The New Zealand law is more intelligent. It extends old-age pensions to every person over the age of sixty-five who has resided thirty-five years in the colony and not been imprisoned for a criminal offence, nor has abandoned his wife, nor neglected to provide for his or her children. It does not, however, appear that any previous employment is necessary. The pension amounts to eighteen pounds, say ninety dollars, a year and is not given to any one who has an income of fifty-two pounds a year. The machinery of the law is largely conducted through the post-office and the entire expense is met by the state. That is to say, there is no contribution from the laborers themselves. Austria, Italy, Norway, and Denmark in 1901 had also state insurance systems. The minimum-wage idea has so far been attempted only In New Zealand and in Great Britain.[1] (See above, p. 160.) The New Zealand law of 1899 provided a minimum wage of four shillings per week for boys and girls, and five shillings for boys under eighteen, but the principle has been much extended by a more recent statute. The English law is not yet in active operation, and may or may not receive great extension. It provides in substance for the fixing of a minimum wage in the clothing trade or _any other_ trade specified by the Home Secretary. The obvious probability is that it will, as in New Zealand, soon be extended to all trades. This wage is to be fixed by a board of arbitrators with the usual representation given to each side, and it will doubtless work, as it does in New Zealand, for the elevation of wages, as such commissions rarely reduce them.