uty, 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 L7,000 or L8,000 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