New Guard

This article is about the Australian political organisation. For the novel by Robert Muchamore, see New Guard (novel).

New Guard

The emblem of the New Guard
Formation	February 16, 1931 (1931-02-16)
Founder	Eric Campbell
Founded at	Imperial Service Club, Sydney, Australia
Type	Political organisation
Purpose	To defend against a socialist revolution in Australia
Region	Greater Sydney
Membership (1931)	87,000 at peak
Chief Commander	Eric Campbell
Deputy Chief Commander	George Knox

The New Guard was an Australian monarchist, anti-communist, and later fascist-inspired organisation founded in Sydney on 16 February 1931, during the Great Depression. The New Guard is known for its agitation against Premier of New South Wales Jack Lang. From its founding it was headed by Eric Campbell, a World War I veteran and former member of the Old Guard, from which it originated as an offshoot. Membership estimations vary from 20,000 to 87,000.

As the Great Depression economically ravaged the country, Australia was undergoing social changes due to a number of factors including the social effects of World War I conscription campaigns, trade unionist activity, and the election of Jack Lang to the New South Wales premiership. Due to his socialist demagoguery and his departure from the norm in his strategy to fight the Great Depression, Lang became the target of suspicion from some who feared he may help usher in the growth of communism in Australia. The Old Guard was formed to oppose socialist and communist influence in Australia and defend against a possible revolution. The New Guard formed as an offshoot of the Old Guard over disagreement of its highly secretive nature, and by a few weeks its membership had swelled, boasting members such as Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and former Mayor of North Sydney Hubert Primrose, among many returning servicemen.

The organisation was militant in nature, often harassing their political opponents by crashing their meetings or engaging in street brawls. Its most famous member, Francis de Groot, was notable for upstaging Lang at the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, where under Campbell’s command he slashed the ribbon on horseback before Lang could, in protest of his premiership’s anti-monarchist ideology. After Lang’s dismissal in May 1932 the New Guard’s membership declined rapidly. During this time Campbell had met with fascists and National Socialists such as Sir Oswald Mosley and Joachim von Ribbentrop, and in 1934 published his manifesto The New Road, signalling the New Guard’s ideological transition as Campbell argued his case for an Australian application of Italian corporate statism. Feeling the need to enter into parliamentary politics, the New Guard unsuccessfully contested five seats at the 1935 state election as the Centre Party. The party failed to win a single seat, polling 0.60 percent of the total vote. Following the election Campbell withdrew from public life, with both the party and the New Guard disbanding shortly afterwards.

History

Old-New Guard schism

In response to Premier of New South Wales Jack Lang's radical agenda and maverick style within the Australian political sphere, coupled with rising pressure from trade unionists, counter-movements began to rise in opposition to the Labor Party. Among them was the Old Guard, a secret organisation purported to exist as early as 1917, which at the time of the Great Depression was administrated primarily by businessmen Roger Goldfinch and Robert Gillespie, among other anonymous committee members. The Old Guard was a coalition of imperial loyalists, devoted to the British Empire and ready to act preemptively to prevent a socialist revolution from taking place. At the height of its popularity the organisation enjoyed close ties with the NSW Police Force, Attorney-General’s Department and the Department of Defence, and boasted 30,000 members comprising strongly of rural New South Welshmen and wealthy Protestant Anglo-Saxons. Among them was World War I veteran Eric Campbell, an army officer and former gunner with the First Australian Imperial Force. Campbell was introduced to the Old Guard by fellow John Scott, who accompanied him on the members’ board of Sydney insurance company Sun Insurance.

Over time Campbell grew disconnected with the Old Guard. The organisation was sworn to absolute secrecy regarding membership, and was divided into cells so that its leadership would be hard to identify. Campbell disagreed with this arrangement, asserting that the uncommunicative nature of its leadership to its members, mostly returned servicemen, was ill-fitting of their nature as soldiers. He believed that without a clear authority and direction, the Old Guard would be unable to retain members. Ineffectual in convincing the committee in changing it administrative strategy, he and John Scott left the Old Guard – though Scott remained for the time to finish his recruitment obligations.

Members from the Old Guard met a week later from Campbell’s resignation at his 'Boongala' residence in Turramurra. Dissatisfied with the lack of operations within the Old Guard as well, Campbell and the servicemen agreed to form a separate body which would be diametrically opposed to the Old Guard’s secrecy and inaction. Following a meeting with the All for Australia League on the day, he and the rest of the Organising Committee met at the Cahill’s in O’Connell Street, Sydney, on 16 March 1931 to officially form the New Guard and establish its Locality system. Built on a common ideological system of monarchism, classic liberalism and anti-communism, Campbell was voted Chief Commander and directed a careful recruitment campaign targeted at ex-servicemen and civilians alike, choosing not to discriminate between class or financial situation.

Radical agitation (1931-32)

Captain de Groot declares the Sydney Harbour Bridge open in March 1932.

During the initial growth of the movement, Campbell and each of his Locality Commanders were able to attract many to the movement, including the likes of early aviator Charles Kingsford Smith and North Sydney Mayor Hubert Primrose. Campbell and the New Guard proceeded to secure connections so that in the hypothetical situation of a statewide revolt, he could seize control of essential services and keep them operational in the absence of police, who would be assumed rendered ineffective. By the end of the month, the New Guard boasted by Campbell’s estimations around 5,000 active members.

The New Guard under Campbell orchestrated a number of operations, including the continued suppression of seamen’s strikes, as well as bushfire fighting. The organisation had a stronger taste for vigilante action compared to its predecessor and was less publicly avoidant of this fact. Unlike the Old Guard, its members neglected to stay in reverse for too long. The tactic of escaping responsibility for its actions by hiding behind allegedly spontaneous vigilance committees was non-existent, as the New Guard embraced its utilisation of vigilante action. One of its Divisional Commanders described the New Guard’s style of direct action against socialist and communist meetings as fair dealings for “particularly obnoxious vermin”.

The regular disruption of opponents’ meetings was partly a consequence of the New Guard's more limited political resources. Its finances were always under strain and it lacked the support network associated with the Old Guard. It was a “second-string” force with few socially significant leaders. Reflecting this, the New Guard changed its directives to pursue a more theatrical image for the movement as time went on. Street fights between socialists and the police became more common as the Labor Party under Lang formed its own paramilitary wing, the Australian Labor Army, and special constables were trained to track organisations such as the New Guard and attempt to discredit them by starting brawls or other breaches of the peace. Campbell would begin holding meetings in the Sydney Town Hall, the first having exceeded the building’s capacity with its 5000 attendees and later becoming the target of police interventions.

Though the New Guard sought to work as a supplement to the police in the event of a socialist revolution, they were oftentimes opposed under orders from the Lang government. As an exercise the New Guard attempted to measure the strength of the Sydney police force by organising many small unapproved street meetings across the city in an attempt to stretch their men thin. When forced to disperse by police each group of New Guardsmen would peacefully disperse and simply reform nearby. According to a contact Campbell had in the NSW Police Force, the police were reporting large street gatherings and were requesting reinforcements from all over the city.

These proactive measures to aggravate the New Guard’s enemies came to a fever pitch in March 1932, when army officer and zone commander Francis de Groot would upstage Jack Lang at the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Campbell asserted that due to Lang’s unwillingness to let Sir Philip Game open the bridge on behalf of King George V, he would vow that Lang would not be the one to open the bridge. Upholding his vow, de Groot was supplied with a horse from fellow New Guardsmen Albert Reichard and rode to the ceremony in his 15th Hussars uniform from World War I to slash the ribbon before Lang could. De Groot was pulled from his horse and detained, later being fined £9 (equivalent to $859.99 in 2017). The Mayor of North Sydney, Hubert Primrose, an official participant at the opening ceremony, was also a member of the New Guard.

An attack by the Fascist Legion splinter group in March 1932 on Communist Party of Australia co-founder Jock Garden was denounced by Campbell. Admitting that the New Guard was designed to allow for individual cells to work towards the movement's goals, the plan to physically intimidate Garden was "pathetically clumsy and futile" because he considered Garden's divisive presence could enhance the New Guard's standing, whereas making martyrs out of political opponents would be counterproductive. Furthermore during their trial, Campbell sat with the New Guardsmen but chose not to testify for them, despite being a solicitor.

Decline

1932 constitutional crisis

Main article: 1932 New South Wales constitutional crisis

On 13 May of the same year, Lang was dismissed from his premiership. Along with an inner faction of the New Guard’s involvement in orchestrating the bashing of Communist Party of Australia founder Jock Garden, the New Guard began to lose popularity as the organisation’s purpose was perceived as to have been fulfilled. The activities of militant splinter groups emerging from the New Guard, such as the Fascist Legion, also contributed to a rush of resignations which began even before Lang's dismissal.

By mid 1932 the New Guard was largely a spent force. With their main objective complete – the removal of Lang from office – the New Guard began to lose members as it drifted into the mid 1930s. Even de Groot left the organisation in November 1932 to pursue collaboration with the Melbourne-based League of National Security. It was during this time that Campbell began to outline more fully his political beliefs, producing a series of broadcasts in which he developed a "complete credo for a fascist State", most notably incorporating a "non-elective cabinet or commission, a corporative assembly, vocational franchise and a charter of liberty". He also stated his intentions to contest the next state election, a date for which had not yet been set.

1933: Exploration into fascism

Campbell’s memoirs state that due to the New Guard’s opposition to party politics and unwillingness to align themselves with either side, they were often dubbed “fascists”. Though the New Guard bore resemblance to the militant Blackshirts in Italy, its strong adherence to individualism found it disqualified it from this definition. Campbell was curious to learn about fascism from the source however, so in 1933 during an overseas business trip, he met with Sir Oswald Mosley and wife Lady Cynthia at their London home to discuss the matter. His experience was overall positive, and while unimpressed with the members of Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, he was reminded of his own New Guardmen when he attended an Imperial Fascist League meeting.

With Mosley’s recommendations he later progressed to Berlin where, unable to meet Chancellor of Germany Adolf Hitler, he was able to see Foreign Affairs Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, as well as Alfred Rosenberg. In Rome he was likewise unable to see Mussolini, instead meeting with Secretary Achille Starace, though their mutual unintelligibility and failure to use French as a medium was no use. Nevertheless, Campbell’s tour across the fascist powers of Europe left him deeply impressed with the ideology. However, on his return to Australia, Campbell's support for an "openly pro-fascist policy" was met with strong opposition from the Guard's "anti-fascist moderates". These attempts to establish the movement as what historian Keith Amos dubs "Australia's first fascist party" are thought to hastened the decline of the New Guard, with many previous members unhappy with the ideological progression that had taken place. One year later he would pen his manifesto The New Road which put forward his case for an Australian application of Italian corporate statism.

1935 state election

Main article: Centre Party (New South Wales)

One idea expressed in Campbell’s manifesto was that the emergence of a “centre party” in Australia was inevitable. While initially satisfied by the prospects of a United Australia Party-led purging of communism and other socialistic and anti-communist dogmas from the continent, Campbell had realised that the central tenets of the New Guard could not be fulfilled due to those politicians’ ineffectiveness in bringing them about. Becoming fully dissatisfied with the politics that had, in his words, "degenerated into a number of sordid business undertakings", the New Guard entered into party politics.

The Centre Party was officially established in December 1933 at a meeting of over 1,000 people, with The Sydney Morning Herald reporting that 100 branches of the party would be established. The majority of the shrinking organisation endorsed its move into electoral politics, which was, according to Campbell, "necessitated by the failure of the UAP governments, at both federal and state levels, to accede to the New Guard's demands". Due to a lack of time needed to organise the campaign, the party did not contest the September 1934 federal election. An August 1934 meeting of the New Guard reaffirmed Campbell as leader, and resolved to "make itself felt in the next State elections".

At the May 1935 New South Wales state election, the Centre Party contested five out of the 90 Legislative Assembly districts, all in suburban Sydney, and polled 0.60 percent of the total vote. In two seats, Hornsby, contested by Fergus Munro, and Lane Cove, contested by Campbell, only the Centre Party and the United Australia Party fielded candidates, with the former polling over 15 percent of the vote in both seats. In the other seats it contested, the Centre Party candidates failed to poll more than 5 percent of the vote. The party's relatively high vote in Hornsby and Lane Cove is thought to have represented "merely the level of protest against [UAP Premier] Stevens" in the absence of other candidates.

In Arncliffe, the only seat that required a preference distribution, the majority (56.78%) of Centre Party preferences flowed to the United Australia candidate, Horace Harper, who was defeated by Labor's Joseph Cahill, a future premier. Enoch Jones, the candidate for Arncliffe, later served as a City of Rockdale councillor, and contested the seat of Rockdale for the Liberal Democrats at the 1944 state election. Additionally, Aubrey Murphy, the candidate in Concord, served on two occasions as mayor of the Blue Mountains City Council in the 1950s, and was named an MBE in the 1960 New Year Honours.

With the exception of occasional speaking engagements, Campbell himself largely withdrew from public life following the election, and spent most of the rest of his life in country New South Wales, where he was president of the Burrangong Shire Council in 1949 and 1950 (now part of Young Shire). Campbell's 1965 autobiographical account of his involvement in the New Guard, The Rallying Point, does not mention the Centre Party at all. Later writers have suggested that the party's lack of success at the 1935 election represented "an electoral brick-wall", with the party overall a "failure" and Campbell's movement having "lost most of its drive".

Ideology

According to the membership form given to new recruits, the New Guard’s principles, objects and policy were as follows:

Principles

1. Unswerving loyalty to the Throne
2. All for the British Empire
3. Sane and honourable government throughout Australia
4. Suppression of any disloyal and immoral elements in government, industrial and social circles
5. Abolition of machine politics
6. Maintenance of the full liberty of the individual

Objects

1. To unite all loyal citizens, irrespective of creed, party, social or financial position, subscribing to the above principles in one association pledged to give effect to the same by loyal support of The New Guard’s’ duly appointed Executive Committee.
2. To take all proper and necessary steps to give effect to all or any of its principles.
3. To closely co-operate with other similar organisations and particularly those in country districts.

Policy

1. To organise so as to proceed with the New Guard objects as early as possible.
2. To honestly face all facts relevant to the New Guard’s principles, objects and policy: to decide upon and carry out within its power, without fear or favour such action as may be from time to time in the true interests of Australia.

Furthermore, the New Guard intended to bring together citizens irrespective of their class, party affiliations or financial position for the achievement of the aforementioned goals. The New Guard believed that in the event of a socialist revolution in New South Wales, they ought to supply reinforcements to the police in defence of the government. If the police were to be rendered ineffective, the New Guard would assume martial law, seize control of essential services and continue combating the revolutionary forces. The New Guard’s tendency towards militancy was interpreted by their detractors as fascist in nature.

In the interwar period, fascism appealed to many who felt liberal democratic institutions were failing to cope. As the 1930’s progressed, Campbell became increasingly interested in the ideology as he observed the development of Mussolini’s Italy. During radio broadcasts on 2CH from September to December 1932 he asserted:

The New Guard is the vanguard of a crusade for moral regeneration […] We will bridge all classes to work for a common goal […] and prove that the British race does not deteriorate under Southern skies […] Inspired by the example of Italy, the New Guard will create in Australia a new spirit in the people.

— Eric Campbell

As mentioned before, Campbell in order to learn more about fascism embarked on a European tour in 1933, visiting British, German and Italian leaders of their respective movements. On his return, he published The New Road which favoured Italian corporate statism as the preferred mode of governance going forward. He also adopted the symbolism of bodyguards, escorts, uniforms, and the Roman salute. Despite this however the adherence to individualism carried over, and the New Guard's ideology became a mixture of classical liberal individualism and economic corporatism. Campbell always considered himself conservative rather than fascist.

Therefore, there has been academic disagreement over whether the New Guard could be considered a fascist organisation. Historian Keith Amos corroborated Andrew Moore’s observations of the New Guard’s stalwart anti-socialism combined with its middle and lower class membership and tendency to violence – taking Campbell’s adoption of fascist theatrics into consideration – and defines by abductive reasoning the New Guard as fascist. Robert Darlington in The Social Position and Ideology of The New Guard agrees with this evaluation and too affirms that the New Guard met the definitional standards for fascism; Darlington narrowed down his definition of a fascist movement to its adherence to race, respect for authority, use of repressive violence and willingness for armed rebellion.

Activist Jim Saleam in The Other Radicalism argues that the New Guard more closely resembled an extreme conservative movement rather than a fascist one. He recalls that the New Guard’s adoption of fascist imagery was ironic in nature, and that Campbell’s preference of individualism and a lack of charismatic authority disqualified the New Guard from the fascist definition. Supporting this theory was the existence of splinter groups such as the Fascist Legion whose militancy worried even Campbell. Saleam further challenges Moore’s substitution of European fascism into the Australian political sphere, reflecting that the New Guard’s origins were purely of the conservative establishment, and did not evolve from socialist thought like Italian fascism did. Saleam asserts that the New Guard was simply a militant extension of the conservative effort to suppress the people’s champion, Lang, instead of embodying a true popular movement as is normally found in other fascist movements.

Differences between the Guards

Though the New Guard’s ideology began to differ from the Old Guard’s over time, the primary differences between the Guards were more in their pragmatics rather than ideology. The New Guard began as a breakaway from the Old Guard after Campbell had been invited to resign, following his open criticism of the "cowardly secrecy and timid inaction" of Old Guard leaders. Nevertheless, the two groups remained very similar in their values and purposes, their distaste for selfish machine politics, their extremist/socialist targets, and even to some extent in their methods. Indeed, in its first few months the New Guard tried hard to negotiate acceptable terms for amalgamation. Some support for reunion continued even after this approach ended in April 1931.

Yet there were significant differences in their tactical emphases, and these differences reflected on the nature of their leadership and the political resources available to them. The Old Guard's basic strength was that its leaders were part of Sydney's social and economic elite, including eminent 1st AIF leaders, churchmen, and businessmen. For example, one was a director of the Bank of New South Wales, which provided its bank draft. Another had links to the Department of Defence; as secretary of the Royal Agricultural Society, they could also accommodate horses and troops if country light horsemen needed to be sent to Sydney. As president of the Royal Sydney Golf Club, another could provide a convenient site for armed militia to drill. As influential insiders, the Old Guard leaders preferred to wait until threats to social order crystallised. If the civil authorities seemed unable to cope, they were to act as auxiliary guardians in support. Their role was to be a disciplined force prepared to intervene effectively to avert social breakdown, as their predecessors had earlier acted against union militants and socialists to ensure the maintenance of essential services.

Though, Old Guard practice was not quite this restrained. For example, in November 1931 at Grenfell they disrupted an open-air meeting addressed by Communist Party of Australia founder Jock Garden. On the following day plans for similar action in Cowra were dropped when a large Australian Labor Army force turned up to defend Garden. In many country towns vigilance committees were encouraged to drive out the local subversives. An impressive mobilisation once occurred in Dubbo to deal with its hundred or so "human dingoes". Despite the anti-climax, which resulted in one person being kicked out, this exercise was favourably received; one newspaper described the incident as staunch bushmen "exterminating Red pests".

One difficulty in assessing the New Guard's impact in comparison to that of the Old Guard is that other separate but similar groups were also active, so that it was not always easy to assign responsibility for particular activities. In the countryside many groups protesting against perceived neglect, like the Riverina Movement, saw possible escape from Sydney domination and an opportunity to dissociate themselves from the New South Welshmen that had chosen their fate under Lang. Behind the scenes a well connected Old Guard exercised considerable influence within such groups, through a network of relationships with traditional country institutions.

Organisation

At its inception, the administrative structure of the New Guard consisted of an Organising Committee lead by a Chairman with powers to add more committee members by way of a unanimous vote. This committee would be tasked with the recruitment of members and their separation by localities across the Sydney and regional New South Wales areas. Following the meeting at Cahill’s, the structure of the organisation was revised in an attempt to exercise “practical democracy”. The power allotted to each position in the New Guard changed as the organisation was built.

The area of Greater Sydney would be broken down into four independent Zones: A Zone, consisting of the land north of Sydney Harbour; B Zone, covering the Eastern Suburbs as well as from the coastline down to Maroubra; C Zone, incorporating the Southern Suburbs down to and including the Sutherland Shire; and D Zone, including the Western Suburbs to the west of Parramatta. These Zones would be divided into Divisions and then subdivided into Localities. As part of Campbell’s practical democratic solution, each Locality would operate as independent units where a few hundred New Guardsmen would select for themselves a Locality Commanders and Administrator to handle affairs, and each Locality would frequently meet at Locality Conventions to discuss and vote on matters. The Locality Commanders of each Division would select Divisional Commanders, and said Divisional Commanders would meet to pick the Zone Commander for their respective Zone. Divisional and Zone Commanders would only assume active command positions when more than one of their respective subdivisions were active in a particular objective, therefore making Localities especially independent in the operation of the New Guard.

The executive branch of the New Guard was the General Council, consisting of the leading Chief Commander and four Zone Commanders with equal voting power. The General Council was only to make decisions regarding major executive matters, and questions regarding routine and defensive emergencies would be directed to the Chief Commander, or Deputy Chief Commander if the former was absent. During the period of structural preparation the Chief Commander was to not interfere in the movement’s formation, and only assume complete executive involvement once the Locality system was completely established. To put checks on the General Council’s power, Campbell formed the Council of Action, consisting of the Chief Commander and Divisional Commanders; the Chief Commander would be deprived of a vote.

Intelligence on the New Guard’s political rivals would be collected by the individual Localities and submitted to the Chief of the Intelligence Branch for collation. While being essential to the New Guard’s functionality, it was sometimes inaccurate in its intelligence gathering. Flawed analysis of the political demographics of Sydney found that there were 252,473 Communists in ten Sydney electorates alone.

As Campbell allowed considerable independence for the Localities and permitted members to associate freely with any political party so long that the New Guard’s central values were upheld, splinter groups such as the Fascist Legion (also known as the Pack of Cards) formed. Legion members wore Ku Klux Klan-style gowns and hoods at their own internal meetings in order to guarantee anonymity, adopting pseudonyms based on particular playing cards in a standard 52-card deck (excluding queens). Keeping with the theme of playing cards, the Fascist Legion's leader was led by "the Joker". Its membership was estimated at 49. Besides investigating disloyalty and laxity within the New Guard, they purportedly engaged in targeted operations such as the aforementioned attack on Jock Garden. They were reported to be planning kidnappings and police arm store raids. The activity of splinter groups such as the Fascist Legion contributed to the bleeding of members in the lead-up to Lang’s dismissal by Sir Philip Game.

Membership

Standards for New Guard membership had prospective members picked irrespective of class, financial situation or party affiliations, so long as they were of good character. For maximal utility, the membership system was split into three groups:

• A class - Members who were physically able, and could be employed for operations both within Localities and outside its boundaries if needed
• B class - Members with technical qualifications, regardless of age, who could assist in the maintenance of essential services such as water, electricity and transport services, among others, in the event of a socialist revolution
• C class - Members that due to their age or personality could only be trusted to handle operations within their own Locality

New Guardsmen of their own Locality were encouraged to participate during Locality Conventions to decide matters specific to their area. A member was not kept within the organisation against their will, as they could leave at any time for any reason. This was to ensure that the New Guard could preserve its democratic, voluntary elements established at its founding.

Estimates of the New Guard’s membership count are contradictory. A report conducted by the NSW Police in December 1931 concluded that there were at that time 39,000 card-carrying members – with 3,000 residing in the country centres of regional NSW. For practical reasons, Campbell’s internal estimations of membership count focused on those that the New Guard could rely on in the event of a socialist revolution. In that he estimated the figure at 20,000, while claiming in his memoirs that the police had found that the New Guard contained 87,000 members. For propaganda reasons, New Guard membership was often publicly exaggerated, as when Campbell foreshadowed a procession of 100,000 men along Macquarie Street to present a petition to Sir Game.

Notable members

• Hubert Primrose, former Mayor of North Sydney
• Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm, early Australian aviators
• Francis de Groot, "opener" of the Sydney Harbour Bridge
• Tom Walsh, former trade unionist and husband of suffragette Adela Pankhurst
• Herbert Lloyd, Major General of the Australian Army
• Julian Howard Ashton, prominent journalist and writer

See also

• Australian nationalism
• Australia First Movement
• Loyalism
• Opposition to trade unions

Further reading

• Amos, Keith (1976). The New Guard Movement 1931-1935. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 978-0-522-84092-6.
• Clune, David (2009). The Governors of New South Wales 1788-2010. Annandale, NSW: Federation Press. ISBN 978-1-86287-743-6.
• Hagan, Jim (1991). A History of the Labor Party in New South Wales, 1891-1991. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. ISBN 978-0-582-86969-1.
• Moore, Andrew (1989). The Secret Army and the Premier: Conservative Paramilitary Organisations in New South Wales 1930-32. Kensington, NSW: New South Wales University Press. ISBN 978-0-86840-283-3.
• Nairn, Bede (1986). The "Big Fella": Jack Lang and the Australian Labor Party 1891-1949. Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 978-0-522-84406-1.