“I wouldn’t.  Not while there was—­I might have to, though I say I’d starve or steal first.  There are lots who do, I suppose.”

“Lots who wouldn’t dream of doing it if there was plenty of work to be had?”

“Of course.  Who’d work for less than another man if he needn’t, easily?  There isn’t one man in a thousand who’d do another fellow out of a job for pure meanness.  The chaps who do the mischief are those who’re so afraid the boss’ll sack them, and that another boss won’t take them on, that they’d almost lick his boots if they thought it would please him.”

“Now we’re coming to it.  It is work being hard to get that lowers wages and increases hours, and makes a workman, or workwoman either, put up with what nobody would dream of putting up with if they could help it?”

“Of course that’s it.”

“Now!  Is the day’s work done by a poorly-paid man less than that done by a highly-paid one?”

“No,” answered Ned.  “I’ve seen it more,” he added.

“How’s that?”

“Well, when a man’s anxious to keep a job and afraid he won’t get another he’ll often nearly break his back bullocking at it.  When he feels independent he’ll do the fair thing, and sling the job up if the boss tries to bullock him.  It’s the same thing all along the line, it seems to me.  When you can get work easily you get higher wages, shorter hours, some civility, and only do the fair thing.  When you can’t, wages come down, hours spin out, the boss puts on side, and you’ve got to work like a nigger.”

“Then, roughly speaking, the amount of work you do hasn’t got very much to do with the pay you get for it?”

“I suppose not.  It’s not likely a man ever gets more than his work is worth.  The boss would soon knock him off and let the work slide.  I suppose a man is only put on to a job when its worth more than the boss has to pay for getting it done.  And I reckon the less a man can be got to do it for the better it is for the fellow who gets the job done.”

“That’s it.  Suppose you can’t get work no matter how often you ask, what do you do?”

“Keep on looking.  Live on rations that the squatters serve out to keep men travelling the country so they can get them if they want them or on mutton you manage to pick up or else your mates give you a bit of a lift.  You must live.  It’s beg or steal or else starve.”

“I think men and women are beginning to starve in Australia.  Many are quite starving in the old countries and have been starving longer.  That’s why the workers are somewhat worse off there than here.  The gold rushes gave things a lift here and raised the condition of the workers wonderfully.  But the same causes that have been working in the old countries have been working here and are fast beating things down again.”

“A gold rush!” exclaimed Ned.  “That’s the thing to make wages rise, particularly if it’s a poor man’s digging.”