New Zealand Revisited; Recollections of the Days of My Youth by the Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon Gorst, Once Commissioner of the Waikato District, New Zeal

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI THE NEW ZEALAND LABOUR LAWS No account of a visit to New Zealand would be complete without some description of the laws under which the industry of the country is enjoying a period of singular happiness to the workers and tranquillity to the employers; and of the system by which the land of the country is made available for increasing the wealth of the people. Of these Labour Laws the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act is the most original and unique, and is that upon which the peace and prosperity of New Zealand industry appears mainly to depend. This law was designed by Mr. Pember Reeves, the present High Commissioner in London, and it was carried through the New Zealand Legislature in 1894 by the energetic parliamentary force of Mr. Seddon, the Prime Minister: it has many times been amended and added to, the last addition became law in 1905. The necessity of continuous amendment, writes Mr. Tregear, the Secretary for Labour, has been thrust upon the Legislature through the principle of industrial arbitration of a judicial character being entirely unique and without statutory precedent. The law on this subject has to be kept flexible in order to meet the continual necessities of change and growth. As difficulties, impossible to foresee, arise on the SOCIAL REFORMS untrodden ground, they have to be met by new efforts to cope with the new situation and with the knowledge which can only be born with experience. The rapidity and vigour with which experiments in social reform are prosecuted in New Zealand presents an instructive contrast to the slowness and conservatism of the Mother Country. In 1890, as an outcome of the Berlin Labour Conference, there was appointed with much nourish of trumpets a great Royal Commission on Labour. ...