H.—lie

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the proportion of our workmen who go out to seek occupation in other countries with the design of returning to New Zealand sooner or later is extremely small. As you know, however, the legal rights of the dependants of a workman the victim of an accident in New Zealand when those dependants live outside the colony have already been debated in our Court. And it will be noticed by those who have read the foregoing sketch that international arrangements in Europe are now being made, not only with regard to compensation for accidents, but in regard to insurance against old age. Reciprocity in the matter of old-age pensions must sooner or later become a question for discussion between New Zealand and the Australian States. No one who has thought over the subject for a few moments can deny the necessity for the clause in the New Zealand old-age-pension law stipulating that prolonged residence in the colony shall be one of the qualifications for a pension. Similar safeguards appear in the New South Wales and Victorian laws. But this does not make it in the least a hardship that respectable persons who in middle life may be compelled by circumstances to migrate from one colony to the other should thereby lose the chance of State provision in their old age. To take away safeguards altogether from the Pensions Act is plainly impossible. But where, as in New South Wales, a liberal old-age-pension law exists, there seems to be an opening for fair reciprocal arrangements. The European movement, therefore, in favour of reciprocity is of interest to New Zealand, and the arrangements now made by Germany with certain other countries should be worthy of study. The Agent-General to the Right Hon. the Premier. Sir, — Westminster Chambers, 13 Victoria Street, London, S.W., 13th January, 1906. In continuation of my~despatch of the 4th instant, No. 154, relating to the Seventh International Congress on Workmen's Insurance, and covering a memorandum on the present position of workmen's insurance, compensation, and pension laws, I beg to send by book-post by to-day's mail a collection of addresses and papers read and presented at the Congress. I have, &c, The Right Hon. the Premier, Wellington, New Zealand. W. P. Reeves. Approximate Cost of Paper. —Preparation, not given ; printing (1,950 eopiem, £8 4s.

By Authority: John Mackay, Government Printer, Wellington.—l9o6.

Price 6d.]