Prospectus of the Melbourne Anarchist Club, 1886

To the people of Australasia

The Melbourne Anarchists' Club extends its greetings to the liberty loving citizens of these young colonies and appeals to them to assist its members in their efforts to remove those public sentiments and public institutions, which have been transplanted here from the northern hemispheres, retard social progress and happiness; and to substitute in their place the enabling principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity!

The objects of the Melbourne Anarchists' Club are:

1. To foster public interest in the great social questions of the day, by promoting inquiry in every possible way; to promote free public discussion of all social questions; and to circulate and publish literature, throwing light upon existing evils of society, and the methods necessary for their removal.

2. To foster and extend the principles of Self Reliance, Self Help and a Spirit of Independence amongst the people.

3. To uphold and maintain the principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. By Liberty we mean ‘the equal liberty of each, limited alone by the equal liberty of all.’ By Equality we mean ‘the equality of opportunity for each individual.’ And by Fraternity we mean ‘that principle which denies national and class distinctions, asserts the Brotherhood of Man and says “The world is my country”’.

4. To advocate, and seek to achieve, the abolition of all monopolies and despotisms which destroy the Freedom of the Individual and which thereby check social progress and prosperity.

5. To expose and oppose that colossal swindle, Government, and to advocate Abstention from Voting, Resistance to Taxation, and Private Co-operation or Individual Action.

6. To foster Mutual Trust and Fraternity amongst the working people of all ranks, and to turn their attention to their common foes: the Priests and the Politicians, and their co-adjutors, attacking principles rather than individuals.

7. To invite the co-operation of all, who have realised the innate evils of our governing institutions, and desire their speedy dissolution for the general benefit of Humanity.

8. To promote the formation of voluntary institutions similar to the Melbourne Anarchist Club throughout Victoria and the neighbouring colonies, and, with their consent, to eventually unite with them forming the Australasian Association of Anarchists.

From the orginal Prospectus, quoted by S. Merrifield, ‘The Melbourne Anarchist Club, 1886-1891’, Labor History, no. 3, November 1962, pp.35-36 Reprinted in David Lovell, Marxism and Australian Socialism before the Bolshevik Revolution, pp.250-251