ir.

"Is it fair?" returned Ned.

"Well! Why not?"

"How can it be fair? We have nothing and you have everything. All the
leases and all the sheep and all the cattle and all the improvements
belong to you. We've got to work to live and we can't work except for
you. What's the sense of your saying that if we don't like the agreement
we needn't take it? We must either break the agreement or take it. That's
how we stand."

"Well, what do you object to in it?"

"I don't know what the others object to in it. I know what I object to."

"That's what I want to know."

"Well, for one thing, when I've earned money it's mine. The minute I've
shorn a sheep the price of shearing it belongs to me and not to the
squatter. It's convenient to agree only to draw pay at certain times, but
it's barefaced to deliberately withhold my money weeks after I've earned
it, and it's thieving to forfeit wages in case a squatter and I differ as
to whether the agreement's been broken or not."

"There ought to be some security that a pastoralist won't be put to loss
by his men leaving him at a moment's notice," asserted Strong.

"You've got the law on your side," answered Ned. "You can send a man to
prison, like a thief, if he has a row with a squatter after signing an
agreement, but we can't send the squatter to prison if he's in fault. The
Masters and Servants Act is all wrong and we'll alter it when we get a
chance, I can assure you, but you're not content with the Masters and
Servants Act. You want a private law all in your own hand."

"We've had a very serious difficulty to meet," said the other. "Men go on
strike on frivolous pretext and we must protect our interests. We've not
cut down wages and we don't intend to."

"You have cut down wages, labourers' wages," retorted Ned.

"That has been charged," replied Strong, lifting his eyebrows. "But I can
show you the list of wages paid on our stations during the last five
years and you will see that the wages we now offer are fully up to the
average."

"That may be," said Ned. "But they are less than they were last year. I'm
speaking now of what I know."

"Oh! There may be a few instances in which the unions forced up wages
unduly which have been rectified," said Mr. Strong. "But the general rate
has not been touched."

"The pastoralists wouldn't dare arbitrate on that," answered Ned. "In
January, 1890, they tried to force down wages and we levelled them up.
Now, they are forcing th