Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/39

 delegates is reg'lar blatherskites, as I wouldn't trust to carry a pound note across the street. Pretty coves to make laws for the likes of us.'

'I'm dashed sorry I ever had any truck with this Union crowd,' said his mate, as they walked away. 'I'd never no call to complain, as I know. If I didn't like a man's ways in his shed, I didn't shear there. There's plenty more. I don't fancy free men like us shearers bein' under one man's thumb, and him lookin' out for himself all the time. It's too much of the monkey for me, and I'm not goin' to stand it after this season, no matter what comes of it.'

The minor troubles having been surmounted, the roll-call read over, the rouseabouts settled and contented—each man in receipt of twenty-five shillings per week, with everything found on a scale of liberality, not to say profuseness, huts, cooks, wood and water, beef and mutton, tea and sugar, vegetables—everything reasonable and unreasonable, in fact, that the heart of bushman could desire.

The shearers, in number nearly a hundred, were apparently placated by being allowed to shear for the first time at Tandara under 'Union Rules,' a copy of which was posted up in a prominent part of the shed, setting forth that on certain points of dispute, if such should arise, the Delegate, that important, dignified personage, should have the power of joint decision with the shed manager. Wool had gone down nearly one-half in price, fat sheep as much or more; but holding to a modern doctrine that wages were not to be regulated by profits, and that Labour and not Capital provided the wage-fund, the same rate of payment per hundred sheep as was paid in more prosperous times had been exacted by the shearers' representatives. This was agreed to under protest, though considered inequitable by the proprietors of North Yalla-doora and other representative sheds as the lesser evil, compared with that of a delayed shearing and perhaps ruined wool clip. A truly serious matter.

For the same reason the Union Rules had been accepted by several proprietors, though much against the grain, and the woolshed ticketed for the first time as a 'Union Shed.' This was done under the impression that a feeling of loyalty to the principles which professed to guide the Shearers' Union would ensure steady and continuous work.