Page:Notes on New Zealand (1892).pdf/236

226 the principal attractions appears to be the plenitude of public-houses, and the opportunities for meeting and drinking with old acquaintances. The Government appears to be of a similar opinion, for in certain of its largest undertakings in the shape of laying down railway lines, etc., it stipulated that no men should be employed on the works within a distance of 20 miles of the town in which they were accustomed to dwell. The men employed upon the farms, the sheep runs, and the mines of New Zealand have no cause to seek for better wages in the towns; they make their own terms with their employers, nor has