The discontented shearers even, whose minds had been unsettled by specious, communistic talk, prophesying a general distribution of property among the wage-earners, according to the gospel of Bellamy, commenced to be more or less satisfied. Visions of the big cheque, to which each man was adding now (prospectively) at the rate of from a pound to thirty-five shillings a day, commenced to float in the air. All was comparative peace and joy. Macdonald, it is true, had a trifling altercation with Mr. Janus Stoate one Friday afternoon, during which the last-named gentleman received a telegram, which he put into his pocket, after reading it, with a sneering smile. 'You'll know directly who's master on this floor—you, the hired servant of a capitalist, as is livin' on the blood of these pore ignorant chaps; or me, that's been elected by the workers of the land to see as they gets justice from their grindin' employers.'

Macdonald made one step towards the insolent underling, as might the second mate of a north sea whale-ship, if cook or fo'c's'le hand dared withstand him, while the wrathful glitter in his eye caused the offender to alter his tone. But the thought of the shearing, now three-parts through, being delayed on his account, was even a stronger controlling force.

Halting, with an effort, he glared for a few seconds at the contemptible creature, that yet had such power of annoyance, as if he could crush him with his heel. Then with studiously calm and measured tones, he said: 'You'd do great things if you were able, Mr. Delegate Stoate. If I had my way, I'd have you shot and nailed up on a barn door, as they do your namesakes in the old country. That's the only way to treat varmint, and it's a pity it isn't done here.'

The man received this little compliment with an attempt at cynical self-possession, which his shifty, malignant gaze belied, as the small eyes gleamed with reptilian malice. 'I'll learn yer,' he hissed out, 'to talk to the people's chyce as if he was the dirt under yer feet.' 'Men of the Australian Shearers' Union,' he said, raising his voice to a shrill cry, 'listen to me, and drop them shears—every man Jack of yer. D'ye know what's in this bloomin' tallagram? A strike's ordered. D'ye hear?—a strike! Here's the wire from the Head Centre at Wagga.

'"By order of the President and Council of the Australian Shearers' Union. Every shed in the Darling district, Union or non-Union, is hereby commanded to come out and stop working instantly on receiving this notice from the Delegate of the Branch, under penalty of being reported to the Council of the Union at Headquarters.

This was a bombshell with a vengeance. The anarchist, who threw it metaphorically, would have had no scruples—except those of personal apprehension—in casting a dynamite duplicate on the shearing floor. A sudden confusion filled the shed. Murmurs and sullen rejoinders were made, as the more prudent division of the men recognised that their shearing cheques, the outcome of weeks of hard work, were doomed to delay, perhaps to forfeiture. Some openly withstood the triumphant delegate, others, less impulsive, were disposed to temporise, while 'I thought this was a Union shed' remarked, with slow impressiveness, a gigantic native, considerably over six feet in height, whose wiry, muscular frame and tremendous reach stamped him as one of the 'ringers' of the shed. 'Ain't the Union Rules put up there?' pointing to the copy ostentatiously affixed at the end of the shed for reference. 'What's this darned foolishness, stoppin' men that's only a week's work between them and a big cheque?'

'You can read and write, I suppose,' replied Mr. Stoate contemptuously. ('Better nor you,' murmured a young fellow just within earshot.) 'Is them words on the telegram, what I told the men of this shed, and are you thereby ordered to come out, or are you not? That's what I want to know. Are you a-goin' to defy the Union? Think a bit afore you chance that and turn "scab."'

'I'm goin' to think a bit—just so,—and I hope you other chaps'll do the same, and not rush into law, like a bull at a gate, and lose your money, because of any second fiddle in the land. As to being a "scab," Delegate Stoate, I'm no more one than you are, perhaps not as much, if the truth's told. But don't you say that to me again, or I'll pitch you through one of them skylights, with one hand too.' And here the giant stretched forward his enormous fore-arm, and looking upward to the skylight in the roof of the woolshed, made as though there would be no unusual difficulty in the feat. 'Show me that telegram, please; this step wants consideration.'

'Ain't you goin' to obey the Union?' demanded Stoate with a great assumption of dignity. 'P'raps you ain't aweer, men, as this is a serious act of disobedience, which I shall report accordin'.'

'That's all very well,' answered the dissenter, whose unusual height, as he towered above his fellows, seemed to give him a certain title to leadership. 'I'm as good a Unionist as any man here; but I see no points in chuckin' away our money and hurtin' an employer who's been fair and square with us. Where's he gone against our rules? I ask you all. Isn't the rules put up at the end of the shed, all ship-shape and reg'lar? Didn't we stop shearin' for two days last week, and the weather fine, because the delegate here said the wool was damp? I didn't feel no damp, nor my mate neither, and we lost two dashed good days' work—a couple of pounds each all round. Now, I don't want to go dead against the Union, though I can't see the fun of losin' a goodish cheque, and, as I say, hurtin' a gentleman as never did any man here a bad turn. Let's try a middle course. Suppose we pick a man as we all can trust, and send him to Wagga. He can interview the Head Centre there, and make sure, afore we chuck away our stuff, whether every Union shed's bound to come out, or whether, under partic'lar circumstances like this here, we can't cut out the shed afore we go. I move a resolution to that effect.'

'And I second it,' said Bill Hardwick. 'I want to take my money home to my old woman and the kids; I've got a lot to do with it this season, and so, I daresay, have most of you, chaps. I don't see no sense in clearin' out now, when we've got fifty or sixty pound a man, to take and goin' off with neither money nor grub. Of course, we can wait to be paid out of Union funds, but we know what that means. Those that votes for Jim Stanford's motion, and fair play, hold up your hands.'

The scene that followed was hard to describe. A forest of hands was held up, while there rose a babel of voices, some laying down the law, others expressing a doubt of the prudence of flouting the mysterious powers of the A.S.U., in the midst of which Mr. Stoate, standing upon the wool table, vainly attempted to make himself heard.

The controversy continued until the dinner-bell rang, by which time it was clear that the sense of the meeting was overwhelmingly in favour of Stanford's amendment.

So, in spite of Stoate's threats and envious malice, a steady-going, middle-aged shearer of known probity and experience was chosen and despatched to Narandera, en route for Wagga Wagga, for further instructions. In the meantime, it was agreed to go on with the shearing, to which the men addressed themselves with such energy and determination, that when the knock-off evening bell sounded, the tallies were larger than on any preceding afternoon of the week. Jack Macdonald was delighted, though he refrained from open commendation, as he noticed that all the fast shearers made a point of shearing carefully and giving no room for disapprobation on his part.

Mr. Stoate viewed the whole proceedings with unconcealed disgust, and talked big about taking down the names of every man in the shed, and so reporting them that they would never get another 'stand' in a Union shed. He found, however, that except among the young, unmarried men, and a few reckless spendthrifts, who were carried away by the specious ideas at that time freely ventilated, he had little influence.

Stanford and Hardwick were noted men—honest, hard-working, and respected as 'ringers,' and as such, leaders in their profession. As Stanford bent his long back, and lifted out a fresh sheep every few minutes from the pen, with as much apparent ease as if the big, struggling seventy pound wether had been a rabbit, a feeling of industrial emulation seemed to pervade the great shed, and each man 'shore for his life,' as old Billy Day expressed it—'and that dashed neat and careful, as if there was a hundred pound prize at next Wagga Show hangin' to it.'

'Wait till George Greenwell comes back,' said Stoate—'and he ought to be here inside of eight days, as he can get the rail from Narandera—and see what you'll have to say, then.'

Of course, telegrams had been sent, and arrived with reiterated command from the Napoleon at Wagga Wagga—to lay down their arms, or rather their shears, as ordered.

And this was the crowning injustice and treachery of the ukase—that all the Union sheds in New South Wales, where the proprietors had surrendered their independence, and pocketed their pride, at the bidding of expediency, were penalised. Those squatters who 'bowed not the knee to Baal,' and fought out the contest, with sheds half full of 'learners,' and strangers from other colonies, brought over by the Pastoral Association, as well as the free shearers, who, intimidated by the Union guerillas, were often injured and hindered as to their lawful work, were now in a far better position. They were able to laugh at the surrendering squatters.

'You have given in,' said they; 'sacrificed principle and set a bad example for the sake of getting quickly through this season's shearing. You betrayed your pastoral comrades, and are now betrayed by the Union; you are left in the lurch. Serve you right!'

So, 'deserted in their utmost need,' with half-shorn sheep, and no hope of fresh men—as the non-Union sheds had secured most of the available labour—they were in a pitiable condition, neither help nor sympathy being procurable; while many of the free sheds were shearing steadily and comfortably, with a 'full board.'

In seven days, Mr. Greenwell was expected to appear. He could ride to Narandera in three days; twenty-four hours would take him to Wagga Wagga, after stopping for the night at Junee Junction. This was far and away the finest railway station in New South Wales, perhaps in Australia, having not only an imposing structure connected with the railway proper, but a very fine hotel, erected by the Government of New South Wales, liberally managed and expensively furnished.

There, the railway passenger could spend the night, or a week, if he so decided, being sure that he would be called at the proper time, either by night or day, to be despatched on his journey in an enviable and Christian state of mind.

The days passed on at Tandara, the week was nearly over. Such quick and clean shearing had never been done there before. The last day of the allotted time approached. Greenwell had not arrived, but surely he would turn up on the morrow.

Stoate was uneasily anxious. He hinted at treachery. But Greenwell, a regular, downright 'white man,' could not be 'got at.' Every one scoffed at the idea. One of the rouseabouts, who had known better times, hummed the refrain of 'Mariana in the moated grange': 'He cometh not, she said.' Worst of all, from Stoate's point of view, the shearing would be finished in two more days. The shed would then be paid off—shearers, pressers, rouseabouts, the cook and his mate, everybody down to the tar-boy. If their emissary didn't come before then, he might just as well not come at all. The 'might, majesty, and dominion' of the Australian Shearers' Union, with 20,000 members in all the colonies, which had aimed at one great 'Australian Labourers' Union' in town and country, would be set at nought. They had planned the inclusion of every worker—that is, muscle-worker, for brains didn't count—from the ship's cook of the coaster to the boundary rider on the Lower Darling or the Red Barcoo; from the gas-stoker in Melbourne or Sydney, where they hoped to plunge the cities into darkness, to the stock-rider, behind his drove of Queensland bullocks; and the back-block carrier, with his waggon and team of fourteen unshod Clydesdales or Suffolks.

And now, in the case of the Tandara shed, one of the best known and oldest stations on the Darling, this campaign against capital was to end in defeat and disappointment.

Stoate groaned in despair, as the eighth day arrived and no messenger. For the last forty-eight hours he had been looking anxiously for the cloud of dust at the end of the long, straight road across the endless plain, which heralded the approach of team, coach, or horseman.

As if to aggravate the Strike leaders, and all connected with that beneficent institution, the weather had been miraculously fine. No spring storms had come out of the cloudless sky, not so much as a 'Darling River shower'—four drops upon five acres,' in the vernacular—had sprinkled the red dust of the plain, to give the delegate the excuse to declare the sheep too wet to shear, and so lose a day. Nothing, in fact, happened. And on the noontide hour of the fourth day succeeding the week, Tandara shed 'cut out.' The 'cobbler,' the last sheep—a bad one to shear, and so considerately left for 'some one else,' by every man who picked out of the large middle pen—was lifted aloft by Stanford, amid the jeers of the men, now preparing with stiff backs and aching sinews to surrender their task for a full week at any rate, before they 'struck' the next shed, lower down the river.

'I could shear him,' said he, regarding the closely wrinkled 'boardy' fleece, 'if he was covered with bloomin' pin-wire. My word! isn't it a pity that Greenwell didn't turn up afore? Eh, Mr. Delegate? D'ye think the Union'll guillotine us, same as they did chaps at the French Revolution? I'm off to Launceston in case of accidents. My cheque'll keep me for the rest of the summer, in a country that is a country—not a God-forsaken dust-heap like this.' Thus speaking, and shearing all the while, with punctilious precision, Mr. Stanford trimmed the 'cobbler' with a great affectation of anxiety, and dismissing him down the shoot of the pen with a harmless kick, said, 'Good-bye, and God bless you, old man; you make eighty-nine—not a bad forenoon's work.'

'Come along, men, down to the office,' said Macdonald, 'your money's ready for you—the storekeeper and I were up pretty nigh all night getting the accounts made out. You'll enjoy your dinners all the better for having your money in your pockets. The rouseabouts and shed hands can come in the afternoon. They won't want to leave before morning.'

'Who's that coming along the Wagga road on a grey horse?' said a sharp-eyed young shearer. 'By Jing! I believe it's Greenwell. Whatever can have kep' him, Mr. Stoate?'

'Never mind him,' said Macdonald. 'John Anderson, this is your account; look it over. £45:10:6. You'll take a cheque; here it is—sign the book. I'll take you all by the alphabet.'

As the men stood round the little room at the side of the big store, that served for the station office, the traveller on the grey horse rode slowly towards them.

The men were in a merry humour. Their keen eyes had recognised horse and rider afar off. It was the messenger who had so signally failed in coming up to time. He was received with a storm of ironical cheers and derisive exclamations.

'Halloa, George—where yer been? To Sydney and back? Got warrants for us all? To think as we should ha' cut out, and you on the road with an order from the Head Centre in your pocket! Come along, Mr. Delegate, and talk straight to him.'

These and the like specimens of humorous conversation were shouted at the unlucky emissary, who, as he came up and wearily dismounted, evidently knew that an explanation would be demanded of him.

Stoate walked out with a solemn and dignified air to meet him. 'Well done, Mr. Delegate, give it to him from the shoulder. He's a jolly telegraph, ain't he? Why, Joe Kearney the sprinter could have run all the way and beat him, hands down.'

'Will you oblige me by statin' the cause of your delay on a mission of importance to the Union and your feller-workers?'

'Now then, George, speak up—give us the straight griffin. What was it? Honour bright; did yer join a circus? Was there a good-looking girl in the way? And you a married man. For shame of you!'

Between the awful visage of Mr. Stoate and the running fire of chaff from his mates, Greenwell looked rather nonplussed.

However, girding himself for the contest, he mustered up courage, and thus delivered himself.

'Well, boys, the long and short of it is, I was took ill at Junee, on the return journey, and after stayin' a day, just as I was startin' back, some old mates of mine, as had just cut out at Hangin' Rock, come along, and—well, the truth's the truth, we all got on a bit of a spree. Now the murder's out, and you can make the best of it. I don't see as there's anything broke, so far.'

'Anything broke,' retorted Stoate indignantly. 'Hasn't the shed been cut out, in direct disobedience of orders, and the Union treated with contempt?'

'We're just gettin' our cheques,' called out a young fellow at the back of the crowd. 'Jolly awkward, ain't it? But I'll get over it, and so'll Dick Dawson.'

When the weighty matter of the payment was over, and the men were finishing their 'wash and brush up,' getting up their horses and settling their packs, one of the older men approached Stanford, who was quietly proceeding with his preparations, and thus addressed him—

'Now, Jim, you knowed that chap afore, didn't yer? Hadn't yer no notion as he might get on a "tear," with money in his pocket, and half nothin' to do like?'

Mr. Stanford made no verbal answer, but drawing himself up to the full height of his exalted stature, looked down into the interrogator's face, with an expression of great solemnity. It is just possible that he may have observed a slight deflection in the corner of his left eye, as he relaxed the severity of his countenance, while he observed resignedly, 'Well, it might have been worse; I've got the boss's cheque for £57:14s., and a few notes for the road in my pocket, this blessed minute.'

'Mine's a shade more'n that,' replied 'Long Jim,' with deliberation. '"All's well that ends well" 's a good motter. I've done enough for this season, I reckon. I had a fairish fencing contract in the winter. It'll be time enough to think about the "dignity of labour" and the "ethics of war" (wasn't that what the Head Centre called 'em?) afore next shearin' comes round. I'm off to a cooler shop across the Straits.'

The shearing at Tandara having ended satisfactorily to the shearer, the sheep-washers, the rouseabouts, the boundary riders, the overseers, to every one connected with the establishment in fact, from the 'ringer' to the tar-boy, all of whose wages and accounts were paid up to the last hour of the last day, in fact to every one except Mr. Janus Stoate, whose remuneration was in the future, a great silence commenced to settle down upon the place so lately resounding with the 'language used, and the clamour of men and dogs.' The high-piled waggons, drawn by bullock teams of from twelve to twenty, and horse teams of nearly the same number, had rolled away. The shed labourers had walked off with swags on their backs. The shearers, many of whom had two horses, poor in condition when they came, but now sleek and spirited, had ridden off with money in both pockets, full of glee and playful as schoolboys. The great shed, empty save for a few bales of sheepskins, was carefully locked up, as were also the shearers' and the other huts. Even Bower, the grim night-guardian of the woolshed, liberally remunerated, had left for Melbourne by Cobb and Co.'s coach. There, among other recreations and city joys, he betook himself to the Wax-works in Bourke Street.

As with hair and beard trimmed, newly apparelled from top to toe, he wandered around, looking at the effigies of former friends and acquaintances, now, alas, cut off in their prime, or immersed in the dungeon of the period for such venial irregularities as burglary, highway robbery, manslaughter, and the like, his gaze became fixed, his footsteps arrested. He stands before the waxen, life-like presentment of a grizzled elderly man, in rough bush habiliments, his hat a ruin, his clothes ragged and torn, his boots disreputable. A double-barrelled gun rests on his shoulder, while above his head is a placard, on which in large letters could seen by the staring spectator—

Cut to the heart, not so much by the heartless publicity of the affair as by the disgraceful attempt to brand him as a dirty disreputable-looking individual, he glared angrily at his simulacrum. 'And me that was always so tasty in my dress,' he muttered. So saying, he seized the hapless figure by the arm, and dragging it along with wrathful vehemence, made for the door.

'Oh, Mr. Bower, Mr. Bower!' cried the proprietress, 'ye'll ruin him—I mane yerself. Sure ye wouldn't go to injure a poor widdy woman, and all the people sayin' it's your dead imidge.'

'Imidge of me, is it?' shouted Bower, the furious, ungovernable temper of the 'long sentence convict' breaking out. 'I'll tache ye to make a laughing-stock of Harry Bower, this day. Ye might have dressed me dacent, while ye wor about it.'

So saying, he dragged the inanimate malefactor through the door, and casting him down upon the Bourke Street pavement, commenced to kick him to pieces, to the great astonishment of the crowd which speedily gathered around him. A rumour had started that 'Bower the bushranger was killing a man outside the Wax-works,' and before many minutes the street was blocked with men, women, and children, lured to the spot by the expectation of seeing a real live bushranger in the exercise of his bloodthirsty vocation.

A few minutes later—having dissevered several vital portions of the 'Frankenstein' individual, and, like Artemus Ward's enthusiastic Bible Christian, who 'caved Judassis' head in,' more or less demolished the victim—Mr. Bower, desisting, stalked moodily up the street, his peculiar reputation not leading any one to volunteer pursuit. There was no constable in sight, so the Mrs. Jarley of the establishment was left to her lamentations, and the dubious satisfaction of a remedy by civil process.

Next day, below startling headlines, similar paragraphs appeared in the leading journals.

'About three o'clock yesterday afternoon, such denizens of Bourke Street as were passing Mrs. Dooley's interesting collection of Wax-works were alarmed by the spectacle of an aged man of athletic proportions, who had assaulted an individual of similar age and appearance; had thrown him down on the pavement, and was savagely kicking him about the head and the body; indeed it was feared—such was the fury of his gestures—that he was actually trampling the unfortunate victim of his rage to death. None dared to interfere, every one appeared paralysed; but after one or two public-spirited individuals had started for the Swanston Street police station, an adventurous bystander called out, 'Why, it's a wax figure.' Though a shout of laughter greeted the announcement, no one cared to remonstrate with the hero of so many legends—the man who, long outlawed, and captured after a desperate resistance, had barely escaped the gallows for the manslaughter of the warders of the hulk President in a frustrated plot for escape—the dreaded bushranger, Henry Bower. We have since learned that this attempt at felo de se (in wax)—for the injured individual turned out to be a fairly correct likeness of himself—can only be proceeded for as a debt, which Bower in his cooler moments will not be averse to liquidating, he having returned from the bush with a reasonably large cheque, earned in the service of an old employer, who gave him a berth at a couple of pounds a week as night-watchman of his woolshed. In these times of disturbance and incendiary troubles, most of our readers will concur with our opinion, that old Harry Bower, with his double-barrel, not swayed by frivolous objection to bloodshed, was, in such a position of trust, "the right man in the right place."'

When the shearers took their cash or cheques as each elected, and departed, splitting into small parties, on different routes, division of opinion took place likewise. Bill Hardwick openly declared his intention, as did several others, to 'cut the Shearers' Union' and go 'on their own' for the future. 'I've had enough of this Union racket,' said he, as, lighting his pipe, and jogging off with his two fat horses, saddled and packed, he prepared to take the 'down river' road. 'I don't see no points in being bossed by chaps like this Stead, and callin' theirselves chairmen and presidents, and what not—fellers as have done dashed little but blather this years and years. They've turned dog on the squatters as trusted 'em and "went Union," and deuced near done us out of six weeks' hard graft at this very shed. We've got our cash, boys; that'll carry us on for a bit. But suppose we'd turned out when that galoot at Wagga wanted us to, where should we be now? Travellin' the country without a shillin' in our pockets, our shearin' money forfeited by the next police magistrate (and serve us right, too, for bein' such bally fools), and summonses and warrants out against every man on the board. I'm full of Mr. Head Centre at Wagga, with his top hat, and gold chain, and his billiards, as our money goes to pay for. But he won't get none of mine to monkey with, nor you either, Janus Stoate, and so you may tell him next time you wire.'

'I'll report your language to the Union secretary, William Hardwick, never fear,' replied Stoate, fixing his snaky eye upon him. 'You'll soon know which is the strongest—you or the Association, as protects the workers' interests. So I warn you, and all others as is fools enough to stand by you.'

'That'll do, Mr. Delegate,' said Bill; 'don't you go to bully me. Say another word, and I'll give you a smack or two, that'll make a better yarn when you're touching up the tell-tale business for the Head Centre. I'm off to Moorara, where there's 300,000 sheep to shear, and a board only half full. Who's comin' my way?'

There had been a hum of approbation when Bill finished his humble oratorical effort, after which a dozen of the best and fastest shearers announced their intention to go with him, to the wrath and despair of Mr. Stoate.

'I'll be even with you, Bill Hardwick,' he yelled, 'and you too, Johnny Jones—see if I don't. You'll get no stands from us this year, nor next either.'

A hundred and fifty miles below Tandara. A red-walled promontory overlooking the Darling, in this year a broad, majestic stream, with anabranches of equal breadth and volume running out for many a mile, where the river steamers took their course, cutting off corners, and, because of the depth of water in this most bountiful season, almost indifferent to obstacles. Here stood the great Head Station of Moorara. Miles of fencing of substantial character surrounded it on all sides. There was none of the ordinary carelessness as to finish, popularly supposed to be characteristic of back-block stations 'a thousand miles from everywhere,' as had been said descriptively by an imaginative tourist. On the contrary, every hut, paling, fence, gate, wall, and roof in that immense holding was in what old-fashioned English country people called 'apple-pie order.'

Everything was mended and kept right, up to date. Six carpenters and three blacksmiths lived on the premises all the year round. There was no waiting until that pastoral millennium 'after shearing' arrived. Everything was done at once, and done well. The 'stitch in time' was an article of the faith at Moorara, and, as such, religiously observed. If any superficial judging tourist, observing these things, ventured to remark that such improvements must have cost a mint of money, or to hint a doubt whether such a place 'paid,' he was frowned down at once and haughtily reminded that this was Moorara, the property of the Hon. Mr. M'Cormack, whose sheep shorn last year (this was one of his long list of stations) would total up to over a million!

Just calculate what so many fleeces come to, the average weight being eight or nine pounds, and the value per head rarely under as many shillings. Then, of course, there are the other stations, carrying six hundred thousand high-class merino sheep!

Now the woolshed to which Bill and his ten or twelve companions were bound was one of which the owner had 'stood out' from the first against the tyranny of the Shearers' Union.

As Bill and his companions journeyed down the river, rumour reached them of serious developments of the Great Strike. This protest against the alleged dictation of Capital had reached its culminating stage. The o'er-vaulting ambition of the State-school educated Mr. Stead, the originator and prime mover of the Civil War, which was now fully recognised, had struck a blow at the State itself—that State under which he had been bred and nurtured, fed, protected, and presented with a 'free, compulsory, and secular education.' He had justified the forebodings of old-fashioned Conservatives, who had always doubted the wisdom of educating the labouring classes at the expense of the ratepayers, of breeding up an army of enemies to Capital and to the settled order of the Government.

And now the long-threatened result had come to pass—a revolt against order and good government, a deliberate attempt to subvert the Constitution under the specious guise of federated labour. It had commenced with a quarrel between the cook's mate of a coasting steamer and the so-called 'delegate' of the crew, spreading with portentous rapidity, like the bush-fires of the land, until it enveloped the stock-riders of the Paroo and the teamsters of 'the Gulf.' It menaced life and property. It attempted to plunge cities into darkness by 'calling out' the gas-stokers. It essayed to paralyse commerce by intimidating the carriers, whom it forbade to convey the wool—the staple Australian export—to the wharves, by restraining the wharf labourers from loading the vessels.

But, in these two instances, the common-sense of the city populations came to the rescue. The young men of the learned professions, of the upper classes—in the true sense of the word—came out to play a man's part in the interests of law and order. They manned the gas-works, and, amid furnace-heat and grime, provided the necessary labour, all unused as they were to toil under such conditions. The cities were not wrapped in darkness, and the streets were not made ready for the spoil by the burglar, the garrotter, and the thief. A line of wool teams was driven down the principal street of Sydney by barristers and bankers, by clerks and merchants, chiefly young men, high-couraged and athletic. But on the foremost waggon, high-seated behind his four-horse team, which he tooled with practised ease, might be recognised the leonine visage and abundant beard of Winston Darling, the Explorer, the Pioneer Squatter, the well-known Pastoral Leader and Ruler of the Waste.

The streets were crowded with yelling, blaspheming, riotous Unionists, with difficulty kept within bounds by a strong body of police.

Stones were thrown, and foul epithets freely used. But though one youthful driver had his head cut open, no further damage was done. And the wool was safely conveyed to the wharves and shipped in spite of the threatening demeanour of the assembled thousands.

These amateurs, native-born Australian gentlefolk, worked for weeks, from six to six, in many instances galling the hands, which were wholly unused to such rude treatment. But they kept at it till the stubborn conflict subsided, and not till then did they fall out of the ranks of the 'muscle-workers,' who in this and other instances have arrogated to themselves the title of the only workers in this complex and many-sided body politic.

This demonstration was chiefly confined to the seaports. When, however, the Ministry was sufficiently strong to call out the Volunteer regiments, their disciplined action gained control of the disorderly mobs, and order was regained, without discouraging delay.

But in the bush, far from help, police or military protection, matters were far otherwise. Lonely stations were terrorised. Large camps of armed and apparently desperate men were formed, who intimidated those non-Union shearers and bush labourers who neither conformed to their rules nor submitted to their dictation.

They were in many cases captured, so to speak, assaulted, maltreated, and illegally restrained from following their lawful occupation. The carriers' horses or bullocks were driven away or slaughtered, their waggons, in some instances, burned.

These outrages were directed against men and their employers who had dared to be independent, to exercise the right of free Britons to manage their own affairs and their own property.

It may easily be imagined how bodies of two or three hundred men, well armed and mounted, could terrorise a thinly-populated country. Specific acts of incendiarism and other offences against property were frequent. Woolsheds were burned with their contents, sometimes to the value of thousands of pounds; fences were cut and demolished; bridges and telegraph lines destroyed; in short, no lawless action which could result in expense and loss to the pastoralist, or those of the labourers who defied the New Tyranny, was omitted.

Some explanation of the Great Australian Strike of 1890, which lasted in more or less virulence and intensity until 1895, producing widespread damage and ruinous loss, may not here be out of place.

This important industrial conflict exhibited the nearest approach to civil war which Australia has known. It originated, as did certain historical revolutions and mutinies, from an occurrence ludicrously insignificant compared with the magnitude of the results and the widespread disasters involved.

A fireman was discharged by the captain of a coasting steamer belonging to the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company, whereupon the Seamen's Union took up the matter, the man being their 'delegate,' and demanded his reinstatement.

He had been 'victimised,' they asserted, by the chief steward, who must be dismissed or the fireman reinstated. The Cooks' and Stewards' Union, in the interests of the chief steward, held an inquiry, in conjunction with the Seamen's Union, to which the fireman belonged. The result failed to substantiate any charge against the chief steward. But the Seamen's Union decided to hold the captain responsible, threatening to take the crew out of the ship. No inquiry was asked of the owners.

About a month after the threat the crew gave notice, and were paid off. The captain had received the following letter:—

'Captain ——, Steamer ——.

'Dear Sir—We are instructed by the members of the above Society to state that we intend to have our delegate —— reinstated on board. If he is not reinstated by the return of the ship to Sydney, the crew will be given twenty-four hours' notice.

'We intend to protect our members from being victimised (sic) by chief stewards and others, and intend at all hazards to have him reinstated.—I remain, yours truly,

'The Acting Secretary.

'Sir—With regard to your letter as to the discharge of a fireman from the steamer Corinna, the captain informs me that the chief steward had nothing whatever to do with the discharge. The fireman made no complaint about his food. He was discharged in the Company's interests, but there is no objection to his joining any other of the Company's vessels. The captain also was not aware that he was a delegate, and had nothing to do with his discharge. It seems strange that men should leave the Company without explanation, while the Company is denied the same right.—I remain, etc.'

Now, what in the world had the colliers of Newcastle, N.S.W., to do with the injustice or otherwise meted out to the fireman through that powerful and distinguished official, the ship's cook, or even by the chief steward? Such would be the common-sense view of any ordinary person, especially if he had been reared in the belief that 'mind your own business' was a maxim of weight and authority, verified by the lore of ages. Not so thought the leaders of the mining community. A fatal fascination appeared to have actuated one and all under the influence of a false and specious principle.

No sooner had the steamer arrived at the Agricultural Association's wharf desiring a cargo of coal than the miners 'came out' of the Sea Pit, at that time in full work. Then the Northern Colliery owners, justly indignant at this breach of agreement, stopped work at all the pits under their control. Fourteen days' notice should have been given by the miners, on the terms of their agreement.

There was no grievance between master and man, and yet at the bidding of an outside person the miners abandoned their work without notice.

The Unionist shearers, at the instigation of their dictator, hasted to join the revolt. They commenced to formulate an agreement imposing higher pay, shorter hours, the supervision of sheds by workmen appointed by themselves, the deposition of the rule of the employer over his own work, as to his own property, in his own woolshed.

Then the employers, up to that time slow to move and more or less disunited, saw that the time had come for them to combine against the tyranny of a communistic organisation. The Shearers' Union, however, as represented by their president, thought it improper of other people to form Unions. They began to threaten as follows:—

'Should the employers maintain their present attitude, the trades' organisation will be compelled to use every means to win their cause, methods which at present they have avoided.

'For instance, they could call out all the shearers (sic), and at one blow cause widespread disaster. [This they did later on, including those who, in reliance on their promises, were shearing under Union Rules.] The effects of such a step would be to paralyse the whole industry of the colony. In Victoria, shearing is only just commencing. In New South Wales it is barely half over. At the Labour Conference in Sydney it was decided that the Western miners be called out next day. This meant cutting off the sole remaining coal supply of the colony. Decided also that all the shearers, rouseabouts, and carriers be called out. Instructions sent accordingly.

'In New South Wales alone this will affect 22,000 shearers, 15,000 rouseabouts, 10,000 carriers also, together with all affiliated trades, such as butchers, bakers, grocers, and compositors. Whether the railway men will be included cannot be now ascertained.'

As a sample of the class of arguments used to set class against class, and to inflame the minds of the bush labourers against their employers, the following circular, signed by the leaders, and privately distributed, may serve as a specimen. It was headed:—

'A shed labourer's lot is not a happy one. To work all hours and to endure all manner of privations. To work hard for a miserable starvation wage. A victim of capitalistic greed and tyranny. Suffering worse treatment than the negro slaves of the Southern States of America. The reason for this being that they have had no means of protection. Let them unite. Let them be men, free men, and have a voice in the settlement of the terms at which they shall sell their labour.

'The rights of the labourers will then be recognised. Capital will no longer have Labour by the throat. The mighty heritage of a glorious independence is in their grasp.

'Let them rise above the bondage of capital, and be a unit in that which will make one powerful whole—the General Woolshed Labourers' Union of Australia!'

That this sort of language was calculated to arouse the passions and heighten the prejudices of uneducated men may well be conceded. The ludicrous comparison with the 'wrongs of slaves' in the Southern States of America might raise a smile, had not reports of outrages, unhappily but too well authenticated, followed this and similar proclamations.

However, the Employers' Union and the Pastoral Association were not minded to submit tamely to the oppression of a 'jacquerie,' however arrogant, as the following extract from a metropolitan journal, under date 22nd September 1890, will show:—

'In Sydney that picturesque procession of lorries, loaded with non-Union wool, and driven by leading merchants and squatters, will once more betake itself through the streets, and may be the signal of actual civil war. These waggons, with their unaccustomed drivers, embody in a dramatic shape that aspect of the strike in which the Unionists have morally the weakest case. The shearers have undertaken to make Unionism compulsory at one stroke, in every woolshed in Australia, by the tyrannical process of forbidding every bale of wool shorn by non-Unionists to reach a market. Why must merchants and squatters, at the risk of their lives, drive these particular bales of wool to the wharf? We frankly hope that the wool "boycott" will break down hopelessly, ignobly. All reasonable men are against this fatal blunder of the Unionists.'

Commencing in 1890 among men 'who go down to the sea in ships,' the revolt against employment and authority spread among 'all sorts and conditions of men' dwelling in the continent of Australia. All trades and occupations by which the muscle-workers of the land, falsely assumed to be the only labourers worthy of the name of 'working-men,' were attempted to be captured and absorbed. To account for the readiness with which the new gospel of labour was accepted, it must be borne in mind that many of the better-educated labourers and mechanics had been for years supplied by their leaders with so-called socialistic literature. They had in a sense sat at the feet of apostles of the school of Henry George and Mr. Bellamy.

The former was convinced that all the 'riddles of the painful earth' might be solved by the taxation and gradual confiscation of land; this plausible-appearing policy would remove all the oppressions and exactions under which the excellent of the earth had so long groaned. Mr. Bellamy's method of procuring universal happiness, solvency, and contentment was simple and comprehensive. Every adult was to be compelled to labour for four hours of the day—no one to be permitted to work for more than this very reasonable, recreational period. Every one to be pensioned when he or she reached the age of sixty.

By this happy apportionment of the primeval curse, every one would be obliged to furnish a sufficient quantity of labour to provide for his own and other people's wants.

No one would be expected to do a full day's work—always unpopular as a task, and suspected to be unwholesome.

Dining and Music Halls, an artistic atmosphere, with all mental and physical luxuries, to be provided by the State, in exchange for Labour Coupons of specified value.

It cannot be doubted that speculative theories of this nature, proposals for minimising labour and dividing the wealth, accumulated by the industry and thrift of ages, among individuals who had neither worked nor saved for its maintenance, had a wide-reaching influence for evil among the members of the Labour Unions. Dazzled by alluring statements, they were ready to adopt the wildest enterprises, founded on delusive principles and untried experiments.

Perhaps the most important of the Utopian projects, which at the close of the conflict found favour in the eyes of the Unionists, was that of a Communistic settlement in Paraguay, to which the leader, an Americanised North Briton, gave the name of New Australia. This was to be somewhat on the lines of the settlement so delicately satirised by Hawthorne in the Blithedale Romance.

It was decided by a caucus of certain wise men of the Union that a country where the dietary scale for working-men was the most liberal in the world, the hours of work the shortest, the pay the highest, the climate the most genial, the franchise the most liberal, was not adapted for British labourers. It was accordingly agreed to establish a co-operative community in a foreign land, where brotherly love and the unselfish partition of the necessaries of life might exhibit to an admiring world an ideal State, free from the grasping employer and the callous capitalist. This modern Utopia they proposed to call New Australia. Money not being so scarce among Australian labourers as, from the tremendous denunciations of their leader, which freely compared them to negro slaves (only worse paid, fed, and driven), might have been supposed, they were expected to pay sixty pounds each towards the charter and freight of a suitable vessel.

This notable plan they carried out. One man indeed sold a cottage in a country town for £400, and putting the cash into the common fund, sailed away for South America amid great jubilation from the Radical press and Labour organs; thankful, however, before long to work his passage back to England.

Hope and Mr. W. G. Spence told a flattering tale before experience came to the audit. A tract was found in the Paraguayan Chaco—'234,000 acres, well watered and timbered—splendid land,' thus described in the New Australia newspaper, the journal of the New Co-operative Settlement Association, Wagga, New South Wales, 28th January 1892.

In September 1893 two hundred and sixty New Australians arrived to take possession of the Promised Land. Even on board ship differences of opinion arose. In December there was a notable desertion. The 'five-meal, meat-fed men' doubtless thought sadly of poor 'Old Australia,' where they had no dictator and few privations, save those irreparable from high wages and good food. They missed many things for which they had been the reverse of thankful, when supplied gratis. They even missed the police and the magistrate. One man at any rate did, who was thrashed for impertinence, and could not so much as take out a summons for assault. They must have gasped when they saw, in their own journal, in answer to questions—'A. K. If you didn't like it, you could leave. The equal annual yearly division of wealth production would enable you to ship back to Australia, if you wanted to.' Many wanted to, but the Dictator's reply, slightly altered from that of Mr. Mawworm in The Serious Family, was—'We deeply sympathise, but we never refund.' As to how the deserters got to Buenos Ayres, on their way 'home,' doubtless many tales of adventure could be told. The equal partition did not work out well. No one had a right to anything, apparently—milk for a sick child—a razor—any trifling personal possession, when all had a right to everything. The dissatisfaction deepened to despair. The 'rest is silence.' Migration to the 'Gran Chaco' is played out.

The Shearers' Strike drifted into the Shearers' War. Not vigorously dealt with at the beginning by the Government of any colony, it emboldened the agitators, who called themselves tribunes of the people, to suggest bolder assaults upon the law, to carry out yet more dangerous disturbances of the public peace.

The specious process of 'picketing'—an illegal practice involving insult and intimidation, under the transparent guise of 'persuasion'—was tacitly permitted. Becoming habituated to the assembling in force, armed and drilled in military fashion, it was patent to the lowest intelligence that the Government, if worthy of the name, must confront these menacing and illegal levies.

The tardy Executives, which had watched the ill-usage of free citizens, the burning of woolsheds, the killing of stock, with apparent apathy, now became alarmed and ordered out the Volunteer regiments. Directly a disciplined contingent, properly armed and officered, took the field, the pseudo-guerillas disbanded and disappeared. If prompt measures had been taken at the start, years of demoralisation and damage, loss of wages, and ruin of property would have been saved both to employers and workmen.

Such a disgraceful incident as that reported from Bowen Downs in July 1895 might never have occurred.

'A private message states that two attempts have been made within three days to poison free shearers here. On the first occasion eight men were poisoned; on the second, forty-nine.'

A Barcaldine telegram states: 'Forty-nine fresh cases reported from Bowen Downs. Strychnine suspected to have been put into the meat and sago pudding used by the men. A letter received states that the scenes in the shed at Bowen Downs were beyond description. The men, contorted with agony, lying about in all shapes. One man named Thomas has since died. He is not known in the district. Name probably an assumed one. Richardson, one of five brothers, said to be very bad; also Christie Schultz; a second death expected.

'Bowen Downs was managed by Mr. Fraser for a Scottish Investment Company. It is expected that 250,000 sheep will be shorn there this year. Sharing in the "strike troubles" last year (1894), the sheep were shorn by free labourers and some Unionists.

'They followed the example of Howe and others on the Barcoo run, and went to work in defiance of the Union mandate. This year many of the same men returned to the station to shear.

'The authorities had previous information that poisoning was likely to be resorted to on some stations. The Aramac and Mutta-burra police are at the station. No evidence was attainable against the authors of this cowardly crime, resulting in one murder at least, and the possible death of a score or more of their fellow-workmen. It is significant, however, as against the theory of accident, that the injured men, well-nigh sick unto death, were free shearers.

'It is notorious that elaborate preparations have been made for committing further outrages on property, and violence on persons. Hitherto the Government has erred on the side of insufficient precaution and protection to loyal subjects.

'Violence and intimidation, on the other hand, have been approved by the Labour Federations. A demand is made by them that employers should not be allowed the right to employ any but Union men, on Union terms. Such an edict is inadmissible in a free country. So Sir Samuel Griffith, C.J., of Queensland, stated the case.

'The Moreton Mounted Infantry left by the Wodonga for the seat of the disturbance. In consequence of further outrages by the so-called Labour organisations, one of which was the shooting of a team of working bullocks, eleven in number, belonging to a non-Union carrier, Colonel French has been sent to the north with a force of 130 men, having also a field-piece and a Gatling gun. The Union leaders had boasted of the wreck and ruin of squatting property which would follow the strike.'

In the second year of the revolt a special parade of the Queensland Mounted Infantry was ordered. They were ready to a man. In view of the outrages already committed, and the justifiable expectation of more to follow, military protection was manifestly needed. This drew forth a pathetic remonstrance from the 'General Secretary of the Australian Labour Federation.' He was virtuously indignant at the whole force of the Government being 'strained to subjugate the wage-earners of the central district, under the dictation of capitalistic organisations.' It was emphasised that 'the Australian Labour Federation's steady influence had always been used to substitute peaceful agitation and moderation for needless suspension of industry. The Government is urged to use its influence to induce organised capitalism to meet organised labour in the conference.'

The high official so addressed replied: 'The Government is merely endeavouring to maintain law and order; to punish disorder, violence, and crime. The existing state of matters is misrepresented by the Labour organs.'

As might have been expected, manslaughter and arson, if not murder and spoliation, did result from this and similar teachings. Some of these crimes were undetected, others were partially expiated by imprisonment; while in more instances the wire-pullers—the deliberate and wilful offenders against the law of the land—escaped punishment. But when the burning of the Dundonald took place, with the capture of free labourers by disguised men, the tardy action of the Executive was accelerated. That the apprehensions of the dwellers in the pastoral districts, and their appeals to the Government of the day in the first years of the strike, were not without foundation, an extract from a letter taken, among others, from the person of an arrested 'labour organiser,' affords convincing proof.