of stones, and is reasonably honest. I have said there
is little noise, for few words are spoken. There is
less haste. You would think these good people had
a thousand years in which to buy and sell.
( i v ) TH E COMPANY
Little as the company may seem to shareholders
in England, and to many who live in their sheltered
parishes, in the shadow of old-world steeples, never
having heard, it may be, of this little fraction of their
mighty empire, the company in s.itu, in the valley
o f Mogók, is something of a power. It stands in a
measure for the supremacy of the white man; for the
colossus of capital; for the State. The company’s agent
is a potentate in his own right. Elsewhere, in nearly
every other district of the province, there is only one
great man; , .only one big house, only one repository of
power. But a.t Mogók there are two; the head of the
district and the company’s agent. And there are some
who would like to see an extension of the, company’s
authority. One. morning, as I rode over the mines
with one of its officers,, a fearless elemental kind
o f man, he propounded to me a scheme for the;
rearrangement of matters at Mogók. There should
be, he said,, a. great fence made about the company’s
territories, and within this fence the company should
be supreme. Tío one else should have a word to say
in the matter. “ Do you think, now,” he continued,
“ that Coolgardie,. Kimberley, or Klondyke could be