The Remittance Man by Ambrose Pratt — Read

When it became generally known that Jan Digby, the remittance man, had left the Major's service and had been appointed Chief Secretary of the Cane Workers' Union, Ballina was delighted in its soul. The Major was pitied, of course, but Ballina had warned him of Jan's character, and since he had deliberately chosen to fly in the face of Providence, it was really his own fault, and he must not expect not to be laughed at. "I told you so," became a form of greeting in the streets that threatened to permanently eclipse older ceremonials such as--"Good day!" or "How d'ye do!" Ballina was, in fact, so charmed because its bete noir had apparently justified universal opinion, that it began to feel almost grateful to Jan and to manifest towards him a sneaking sort of admiration. It was suddenly ascertained that he was a cunning fellow who knew quite well how many beans make five. No doubt but that he had used his position and the Major's confidence to worm out all the secrets of the sugar business. If that were so, then equally, no doubt, Jan had discovered some fatal weakness in the Employers' Association which had induced him to desert and join the Union as the stronger side. Ballina regarded self-interest as the only factor worthy of consideration in adjudicating on the acts of man. Ballina, therefore, began to think it possible that if the men went out on strike, the men might win. Hitherto Ballina had denounced the workers' grievances as absurd and their demands as immoral. It straightway adopted a broader view. Some of the Union's contentions were fanciful, true; but the men were certainly underpaid. Ballina was intensely human. It hated the thought of a strike, because of the consequent injury to trade; but if the strike came, why, then it wished to bark with the top dog.

Dr. Culgin, in his pose as father of the people, went everywhere, and he kept the family at the "Folly" fully conversant with the trend and intricacies of local opinion. Particularly savage were his comments thereon in the Major's private study; the Doctor, however, in public pretended to be a neutral. His visit to the district had a two-fold purpose. He had come in the first place to try and avert the strike; secondly, to persuade the people to promise him their suffrages at the forthcoming elections. Now, as each member of the Union possessed a vote, under penalty of committing political suicide he dared not openly defy the Union. His position was, therefore, difficult, to say the least of it; for being a large employer of labor and an intensely selfish man, his sympathies were wedded to his pocket; and although not a member of the Employers' Association, he was in secret its most vigorous supporter.