"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...."
A wave of laughter passed over the hall.
"But most of us here haven't any fancy for starving, and what's more, nobody has ever starved on the Ridge. I don't say that we haven't had hard times, that we haven't gone on short commons—we have; but we haven't starved, and we're not going to....
"This talk of buying up the mines comes at the only time it would have been listened to in the last half-dozen years. It hits us when we're down, in a way; but the slump'll pass. There've been slumps before, and they've passed.... Mr. Armitage thinks so, or he wouldn't be so keen on getting hold of the mines.
"And as to production of stone and development of the mines, it seems to me we can do more ourselves than any Proprietary Company, Ltd., or syndicate ever made could. Didn't old Mr. Armitage, himself, say once that he didn't know a better conducted or more industrious mining community than this one. 'Why d'y' think that is?' I asked him. He said he didn't know. I said, 'You don't think the way the men feel about their work's got anything to do with it?' 'Damn it, Michael,' he said, 'I don't want to think so.'
"And I happen to know"—Michael smiled slightly towards John Armitage, who was gazing at him with tense features and hands tightly folded and crossed under his chin—"that the old man is opposed even now to this scheme because he thinks he won't get as much black opal out of us as he does under our own way of doing things. He remembers the Cliffs, and what taking over of the mines did for opal—and the men—there. This scheme is Mr. John Armitage's idea....