workers held up one of Australia's chief industries. The shearers, the
clippers of the fleeces, struck work. The shearers are a roving crowd,
who move from north to south of Australia's vast territory and back
again. Most of them are well known to the squatters who employ them. The
same old story--more wages, better conditions of living. My own opinions
as to the rights and wrongs of the shearers' claims may be of no value,
but my sympathies were certainly on their side as regarded, at least, the
conditions of living at the sheds.

I had had personal experience of how quickly utter ruin falls upon the
squatter. It is a question often of living in affluence one day and
having not a penny left within nine months. To record the names of the
squatters personally known to myself who had thus suffered would be a sad
task. They were many. However, their failure was not brought about by the
demands of the shearers. The granting of these demands in prosperous
times could not have much hurt the interests of their employers.
Providence has a special gift of casting ruin at times broadcast,
without, as far as we mortals can tell, any reason or rhyme. A few inches
of rain, falling at the right time of the year in any part of Australia,
ensures a plentiful supply of green feed and prevents the enormous
ravages amongst stock of all kinds which a drought causes.

The squatters fought their battle hard against the shearers in 1891. In
Queensland they had a sympathetic Government at the time. The maritime
strike had left a nasty taste in the mouths of the producers. The export
trade had been held up, and the necessaries of life imported from abroad
had been denied to the country districts. It was decided to adopt hard,
repressive measures.

The Government summoned to their aid the Mounted Rifles. These were
chiefly recruited in the country districts, and most of them were
producers themselves, and the strike broke down.

It was just about this time that I accompanied His Excellency Lord
Kintore, an old friend and neighbour from Aberdeenshire--then our
Governor in South Australia--as far as Brisbane. Lord Kintore had, some
time previously, arranged to proceed by sea to Port Darwin and undertake
the overland journey from there to Adelaide through the northern
territory, which was then under the administration of the South
Australian Government. It was a big undertaking, and by no means a
pleasure trip. We arrived in Brisbane, but, owin