Federation. The four principal ports of New Zealand, indeed the
only ports much frequented by the large export and import vessels, are
Auckland, Wellington, Lyttleton, and Dunedin, the two first named being in
the north island, and the other two in the south. Auckland is considerably
the largest city in The Dominion, containing at least 25,000 more
inhabitants than Wellington, which is not only the capital of the
Dominion, but also the great distributing centre for the South island and
the southern part of the North island, at the southern extremity of which
it is situated. The remarkable situation of Auckland, on a very narrow
isthmus about a hundred and eighty miles from the northern point of the
country, is no doubt largely responsible for the growth of the city, which
is the chief centre of the young manufactures of the Dominion, and the
largest port of export for almost all the country produces, except wool
and mutton, which are mainly raised in the South island. Thus it happens
that Auckland and Wellington are at present the chief shipping ports of
the Dominion, and it was to them that the Federation of Labor turned its
chief attention when its leaders had definitely decided to undertake the
campaign of syndicalism against the system of arbitration which had
prevailed for sixteen years.

There had already been formed Unions of Waterside Workers and Seamen at
each of these ports; but they were in all cases registered under the
arbitration law, and of course subject to its penalties against both
officials and members in cases of any breach of the statute. The
Federation's agents proceeded to collect the members of these unions who
were in any way dissatisfied with the existing awards of the Arbitration
Courts, and to form them into new Unions outside the statute. They had
little difficulty in persuading the men that the new Unions would be free
to act in many directions that were barred to the members of the old
Unions. A good many of the men were thus persuaded to resign their
membership in the existing Unions, and as they were very often the most
active members, they gradually persuaded others to leave with them. There
was nothing either in the law or custom of the ports to prevent unionists
and non-unionists working together on the wharves or the coasting vessels;
so within a comparatively short time the members of the new Federation
Unions were more numerous than those that clung to the older ones. When
this bec