This too, is part of. the Nanaimo tradition, replete with the be- following the strike and a two- year period in the twenties when he worked in Alberta mines, he has lived and worked in the city ali his life. Today, at 61, he is a grandfather, with two sons and a daughter and six grandchildren all living in the Nanaimo area. When I saw him the other day at his house on Frye Street, part ef the old “Poverty Row,” his faded eyes, injured by sulphur in the mines, grew bright as we discussed, his memories of the great strike. Recalling how Attorney Gen- eral W. J. Bowser, acting on the request of Mayor A.’ E. Planta— he was later appointed to the Senate by a grateful Conserva- tive government — ordered the militia into Nanaimo, Zboyovsky told me. “IT was one of those who took part in the miners’ march on Ex- tension when the company tried to reopen the mine with scabs. The scabs fired on us and there was quite a fight before we chas- ed them into the mine. It was after that attempt to reopen the mines that the government or- dered the militia into Nanaimo. “The police and the militia went around arresting every one in sight. “We were at a mass meeting in the Nanaimo Athletie Club on Chapel Street — it became the Legion Hall afterwards and it’s now torn down—when the police clauses of the Coalition government’s Bill 39, one of those who addressed this big protest rally in Nanaimo was Sam Guthrie. (shown speaking), a leader of the great miners’ strike in 1912-14, later a Socialist and then a CCF member of the legislature. HOVEVEN ERNEST ENE EES incorporated as a city. walked in and ordered us to dis- perse. They arrested John Place, who was our member of the leg- islature then, as he walked out of the door. ° ‘I was picked up by the. mili- tia and taken: to New Westmin- ster for trial because the gov- ernment was afraid to try us in Nanaimo. I was lucky — I got a suspended sentence. “Those the company was out to get were railroaded to jail: Joe Angelo, the UMWA. inter- national organizer, was one of them and he got two years. I was in court the day Judge Mor- rison sentenced him. He was one ef the last to be released, too, and then I believe he was de- ported.” When the strike ended Steve Zboyovsky had to leave the city to look for work in the Alberta mines. His name was on the blacklist. The strike had end- ed without the miners winning recognition and without union recognition the company’s prom- ises to re-employ all miners were meaningless. e “There was quite a scramble after the strike ended,” Zboyov- sky said. “There must have been a thousand of us lined up for work: with the mine bosses go- ing down the line shaking their heads at those they were not going to hire back.” : Some of the blacklisted men, among them Archie and Isaac Greenwell, got work at the Pacific Coast Coal Company’s mine. This was an independent, com- pany which was then mining coal rights held by two pioneer fami- lies, the Fiddicks and the Rich- ardsons. Of all the wealth mined from coal in Nanaimo some of the royalties paid on these rights was perhaps the only money ever returned to the miners ta pro- mote their own interests. According to Zboyovsky and other oldtimers, Mrs. Fiddick put up the money and laid the cornerstone for the Socialist Par- ty of Canada hall built by the miners during the strike. It afterwards became the UMWA hall and now, with the coal in- dustry closed down and the union gone, it is the CCF hall. Another of those who took part in the great strike is Tom Thomp- son who, in a sence, personifies all of Nanaimo’s living history. Like Steve Zboyovsky he lives on the old “Poverty Row,” but on Strickland Street, in the house he was born in 62 years ago. When ‘he was 10 years old he and his brother had a paper route for the Clarion, the Social- ist paper started in Nanaimo in 1902. At 13 he started to work in ‘the mines when there were 3000- 4000 men working below and above ground. Last year, when he was 61, he was one of the miners laid off at Bright mine, Continued on page 10 \ PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 26, 1954 — PAGE 9