George W. Cotton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article (or section) may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article, especially its section layout, and relevant internal links. (help)
This article has been tagged since October 2006.

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message.
This article has been tagged since March 2007.

George W. Cotton (1882-1892) was a Member of the Legislative Council in South Australia.

He was a champion of the scheme to put working men onto small blocks (around 20 acres) on which they could carry out agricultural production.

A school carrying his name opened in 1914 and closed in 1945.

The town of Cotton in the Hundred of Noarlunga is discussed in the Chronicle of 26 May 1894.

[edit] Newspaper reports

"Mr Cotton and the Military" (the Chronicle, 25 June 1870): The belief is daily gaining ground that war is legalised murder, except in extreme self-defence, scientifically devised to kill the greatest number of persons in the shortest time, and that in times of peace a standing army is a great mischief, because it keeps men in enforced idleness...

A letter concerning the proposed working men's blocks sponsored by G.W. Cotton is in the Register of 30 August 1884, while two letters written by Mr Cotton on the subject "What Can be Produced from Twenty Acres" are in the Advertiser on 13 and 20 July 1885.

Following spirited public debates on unemployment Thomas H. Smeaton, under the heading "Delusive Demagogues", fires the following shot across Mr Cotton's and a compatriot's bows: Dangerous men these at the present. Discard them working-men; they will fool you and nothing more... (Register, 31 March 1886)

A fortnight later another opinion was forthcoming: He is a secret enemy, not an open fee, and in future it is the duty of all right-thinking men to treat his wordy vapourizings with the select contempt they deserve... (Register, 13 April 1886) The maligned politician sprang to defend himself on 13 April 1886, page 6f: Any man speaking of me as attempting to "gull" anybody can only be measuring me by some standard of his own to which course I respectfully demur to have judgments passed upon me...

Another correspondent to the Register on 16 September 1886 complained: If [he] wishes his 300 to 400 pioneers on labourers' blocks to succeed he had better abstain from inflaming their zeal with misleading statements, but rather ought to preach to them uninterrupted industry (no eight-hours system), the strictest of economy and an unlimited amount of self-denial.

A further unsolicited opinion is given in the Register on 27 October 1886: [He is] a gentleman who works hard in writing and speaking to educate South Australians in finance, and yet every effort he makes seems to increase the fog through which we have to discover his meaning... A letter from Rev Honner is in the Register, 15 February 1888: If I may judge of those blocks by some I have seen, then they must be intended blockheads, for no sane man would live on them, unless he was seeking a wilderness for the occupation of meditation.

This suggestion is castigated by Mr Cotton on 17 February 1888: I hope when the historian has to look back at the difficulties small holdings had to encounter... that there will not be "perils among false brethren" to be received as amongst the bitterest opposition.

Another citizen enters the fray on 22 February 1888: For some years past Mr Cotton has been energetically blowing his own trumpet from the homestead blocks. Some of us working men are growing tired of [it]: Cotton's the man for all jobs, He scowls on all the nobs, He winks and shouts at the snobs, And he sighs for the Government's bobs.

On 25 June 1888 in the Register he proffered the following advice to the world: If it is good to listen to the counsel of an enemy much more should it be tried to profit from the well-meant advice of a friend. But when these kind words come from numerous quarters, as they often do, one may well feel perplexed...

In the heat of a public debate on the "land question" a correspondent to the Register on 31 July 1888 puts the following to Mr Cotton: Must a man be a landjobber before he can honestly propose land reform? And is the only honest politician the land agent who opposes land nationalisation? And, pray, what right have you to say that all but yourself are catering for the votes of the working men?... You may vaunt as much as you like your love for the "poor man"; there is one thing you dare not do... you dare not be an honest politician.

An editorial on the Block system is in the Register, 16 March 1888: Taken at its best it seems to us that it is more a hindrance than of a help to the establishment of a sound and rational system of land tenure...

On 21 March a correspondent says: That he is sincere does not admit the question, but why the continual proclamations, why always clamour for the expected chorus of applause?...

Two correspondents to the Register on 28 August 1888 pass judgement on Mr Cotton: [It would be] much more worthy of a man who is privileged to write the prefix Honourable to his name if he were as particular in retailing slanderous statements... You will have observed long ago that Mr Cotton never gives a straight-forward answer however called for by nasty innuendoes, falsehoods and misrepresentations which he slips into his communications...

On the subject of "Workers" he said in the Register, 31 December 1889: I believe that the wage-receivers are quite as anxious for fair play as those who have to pay the wages. But who is to decide what is fair? Governments shirk the responsibility and cry delusively "It is a matter of open contract". and so it will remain... till it is realised that it is the function of every Government to be a great arbitration and conciliation Association - nothing more and nothing less. In the meantime Trades and Labour Councils must act for the workers...

His views on 10 February 1890 under the heading "The Parliament and the Adelaide Club": What I hold is wanted is a fair representation of each class and not a packed chamber that can only legislate for the country from the standpoint of its own class interests... For several years past South Australia has progressed in one direction only and that is in rapidly adding to its indebtedness to foreigners...

The following opinion is expressed in the Register, 4 August 1890: ...They distrust him; they do not know in what category of politicians to place him; he really stands alone. Sometimes he seems radical and appears is the advocate of thorough reform; at others he opposes the very things which would more than any other benefit the workers...

An obituary is in the Register, 17 December 1892: Anything which tended to benefit the working classes received [his] most serious attention... There has been no man who has been more straight forward and endeavoured to do good in the community... The good acts of some men are far above their failings and [his] little faults could well be overlooked... The working men's block system [has] been a moral lesson to all the world... The tide of wealth had been heaped against him, but he had never shrunk from his duties.

At his funeral, a wreath from some "blockers" bore the inscription - "In loving gratitude to [our] father, friend and champion"

The Register of 3 February 1893 has a proposal for a "Cotton Memorial Homestead Institute" and at the same time the author unwittingly pens an appropriate epitaph for a man of compassion and Christian principles: He it was who trod that broader path of humanity, revelled in those broader views that teach us there is a temporal as well as a spiritual side to questions concerning man's salvation...