CARTOON - INDUSTRIAL WRECKERS

Ben Strange was a prominent political cartoonist in Western Australia who worked for the Western Mail from 1898 to 1930. This original cartoon by Ben Strange, was collected by Ivor T Birtwistle who also worked at the Western Mail in the early 1900s.
The cartoon was first published in the Western Mail on 24 February 1921 and was inspired by a series of national and state based industrial strikes that were occurring in the early 1920s. In late 1920 and early 1921 the Stewards Union went on strike causing considerable disruption to interstate steamers. The strike expanded to include seamen, cooks and butchers. The strike ended in February 1921
Ben Strange is using a mixture of classic Greek myth and tales of English ‘Wreckers’ who both tricked ships into dangerous waters to portray the strikers as being harmful to Australia. Ben had been a long time critic of unions behaviour especially during World War I. He saw many of their actions as being harmful to Australian, unpatriotic and a pathway for communism to enter and threaten Australian society.