Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/43

Rh almost regularly, appearing in wholly or partially new vesture. Repeals are infrequent, amendments are many.

This legislative tinkering, as irate New Zealanders commonly call it, has been responsible for a great deal of exasperation and uncertainty in the Dominion. At every session of Parliament, for years, labor bills have been a feature of the House of Representatives' proceedings. By no means can the majority of these be truthfully construed as detrimental to commerce or industry, but harassed employers continually fear them. In innumerable instances employers have fought against specific legislation, but what they object to more than anything else, apparently, are perennial amendments, on the ground that they unsettle and otherwise injure business. For the prevention of child labor New Zealand has passed stringent laws, and with excellent results. Nevertheless, juvenile labor of a regrettable kind still exists there. In the factory, the shop, and the mine there are no youthful workers under a reasonable age; there age limits protect them. But on dairy farms, where so often parents are poor and cows many, less satisfactory conditions prevail. The New Zealand Government has deeply interested itself in labor, but not to such a degree as to prohibit or monopolize employment agencies. The State does conduct scores of free employment agencies, but, under the name of servants' registry offices, many employment bureaus are run by private concerns.