“I don't pretend to understand the questions fully, but from Ranald's letters I have gathered that he did not consider that justice was being done either to the men or to the company. For instance, in the matter of stores--I may be wrong in this, you will correct me, Colonel--I understand it was the custom to charge the men in the camps for the articles they needed prices three or four times what was fair.” “Well,” said the colonel, “I guess things WERE a little high, but that's the way every company does.” “And then I understand that the men were so poorly housed and fed and so poorly paid that only those of the inferior class could be secured.” “Well, I guess they weren't very high-class,” said the colonel, “that's right enough.” “But, Colonel, if you secure a better class of men, and you treat them in a fair and honorable way with some regard to their comfort you ought to get better results in work, shouldn't you?” “Well, that's so,” said the colonel; “there never was such an amount of timber got out with the same number of men since the company started work, but yet the thing don't pay, and that's the trouble. The concern must pay or go under.” “Yes, that's quite true, Colonel,” said Mrs. Murray; “but why doesn't your concern pay?” “Well, you see, there's no market; trade is dull and we can't sell to advantage.” “But surely that is not your manager's fault,” said Mrs. Murray, “and surely it would be an unjust thing to hold him responsible for that.” “But the company don't look at things in that light,” said the colonel. “You see they figure it this way, stores ain't bringing in the returns they used to, the camps cost a little more, wages are a little higher, there ain't nothing coming in, and they say, Well, that chap out there means well with his reading-rooms for the mill hands, his library in the camp, and that sort of thing, but he ain't sharp enough!” “Sharp enough! that's a hard word, Colonel,” said Mrs. Murray, earnestly, “and it may be a cruel word, but if Ranald were ever so sharp he really couldn't remove the real cause of the trouble. You say he has produced larger results than ever before, and if the market were normal there would be larger returns. Then, it seems to me, Colonel, that if Ranald suffers he is suffering, not because he has been unfaithful or incompetent, but because the market is bad, and that I am certain you would not consider fair.” “You must not be too hard on us,” said the colonel. “So far as I am concerned, I think you are right, but it is a hard thing to make business men look at these things in anything but a business way.”