dually 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 Trade