Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/40

 It was a concession to expediency, unwillingly made by Mr. Hunter and others at the last moment, in the hope of 'getting the shearing over quickly'—a matter involving great gain or loss. The latter, in this particular era of low prices of wool and stock of all kinds, cattle and horses, as well as sheep, approaching the margin of ruin, ominiously close. 'If the fellows shear decently and behave themselves, I don't care what they stick up in the shed, or what they call their confounded Union. They shore well enough for me and Anderson last year, so I shall go on with them as long as they treat me well. You might as well do so, too.'

This had been the reasoning of Mr. M'Andrew, one of Mr. Hunter's neighbours, a shrewd, somewhat self-seeking man of the world. And it had a savour of argument about it. 'What did it matter,' he had said, 'how other squatters looked at the question? All they had to think of was to get their own work properly done, and let every man mind his own business. He was not sure that the Pastoral Association did much good. It only set the men and masters more at odds with each other. A great deal of this ill-feeling and strike had been brought on by such proprietors as old Jackson, M'Slaney, and Pigdon. Men notoriously hard and grasping in their dealings with their employés—cutting down wages, the price of shearing and contract bush work, in every way possible; feeding, housing, and paying their people badly, while charging exorbitant prices for necessaries—flour, meat, shears, tobacco—all things, in fact, which they could not carry with them and were bound to buy from the station store. These pastoralists were primarily responsible for the dissatisfaction which had led to the strikes and rioting. For his part, as he had always acted fairly and squarely with his men, as everybody knew, it was not to be expected that he should be compelled to pay up for a contest which he had no share in bringing on.'

This had seemed fair reasoning to that class of men who are glad of any excuse to avoid paying cash out of pocket and to the avowal of a decided policy. But there were other squatters equally averse to unnecessary outlay, who, possessing more forecast and logical acumen, refused on principle to make terms with the shearers' or any other Union. They had stated their grounds of dissent from the policy of