New Zealand not prosperous from 1879 to 1895. Conditions under which the arbitration act was passed in 1894. Mr. Reeves its author, 661. — Increase of associations and unions, 669. — Conciliation expected to be sufficient, but compulsory arbitration in fact resorted to, 672. — "Contract superseded by status, " 673. — Agricultural laborers not affected, 675. — Minimum wages and their influence on efficiency, 678. — Preference to unionists, 679. — "Fair wages" and the "living wage, " 683. — Rigidity of wages, and the inefficient employer, 686. — Uncertain whether workers' welfare has been in fact advanced, 687. — Influence on manufacturers and on cost of production; other factors affecting them, 689. — Opinion of employers and workmen, 692. — Amendment act of 1908 due to dissatisfaction among laborers, 693. — Strikes in 1906–1908, 695. — Peculiar case among miners, 697, and in the state collieries, 701. — Provisions of the amendment act of 1908, 704. — Voluntary arbitration again sought to be encouraged, 706. — Workers may evade the act altogether by the device of cancelling registration, 707. — Its future still uncertain.

Early construction by provincial governments, 657.—Vogel 's vast scheme of expansion in 1870, under general government, on borrowed money, 658.—Deviations from the original plan, through political influence, 660.—Expansion, followed by collapse in 1879, 661.—One important private railway, 662.—Bought up by government in 1908, 664. —The railways, narrow gauge and light, 666.—Traffic, rates, length of haul, 668.—Uniformity of rates, 670.—Commission administration, 1889–94, succeeded by direct governmental administration, 671.—Improvements charged to capital account, 672.—Net earnings insufficient to pay interest on debt, 673.—The deficit larger than the published figures indicate, 675.—Causes of the deficit, 678.—Railways should not be built or operated at financial loss because of supposed social utility, 685.—Recent movement for economy, 690.—Return to private ownership nowhere proposed, 692.