In the case of the Bakers’ Union of Christchurch the Court of Arbitration decided that overtime must be paid at the rate of time and a quarter for the first four hours and at the rate of time and a half for every hour thereafter. The decision limited each journeyman to but one apprentice, and fixed the term of apprenticeship to four years. It provided that no carter could be employed in a bakehouse, but that a baker might send out his employees to deliver bread, provided they were not required to work overtime.
Decisions of the councils and the Court may establish the rate of wages not only for the parties to the dispute, but for others in the same industry, although local and trade conditions are always taken into consideration. For instance, if the Court fixes the wages of the bookbinders in one district at so much a month the bookbinders in other districts will at once demand the same and most likely get it. Not all the cases are decided in favour of the unions, however. In determining fair rates, the Court of Arbitration has tried to find out the minimum on which a worker can live in decent comfort and also what wages each employer can give and still make a profit. Awards run for three years, when a revision may be asked. At the expiration of the first three-year period after the arbitration law went into effect the unions entered the Court with new demands for higher wages, but in many cases the increases were denied.
The Christmas holidays come in New Zealand’s summer, and roses and sweet peas take the place of holly and mistletoe. Nevertheless, the people stick to home customs and eat the plum puddings of the British season.
Most of the land requires expensive fertilizers to produce grain. Therefore New Zealand raises wheat only for her own use and depends on sheep and dairy products as money makers.
Put a New Zealander near water and he will get into it. Many great swimmers have been developed, but accidents are so frequent that drowning is sometimes called “the New Zealand death.”
To an American, the Dominion laws fixing hours and wages and regulating relations between workmen and employers seem radical, but the New Zealanders do not think them so. They claim that as a people they are, like their British ancestors, naturally conservative. Their government, they say, has been compelled by force of circumstances to go into all sorts of things, and reforms have come about in a natural and orderly way. For example, it was essential that farmers should get their produce to market. There were no big capitalists ready to finance railroad building, so means of transportation had to be provided by the government. The insurance companies did not adapt their rates to the conditions of the country; so the government went into competition. Twenty-odd years ago the New Zealand coal-mine operators took advantage of a diminished coal importation from Australia to put up prices for fuel. The government met this situation by working the coal beds of the public lands on the west coast. This it has continued to do, supplying its own railways and competing in the open markets with the private mine owners. The latter say they can stand the competition quite well, since the government mines are worked at a higher cost, not because of a difference in wages, for wages are regulated by law, but because the state miners take things easier and produce less. The “government stroke” is a common expression here for the way state employees do their work.
Again, take the story of how the Court of Arbitration came to be. It was told me by one of the officials of the Labour Department. Said he: