Besides being a detailed study of the causes, course and consequences of the 1890 Maritime Strike in New Zealand, this thesis is also an overall account of the trials and tribulations, and the successes and failures of the labour movement in New Zealand between the passage of Stout's Trade Union Bill in 1878, and the enactment in 1894 of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act sponsored by Reeves. As such it has attempted to place that strike in its perspective as one of the really important events in labour history. From it I hope it can be seen that the 1890 Maritime Strike ha~to a certain extent, influenced the structure of the labour movement from the time that Reeves's bill was passed. If I have been vague in places or left out details that some might consider to be necessary or interesting, that is largely because the information was lacking. There are apparently no official union records of the period in existence today, with the exception of the correspondence book of the Cooks' and Stewards' Union in Dunedin. Unfortunately they just were not kept, or were lost at some later date. The Lyttelton Waterside Workers' Union records prior to 1951 simply disappeared after the strike that year.