at the chance to exchange the income tax they now pay for a land tax based on the value of their land after deducting from it the value of all buildings, fences, hedges, ditches, gates, and acts of husbandry.

Moreover, there is a provision in the Taxation Act which I commend to distressed landowners who can find no market for their property, but are trembling lest the advancing wave of democracy sweep away the little that is left to them. Under that provision where an owner is dissatisfied with the valuation of the Land Tax Department, and puts in a declaration that his land is not worth the amount of the departmental valuation, he may call upon the Government to bring down the valuation to his figure, and if they decline to do so they must purchase the estate at the owner's valuation. It is recognised that to take land except for the public advantage would be tyrannical, while to give less than its value, at least as estimated by the owner, would constitute robbery.

This procedure was adopted by the owners of one of the largest estates, if not the largest, in the Colony-an estate which was coterminous with a whole county, possessed its own port for the shipment of produce, and had on it as handsome and well-appointed a country-house as you would find built within the same period in England. The total area of that estate was 85,361 acres. The Government valued it at £304,826, or £3 11s. 5d. per acre all round; while the owners valued it at but £260,220, or £3 0s. 11d. per acre all round. They asked for a reduction in value of £44,606, or that the Government should purchase it at the owners' valuation. This the Government decided to do, the purchasers accepting in payment Treasury Bills at 4 per cent., with six months to run. After setting apart a sufficient area to be sold with the Mansion House this estate was divided into three parts, one-third to be sold by public auction, one-third to be leased in perpetuity, and onethird to be leased for grazing runs.

The independent valuations made and the general opinion seem to indicate that the Government have not made a bad bargain, while the owners, I happen to know, are congratulating themselves hugely on having disposed of the property.

There are now open for immediate settlement on this estate 20,000 acres of good agricultural land, a third of which is estimated to be worth £7 5s. an acre, and the remaining two-thirds worth £5 an acre; 9,000 acres are available for dairy purposes, and a large area for pasturage.

If, then, the Government can find the money without unduly saddling the Colony with additional debt, and will strictly hypo

thecate and earmark the proceeds of sales to the service of that particular debt, it would appear that the experiment in the resumption of the national estate is likely to be satisfactory both to the Government and to the landowners.

THE LABOUR DEPARTMENT.

New Zealand was the first Colony to establish a Labour Department with a Minister at its head. In 1891 such a Department was created with 200 branches in various parts of the Colony to compile statistics and to control and direct the movements of labour. By its agency 2,974 persons were provided with employment in 1891, and 8,874 in 1892, about one-third being put to work which the Government had in hand.

It must not be forgotten that the Governments in the Colonies have one common advantage over us in England, inasmuch as the railways are the property of the State, and although the Labour Department is strictly debited with the exact cost of transport of each man to find work, it is but robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Labour bureaux have also been established in New South Wales and Victoria. In the former Colony, although the Government made it quite clear that no relief works would be provided in connection with it, the bureau appears to have been successful. Despite the opposition of those who wished to have it conducted solely on Unionist lines, 11,000 men found employment through it before last July.

In Victoria, on the other hand, relief works were organised in connection with the bureau on a large scale, including a habitation for the Melbourne City Council and a railway which it was not pretended would ever pay its working expenses; yet in March of this year from 6,000 to 7,000 men were on the books waiting for work, many of them willing to accept it at the lowest possible wage. In May the bureau was done away with, having become a magnet to draw all unemployed labour to the capital-a danger which New Zealand by the establishment of numerous branches seems to have escaped.

CO-OPERATIVE LABOUR ON PUBLIC WORKS.

Impressed by the abuses shown to exist in England by contractors who sweat their workers, the Government of New Zealand have in the execution of public works dispensed with the contractor, and entrusted the carrying out of work to gangs of men under a system which is not altogether new to many private employers. The

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Government Engineer lays out the work and fixes the price to be paid, based on the amount of wages. The men then form themselves into gangs, in which it is alleged that the strong men join with the strong, while the weak unite with the weak, so that, although the latter may be longer in getting through their task, they are not excluded altogether from obtaining employment. The arbitration of the Engineer takes the place of the higgling of the market. Competition is altogether eliminated, and it is, of course, a question whether the State, thus depending entirely on the Government Agent's valuation, is getting its work done as cheaply as it might.

NOT RELIEF WORKS.

It should be clearly understood that these are not relief works in the ordinary sense of the term, but are works which would have under any circumstances to be carried out by the State, and are not undertaken for the purpose of creating work.

Moreover, when we consider what enormous sums of borrowed money have been spent in New Zealand on public works, it is not a little to the credit of a Government which depend for their support on the Labour vote that they should now for five years have abstained from borrowing in England. The expenditure of such money on the employment of labour would have increased the popularity of the Government, but at the expense of sound finance and of the credit of the Colony.

THE PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE.

The Government have power to act as trustee for any person who chooses to put his estate in the hands of the Public Trustee. The Public Trust Office has now been over twenty years in existence. All private individuals and every executor or trustee, as well as corporations and friendly societies, may vest property in the Public Trustee for such purpose as he may by the trust deed appoint. The Public Trustee, however, declines to be associated in a trust with any other person, and only accepts trusteeship subject to the approval of a specially constituted Board of Advice.

THE STATE RAILWAYS.

The railways in all the Australasian Colonies have with few exceptions been constructed by the State. This experiment, if such it can still be called, has not been found to be entirely satisfactory. Many lines have been constructed without reasonable prospect of

émunerative return to satisfy localities and to secure to the Government the support of their representatives.

The advocates of State Socialism may seek to justify this policy on the ground that facilities for locomotion should be provided for the community by the community, and that if it be desirable that collections and deliveries of letters should take place even where not remunerative, so it is desirable that every man should have reasonable facilities for railway travel.

In Victoria it was found that the pressure of constituencies on Members, and of Members on Ministers, made it impossible to conduct the administration of the railways in an economical manner, and strictly upon commercial principles. A Board of Commissioners, independent of direct Parliamentary control, was therefore appointed in that Colony; and the example of Victoria has been followed by her sister Colonies.

In New South Wales and New Zealand a disposition has been shown to revert to the State administration previously in existence, and a Commission was appointed in the former Colony to inquire into the administration of the Commission in New South Wales.

The result of this Commission has been to show that the railways were far more economically administered under the Commissioners; that the charges of "sweating" labour were entirely groundless; and that while no man was paid a lower wage than seven shillings a day, the greater number received wages varying from seven-and-sixpence to eight shillings a day.

In Victoria, on the other hand, a disastrous state of affairs has been disclosed. The difference between the Budget estimate and the facts was ascertained to be something like a million and threequarters, largely on railway account, and the system of direct political control has been reverted to in that Colony.

While in New Zealand the Ministry have proposed to Parliament that the Minister should himself be one of four Commissioners, with a second vote in case of equality, so that the Minister and one Commissioner would formulate the policy that should govern the State railways. This proposal has, however, been rejected by the Upper House, and the powers of the Railways Commissioners will now lapse in February next.

THE EIGHT-HOURS DAY.

As is well known there is no legislation in any of the Australian Colonies limiting the hours of adult male labour generally, but it is an

accepted custom, and perhaps the most stringent rule of all trade unions, that eight hours constitute a working day.

There are laws not dissimilar to our own limiting the hours of female and child labour in factories and elsewhere. A factory in New Zealand, it may be noted, is any place where three or more persons are employed, and a supply of drinking water must be provided. There are regulations as to the minimum space of cubic air to each worker, and in large factories a place outside the workroom must be found for women's meals.

In the mining industry persons in charge of steam machinery are prohibited from working more than eight hours, exclusive of the time necessary for raising and exhausting steam.

SHOP HOURS.

The employment of assistants in shops has been regulated by insisting on one half-holiday in the week, a limit to the working hours of women and persons under eighteen to forty-eight hours a week. Proper sitting accommodation must be provided for females.

The inspectors of factories who administer this Act report that in the towns (especially in the provincial capitals of the South Island) employers have held public meetings to settle the half-holiday at which "they not only attempted to meet the Act in a generous manner but they showed an enthusiasm which was of a most unselfish character." To fix the day for the half-holiday caused no little friction between town and country, and between city and suburbs, but almost everywhere the expressed wish of the majority was accepted. In a few places difficulty was experienced owing to the owners of shops where no assistants are employed being kept open to catch the business of the closed establishments, forcing the proprietors of the latter to reopen against their more generous instincts. In these cases the Act has been met by letting one assistant off duty on one day and another on some other day. A proposal to make Saturday a general and compulsory half-holiday throughout the Colony has been rejected by Parliament.

THE INSURANCE DEPARTMENT.

The Government Insurance Department in New Zealand has been established close on a quarter of a century. At the time of its establishment Sir Julius Vogel quoted a petition to the Imperial Parliament alleging that out of 400 insurance companies established up to that time in Great Britain only 120 had survived. He re