The Factories Act of 1894, slightly extended by an amending Act in 1896, consolidates and improves upon no less than four previous measures, two of which had been passed by the Ballance Government.  As compared with similar European and American laws, it may fairly claim to be advanced and minute.  Under its pivot clause all workshops, where two or more persons are occupied, are declared to be factories, must register, pay an annual fee, and submit to inspection at any hour of the night or day.  A master and servant working together count as two hands.  Inspectors have absolute power to demand such cubic space, ventilation, and sanitary arrangements generally as they may consider needful to preserve life and health.  The factory age is fourteen; there are no half-timers; and, after a struggle, the Upper House was induced to pass a clause enforcing an education test before any child under fifteen should be allowed to go to factory work.  This is but logical in a country wherein primary education is not only free, but compulsory.  Children under sixteen must be certified by an inspector to be physically fit for factory life.  Women and children under eighteen may not work before 7.45 a.m. or after 6 p.m., nor more than forty-eight hours per week.  Whether time-workers or piece-workers, they are equally entitled to the half-holiday after 1 p.m. on Saturday.  In the case of time-workers, this half-holiday is to be granted without deduction of wages.  The rates of pay and hours of work in factories have to be publicly notified and returned to the inspectors.  Overtime may be permitted by inspectors on twenty-eight days a year, but overtime pay must be not less than 6d. an hour extra.  The factory-owners who send work out have to make complete returns thereof.  All clothing made outside factories for sale is to be ticketed “tenement made,” and any person removing the ticket before sale may be fined.  No home work may be sublet.  A peculiar feature in the Act relates to the board and lodging provided on sheep stations for the nomadic bands of shearers who traverse colonies, going from wool-shed to wool-shed during the shearing season.  The huts in which these men live are placed under the factory inspectors, who have power to call upon station-owners to make them decent and comfortable.  The Act has clauses insisting on the provision of a separate dining-room for women workers, of fire-escapes, and protection against dangerous machinery.  Girls under fifteen may not work as type-setters; young persons of both sexes are shut out of certain dangerous trades; women may not work in factories within a month after their confinement.  Such are the leading features of the Factories Act.  It is strictly enforced, and has not in any way checked the growth of manufactures in the colony.