Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/77

 CHAPTER V

of the methods which the Pastoralists were compelled to use to defeat the attempted domination of the Shearers' Union was to import free labour: men who were contented to work for high wages and abundant food; to obey those who paid, lodged, and fed them well. It may here be stated that the fare in shearing time, provided for the shearers, the station hands, and the supernumerary labourers, was such as might well be considered not only sufficing and wholesome, but luxurious, in any other part of the world. Three principal meals a day, consisting of beef or mutton, good wheaten bread, pudding, vegetables when procurable; three minor repasts of scones and cakes, with tea ad libitum; the whole well cooked, of good quality, with no limitation as to quantity. Where is the rural labourer in Europe similarly provided?

Agencies were established in the principal towns of the colonies. Men were hired and forwarded to such stations as were in need. The cost of transit was paid by the associated employers. They were forwarded by rail, by coach, on horse-back, or by steamer, as such transit was available. An unfair, even illegal system of intimidation, under the specious name of 'picketing,' to prevent the men thus engaged from following their lawful occupation, came into vogue. Unionists were stationed along roads or near stations, nominally to 'persuade' the free labourers not to fulfil their agreements, but, in reality, to threaten and abuse, not infrequently with brutal violence to assault and ill-treat the nonconformists.

The majority of the Unionists were well-intentioned men, led away by specious demagogues; but among them were lawless ruffians, who, ignorantly prejudiced against their