EIGHT YEARS OF EXPERIMENT
"For I remember stopping by the way
To watch a potter thumping his wet clay."
In 1890 a new force came into the political field--organized labour.
The growth of the cities and of factories in them, the decline of the
alluvial and more easily worked gold-fields, and the occupation of the
more fertile and accessible lands, all gradually tended to reproduce
in the new country old-world industrial conditions. Even the sweating
system could be found at work in holes and corners. There need be no
surprise, therefore, that the labour problem, when engaging so much
of the attention of the civilized world, demanded notice even in New
Zealand. There was nothing novel there in the notion of extending the
functions of the State in the hope of benefiting the community of
the less fortunate classes of it. Already in 1890, the State was the
largest landowner and receiver of rents, and the largest employer of
labour. It owned nearly all the railways and all the telegraphs just
as it now owns and manages the cheap, popular, and useful system of
telephones. It entirely controlled and supported the hospitals and
lunatic asylums, which it managed humanely and well. It also, by means
of local boards and institutions, controlled the whole charitable aid
of the country--a system of outdoor relief in some respects open
to criticism. It was the largest trustee, managed the largest life
insurance business, did nearly all the conveyancing, and educated more
than nine-tenths of the children.
It will thus be seen that the large number of interesting experiments
sanctioned by the New Zealand Parliament since 1890 involved few new
departures or startling changes of principle. The constitution was
democratic: it has simply been made more democratic. The functions
of the State were wide; they have been made yet wider. The uncommon
feature of the last eight years has been not so much the nature as the
number and degree of the changes effected and the trials made by the
Liberal-Labour fusion which gained power under Mr. Ballance at the
close of 1890 and still retains office. The precise cause of their
victory was the wave of socialistic, agrarian, and labour feeling
which swept over the English-speaking world at the time, and which
reached New Zealand.
[Illustration: THE HON. JOHN BALLANCE]
The oft-repeated assertion that the Australasian maritime strike of
August, 1890, was not only coincident with the forming of Labour
Parties in various colonies, but was itself the chief cause thereof,
is not true Colonial Labour Parties have, no doubt, been influenced
by two noted strikes, themselves divided by the width of the world. I
mean the English dockers' strike and our own maritime strike. But
the great Thames strike may be said rather to have given a fillip to
Colonial Trades Unionism, apart from politics altogether, than to have
created any Party. As for the other conflict, though the utter rout
of the colonial maritime strikers in 1890 undoubtedly sent Trades
Unionists to the ballot-box sore and with a keen desire to redress the
balance by gaining political successes, it was not the sole or the
chief cause of their taking to politics. Before it took place New
Zealand politicians knew the Labour organizations were coming into
their field. The question was what they would do. The Opposition of
1889-90, though not without Conservative elements--the remnants of
a former coalition--was mainly Radical. It had always supported Sir
George Grey in his efforts to widen the franchise, efforts which in
1889 were finally crowned by the gain of one-man-one-vote. And in 1889
it choose as its head, John Ballance, perhaps the only man who could
head with success a Liberal-Labour fusion. A journalist, but the son
of a North Irish farmer, he knew country life on its working side. His
views on the land question were not therefore mere theories, but part
of his life and belief. Though not a single-taxer, he advocated
State tenancy, as opposed to freehold, and his extension of village
settlements had made him amongst New Zealand workmen a popular Lands
Minister. Experience had made him a prudent financier, a humane temper
made him a friend of the Maori. His views on constitutional reform
were advanced, on liquor and education reactionary. In Labour
questions apart from land settlement he took no special part. He was
an excellent debater and a kindly, courteous, considerate chief. In
Ballance and his followers in 1890 New Zealand Labour Organizations
found a ready-made political Party from which they had much to hope.
With it, therefore, they threw in their lot. The result showed the
power the agrarian feeling of Unionism and of one-man-one-vote. In New
Zealand, all the elections for the House of Representatives take place
on one day. In 1890 the day was the 5th December. On the 6th it was
clear enough that Ballance would be the Colony's next Premier. His
defeated opponents made a short delay, in order to commit the huge
tactical mistake of getting the Governor to make seven additions to
the Upper House. Then they yielded, and on 24th January, 1891, he took
office.
Within his cabinet, he had the staunchest of lieutenants in Mr. John
McKenzie aforesaid, whose burly strength combined with that of Mr.
Seddon, now Premier, to supply the physical fighting force lacking in
their chief. Mr. Cadman, another colleague, was an administrator of
exceptional assiduity. But none of these had held office before,
and outside his cabinet Ballance had to consolidate a party made up
largely of raw material. Amongst it was a novel and hardly calculable
element, the Labour Members. At the elections, however, no attempt
had been made to reserve the Labour vote for candidates belonging
exclusively to Trades Unions, or who were workmen. Of some score of
Members who owed their return chiefly to the Labour vote, and who had
accepted the chief points of the Labour policy, six only were working
mechanics. Moreover, though the six were new to Parliament, several of
their closest allies had been there before, and were old members of
the Ballance Party. Not only, therefore, was a distinct Labour Party
not formed, but there was no attempt to form one. For the rest, any
feeling of nervous curiosity with which the artisan parliamentarians
were at first regarded soon wore off. They were without exception men
of character, intelligence, and common-sense. They behaved as though
their only ambition was to be sensible Members of Parliament. As such,
they were soon classed, and lookers-on were only occasionally reminded
that they held a special brief.
Anything like a detailed history of the struggles which followed would
be out of place here. Nor is it possible yet to sum up the results of
changes, none of which are eight years old. A mere enumeration of them
would take some space: a succinct description would require a fairly
thick pamphlet. Some were carried after hot debate; some after very
little. Some were resolutely contested in the popular chamber, and
were assented to rather easily in the Upper House; others went through
the Lower House without much difficulty, but failed again and again to
run the gauntlet of the nominated chamber. The voting of some was on
strict party lines: in other instances leading Opposition Members like
Captain Russell frankly accepted the principle of measures. Some were
closely canvassed in the newspapers and country; others were hardly
examined outside Parliament. But, roughly speaking, the chief
experiments of the last eight years not already dealt with many
be divided into three sections. These relate to (1) Finance; (2)
Constitutional Reform; (3) Labour. One of the first and--to a New
Zealander's eyes--boldest strokes delivered was against the Property
Tax. This, the chief direct tax of the Colony, was an annual impost of
1d. in the £ on the capital value of every citizen's possessions, less
his debts and an exemption of £500. Its friends claimed for this tax
that it was no respecter of persons, but was simple, even-handed, and
efficient. The last it certainly was, bringing as it did into the
Treasury annually about as many thousands as there are days in the
year. But inasmuch as different kinds of property are by no means
equally profitable, and therefore the ability of owners to pay is by
no means equal, the simplicity of the Property Tax was not by many
thought equity. The shopkeeper, taxed on unsaleable stock, the
manufacturer paying on plant and buildings as much in good years as in
bad, bethought them that under an Income Tax they would at any rate
escape in bad seasons when their income might be less or nothing.
The comfortable professional man or well-paid business manager paid
nothing on their substantial and regular incomes. The working-farmer
settling in the desert felt that for every pound's worth of
improvements made by muscle and money he would have to account to the
tax-collector at the next assessment. Nevertheless the Conservative
politicians rallied round the doomed tax. It was a good machine for
raising indispensable revenue. Moreover, it did not select any class
of property-owners or any description of property for special burdens.
This suited the landowners, who dreaded a Land Tax, for might not a
Land Tax contain the germ of that nightmare of the larger colonial
landowner--the Single Tax? It suited also the wealthy, who feared
graduated taxation, and the lawyers, doctors, agents, and managing
directors, whose incomes it did not touch. So when in the autumn the
rumour went round that the Ballance Ministry meant to abolish the
Property Tax and bring forward Bills embodying a Progressive Land Tax,
and Progressive Income Tax, the proposal was thought to represent the
audacity of impudence or desperation. When the rumour proved true, it
was predicted that the farmers throughout the length and breath of the
country would rise in wrath and terror, scared by the very name of
Land Tax. Nevertheless Parliament passed the Bills, with the addition
of a light Absentee Tax. The smaller farmers, at any rate, took the
appeals of the Property Taxers with apathy, suspecting that under a
tax on bare land values they would pay less than under a Property Tax
which fell on land, improvements, and live stock as well. Since
1891, therefore, progression or graduation has been in New Zealand a
cardinal principle of direct taxation.
Land pays no Income Tax, and landowners who have less than £500 worth
of bare land value pay no Land Tax. This complete exemption of the
very small land owners forms an almost insuperable barrier to the
progress of singletaxers. On all land over £500 value 1d. in the £ is
paid. The mortgaged farmer deducts the amount of his mortgage from the
value of his farm and pays only on the remainder. The money-lender
pays 1d. in the £ on the mortgage, which for this purpose is treated
as land. An additional graduated tax begins on holdings worth, £5,000.
At that stage it is an eighth of a penny. By progressive steps it
rises until, on estates assessed at £210,000, it is 2d. Thus under the
graduated and simple Land Tax together, the holders of the largest
areas pay 3d. in the £, whilst the peasant farmers whose acres are
worth less than £500 pay nothing. The owner who pays graduated tax
pays upon the whole land value of his estate with no deduction for
mortgage. The Graduated Tax brings in about £80,000 a year; the 1d.
Land Tax about £200,000; the Income Tax about £70,000. The assessment
and collection cause no difficulty. South Australia had a Land Tax
before New Zealand; New South Wales has imposed one since. Both differ
from New Zealand's.
Income earners pay on nothing up to £300 a year. Between £300 and
£1,300 the tax is 6d. all round; over £1,300 it rises to a shilling.
Joint-stock companies pay a shilling on all income.
Another law authorizes local governing bodies to levy their rates on
bare land values. Three times the Bill passed the Lower House, only to
be rejected in the Upper. It became law in 1896. The adoption of the
principle permitted by it is hedged about by various restrictions but
some fourteen local bodies have voted in favour thereof.
The unexampled and, till 1895, continuous fall of prices in the
European markets made it hard for colonial producers to make both ends
meet. The cultivator found his land depreciated because, though he
grew more than before, he got less for it. As the volume of produce
swelled, so the return for it sank as by some fatal compensation. To
pay the old rates of interest is for the mortgaged farmer, therefore,
an impossibility. Various schemes for using the credit of the State to
reduce current rates of interest have been before the public in more
than one colony. The scheme of the New Zealand Government is contained
in the Advances to Settlers Act, 1894. Under it a State Board may lend
Government money on leasehold and freehold security, but not on urban
or suburban land, unless occupied for farming or market-gardening.
The loan may amount to three-fifths of the value of the security when
freehold, and one-half when leasehold. The rate of interest charged
is 5 per cent., but the borrower pays at the rate of 6 per cent. in
half-yearly instalments, the extra 1 per cent. being by way of gradual
repayment of the principal. Mortgagees must in this way repay the
principal in 73 half-yearly instalments, provided they care to remain
indebted so long. If able to wipe off their debts sooner, they can do
so. The Act came into force in October, 1894. Machinery for carrying
it out was quickly set up; applications for loans came in freely, and
about a million has been lent, though the State Board, in its anxiety
to avoid bad security, has shown a proper spirit of caution.
With one exception, the constitutional changes of the eight years may
be dismissed in a very few words. The Upper Chamber, or Legislative
Council of New Zealand, is nominative and not elective, nor is there
any fixed limit to its numbers. Liable, thus, to be diluted by Liberal
nominees, it is not so strong an obstacle to the popular will as are
the Elective Councils of certain Australian Colonies. Prior to 1891,
however, the nominations in New Zealand were for life. This was
objected to for two reasons. A Councillor, who at the age of sixty
might be a valuable adviser, might twelve years later be but
the shadow of his former self. Moreover, experience showed that
Conservatism was apt to strengthen in the nominated legislator's mind
with advancing years. So a seven years' tenure has been substituted
for life tenure. Then, again, in 1891 the Liberal majority in the
Colony was scarcely represented in the Council at all. In important
divisions, Government measures passed by decisive majorities in the
popular Chamber could only muster two, three, four, or five supporters
in the Council. This not only meant that a hostile majority could
reject and amend as it pleased, but that measures were not even fairly
debated in the Upper House. Only one side was heard. In 1892 the
Ballance Ministry, therefore, asked the Governor to call twelve fresh
Councillors. His Excellency demurred to the number. As there was about
to be a change of Governors the matter stood over. The new Governor
proved as unwilling as his predecessor. Ballance held that in this
matter, as in others, the constitutional course was for the Governor
to take the advice of his Ministers. His Excellency thought otherwise.
By mutual consent the matter was referred to the Colonial Office,
where Lord Ripon decided in favour of the Premier. Twelve new
Councillors were nominated. Though this submission to the arbitration
of the Colonial Office was attacked not only by colonial Conservatives
but by Sir George Grey, it was highly approved of both by the Lower
House and the mass of the electors, and was regarded as one of
Ballance's most important successes.
Another he did not live to see achieved. His Electoral Bill, wrecked
twice in the Council, was only passed some months after his death.
Under it the one-man-one-vote was carried to its complete issue by the
clause providing for one man one registration; that is to say, that
no voter could register on more than one roll. Consequently
property-owners were not only cut down to one vote in one district at
a general election, but were prevented from voting in another district
at a by-election. The right to vote by letter was extended from seamen
to shearers. But much the greatest extension of the franchise was
the giving it to women. This was a curious example of a remarkable
constitutional change carried by a Parliament at the election of
which the question had scarcely been discussed. Labour, Land, and
Progressive Taxation had been so entirely the ascendant questions at
the General Election of 1890, that it came as a surprise to most to
learn next year that the House of Representatives was in favour of
women's suffrage. Even then it was not generally supposed that the
question would be settled. Sir John Hall, however, its consistent
friend, brought it up in the House, and Ballance, an equally earnest
supporter, at once accepted it. After that, the only doubts as to its
becoming law sprang from the attitude of the Legislative Council,
and from the scruples of certain persons who thought that so great a
change should be definitely submitted to the constituencies. Feeling
was both strengthened and exacerbated by the enthusiasm of the
Prohibition lodges, some of whose members at the same time demanded
that the Government should pass the measure, and emphatically
assured every one that its passing would forthwith bring about the
Government's downfall and damnation. There is no doubt that many of
the Ministry's opponents believed this, and that to their mistake was
due the escape of the Bill in the Council. It was passed on the eve of
the General Elections by the narrowest possible majority. The rush
of the women on to the rolls; the interest taken by them in the
elections; the peaceable and orderly character of the contests; and
the Liberal majority returned at two successive General Elections are
all matters of New Zealand history.
Most of the women voters show as yet no disposition to follow the
clergy in assailing the national system of free, secular, and
compulsory education. They clearly favour temperance reform, but are
by no means unanimous for total prohibition. On the whole, the most
marked feature of their use of the franchise is their tendency to
agree with their menkind. Families, as a rule, vote together, and the
women of any class or section are swayed by its interests, prejudices,
or ideals to just about the same extent as the males thereof. Thus,
the friends and relatives of merchants and professional men, large
landowners, or employers of labour, usually vote on one side; factory
girls, domestic servants, wives of labourers, miners, artisans, or
small farmers, on the other. Schoolmistresses are as decidedly for
secular education as are schoolmasters. It is too soon to pronounce
yet with anything like confidence on the results of this great
experiment. We have yet to see whether female interest in politics
will intensify or fade. At present, perhaps, the right of every adult
woman to vote is more remarkable for what it has not brought about
than for what it has. It has not broken up existing parties, unsexed
women, or made them quarrel with their husbands, or neglect their
households. It has not interfered with marriage, or society, or the
fashion of dress. The ladies are not clamouring to be admitted to
Parliament. They do less platform-speaking than Englishwomen do,
though many of them study public affairs--about which, to say truth,
they have much to learn. Observers outside the Colony need not suppose
that New Zealand women are in the least degree either "wild," or
"new," or belong to any shrieking sisterhood. Though one or two have
entered learned professions, most of them are engaged in domestic
duties. Those who go out into the world do so to work unassumingly
as school teachers, factory hands, or household servants. As school
teachers they are usually efficient, as domestic servants civil and
hard-working, as factory hands neat, industrious, and moral. It is
true that they are, without exception, educated to the extent of
having had at least good primary school teaching. But though they
read--clean, healthy English books--this, so far from making them
inclined to favour frantic or immoral social experiments, should have,
one may hope, just the opposite effect. Far from being a spectacled,
angular, hysterical, uncomfortable race, perpetually demanding
extravagant changes in shrill tones, they are, at least, as
distinguished for womanly modesty, grace, and affection, as
Englishwomen in any other part of the Empire.
There are some who connect the appearance of women in the political
arena with the recent passing of an Infants' Life Protection Act, the
raising of the age of consent to fifteen, the admission of women to
the Bar, the appointment of female inspectors to lunatic asylums,
factories, and other institutions, improvements in the laws dealing
with Adoption of Children and Industrial Schools, a severe law against
the keepers of houses of ill-fame, and with the new liquor laws and
the Prohibitionist movement which is so prominent a feature of New
Zealand public life.
A handy volume issued by the Government printer contains most of
the Labour Laws of New Zealand. They are now twenty-six in number,
comprising Acts, amending Acts, and portions of Acts. Their aim is not
the abolition of the wages system, but, as far as may be to make that
system fair and tolerable, and in protecting the labourer to protect
the fair employer. Some twenty of these laws have been passed during
the last seven years. Of these an Employers' Liability Act resembles
Mr. Asquith's ill-fated Bill. Worked in conjunction with a law for
the inspection of machinery and a thorough-going system of factory
inspection, it has lessened accidents without leading to litigation.
It neither permits contracting-out nor allows employers to escape
liability by means of letting out contracts.
A Truck Act declares the right of every wage-earner to be paid
promptly, in full, in the current coin of the realm, and to be allowed
to spend wages as they choose. Two more enactments deal with the
earnings of the workmen of contractors and sub-contractors, make them
a first charge on all contract money, give workers employed on works
of construction a lien thereon, and compel a contractor's employer to
hold back at least one-fourth of the contract money for a month after
the completion of a contract, unless he shall be satisfied that all
workmen concerned have been paid in full. A Wages Attachment Act
limits without entirely abolishing a creditor's right to obtain orders
of court attaching forthcoming earnings.
The Factories Act of 1894, slightly extended by an amending Act in
1896, consolidates and improves upon no less than four previous
measures, two of which had been passed by the Ballance Government. As
compared with similar European and American laws, it may fairly claim
to be advanced and minute. Under its pivot clause all workshops, where
two or more persons are occupied, are declared to be factories, must
register, pay an annual fee, and submit to inspection at any hour of
the night or day. A master and servant working together count as two
hands. Inspectors have absolute power to demand such cubic space,
ventilation, and sanitary arrangements generally as they may consider
needful to preserve life and health. The factory age is fourteen;
there are no half-timers; and, after a struggle, the Upper House was
induced to pass a clause enforcing an education test before any child
under fifteen should be allowed to go to factory work. This is but
logical in a country wherein primary education is not only free, but
compulsory. Children under sixteen must be certified by an inspector
to be physically fit for factory life. Women and children under
eighteen may not work before 7.45 a.m. or after 6 p.m., nor more than
forty-eight hours per week. Whether time-workers or piece-workers,
they are equally entitled to the half-holiday after 1 p.m. on
Saturday. In the case of time-workers, this half-holiday is to be
granted without deduction of wages. The rates of pay and hours of
work in factories have to be publicly notified and returned to the
inspectors. Overtime may be permitted by inspectors on twenty-eight
days a year, but overtime pay must be not less than 6d. an hour extra.
The factory-owners who send work out have to make complete returns
thereof. All clothing made outside factories for sale is to be
ticketed "tenement made," and any person removing the ticket before
sale may be fined. No home work may be sublet. A peculiar feature in
the Act relates to the board and lodging provided on sheep stations
for the nomadic bands of shearers who traverse colonies, going from
wool-shed to wool-shed during the shearing season. The huts in which
these men live are placed under the factory inspectors, who have power
to call upon station-owners to make them decent and comfortable. The
Act has clauses insisting on the provision of a separate dining-room
for women workers, of fire-escapes, and protection against dangerous
machinery. Girls under fifteen may not work as type-setters; young
persons of both sexes are shut out of certain dangerous trades; women
may not work in factories within a month after their confinement.
Such are the leading features of the Factories Act. It is strictly
enforced, and has not in any way checked the growth of manufactures in
the colony.
The laws which regulate retail shops do not aim at securing what is
known as early closing. A weekly half-holiday for all, employer and
employed alike; a fifty-four hours' working week for women and young
persons; seats for shop girls, and liberty to use them; sanitary
inspection of shops. These were the objects of those who framed the
acts, and these have been attained. Under a special section merchants'
offices must close at 5 o'clock p.m. during two-thirds of each month.
On the weekly half-holiday shops in towns must be closed at 1 o'clock,
but each town chooses its own day for closing. Nearly all choose
Wednesday or Thursday, so as not to interfere with the Saturday
market-day of the farmers. Much feeling was stirred up by the passing
of this Act, but it has since entirely died away.
Until 1894 the legal position of Trade Unionists in New Zealand was
much less enviable than that of their brethren in England. The English
Act of 1875 repealing the old Labour Conspiracy law and modifying the
common law doctrine relating thereto, had never been enacted in New
Zealand. The Intimidation law (6 George IV.) was still in force
throughout Australasia; the common law doctrine relating thereto had
not been in any way softened. Within the last few years Australian
Trade Unionists had found the old English law unexpectedly hunted up
for the purpose of putting them into gaol. Three short clauses and a
schedule, passed in 1894, swept from the Statute-Book and the common
law of New Zealand all laws and doctrines specially relating to
conspiracy among members of Trades Unions who in future will only be
amenable to such conspiracy laws as affect all citizens.
In New Zealand most domestic servants and many farm hands and
gardeners are engaged through Servants' Registry Offices. A law,
passed in 1895, provides for the inspection of these, and regulates
the fees charged therein. Office-keepers have to be of good character;
have to register and take out a license; have to keep books and
records which are officially inspected. They are not allowed to keep
lodging-houses or to have any interest in such houses.
To certain students the most interesting and novel of the New Zealand
labour laws is that which endeavours to settle labour disputes between
employers and Trade Unions by means of public arbitration instead
of the old-world methods of the strike and the lock-out. Under this
statute, which was passed in 1894, the Trade Unions of the Colony have
been given the right to become corporate bodies able to sue and be
sued. In each industrial locality a Board of Conciliation is set up,
composed equally of representatives of employers and workmen, with an
impartial chairman. Disputes between Trade Unions and employers--the
Act deals with no others--are referred first of all to these Boards.
The exclusion of disputes between individuals, or between unorganized
workmen and their masters, is grounded on the belief that such
disputes are apt to be neither stubborn nor mischievous enough to
call for State interference; moreover, how could an award be enforced
against a handful of roving workmen, a mere nebulous cluster of units?
At the request of any party to an industrial dispute the District
Board can call all other parties before it, and can hear, examine, and
recommend. It is armed with complete powers for taking evidence and
compelling attendance. Its award, however, is not enforceable at law,
but is merely in the nature of friendly advice. Should all or any of
the parties refuse to accept it, an appeal lies to the Central Court
of Arbitration, composed of a judge of the Supreme Court sitting with
two assessors representing capital and labour respectively. The trio
are appointed for three years, and in default of crime or insanity can
only be removed by statute. Their court may not be appealed from, and
their procedure is not fettered by precedent. No disputant may employ
counsel unless all agree to do so. The decisions of this Court are
binding in law, and may be enforced by pains and penalties. The
arbitration law has been in active operation for about three years,
during which time some thirty-five Labour disputes have been
successfully settled. As a rule, the decisions of the Local
Conciliation Boards are not accepted. Either some of the parties
refuse to concur, or some of the recommendations are objected to by
all those on one side or the other. In nearly all cases the awards of
the Arbitration Court have been quietly submitted to. In three minor
cases proceedings have been taken for penalties. Twice these have been
dismissed on technical grounds. In the third instance a small penalty
was imposed. All the important Labour disputes of the last three years
have been brought before the tribunals set up under the Act. The only
strike which has occurred and has attracted any attention during
this period was by certain unorganized bricklayers working for the
government. As the Act applied to neither side an attempt was made to
settle the dispute by voluntary arbitration. Some of the men, however,
refused to accept the arbitrators' award, and lost their work. But of
strikes by Trades Unions there have been none, and there should be
none so long as the Act can be made to work.
As to the kind of questions arbitrated upon, they comprise most of the
hard nuts familiar to students of the Labour problem. Among them are
hours of labour, holidays, the amount of day wages, the price to
be paid for piece-work, the proportion of apprentices to skilled
artizans, the facilities to be allowed to Trade Union officials
for interviews with members, the refusal of Unionists to work with
non-Union men, and the pressure exerted by employees to induce workmen
to join private benefit societies. A New Zealand employer, it may be
mentioned, cannot take himself outside the Act of discharging his
Union hands, or even by gradually ceasing to engage Union men, and
then pleading that he has none left in his employ. A Union, whose
members are at variance with certain employers in a trade, may bring
all the local employees engaged in that trade into court, so that the
same award may be binding on the whole trade in the district.
Most of the references have been anything but trivial affairs,
either as to the numbers of workmen concerned, or the value of the
industries, or importance of the points in dispute. It is wrong to
suppose that the operation of the Act is confined to industries
protected by high customs duties, or to workers in factories. It may
be applied wherever workers are members of legally constituted bodies,
set up either under the Trade Union Act, or under the Arbitration
Statute itself. Unions who want to make use of it, register under
it; and some eighty have already done so. Trade Unions who do not
specially register may nevertheless be brought before the Arbitration
Court by the employers of their members. So far the Act has met with
a remarkable measure of success. The Trade Unions are enthusiastic
believers in it,--rather too enthusiastic, indeed, for they have shown
a tendency to make too frequent a use of it. Some of their officials,
too, would do well to be more brief and businesslike in the conduct
of cases. On the other hand, employers in most of the localities have
made a serious mistake in refusing to elect representatives for the
local Conciliation Boards, and thus forcing the Government to nominate
members. This has weakened the Boards, has hindered them from having
the conciliatory character they ought to have, and has led in part
to the frequent appeals to the Central Court of which the employers
themselves complain. The lawyers claim to have discovered that the
penalty clauses of the Act are badly drafted, and some of them assert
that unless these are amended, they will be able to drive a coach
and six through the statute. No doubt technical amendments will
be required from time to time. What is still more requisite is an
understanding between the more reasonable leaders on both sides of
industry, by which arrangements may be made for the more effectual and
informal use of the Conciliation Boards. Meanwhile it savours of the
absurd to talk and write--as certain fault-finders have done--as
though every arbitration under the Act were a disturbance of industry
as ruinous as a prolonged strike. Other critics have not stickled to
assert that it has mischievously affected the volume of the Colony's
industries, a statement which is simply untrue. It is the reviving
prosperity of the Colony during the last three years which has led the
Trade Unions to make so much use of the Act. In place of striking on
a rising market, as they do in other countries, they have gone to
arbitration. Public opinion in New Zealand has never been one-sided on
the question. It has all along been prepared to give this important
experiment a fair trial, and is quite ready to have incidental
difficulties cured by reasonable amendment.
The Shipping and Seamen's Act, 1894, and the amending Acts of the two
following years, mitigate the old-fashioned severity of punishments
for refusal of duty, assaults on the high seas, and other nautical
offences. The forecastle and the accommodation thereof become subject
to the _fiat_ of the Government inspector, as are factories on shore.
Regular payment of wages is stipulated for, overcrowding amongst
passengers is forbidden. Complete powers are given to the marine
authorities to enforce not only a full equipment of life-boats and
life-saving appliances, but boat-drill. Deck loading is restricted,
and the Plimsoll mark insisted on. But the portion of the Act which
gave rise to the intensest opposition was the proviso by which all
sailing vessels are obliged to carry a certain complement of able
seamen and ordinary seamen, according to their tonnage, while steamers
must carry a given number of able seamen, ordinary seamen, firemen,
trimmers, and greasers, according to their horse-power. Foreign
vessels, while engaging in the New Zealand coasting-trade, have to pay
their crews the rate of wages current on the coast. Parliament was
warned that the passing of this Act would paralyze the trade of
the Colony, but passed it was--with certain not unreasonable
amendments--and trade goes on precisely as before.
In 1891, moreover, the colonial laws relating to mining generally,
and to coal-mining especially, were consolidated and amended. An
interesting feature in the New Zealand Coal Mines' Act is the
provision by which mine-owners have to contribute to a fund for the
relief of miners or the families of miners in cases where men are
injured or killed at work. Every quarter the owners have to pay a
halfpenny per ton on the output, if it be bituminous coal; and a
farthing a ton, if it be lignite. Payment is made into the nearest
Post Office Savings Bank and goes to the credit of an account called
"The Coal Miners' Relief Fund." From 1891 mineral rights are reserved
in lands thereafter alienated by the Crown.
Most of the Labour laws are watched and administered by the Department
of Labour, a branch of the public service created in 1891. It costs
but £7,000 or £8,000 a year, much of which is recouped by factory
fees and other receipts. It also keeps labour statistics, acts as
a servants' registry office, and by publishing information, and by
shifting them from congested districts, endeavours to keep down the
numbers of the unemployed. In this, though it is but a palliative, it
has done useful and humane work, aided--so far as the circulation of
labour goes--by the State-owned railways.
[Illustration:
TE WAHAROA HENARE KAIHAU, M.H.R. HON. JAMES CARROLL, M.H.R
RIGHT HON. R.J. SEDDON (_Premier_) MAHUTA (_The Maori "King"_)
Photo by_ BEATTIE & SANDERSON, Auckland.]
From what has gone before, readers will readily understand that the
New Zealand Government has usually in its employ several thousand
labourers engaged in road-making, bridge-building, draining, and in
erecting and repairing public buildings. To avoid the faults of both
the ordinary contract and the day-wage system, a plan, clumsily called
The Co-operative Contract System, has been adopted by the present
Premier, Mr. Seddon. The work is cut up into small sections, the
workmen group themselves in little parties of from four to eight men,
and each party is offered a section at a fair price estimated by the
Government's engineers. Material, when wanted, is furnished by the
Government, and the tax-payer thus escapes the frauds and adulteration
of old contract days. The result of the system in practice is that
where workmen are of, at any rate, average industry and capacity, they
make good, sometimes excellent, wages. In effect they are groups of
piece-workers, whose relation with each other is that of partners.
Each band elects a trustee, with whom the Government officials deal.
They are to a large extent their own masters, and work without being
driven by the contractor's foreman. They are not encouraged to work
more than eight hours a day; but as what they get depends on what they
do, they do not dawdle during those hours, and if one man in a group
should prove a loafer, his comrades, who have to suffer for his
laziness, soon get rid of him. The tendency is for first-class men
to join together, and for second-class men to similarly arrange
themselves. Sometimes, of course, the officers, in making estimates
of the price to be paid for work, make mistakes, and men will earn
extravagantly high wages, or get very poor returns. But as the
sections are small, this does not last for long, and the balance is
redressed. After some years' experience, it seems fairly proved that
the average of earnings is not extravagant, and that the taxpayer
loses nothing by the arrangement as compared with the old contract
system, while the change is highly popular with workmen throughout the
Colony.
Those who know anything of politics anywhere, will not need to be told
that the changes and experiments here sketched have been viewed with
suspicion, alarm, contempt, or anger, by a large class of wealthy and
influential New Zealanders. It is but fair that, in a sketch like
this, some emphasis should be laid upon their dissent and protests.
Into the personal attacks of which very much of their criticism
has consisted this is not the place to enter. A summary of the
Conservative view of the progressive work ought, however, to have a
place. Disqualified as I might be thought to be from attempting it, I
prefer to make use of an account written and published in 1896 by an
English barrister, who, in the years 1894-95, spent many months in the
Colony studying with attention its politics and public temper. As his
social acquaintanceships lay chiefly among the Conservatives, he had
no difficulty in getting frank expressions of their views. In the
following sentences he sums up the more moderate and impersonal of
these, as he heard and analysed them:--
"... It must not be supposed that the Conservatives of
New Zealand, any more than those of the mother country, are
apologists for 'sweating.' Indeed, as Mr. Reeves himself has
acknowledged, the labour legislation with which he is associated
was inaugurated by the Government's predecessors, and in carrying
his Bills he had the cordial support of Captain Russell, the
leader of the Opposition. At the same time it is urged that this
protective legislation has been carried to an unreasonable extent,
and people allege, no doubt with a certain amount of exaggeration,
that they feel themselves regulated in all the relations of life. The
measure which has created the most irritation seems to be the
Shop Assistants Act. Employers say that Mr. Reeves has made
every man 'a walking lawsuit,' and that they are chary of having one
about their premises. Moreover, this constant succession of labour
laws, and the language of some of their supporters, have created, so
they say, in the minds of the working classes the impression that the
squatters, manufacturers, and the classes with which they associate,
are tyrants and oppressors, and their lives are embittered by the
feeling that they are regarded as enemies of the people. Further,
they say that the administrative action of the Government tends
to keep up the price of labour, that the price of labour is unreasonably
high, and that this fact, coupled with the necessity of keeping
all the provisions of the labour laws in mind, and the spirit which
they have generated, makes them disinclined to employ labour in
the improvement of their lands. As to the Government's land
policy, while it is admitted that small settlers are desirable, it is
not admitted that large properties are necessarily a curse. What
is resented more fiercely than anything else is the fact that they
are liable to have their own properties appropriated at the
arbitrary will of the Minister of lands, and though the Government
promises to work the law reasonably, neither this nor any other of
their declarations is regarded with confidence. It is asserted that
the Government is flooding the country with incompetent settlers,
who imagine that anyone can get a living out of the land; that the
resumed properties have been purchased and cut up in such a way
that a cry for a reduction of rents will soon become inevitable, and
that the Cheap Money Scheme has created a class of debtors,
who, in conceivable circumstances, might be able to apply
effectual political pressure for the reduction of their interest. In
point of fact they do not share the Progressist idea, that much can
be done by legislation to ameliorate the condition of the masses of
the population, nor do they see that in a country like New Zealand,
where labour is dear, food cheap, and the climate mild and
equable, their condition need necessarily be so deplorable. They
still cherish the old theories of individualism. The humanitarian
ideals of Mr. Reeves, not being idealists, they regard with little
interest. What they see is the Government of their Colony, which
they had been accustomed to control, in the hands of men whose
characters they despise or detest, and the House of Representatives,
which was once the most dignified and distinguished
assembly in the Colonies, now become (in their circle at any rate)
a byword of reproach--full of men who vote themselves for a three
months' session salaries which many of them would be unable to
earn in any other walk of life."
Despite the Socialistic tendency of the Acts thus denounced, it must
not be thought that there is any strong party of deliberate State
Socialists in the Colony at all corresponding to the following of
Bebel and Liebknecht in Germany, or even the Independent Labour Party
in England. There is not. The reforms and experiments which show
themselves so many in the later chapters of the story of New Zealand
have in all cases been examined and taken on their merits, and not
otherwise. They are the outcome of a belief which, though much
more boldly trusted and acted upon by the Progressives than by the
Conservatives, is not now the monopoly of one political party. The
leaders of the rival parties, the robust Mr. Seddon and the kindly
Captain Russell, both admit one main principle. It is that a young
democratic country, still almost free from extremes of wealth and
poverty, from class hatreds and fears and the barriers these create,
supplies an unequalled field for safe and rational experiment in the
hope of preventing and shutting out some of the worst social evils and
miseries which afflict great nations alike in the old world and the
new.
To sum up the experiments themselves, it may be said that the Colony
has now reached the stage when the State, without being in any way
a monopolist, is a large and active competitor in many fields of
industry. Where it does not compete it often regulates. This very
competition must of course expose it to the most severe tests and
trials. Further progress will chiefly depend on the measure of success
with which it stands these, and on the consequent willingness or
unwillingness of public opinion to make trial of further novelties.