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 co-operate with artizans in order to prevent the working classes being crushed. He spoke long and earnestly in favour of State interference in all these matters, basing his reasons on the fact that industrial disputes militated against the colony’s progress and against the well-being of the people generally.

It was during the strike of 1890 that he became thoroughly convinced that State interference was not only justifiable but absolutely necessary for the colony’s future. The strike was to him a terrible object lesson. He came out in advance, probably, of any other leading politician of the day and showed so much determination that he was left alone, none caring to follow him in his schemes. He saw that the State Life Insurance Department and the State-owned postal service had been successful beyond reasonable expectations, and he believed it was the duty of Parliament to go a great deal further in the same direction.

He wanted the State to buy the Union Steamship Company’s fleet, and by that means place it beyond anyone’s power to cause the suffering and loss that were taking place in the colony at that time. Although this scheme did not receive much serious consideration then, it had been carefully thought out; it was not the inspiration of a moment or the chance idea of a heated mind. The company’s fleet consisted of 48 steamers. Its capital was £500,000, debentures for £250,000 being afloat bearing interest at the rate of 5 per cent. Three steamers recently constructed had not been paid for, and the sum that they cost was bearing interest. The total sum involved, he estimated, would be about a quarter of a million sterling. That money, taking it all round, was bearing interest at the rate of 6 per cent. The State was able to borrow at 4 per cent, and the difference in the rate of interest would be about equal to a third of the capital, so that the property ought to have been available for about half a million. The State paid the company £6000 a year for the carriage of mails and from 7s. to 10s. a ton for the carriage of coals to be used on the Government railways. In some parts of the colony, the company’s steamers were competing with the railways, and that competition entailed considerable loss on the colony. He saw that if the two interests were worked together,