When they went into the hall George and Watty marched to the front form and seated themselves there. Bully Bryant and Pony-Fence remained somewhere about the middle of the hall, as men from every rush on the fields filed into the seats and the hall filled. Potch came in and sat near Bully and Pony-Fence. As Newton, Armitage, and the American engineer crossed the platform, Michael took a seat towards the front, a little behind George and Watty. George stood up and hailed him, but Michael shook his head, indicating that he would stay where he was.
Peter Newton, after a good deal of embarrassment, had consented to be chairman of the meeting. But he looked desperately uncomfortable when he took his place behind a small table and an array of glasses and a water bottle, with John Armitage on one side of him and Mr. Andrew M'Intosh, the American engineer, on the other.
His introductory remarks were as brief as he could make them, and chiefly pointed out that being chairman of the meeting was not to be regarded as an endorsement of Mr. Armitage's plan.
John Armitage had never looked keener, more immaculate, and more of another world than he did when he stood up and faced the men that night.
Most of them were smoking, and soon after the meeting began the hall was filled with a thin, bluish haze. It veiled the crowd below him, blurred the shapes and outlines of the men sitting close together along the benches, most of them wearing their working clothes, faded blueys, or worn moleskins, with handkerchiefs red or white round their throats.
Their faces swam before John Armitage as on a dark sea. All the weather-beaten, sun-red, gaunt, or full, fat, daubs of faces, pallid through the smoke, turned towards him with a curious, strained, and intent expression of waiting to hear what he had to say.
Before making any statement himself, Mr. Armitage said he would ask Mr.
Andrew M'Intosh, who had come with him from America some time ago to report on the field, and who was one of the ablest engineers in the United States of America, to tell what he thought of the natural resources of the Ridge, and the possibilities of making an up-to-date, flourishing town of Fallen Star under conditions proposed by the Armitage Syndicate.
Andrew M'Intosh, a meagrely-fleshed man, with squarish face, blunt features, and hair in a brush from a broad, wrinkled forehead, stood up in response to Mr. Armitage's invitation. He was a man of deeds, not words, he declared, and would leave Mr. Armitage to give them the substance of his report. His knees jerked nervously and his face and hands twitched all the time he was speaking. He had an air of protesting against what he was doing and of having been dragged into this business, although he was more or less interested in it. He confessed that he had not investigated the resources of Fallen Star Ridge as completely as he would have wished, but he had done so sufficiently to enable him to assure the people of Fallen Star that if they accepted the proposition Mr. Armitage was to lay before them, the country would back them. He himself, he said, would have confidence enough in it to throw in his lot with them, should they accept Mr. Armitage's proposition; and he gave them his word that if they did so, and he were invited to take charge of the reorganisation of the mines, he would work whole-heartedly for the success of the undertaking he and the miners of Fallen Star Ridge might mutually engage in. He talked at some length of the need for a great deal of preliminary prospecting in order to locate the best sites for mines, of the necessity for plant to use in construction works, and of the possibility of a better water supply for the township, and the advantages that would entail.
The men were impressed by the matter-of-factness of the engineer's manner and his review of technical and geological aspects of the situation, although he gave very little information they had not already possessed. When he sat down, Armitage pushed back his chair and confronted the men again.
He made his position clear from the outset. It was a straightforward business proposition he was putting before men of the Ridge, he said; but one the success of which would depend on their co-operation. As their agent of exchange with the world at large, he described the disastrous consequences the slump of the last year or so had had for both Armitage and Son and for Fallen Star, and how the system he proposed, by opening up a wider area for mining and by investigating the resources of the old mines more thoroughly under the direction of an expert mining engineer, would result in increased production and prosperity for the people of the Ridge and Fallen Star township. He saw possibilities of making a thriving township of Fallen Star, and he promised men of the Ridge that if they accepted the scheme he had outlined for them, the Armitage Syndicate would make a prosperous township of Fallen Star. In no time people: would be having electricity in their homes, water laid on, rose gardens, cabbage patches, and all manner of comforts and conveniences as a result of the improved means of communication with Budda and Sydney, which population and increased production would ensure.
In a nutshell Armitage's scheme amounted to an offer to buy up the mines for 30,000 and put the men on a wage, allowing every man a percentage of 20 per cent. profit on all stones over a certain standard and size.
The men would be asked to elect their own manager, who would be expected to see that engineering and development designs were carried out, but otherwise the normal routine of work in the mines would be observed. Mr.
Armitage explained that he hoped to occupy the position of general manager in the company himself, and engaged it to observe the union rates of hours and wages as they were accepted by miners and mining companies throughout the country.
When he had finished speaking there was no doubt in anyone's mind that John Lincoln Armitage had made a very pleasant picture of what life on the Ridge might be if success attended the scheme of the Armitage Syndicate, as John Armitage seemed to believe it would. Men who had been driven to consider Armitage's offer from their first hearing of it, because of the lean years the Ridge was passing through, were almost persuaded by his final exposition.
George Woods stood up.
George's strength was in his equable temper, in his downright honesty and sincerity, and in the steady common-sense with which he reviewed situations and men.
He realised the impression Armitage's statement of his scheme, and its bearing on the life of the Ridge, had made. It did not affect his own position, but he feared its influence on men who had been wavering between prospects of the old and of the new order of things for Fallen Star. In their hands, he could see now, the fate of all that Fallen Star had stood for so long, would lie.
"Well," he said, "we've got to thank you for puttin' the thing to us as clear and as square as you have, Mr. Armitage. It gives every man here a chance to see just what you're drivin' at. But I might say here and now ... I've got no time for it ... neither me nor my mates.... It'll save time and finish the business of this meeting if there's no beatin' about the bush and we understand each other right away. It sounds all right--your scheme--nice and easy. Looks as if there was more for us to get out of it than to lose by it.... I don't say it wouldn't mean easier times ... more money ... all that sort of thing. We haven't had the easiest of times here sometimes, and this scheme of yours comes ... just when we're in the worst that's ever knocked us. But speakin' for myself, and"--his glance round the hall was an appeal to that principle the Ridge stood for-"the most of my mates, we'd rather have the hard times and be our own masters. That's what we've always said on the Ridge....
Your scheme 'd be all right if we didn't feel like that; I suppose. But we do ... and as far as I'm concerned, we won't touch it. It's no go.
"We're obliged to you for putting the thing to us. We recognise you could have gone another way about getting control here. You may---buy up a few of the mines perhaps, and try to squeeze the rest of us out. Not that I think the boys'd stand for the experiment."
"They wouldn't," Bill Grant called.
"I'm glad to hear that," George said. He tried to point out that if Fallen Star miners accepted Armitage's offer they would be shouldering conditions which would take from their work the freedom and interest that had made their life in common what it had been on the Ridge. He asked whether a weekly Wage to tide them over years of misfortune would compensate for loss of the sense of being free men; he wanted to know how they'd feel if they won a nest of knobbies worth 400 or 500 and got no more out of them than the weekly wage. The percentage on big stones was only a bluff to encourage men to hand over big stones, George said. And that, beyond the word being used pretty frequently in Mr.
Armitage's argument and documents, was all the profit-sharing he could see in Mr. Armitage's scheme. He reminded the men, too, that under their own system, in a day they could make a fortune. And all there was for them under Mr. Armitage's system was three or four pounds a week--and not a bit of potch, nor a penny in the quart pot for their old age.
"We own these mines. Every man here owns his mine," George said; "that's worth more to us just now than engineers and prospecting parties....
Well have them on our own account directly, when the luck turns and there's money about again.... For the present we'll hang on to what we've got, thank you, Mr. Armitage."
He sat down, and a guffaw of laughter rolled over his last words.
"Anybody else got anything to say?" Peter Newton inquired.
M'Ginnis stood up.
He had heard a good deal of talk about men of the Ridge being free, he said, but all it amounted to was their being free to starve, as far as he could see. He didn't see that the men's ownership of the mines meant much more than that--the freedom to starve. It was all very well for them to swank round about being masters of their own mines; any fool could be master of a rubbish heap if he was keen enough on the rubbish heap. But as far as he was concerned, M'Ginnis declared, he didn't see the point. What they wanted was capital, and Mr. Armitage had volunteered it on what were more than ordinarily generous terms....
It was all very well for a few shell-backs who, because they had been on the place in the early days, thought they had some royal prerogative to it, to cut up rusty when their ideas were challenged. But their ideas had been given a chance; and how had they worked out? It was all very well to say that if a man was master of his own mine he stood a chance of being a millionaire at a minute's notice; but how many of them were millionaires? As a matter of fact, not a man on the Ridge had a penny to bless himself with at that moment, and it was sheer madness to turn down this offer of Mr. Armitage's. For his part he was for it, and, what was more, there was a big body of the men in the hall for it.
"If it's put to the vote whether people want to take on or turn down Mr.
Armitage's scheme, we'll soon see which way the cat's jumping," M'Ginnis said. "People'd have the nause to see which side their bread's buttered on--not be led by the nose by a few fools and dreamers. For my part, I don't see why----"
"You're not paid to," a voice called from the back of the hall.
"I don't see why," M'Ginnis repeated stolidly, ignoring the interruption, "the ideas of three or four men should be allowed to rule the roost. What's wanted on the Ridge is a little more horse sense----"
Impatient and derisive exclamations were hurled at him; men sitting near M'Ginnis shouted back at the interrupters. It looked as if the meeting were going to break up in uproar, confusion, and fighting all round.
Peter Newton knocked on the table and shouted himself hoarse trying to restore order. The voices of George, Watty, and Pony-Fence Inglewood were heard howling over the din:
"Let him alone."
"Let's hear what he's got to say."
Then M'Ginnis continued his description of the advantages to be gained by the acceptance of Mr. Armitage's offer.
"And," he wound up, "there's the women and children to think of." At the back of the hall somebody laughed. "Laugh if you like"--M'Ginnis worked himself into a passion of virtuous indignation--"but I don't see there's anything to laugh at when I say remember what those things are goin' to mean to the women and children of this town--what a few of the advantages of civilisation----"
"Disadvantages!" the same voice called.
"--Comforts and conveniences of civilisation are goin' to mean to the women and children of this God-forsaken hole," M'Ginnis cried furiously.
"If I had a wife and kids, d'ye think I'd have any time for this high-falutin' flap-doodle of yours about bread and fat? Not much. The best in the country wouldn't be too good for them--and it's not good enough for the women and children of Fallen Star. That's what I've got to say--and that's what any decent man would say if he could see straight. I'm an ordinary, plain, practical man myself ... and I ask you chaps who've been lettin' your legs be pulled pretty freely---and starvin' to be masters of your own dumps--to look at this business like ordinary, plain, practical men, who've got their heads screwed on the right way, and not throw away the chance of a lifetime to make Fallen Star the sort of township it ought to be. If there's some men here want to starve to be masters of their own dumps, let 'em, I say: it's a free country. But there's no need for the rest of us to starve with 'em."
He sat down, and again it seemed that the pendulum had swung in favour of Armitage and his Scheme.
"What's Michael got to say about it?" a man from the Three Mile asked.
And several voices called: "Yes; what's Michael got to say?"
For a moment there was silence--a silence of apprehension. George Woods and the men who knew, or had been disturbed by the stories they had heard of a secret treaty between Michael and John Armitage, recognised in that moment the power of Michael's influence; that what Michael was going to say would sway the men of the Ridge as it had always done, either for or against the standing order of life on the Ridge on which they had staked so much. His mates could not doubt Michael, and yet there was fear in the waiting silence.
Those who had heard Michael was not the man they thought he was, waited anxiously for his movement, the sound of his voice. Charley Heathfield waited, crouched in a corner near the platform, where everyone could see him, Rouminof beside him. They were standing there together as if there was not room for them in the body of the hall, and their eyes were fixed on the place where Michael sat--Charley's eager and cruel as a cat's on its victim, Rouminof's alight with the fires of his consuming excitement.
Then Michael got up from his seat, took off his hat; and his glance, those deep-set eyes of his, travelled the hall, skimming the heads and faces of the men in it, with their faint, whimsical smile.
"All I've got to say," he said, "George Woods has said. There's nothing in Mr. Armitage's scheme for Fallen Star.... It looks all right, but it isn't; it's all wrong. The thing this place has stood for is ownership of the mines by the men who work them. Mr. Armitage 'll give us anything but that--he offers us every inducement but that ... and you know how the thing worked out on the Cliffs. If the mines are worth so much to him, they're worth as much, or more, to us.
"Boiled down, all the scheme amounts to is an offer to buy up the mines--at a 'fair valuation'--put us on wages and an eight-hour day. All the rest, about making a flourishing and, up-to-date town of Fallen Star, might or mightn't come true. P'raps it would. I can't say. All I say is, it's being used to gild the pill we're asked to swallow--buyin'
up of the mines. There's nothing sure about all this talk of electricity and water laid on; it's just gilding. And supposing the new conditions did put more money about--did bring the comforts and conveniences of civilisation to Fallen Star--like M'Ginnis says--what good would they be to the people, women and children, too, if the men sold themselves like a team of bullocks to work the mines? It wouldn't matter to them any more whether they brought up knobbies or mullock; they'd have their wages--like bullocks have their hay. It's because our work's had interest; it's because we've been our own bosses, life's been as good as it has on Fallen Star all these years. If a man hasn't got interest in his work he's got to get it somewhere. How did we get it on the Cliffs when the mines were bought up? Drinking and gambling ... and how did that work out for the women and children? But it was stone silly of M'Ginnis to talk of women and children here. We know that old hitting-below-the-belt gag of sweating employers too well to be taken in by it. By and by, if you took on the Armitage scheme, and there was a strike in the mines, he'd be saying that to you: 'Remember the women and children.'"
Colour flamed in Michael's face, and he continued with more heat than there had yet been in his voice.
"The time's coming when the man who talks 'women and children' to defeat their own interests will be treated like the skunk--the low-down, thieving swine he is. Do we say anything's too good for our women and children? Not much. But we want to give them real things--the real things of life and happiness--not only flashy clothes and fixings. If we give our women and children the mines as we've held them, and the record of a clean fight for them, we'll be giving them something very much bigger than anything Mr. Armitage can offer us in exchange for them. The things we've stood for are better than anything he's got to offer. We've got here what they're fighting for all over the world ... it's bigger than ourselves.
"M'Ginnis says he's heard a lot of 'the freedom to starve on the Ridge'--it's more than I have, it's a sure thing if he wants to starve, nobody'd stop him...."