in the colony, but there should be something more; Parliament itself should say that when a man had worked for eight hours he had done as much as could reasonably be expected of him. Mr. Bradshaw again found a supporter in Mr. Seddon, who had lately had cases brought under his notice in which attempts were made to increase the hours of labour. He stated instances where men had to go down into the mines on the West Coast, expose themselves to water and dynamite-fumes, and take risks and dangers for eight hours, and their employers endeavoured to add an hour to their day’s work. The employers’ action had precipitated a small but irritating strike. Mr. Seddon always felt that a man could do justice to both himself and his employer in eight hours, and as there had been several attempts to break through the eight hours system, he was more firmly convinced than ever that the Bill ought to be passed. At the same time, he thought that it could not very well be applied to farm labourers and domestic servants. The Bill was again denounced as being “vicious,” “intolerable,” and “oppressive.”
Mr. Bradshaw died in 1886, and Sir George Grey took up the proposal in 1887, when it was supported by Mr. Seddon and Sir Robert Stout. Sir George was not very enthusiastic in pressing the Bill on the House. It passed its second reading successfully, but had to be dropped. In 1889 it appeared in charge of Mr. R. M. Taylor, of Sydenham. It was received with more opposition than ever; it passed its third reading in the House, but failed to make any further progress. In 1891, Mr. W. P. Reeves introduced an Eight Hours Bill, but it also had to be dropped before it reached the Statute Book. It spite of all these determined attempts, the colony is still without an Eight Hours Act; the principle, however, is affirmed in a clause of the Factories Act, passed by the Ballance Government, and when Mr. Seddon introduced his Coal-mine Bill in the first year of his Ministry, he had a clause inserted making eight hours a day’s work in a coal-mine.
In 1885 there was introduced, first into the Legislative Council and then into the House of Representatives, a remarkable labour measure, but of a different type from those that Mr.
