Individual and combined action followed these revelations. A union of tailoresses was formed and an effective factory law passed. Wages, however, continued upon a downward course, and in 1895 “there were in the colony 591 factory girls who were getting no pay for their work, and 175 who were paid half a crown a week or less.” (p. 34.) Such facts as these were enough to show to thoughtful observers that, unless special measures were introduced, the evils of European countries would grow with the growth of the colonies. Another series of events helped to focus attention upon labour problems. This was the epidemic of unusually wide-spread and bitter strikes which ran through the various colonies in the early nineties. Into the details of these it is unnecessary to enter. It is enough to say that, in at least one instance, associated workers demanded what they had no right to demand and that, in at least three instances, associated employers refused even to confer upon the demands of the workers. The mining companies, for example, declared in a public manifesto that “The mining companies claim the right to work the mines as they deem best and cannot refer this right to arbitration.” (p. 95.) Acts of violence were committed; the public was greatly inconvenienced; much money was lost; and people began to look about for some legislation that would obviate similar troubles in the future. This was the opportunity of Mr Reeves, at that time Minister of Labour in New Zealand. He saw that the path of progress lay along the line of organisation; and that the field of State Arbitration is not between man and man, but between association and association. He recognised that organised society has a right to demand of its different sections that degree of class organisation which renders possible the application of a common law. Hitherto, sectional combination had been used principally as a basis for organised war; in Mr Reeves’s plan, it was to furnish the basis of an organised peace. Following out the stages by which industrial disputes develop into strikes, he substituted for each a more peaceful step. His Bill, respecting the divisions of the colony into districts, allowed the creation in any district of a local Conciliation Board, and established a supreme Court of Arbitration. The Conciliation Boards were to come into existence “if petitioned for,” and were to be “composed of equal numbers of masters and men, with an impartial chairman.” (p. 101.) The right of electing representatives to serve on these Boards was given not to individuals but solely to such bodies of employers or of workers (men or women) as registered themselves under the Act. An association of as few as seven workers may, at the present time, claim registration. When registered, such associations are called Industrial Unions, and become corporations “with power to hold land, to sue and be sued, and to recover dues from their members.” (p. 103.)