Science in Public Affairs 



legislation affecting the relations of employers and 

 employed. There is a long series of laws which 

 aim at ameliorating the position of the worker by 

 preventing social oppression through undue in- 

 fluences, or through unsatisfactory conditions of 

 sanitation. The most prominent instance is the 

 Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration of 1894, 

 which, introducing compulsion where it had pre- 

 viously been regarded as inapplicable, has certainly 

 averted any serious strike or lock-out in New Zea- 

 land for a period of ten years. The Act has been 

 fully described, 1 and its effects analysed, by the 

 Hon. W. P. Reeves, who was mainly instrumental 

 in placing it on the statute-book. 



A similar trend of thought and legislation is to 

 be found in Australia ; but New Zealand has been 

 selected for this brief account, because space would 

 fail for a description of the action of each of the 

 Australian States. 



The policy of Australia and New Zealand in 

 regard to railways and other public works is alto- 

 gether different from that of Canada. Instead of 

 offering inducements which attract private enter- 

 prise, the State, in the vast majority of cases, 

 borrows the money and retains the undertaking 

 in its own hands. In this way, it is contended, 

 the extension of means of communication is more 

 closely associated with agricultural development. 

 But, under intensely democratic constitutions, the 

 danger of undue pressure by constituents upon 



1 " State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand," vol. ii. 

 pp. 69-153. 



