To a social student, however, the most interesting and, on the whole, most cheering aspect of town life is supplied by the work-people. They are worth watching as they go to their shops and factories between eight and nine in the morning, or when, after five in the afternoon, they pour into the streets with their work done and something of the day yet left to call their own. The clean, well-ventilated work-rooms are worth a visit certainly. But it is the men and women, youths and girls themselves who, to any one acquainted with factory hands in the Old World, seem the best worth attention. Everywhere you note a decent average of health, strength, and contentment. The men do not look stunted or deadened, the women pinched or sallow, the children weedy or underfed. Most of them seem bright and self-confident, with colour in their faces and plenty of flesh on their frames, uniting something of English solidity with a good deal of American alertness. Seventy thousand hands--the number employed in our factories and workshops--may seem few enough. But forty years ago they could not muster seven thousand, and the proportional increase during the last twelve years has been very rapid. To what extent their healthy and comfortable condition is due to the much-discussed labour laws of New Zealand is a moot point which need not be discussed here. What is certain is that for many years past the artisans and labourers of the colony have increased in numbers, while earning higher wages and working shorter hours than formerly. At the same time the employers as a body have prospered as they never prospered before, and this prosperity shows as yet no sign of abatement. That what is called the labour problem has been solved in New Zealand no sensible man would pretend. But at least the more wasteful and ruinous forms of industrial conflicts have for many years been few and (with two exceptions) very brief, a blessing none too common in civilised communities. As a testimony to the condition of the New Zealand worker I can hardly do better than quote the opinion of the well-known English labour leader, Mr. Keir Hardie. Whatever my readers may think of his opinions--and some of them may not be among his warm admirers--they will admit that he is precisely the last man in the Empire likely to give an overflattering picture of the lot of the labourer anywhere. His business is to voice the grievances of his class, not to conceal or suppress them. Now, Mr. Hardie, after a tour round the Empire, deliberately picks out New Zealand as the most desirable country for a British emigrant workman. The standard of comfort there appears to him to be higher than elsewhere, and he recognises that the public conscience is sensitive to the fair claims of labour. CHAPTER II COUNTRY LIFE