Land pays no Income Tax, and landowners who have less than L500 worth of bare land value pay no Land Tax. This complete exemption of the very small land owners forms an almost insuperable barrier to the progress of singletaxers. On all land over L500 value 1d. in the L is paid. The mortgaged farmer deducts the amount of his mortgage from the value of his farm and pays only on the remainder. The money-lender pays 1d. in the L on the mortgage, which for this purpose is treated as land. An additional graduated tax begins on holdings worth, L5,000. At that stage it is an eighth of a penny. By progressive steps it rises until, on estates assessed at L210,000, it is 2d. Thus under the graduated and simple Land Tax together, the holders of the largest areas pay 3d. in the L, whilst the peasant farmers whose acres are worth less than L500 pay nothing. The owner who pays graduated tax pays upon the whole land value of his estate with no deduction for mortgage. The Graduated Tax brings in about L80,000 a year; the 1d. Land Tax about L200,000; the Income Tax about L70,000. The assessment and collection cause no difficulty. South Australia had a Land Tax before New Zealand; New South Wales has imposed one since. Both differ from New Zealand's.

Income earners pay on nothing up to L300 a year. Between L300 and L1,300 the tax is 6d. all round; over L1,300 it rises to a shilling. Joint-stock companies pay a shilling on all income.

Another law authorizes local governing bodies to levy their rates on bare land values. Three times the Bill passed the Lower House, only to be rejected in the Upper. It became law in 1896. The adoption of the principle permitted by it is hedged about by various restrictions but some fourteen local bodies have voted in favour thereof.

The unexampled and, till 1895, continuous fall of prices in the European markets made it hard for colonial producers to make both ends meet. The cultivator found his land depreciated because, though he grew more than before, he got less for it. As the volume of produce swelled, so the return for it sank as by some fatal compensation. To pay the old rates of interest is for the mortgaged farmer, therefore, an impossibility. Various schemes for using the credit of the State to reduce current rates of interest have been before the public in more than one colony. The scheme of the New Zealand Government is contained in the Advances to Settlers Act, 1894. Under it a State Board may lend Government money on leasehold and freehold security, but not on urban or suburban land, unless occupied for farming or market-gardening. The loan may amount to three-fifths of the value of the security when freehold, and one-half when leasehold. The rate of interest charged is 5 per cent., but the borrower pays at the rate of 6 per cent. in half-yearly instalments, the extra 1 per cent. being by way of gradual repayment of the principal. Mortgagees must in this way repay the principal in 73 half-yearly instalments, provided they care to remain indebted so long. If able to wipe off their debts sooner, they can do so. The Act came into force in October, 1894. Machinery for carrying it out was quickly set up; applications for loans came in freely, and about a million has been lent, though the State Board, in its anxiety to avoid bad security, has shown a proper spirit of caution.

With one exception, the constitutional changes of the eight years may be dismissed in a very few words. The Upper Chamber, or Legislative Council of New Zealand, is nominative and not elective, nor is there any fixed limit to its numbers. Liable, thus, to be diluted by Liberal nominees, it is not so strong an obstacle to the popular will as are the Elective Councils of certain Australian Colonies. Prior to 1891, however, the nominations in New Zealand were for life. This was objected to for two reasons. A Councillor, who at the age of sixty might be a valuable adviser, might twelve years later be but the shadow of his former self. Moreover, experience showed that Conservatism was apt to strengthen in the nominated legislator's mind with advancing years. So a seven years' tenure has been substituted for life tenure. Then, again, in 1891 the Liberal majority in the Colony was scarcely represented in the Council at all. In important divisions, Government measures passed by decisive majorities in the popular Chamber could only muster two, three, four, or five supporters in the Council. This not only meant that a hostile majority could reject and amend as it pleased, but that measures were not even fairly debated in the Upper House. Only one side was heard. In 1892 the Ballance Ministry, therefore, asked the Governor to call twelve fresh Councillors. His Excellency demurred to the number. As there was about to be a change of Governors the matter stood over. The new Governor proved as unwilling as his predecessor. Ballance held that in this matter, as in others, the constitutional course was for the Governor to take the advice of his Ministers. His Excellency thought otherwise. By mutual consent the matter was referred to the Colonial Office, where Lord Ripon decided in favour of the Premier. Twelve new Councillors were nominated. Though this submission to the arbitration of the Colonial Office was attacked not only by colonial Conservatives but by Sir George Grey, it was highly approved of both by the Lower House and the mass of the electors, and was regarded as one of Ballance's most important successes.

Another he did not live to see achieved. His Electoral Bill, wrecked twice in the Council, was only passed some months after his death. Under it the one-man-one-vote was carried to its complete issue by the clause providing for one man one registration; that is to say, that no voter could register on more than one roll. Consequently property-owners were not only cut down to one vote in one district at a general election, but were prevented from voting in another district at a by-election. The right to vote by letter was extended from seamen to shearers. But much the greatest extension of the franchise was the giving it to women. This was a curious example of a remarkable constitutional change carried by a Parliament at the election of which the question had scarcely been discussed. Labour, Land, and Progressive Taxation had been so entirely the ascendant questions at the General Election of 1890, that it came as a surprise to most to learn next year that the House of Representatives was in favour of women's suffrage. Even then it was not generally supposed that the question would be settled. Sir John Hall, however, its consistent friend, brought it up in the House, and Ballance, an equally earnest supporter, at once accepted it. After that, the only doubts as to its becoming law sprang from the attitude of the Legislative Council, and from the scruples of certain persons who thought that so great a change should be definitely submitted to the constituencies. Feeling was both strengthened and exacerbated by the enthusiasm of the Prohibition lodges, some of whose members at the same time demanded that the Government should pass the measure, and emphatically assured every one that its passing would forthwith bring about the Government's downfall and damnation. There is no doubt that many of the Ministry's opponents believed this, and that to their mistake was due the escape of the Bill in the Council. It was passed on the eve of the General Elections by the narrowest possible majority. The rush of the women on to the rolls; the interest taken by them in the elections; the peaceable and orderly character of the contests; and the Liberal majority returned at two successive General Elections are all matters of New Zealand history.

Most of the women voters show as yet no disposition to follow the clergy in assailing the national system of free, secular, and compulsory education. They clearly favour temperance reform, but are by no means unanimous for total prohibition. On the whole, the most marked feature of their use of the franchise is their tendency to agree with their menkind. Families, as a rule, vote together, and the women of any class or section are swayed by its interests, prejudices, or ideals to just about the same extent as the males thereof. Thus, the friends and relatives of merchants and professional men, large landowners, or employers of labour, usually vote on one side; factory girls, domestic servants, wives of labourers, miners, artisans, or small farmers, on the other. Schoolmistresses are as decidedly for secular education as are schoolmasters. It is too soon to pronounce yet with anything like confidence on the results of this great experiment. We have yet to see whether female interest in politics will intensify or fade. At present, perhaps, the right of every adult woman to vote is more remarkable for what it has not brought about than for what it has. It has not broken up existing parties, unsexed women, or made them quarrel with their husbands, or neglect their households. It has not interfered with marriage, or society, or the fashion of dress. The ladies are not clamouring to be admitted to Parliament. They do less platform-speaking than Englishwomen do, though many of them study public affairs—about which, to say truth, they have much to learn. Observers outside the Colony need not suppose that New Zealand women are in the least degree either "wild," or "new," or belong to any shrieking sisterhood. Though one or two have entered learned professions, most of them are engaged in domestic duties. Those who go out into the world do so to work unassumingly as school teachers, factory hands, or household servants. As school teachers they are usually efficient, as domestic servants civil and hard-working, as factory hands neat, industrious, and moral. It is true that they are, without exception, educated to the extent of having had at least good primary school teaching. But though they read—clean, healthy English books—this, so far from making them inclined to favour frantic or immoral social experiments, should have, one may hope, just the opposite effect. Far from being a spectacled, angular, hysterical, uncomfortable race, perpetually demanding extravagant changes in shrill tones, they are, at least, as distinguished for womanly modesty, grace, and affection, as Englishwomen in any other part of the Empire.

There are some who connect the appearance of women in the political arena with the recent passing of an Infants' Life Protection Act, the raising of the age of consent to fifteen, the admission of women to the Bar, the appointment of female inspectors to lunatic asylums, factories, and other institutions, improvements in the laws dealing with Adoption of Children and Industrial Schools, a severe law against the keepers of houses of ill-fame, and with the new liquor laws and the Prohibitionist movement which is so prominent a feature of New Zealand public life.

A handy volume issued by the Government printer contains most of the Labour Laws of New Zealand. They are now twenty-six in number, comprising Acts, amending Acts, and portions of Acts. Their aim is not the abolition of the wages system, but, as far as may be to make that system fair and tolerable, and in protecting the labourer to protect the fair employer. Some twenty of these laws have been passed during the last seven years. Of these an Employers' Liability Act resembles Mr. Asquith's ill-fated Bill. Worked in conjunction with a law for the inspection of machinery and a thorough-going system of factory inspection, it has lessened accidents without leading to litigation. It neither permits contracting-out nor allows employers to escape liability by means of letting out contracts.

A Truck Act declares the right of every wage-earner to be paid promptly, in full, in the current coin of the realm, and to be allowed to spend wages as they choose. Two more enactments deal with the earnings of the workmen of contractors and sub-contractors, make them a first charge on all contract money, give workers employed on works of construction a lien thereon, and compel a contractor's employer to hold back at least one-fourth of the contract money for a month after the completion of a contract, unless he shall be satisfied that all workmen concerned have been paid in full. A Wages Attachment Act limits without entirely abolishing a creditor's right to obtain orders of court attaching forthcoming earnings.

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.

The laws which regulate retail shops do not aim at securing what is known as early closing. A weekly half-holiday for all, employer and employed alike; a fifty-four hours' working week for women and young persons; seats for shop girls, and liberty to use them; sanitary inspection of shops. These were the objects of those who framed the acts, and these have been attained. Under a special section merchants' offices must close at 5 o'clock p.m. during two-thirds of each month. On the weekly half-holiday shops in towns must be closed at 1 o'clock, but each town chooses its own day for closing. Nearly all choose Wednesday or Thursday, so as not to interfere with the Saturday market-day of the farmers. Much feeling was stirred up by the passing of this Act, but it has since entirely died away.

Until 1894 the legal position of Trade Unionists in New Zealand was much less enviable than that of their brethren in England. The English Act of 1875 repealing the old Labour Conspiracy law and modifying the common law doctrine relating thereto, had never been enacted in New Zealand. The Intimidation law (6 George IV.) was still in force throughout Australasia; the common law doctrine relating thereto had not been in any way softened. Within the last few years Australian Trade Unionists had found the old English law unexpectedly hunted up for the purpose of putting them into gaol. Three short clauses and a schedule, passed in 1894, swept from the Statute-Book and the common law of New Zealand all laws and doctrines specially relating to conspiracy among members of Trades Unions who in future will only be amenable to such conspiracy laws as affect all citizens.

In New Zealand most domestic servants and many farm hands and gardeners are engaged through Servants' Registry Offices. A law, passed in 1895, provides for the inspection of these, and regulates the fees charged therein. Office-keepers have to be of good character; have to register and take out a license; have to keep books and records which are officially inspected. They are not allowed to keep lodging-houses or to have any interest in such houses.

To certain students the most interesting and novel of the New Zealand labour laws is that which endeavours to settle labour disputes between employers and Trade Unions by means of public arbitration instead of the old-world methods of the strike and the lock-out. Under this statute, which was passed in 1894, the Trade Unions of the Colony have been given the right to become corporate bodies able to sue and be sued. In each industrial locality a Board of Conciliation is set up, composed equally of representatives of employers and workmen, with an impartial chairman. Disputes between Trade Unions and employers—the Act deals with no others—are referred first of all to these Boards. The exclusion of disputes between individuals, or between unorganized workmen and their masters, is grounded on the belief that such disputes are apt to be neither stubborn nor mischievous enough to call for State interference; moreover, how could an award be enforced against a handful of roving workmen, a mere nebulous cluster of units? At the request of any party to an industrial dispute the District Board can call all other parties before it, and can hear, examine, and recommend. It is armed with complete powers for taking evidence and compelling attendance. Its award, however, is not enforceable at law, but is merely in the nature of friendly advice. Should all or any of the parties refuse to accept it, an appeal lies to the Central Court of Arbitration, composed of a judge of the Supreme Court sitting with two assessors representing capital and labour respectively. The trio are appointed for three years, and in default of crime or insanity can only be removed by statute. Their court may not be appealed from, and their procedure is not fettered by precedent. No disputant may employ counsel unless all agree to do so. The decisions of this Court are binding in law, and may be enforced by pains and penalties. The arbitration law has been in active operation for about three years, during which time some thirty-five Labour disputes have been successfully settled. As a rule, the decisions of the Local Conciliation Boards are not accepted. Either some of the parties refuse to concur, or some of the recommendations are objected to by all those on one side or the other. In nearly all cases the awards of the Arbitration Court have been quietly submitted to. In three minor cases proceedings have been taken for penalties. Twice these have been dismissed on technical grounds. In the third instance a small penalty was imposed. All the important Labour disputes of the last three years have been brought before the tribunals set up under the Act. The only strike which has occurred and has attracted any attention during this period was by certain unorganized bricklayers working for the government. As the Act applied to neither side an attempt was made to settle the dispute by voluntary arbitration. Some of the men, however, refused to accept the arbitrators' award, and lost their work. But of strikes by Trades Unions there have been none, and there should be none so long as the Act can be made to work.

As to the kind of questions arbitrated upon, they comprise most of the hard nuts familiar to students of the Labour problem. Among them are hours of labour, holidays, the amount of day wages, the price to be paid for piece-work, the proportion of apprentices to skilled artizans, the facilities to be allowed to Trade Union officials for interviews with members, the refusal of Unionists to work with non-Union men, and the pressure exerted by employees to induce workmen to join private benefit societies. A New Zealand employer, it may be mentioned, cannot take himself outside the Act of discharging his Union hands, or even by gradually ceasing to engage Union men, and then pleading that he has none left in his employ. A Union, whose members are at variance with certain employers in a trade, may bring all the local employees engaged in that trade into court, so that the same award may be binding on the whole trade in the district.

Most of the references have been anything but trivial affairs, either as to the numbers of workmen concerned, or the value of the industries, or importance of the points in dispute. It is wrong to suppose that the operation of the Act is confined to industries protected by high customs duties, or to workers in factories. It may be applied wherever workers are members of legally constituted bodies, set up either under the Trade Union Act, or under the Arbitration Statute itself. Unions who want to make use of it, register under it; and some eighty have already done so. Trade Unions who do not specially register may nevertheless be brought before the Arbitration Court by the employers of their members. So far the Act has met with a remarkable measure of success. The Trade Unions are enthusiastic believers in it,—rather too enthusiastic, indeed, for they have shown a tendency to make too frequent a use of it. Some of their officials, too, would do well to be more brief and businesslike in the conduct of cases. On the other hand, employers in most of the localities have made a serious mistake in refusing to elect representatives for the local Conciliation Boards, and thus forcing the Government to nominate members. This has weakened the Boards, has hindered them from having the conciliatory character they ought to have, and has led in part to the frequent appeals to the Central Court of which the employers themselves complain. The lawyers claim to have discovered that the penalty clauses of the Act are badly drafted, and some of them assert that unless these are amended, they will be able to drive a coach and six through the statute. No doubt technical amendments will be required from time to time. What is still more requisite is an understanding between the more reasonable leaders on both sides of industry, by which arrangements may be made for the more effectual and informal use of the Conciliation Boards. Meanwhile it savours of the absurd to talk and write—as certain fault-finders have done—as though every arbitration under the Act were a disturbance of industry as ruinous as a prolonged strike. Other critics have not stickled to assert that it has mischievously affected the volume of the Colony's industries, a statement which is simply untrue. It is the reviving prosperity of the Colony during the last three years which has led the Trade Unions to make so much use of the Act. In place of striking on a rising market, as they do in other countries, they have gone to arbitration. Public opinion in New Zealand has never been one-sided on the question. It has all along been prepared to give this important experiment a fair trial, and is quite ready to have incidental difficulties cured by reasonable amendment.

The Shipping and Seamen's Act, 1894, and the amending Acts of the two following years, mitigate the old-fashioned severity of punishments for refusal of duty, assaults on the high seas, and other nautical offences. The forecastle and the accommodation thereof become subject to the fiat of the Government inspector, as are factories on shore. Regular payment of wages is stipulated for, overcrowding amongst passengers is forbidden. Complete powers are given to the marine authorities to enforce not only a full equipment of life-boats and life-saving appliances, but boat-drill. Deck loading is restricted, and the Plimsoll mark insisted on. But the portion of the Act which gave rise to the intensest opposition was the proviso by which all sailing vessels are obliged to carry a certain complement of able seamen and ordinary seamen, according to their tonnage, while steamers must carry a given number of able seamen, ordinary seamen, firemen, trimmers, and greasers, according to their horse-power. Foreign vessels, while engaging in the New Zealand coasting-trade, have to pay their crews the rate of wages current on the coast. Parliament was warned that the passing of this Act would paralyze the trade of the Colony, but passed it was—with certain not unreasonable amendments—and trade goes on precisely as before.

In 1891, moreover, the colonial laws relating to mining generally, and to coal-mining especially, were consolidated and amended. An interesting feature in the New Zealand Coal Mines' Act is the provision by which mine-owners have to contribute to a fund for the relief of miners or the families of miners in cases where men are injured or killed at work. Every quarter the owners have to pay a halfpenny per ton on the output, if it be bituminous coal; and a farthing a ton, if it be lignite. Payment is made into the nearest Post Office Savings Bank and goes to the credit of an account called "The Coal Miners' Relief Fund." From 1891 mineral rights are reserved in lands thereafter alienated by the Crown.

Most of the Labour laws are watched and administered by the Department of Labour, a branch of the public service created in 1891. It costs but L7,000 or L8,000 a year, much of which is recouped by factory fees and other receipts. It also keeps labour statistics, acts as a servants' registry office, and by publishing information, and by shifting them from congested districts, endeavours to keep down the numbers of the unemployed. In this, though it is but a palliative, it has done useful and humane work, aided—so far as the circulation of labour goes—by the State-owned railways.



From what has gone before, readers will readily understand that the New Zealand Government has usually in its employ several thousand labourers engaged in road-making, bridge-building, draining, and in erecting and repairing public buildings. To avoid the faults of both the ordinary contract and the day-wage system, a plan, clumsily called The Co-operative Contract System, has been adopted by the present Premier, Mr. Seddon. The work is cut up into small sections, the workmen group themselves in little parties of from four to eight men, and each party is offered a section at a fair price estimated by the Government's engineers. Material, when wanted, is furnished by the Government, and the tax-payer thus escapes the frauds and adulteration of old contract days. The result of the system in practice is that where workmen are of, at any rate, average industry and capacity, they make good, sometimes excellent, wages. In effect they are groups of piece-workers, whose relation with each other is that of partners. Each band elects a trustee, with whom the Government officials deal. They are to a large extent their own masters, and work without being driven by the contractor's foreman. They are not encouraged to work more than eight hours a day; but as what they get depends on what they do, they do not dawdle during those hours, and if one man in a group should prove a loafer, his comrades, who have to suffer for his laziness, soon get rid of him. The tendency is for first-class men to join together, and for second-class men to similarly arrange themselves. Sometimes, of course, the officers, in making estimates of the price to be paid for work, make mistakes, and men will earn extravagantly high wages, or get very poor returns. But as the sections are small, this does not last for long, and the balance is redressed. After some years' experience, it seems fairly proved that the average of earnings is not extravagant, and that the taxpayer loses nothing by the arrangement as compared with the old contract system, while the change is highly popular with workmen throughout the Colony.

Those who know anything of politics anywhere, will not need to be told that the changes and experiments here sketched have been viewed with suspicion, alarm, contempt, or anger, by a large class of wealthy and influential New Zealanders. It is but fair that, in a sketch like this, some emphasis should be laid upon their dissent and protests. Into the personal attacks of which very much of their criticism has consisted this is not the place to enter. A summary of the Conservative view of the progressive work ought, however, to have a place. Disqualified as I might be thought to be from attempting it, I prefer to make use of an account written and published in 1896 by an English barrister, who, in the years 1894-95, spent many months in the Colony studying with attention its politics and public temper. As his social acquaintanceships lay chiefly among the Conservatives, he had no difficulty in getting frank expressions of their views. In the following sentences he sums up the more moderate and impersonal of these, as he heard and analysed them:—

"... It must not be supposed that the Conservatives of New Zealand, any more than those of the mother country, are apologists for 'sweating.' Indeed, as Mr. Reeves himself has acknowledged, the labour legislation with which he is associated was inaugurated by the Government's predecessors, and in carrying his Bills he had the cordial support of Captain Russell, the leader of the Opposition. At the same time it is urged that this protective legislation has been carried to an unreasonable extent, and people allege, no doubt with a certain amount of exaggeration, that they feel themselves regulated in all the relations of life. The measure which has created the most irritation seems to be the Shop Assistants Act. Employers say that Mr. Reeves has made every man 'a walking lawsuit,' and that they are chary of having one about their premises. Moreover, this constant succession of labour laws, and the language of some of their supporters, have created, so they say, in the minds of the working classes the impression that the squatters, manufacturers, and the classes with which they associate, are tyrants and oppressors, and their lives are embittered by the feeling that they are regarded as enemies of the people. Further, they say that the administrative action of the Government tends to keep up the price of labour, that the price of labour is unreasonably high, and that this fact, coupled with the necessity of keeping all the provisions of the labour laws in mind, and the spirit which they have generated, makes them disinclined to employ labour in the improvement of their lands. As to the Government's land policy, while it is admitted that small settlers are desirable, it is not admitted that large properties are necessarily a curse. What is resented more fiercely than anything else is the fact that they are liable to have their own properties appropriated at the arbitrary will of the Minister of lands, and though the Government promises to work the law reasonably, neither this nor any other of their declarations is regarded with confidence. It is asserted that the Government is flooding the country with incompetent settlers, who imagine that anyone can get a living out of the land; that the resumed properties have been purchased and cut up in such a way that a cry for a reduction of rents will soon become inevitable, and that the Cheap Money Scheme has created a class of debtors, who, in conceivable circumstances, might be able to apply effectual political pressure for the reduction of their interest. In point of fact they do not share the Progressist idea, that much can be done by legislation to ameliorate the condition of the masses of the population, nor do they see that in a country like New Zealand, where labour is dear, food cheap, and the climate mild and equable, their condition need necessarily be so deplorable. They still cherish the old theories of individualism. The humanitarian ideals of Mr. Reeves, not being idealists, they regard with little interest. What they see is the Government of their Colony, which they had been accustomed to control, in the hands of men whose characters they despise or detest, and the House of Representatives, which was once the most dignified and distinguished assembly in the Colonies, now become (in their circle at any rate) a byword of reproach—full of men who vote themselves for a three months' session salaries which many of them would be unable to earn in any other walk of life."

Despite the Socialistic tendency of the Acts thus denounced, it must not be thought that there is any strong party of deliberate State Socialists in the Colony at all corresponding to the following of Bebel and Liebknecht in Germany, or even the Independent Labour Party in England. There is not. The reforms and experiments which show themselves so many in the later chapters of the story of New Zealand have in all cases been examined and taken on their merits, and not otherwise. They are the outcome of a belief which, though much more boldly trusted and acted upon by the Progressives than by the Conservatives, is not now the monopoly of one political party. The leaders of the rival parties, the robust Mr. Seddon and the kindly Captain Russell, both admit one main principle. It is that a young democratic country, still almost free from extremes of wealth and poverty, from class hatreds and fears and the barriers these create, supplies an unequalled field for safe and rational experiment in the hope of preventing and shutting out some of the worst social evils and miseries which afflict great nations alike in the old world and the new.

To sum up the experiments themselves, it may be said that the Colony has now reached the stage when the State, without being in any way a monopolist, is a large and active competitor in many fields of industry. Where it does not compete it often regulates. This very competition must of course expose it to the most severe tests and trials. Further progress will chiefly depend on the measure of success with which it stands these, and on the consequent willingness or unwillingness of public opinion to make trial of further novelties.



Chapter XXIII

THE NEW ZEALANDERS

"No hungry generations tread thee down."

Some 785,000 whites, browns, and yellows are now living in New Zealand. Of these the browns are made up of about 37,000 Maoris and 5,800 half-castes. The Maoris seem slowly decreasing, the half-castes increasing rather rapidly. 315,000 sheep, 30,000 cattle, many horses, and much land, a little of which they cultivate, some of which they let, support them comfortably enough. The yellows, some 3,500 Chinese, are a true alien element. They do not marry—78 European and 14 Chinese wives are all they have, at any rate in the Colony. They are not met in social intercourse or industrial partnership by any class of colonists, but work apart as gold-diggers, market-gardeners, and small shop-keepers, and are the same inscrutable, industrious, insanitary race of gamblers and opium-smokers in New Zealand as elsewhere. At one time they were twice as numerous. Then a poll-tax of L10 was levied on all new-comers. Still, a few score came in every year, paying the tax, or having it paid for them; and about as many went home to China, usually with L200 or more about them. In 1895 the tax was raised to L50, and this seems likely to bring the end quickly. Despised, disliked, dwindling, the Chinese are bound soon to disappear from the colony.

Of the 740,000 whites, more than half have been born in the country, and many are the children, and a few even the grandchildren, of New Zealand-born parents. An insular race is therefore in process of forming. What are its characteristics? As the Scotch would say—what like is it? Does it give any signs of qualities, physical or mental, tending to distinguish it from Britons, Australians, or North Americans? The answer is not easy. Nothing is more tempting, and at the same time more risky, than to thus generalize and speculate too soon. As was said at the outset, New Zealand has taken an almost perverse delight in upsetting expectations. Nevertheless, certain points are worth noting which may, at any rate, help readers to draw conclusions of their own.

The New Zealanders are a British race in a sense in which the inhabitants of the British Islands scarcely are. That is to say, they consist of English, Scotch, and Irish, living together, meeting daily, intermarrying, and having children whose blood with each generation becomes more completely blended and mingled. The Celtic element is larger than in England or in the Scottish lowlands. As against this there is a certain, though small, infusion of Scandinavian and German blood; very little indeed of any other foreign race. The Scotch muster strongest in the south and the Irish in the mining districts. In proportion to their numbers the Scotch are more prominent than other races in politics, commerce, finance, sheep farming, and the work of education. Among the seventy European members of the New Zealand House of Representatives there is seldom more than one Smith, Brown, or Jones, and hardly ever a single Robinson; but the usual number of McKenzies is three. The Irish do not crowd into the towns, or attempt to capture the municipal machinery, as in America, nor are they a source of political unrest or corruption. Their Church's antagonism to the National Education system has excluded many able Catholics from public life. The Scandinavians and Germans very seldom figure there. Some 1,700 Jews live in the towns, and seem more numerous and prominent in the north than in the south. They belong to the middle class; many are wealthy. These are often charitable and public-spirited, and active in municipal rather than in parliamentary life.



Among the Churches the Church of England claims 40 per cent. of the people; the Presbyterians 23 per cent.; other Protestants, chiefly Methodists, 17 per cent.; and Catholics 14. Methodists seem increasing rather faster than any other denomination. Though the National School system is secular, it is not anti-Christian. 11,000 persons teach 105,000 children in Sunday-schools. In the census returns about two per cent. of the population object or neglect to specify their religion; only about one per cent. style themselves as definitely outside the Christian camp.

The average density of population throughout the Colony's 104,000 square miles is somewhat less than eight to the mile. Two-thirds of the New Zealanders live in the country, in villages, or in towns of less than 5,000 inhabitants. Even the larger towns cover, taken together, about seventy square miles of ground—not very cramping limits for a quarter of a million of people. Nor is there overcrowding in houses; less than five persons to a house is the proportion. There are very few spots in the towns where trees, flower gardens, and grass are not close at hand, and even orchards and fields not far away. The dwelling-houses, almost all of wood, seldom more than two storeys high, commonly show by their shady verandahs and veiling creepers that the New Zealand sun is warmer than the English. Bright, windy, and full of the salt of the ocean, the air is perhaps the wholesomest on earth, and the Island race naturally shows its influence. Bronzed faces display on every side the power of sun and wind. Pallor is rare; so also is the more delicate pink and white of certain English skins. The rainier, softer skies of the western coasts have their result in smoother skins and better complexions on that side of the Islands than in the drier east. On the warm shores of Auckland there are signs of a more slightly-built breed, but not in the interior, which almost everywhere rises quickly into hill or plateau. Athletic records show that the North Islanders hold their own well enough against Southern rivals. More heavily built as a rule than the Australians, the New Zealanders have darker hair and thicker eyebrows than is common with the Anglo-Saxon of Northern England and Scotland. Tall and robust, the men do not carry themselves as straight as the nations which have been through the hands of the drill-sergeant. The women—who are still somewhat less numerous than the males—are as tall, but not usually as slight, as those of the English upper classes. To sum up, the New Zealand race shows no sign of beating the best British, or of producing an average equal to that best; but its average is undoubtedly better than the general British average. The puny myriads of the manufacturing towns have no counterpart in the Colony, and, if humanitarian laws can prevent it, never should. The birth-rate and death-rate are both strikingly low: the latter, 9.14 per 1,000, is the lowest in the world. The birth-rate has fallen from 37.95 in 1881 to 25.96 in 1897. The yearly number of births has in effect remained the same for sixteen years, though the population has grown thirty per cent. larger in the period. The gain by immigration is still appreciable, though not large.

Their speech is that of communities who are seldom utterly illiterate, and as seldom scholarly. I have listened in vain for any national twang, drawl, or peculiar intonation. The young people, perhaps, speak rather faster than English of the same age, that is all. On the other hand, anything like picturesque, expressive language within the limits of grammar is rarely found. Many good words in daily use in rural England have been dropped in the Colony. Brook, village, moor, heath, forest, dale, copse, meadow, glade are among them. Young New Zealanders know what these mean because they find them in books, but would no more think of employing them in speaking than of using "inn," "tavern," or "ale," when they can say "hotel," "public-house," or "beer." Their place is taken by slang. Yet if a nation is known by its slang, the New Zealanders must be held disposed to borrow rather than to originate, for theirs is almost wholly a mixture of English, American, and Australian. Most of the mining terms come from California; most of the pastoral from Australia, though "flat" and "creek" are, of course, American. "Ranche" and "gulch" have not crossed the Pacific; their place is taken by "run" and "gulley." On the other hand, "lagoon" has replaced the English "pond," except in the case of artificial water. Pasture is "feed," herd and flock alike become "mob." "Country" is used as a synonym for grazing; "good country" means simply good grazing land. A man tramping in search of work is a "swagman" or "swagger," from the "swag" or roll of blankets he carries on his back. Very few words have been adopted from the vigorous and expressive Maori. The convenient "mana," which covers prestige, authority, and personal magnetism; "whare," a rough hut; "taihoa," equivalent to the Mexican manana; and "ka pai," "'tis good," are exceptions. The South Island colonists mispronounce their beautiful Maori place-names murderously. Even in the North Island the average bushman will speak of the pukatea tree as "bucketeer," and not to call the poro-poro shrub "bull-a-bull" would be considered affectation. There is or was in the archives of the Taranaki Farmers' Club a patriotic song which rises to the notable lines—

"And as for food, the land is full Of that delicious bull-a-bull!"

In Canterbury you would be stared at if you called Timaru anything but "Timmeroo." In Otago Lake Wakatipu becomes anything, from "Wokkertip" to "Wackatipoo"; and I have heard a cultured man speak of Puke-tapu as "Buck-a-tap."

The intellectual average is good. Thanks in great part to Gibbon Wakefield's much-abused Company, New Zealand was fortunate in the mental calibre of her pioneer settlers, and in their determined efforts to save their children from degenerating into loutish, half-educated provincials. Looking around in the Colony at the sons of these pioneers, one finds them on all sides doing useful and honourable work. They make upright civil servants, conscientious clergymen, schoolmasters, lawyers, and journalists, pushing agents, resourceful engineers, steady-going and often prosperous farmers, and strong, quick, intelligent labourers. Of the "self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control" needful to make a sound race they have an encouraging share. Of artistic, poetic, or scientific talent, of wit, originality, or inventiveness, there is yet but little sign. In writing they show facility often, distinction never; in speech fluency and force of argument, and even, sometimes, lucidity, but not a flash of the loftier eloquence. Nor has the time yet arrived for Young New Zealand to secure the chief prizes of its own community—such posts and distinctions as go commonly to men fairly advanced in years. No native of the country has yet been its Prime Minister or sat amongst its supreme court judges or bishops. A few colonial-born have held subordinate Cabinet positions, but the dozen leading Members of Parliament are just now all British-born. So are the leading doctors, engineers, university professors, and preachers; the leading barrister is a Shetlander. Two or three, and two or three only, of the first-class positions in the civil service are filled by natives. On the whole, Young New Zealand is, as yet, better known by collective usefulness than by individual distinction.

The grazing of sheep and cattle, dairying, agriculture, and mining for coal and gold, are the chief occupations. 47,000 holdings are under cultivation. The manufactures grow steadily, and already employ 40,000 hands. A few figures will give some notion of the industrial and commercial position. The number of the sheep is a little under 20,000,000; of cattle, 1,150,000; of horses, 250,000. The output of the factories and workshops is between L10,000,000 and L11,000,000 sterling a year; the output of gold, about L1,000,000; that of coal, about 900,000 tons. The export of wool is valued at L4,250,000. Among the exports for 1897 were: 2,700,000 frozen sheep and lambs; 66,000 cwt. cheese, and 71,000 cwt butter; L433,000 worth of kauri gum; L427,000 worth of grain. The exports and imports of the Colony for the year 1897 were a little over L10,000,000 and L8,000,000 sterling respectively. It would appear that, taking a series of years, about three-quarters of the Colony's trade has been with the mother-country, and nearly all the remainder with other parts of the Empire. The public debt is about L44,000,000; the revenue, L5,000,000. The State owns 2,061 miles of railway.



Socially the colonists are what might be expected from their environment. Without an aristocracy, without anything that can be called a plutocracy, without a solitary millionaire, New Zealand is also virtually without that hopeless thing, the hereditary pauper and begetter of paupers. It may be doubted whether she has a dozen citizens with more than L10,000 a year apiece. On the other hand, the average of wealth and income is among the highest in the world.

Education is universal. The lectures of the professors of the State University—which is an examining body, with five affiliated colleges in five different towns—are well attended by students of both sexes. The examiners are English; the degrees may be taken by either sex indifferently. Not two per cent. of the Colony's children go to the secondary schools, though they are good and cheap. It is her primary education that is the strength and pride of New Zealand. It is that which makes the list of crimes light. Criminals and paupers are less often produced than let in from the outside. The regulations relating to the exclusion of the physically or mentally tainted are far too lax, and will bring their own punishment. The colonists, honestly anxious that their country shall in days to come show a fine and happy race, are strangely blind to the laws of heredity. They carelessly admit those whose children to the third and fourth generation must be a degrading influence. On the other hand, the Colony gains greatly by the regular and deliberate importation of English experts. Every year a small but important number of these are engaged and brought out. They vary from bishops and professors to skilled artizans and drill-instructors; but whatever they are, their quality is good, and they usually make New Zealand the home of their families.

With wealth diffused, and caste barriers unknown, a New Zealander, when meeting a stranger, does not feel called upon to act as though in dread of finding in the latter a sponge, toady, or swindler. Nor has the colonist to consider how the making of chance acquaintances may affect his own social standing. In his own small world his social standing is a settled thing, and cannot be injured otherwise than by his own folly or misconduct. Moreover, most of the Islanders are, or have been, brought face to face with the solitude of nature, and many of all classes have travelled. These things make them more sociable, self-confident, and unsuspicious than the middle classes of older countries. Such hospitality as they can show is to them a duty, a custom, and a pleasure.

The Islanders are almost as fond of horses and athletics as their Australian cousins. They are not nearly such good cricketers, but play football better, are often good yachtsmen, and hold their own in rowing, running, jumping, and throwing weights. Fox-hunting is a forbidden luxury, as the fox may not be imported. But they have some packs of harriers, and ride to them in a way which would not be despised in the grass counties at Home. There are fair polo teams too. They are just as fond of angling and shooting as the race elsewhere. Capital trout-fishing, some good deer-shooting, and a fine supply of rabbits, hares, and wild ducks help to console the sportsman for the scarcity of dangerous game. As might be expected in an educated people passionately fond of out-door exercises, well fed and clothed, and with sun and sea air for tonics, drink is not their national vice. Gambling, especially over horse races, has more claim to that bad eminence. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the land rings with denunciations of drink, while comparatively little has until quite lately been said against gambling.

Of colonial art there is not much to be said. Sculpture is represented by an occasional statue brought from England. Architecture in its higher form is an unknown quantity. Painting is beginning to struggle towards the light, chiefly in the form of water-colour drawings. Political satire finds expression in cartoons, for the most part of that crude sort which depicts public men as horrific ogres and malformed monsters of appalling disproportions. Music, reading, and flower gardening are the three chief refining pastimes. The number and size of the musical societies is worthy of note. So are the booksellers' shops and free libraries. The books are the same as you see in London shops. There is no colonial literature. As for flowers, New Zealanders promise to be as fond of them as the Japanese. There is a newspaper of some description in the Islands to about every 1,500 adults. Every locality may thus count upon every item of its local news appearing in print. The Colonists who support this system may be assumed to get what they want, though, of course, under it quality is to some extent sacrificed to number. As a class the newspapers are honest, decent, and energetic as purveyors of news. Every now and then public opinion declares itself on one side, though the better known newspapers are on the other. But on the average their influence is not slight. There is no one leading journal. Of the four or five larger morning newspapers, the Otago Daily Times shows perhaps the most practical knowledge of politics and grasp of public business. It is partisan, but not ferociously so, except in dealing with some pet aversion, like the present Minister of Lands. You may read in it, too, now and then, what is a rarity indeed in colonial journalism—a paragraph written in a spirit of pure, good-natured fun.

The working classes are better, the others more carelessly, dressed than in England. The workpeople are at the same time more nomadic and thriftier. Amongst the middle classes, industrious as they are, unusual thrift is rare. Their hospitality and kindliness do not prevent them from being hard bargainers in business.

Compared with the races from which they have sprung, the Islanders seem at once less conventional, less on their guard, and more neighbourly and sympathetic in minor matters. In politics they are fonder of change and experiment, more venturesome, more empirical, law-abiding, but readier to make and alter laws. Hypercritical and eaten up by local and personal jealousies in public life, they are less loyal to parties and leaders, and less capable of permanent organization for a variety of objects. They can band themselves together to work for one reform, but for the higher and more complex organization which seeks to obtain a general advance along the line of progress by honourable co-operation and wise compromise, they show no great aptitude. In politics their pride is that they are practical, and, indeed, they are perhaps less ready than Europeans to deify theories and catchwords. They are just as suspicious of wit and humour in public men, and just as prone to mistake dulness for solidity. To their credit may be set down a useful impatience of grime, gloom, injustice, and public discomfort and bungling.

In social life they are more sober and more moral, yet more indifferent to the opinion of any society or set. Not that they run after mere eccentrics; they have a wholesome reserve of contempt for such. British in their dislike to take advice, their humbler position among the nations makes them more ready to study and learn from foreign example. Though there is no division into two races as in London, it would be absurd to pretend that social distinctions are unknown. Each town with its rural district has its own "society." The best that can be said for this institution is that it is not, as a rule, dictated to by mere money. It is made up of people with incomes mostly ranging from L500 to L2,000, with a sprinkling of bachelors of even more modest means. Ladies and gentlemen too poor to entertain others will nevertheless be asked everywhere if they have either brightness or intellect, or have won creditable positions. You see little social arrogance, no attempt at display. Picnics, garden parties, and outings in boats and yachts are amongst the pleasanter functions. A yacht in New Zealand means a cutter able to sail well, but quite without any luxury in her fittings. The indoor gatherings are smaller, more kindly, less formal, less glittering copies of similar affairs in the mother country.

Brilliant talkers there are none. But any London visitor who might imagine that he was about to find himself in a company of clownish provincials would be much mistaken. A very large proportion of colonists have travelled and even lived in more lands than one. They have encountered vicissitudes and seen much that is odd and varied in nature and human nature. In consequence they are often pleasant and interesting talkers, refreshingly free from mannerism or self-consciousness.

They both gain and lose by being without a leisured class; it narrows their horizon, but saves them from a vast deal of hysterical nonsense, social mischief and blatant self-advertising. Though great readers of English newspapers and magazines, and much influenced thereby in their social, ethical, and literary views, their interest in English and European politics is not very keen. A cherished article of their faith is that Russia is England's irreconcileable foe, and that war between the two is certain. Both their geographical isolation and their constitution debar them from having any foreign policy. In this they contentedly acquiesce. Loyal to the mother country, resolved not to be absorbed in Australia, they are torpid concerning Imperial Federation. Their own local and general politics absorb any interest and leisure not claimed by business and pastimes. Their isolation is, no doubt, partly the cause of this. It takes their steamers from four to six days to reach Australia, and nearly as long to travel from one end of their own land to the other. Most of them can hardly hope to see Europe, or even Asia or America, or any civilized race but their own. This is perhaps the greatest of their disadvantages. Speedier passage across the oceans which divide them from the rest of the human race must always be in the forefront of their aims as a nation.

Industrious, moral, strong, it is far too soon to complain of this race because it has not in half a century produced a genius from amongst its scanty numbers. Its mission has not been to do that, but to lay the foundations of a true civilization in two wild and lonely, though beautiful, islands. This has been a work calling for solid rather than brilliant qualities—for a people morally and physically sound and wholesome, and gifted with "grit" and concentration. There is such a thing as collective ability. The men who will carve statues, paint pictures, and write books will come, no doubt, in good time. The business of the pioneer generations has been to turn a bloodstained or silent wilderness into a busy and interesting, a happy, if not yet a splendid, state.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books about New Zealand are numerous enough. A critic need not be fastidious to regret that most of them are not better written, useful and interesting as they are in the mass. Every sort of information about the country is to be got from them, but not always with pleasure or ease. To get it you must do a good deal of the curst hard reading which comes from easy writing. And even then, for the most part, it is left to your own imaginative power to see—

"The beauty, and the wonder, and the power, The shapes of things, their colours, lights, and shades, Changes, surprises."

The undoubted and agreeable exceptions, too, require in you some knowledge of the Islands, if they are to be enjoyed. How is that knowledge to be obtained? A hard-headed student with a hearty appetite for facts might, of course, start with F.J. Moss's careful and accurate school history and the latest Government Year Book in his hand, and would soon be well on his way. Those who like easier paths to knowledge may try Edward Wakefield's "New Zealand After Fifty Years," or Gisborne's "Colony of New Zealand." When one comes to periods, districts, or special subjects, the choice is much wider.

To begin at the beginning; "Tasman's Log" is little but dry bones; of Cook and Crozet I have written elsewhere. Of the writers who tell of Alsatian days, none is worth naming in the same breath with Maning. Personally I like Polack and Savage the best of them, despite the lumbering pretentiousness and doubtful veracity of the former. Earle and Major Cruise are more truthful than readable—conditions which are exactly reversed in the case of Rutherford. If, as is said, Lord Brougham helped to write Rutherford's narrative, he did his work very well; but after the exposure of its "facts" by Archdeacon W.L. Williams, it can only be read as the yarn of a runaway sailor, who had reasons for not telling the whole truth, and a capacity and knowledge of local colour which would have made him a capital romance-writer, had he been an educated man. As a picture of the times, Rutherford's story in the "Library of Entertaining Knowledge" will always, however, be worth reading.

The missionaries have not been as fortunate in their chroniclers as they deserve. The tumid cant of Nicholas is grotesque enough to be more amusing than the tract-and-water style of Yate and Barret Marshall, or the childishness of Richard Taylor. Much better in every way are Buller's (Wesleyan) "Forty Years In New Zealand," and Tucker's "Life and Episcopate of George Augustus Selwyn."

Among the descriptions of the country as it was when the colonists found it, Edward Shortland's account of the whalers and Maoris of the South Island, Jerningham Wakefield's of the founding of the New Zealand Company's settlements, Dieffenbach's travels, and Bidwill's unpretending little pamphlet telling of his tramp to the volcanoes and hot lakes in 1842, seem to me at once to tell most and be easiest to read.

On the Maoris, their myths, legends, origin, manners, and customs, William Colenso is admittedly the chief living authority. For his views it is necessary to go to pamphlets, and to search the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, where much other good material will also reward the seeker. To John White's ill-jointed but invaluable compilation "The Ancient History of the Maori," every student henceforth will have to turn. The selections therein from the papers of Stack on the South Island Maoris, from Travers' "Life of Te Rauparaha," and Wilson's "Story of Te Waharoa," are less stony than the more genealogical portions. Sir George Grey's collection of the historical and legendary traditions of the race has not been superseded. Messrs. Percy Smith and Edward Tregear edit the valuable journal of the Polynesian Association; the former has made a special study of the origin and wanderings of the Maori race, the latter has produced the Comparative Maori-Polynesian Dictionary. General Robley has written the book on Maori tattooing; Mr. Hamilton is bringing out in parts what promises to be a very complete and worthily illustrated account of Maori art.

As narratives of the first twenty years of the Colony two books stand out from among many: Thomson's "Story of New Zealand," and Attorney—General Swainson's "New Zealand and its Colonization." It would not be easy to find a completer contrast than the gossipy style of the chatty army medico and the dry, official manner of the precise lawyer, formerly and for upwards of fifteen years Her Majesty's Attorney-General for New Zealand, as he is at pains to tell you on his title-page. But Swainson's is the fairest and most careful account of the time from the official, philo-Maori and anti-Company side, and may be taken as a safe antidote to Jerningham Wakefield, Sir W.T. Power, Hursthouse, and others. A comparison with Rusden, when the two are on the same ground, shows Swainson to be the better writer all round. Of Rusden's "History of New Zealand" no one doubts the honest intent. The author, believing the Maori to be a noble, valiant, and persecuted race, befriended by the missionaries and those who took missionary advice, and robbed and cheated by almost all others, says so in three long, vehement, sincere, but not fascinating volumes, largely composed of extracts from public papers and speeches. Sweeping condemnation of the Public Works policy, of Radical reforms, and recent Socialistic experiments, complete his tale. The volumes have their use, but are not a history of New Zealand.

Of early days in the pastoral provinces we get contemporary sketches by Samuel Butler, L.J. Kennaway, Lady Barker, and Archdeacon Paul. Butler's is the best done picture of the country, Kennaway's the exactest of the settlers' every-day rough-and-tumble haps and mishaps, and Lady Barker's the brightest. One of the volumes of General Mundy's "Our Antipodes" gives a nice, light sketch of things as they were in the North Island in the first years of Governor Grey. Dr. Hocken's recent book has at once become the recognised authority on the first years of Otago, and also has interesting chapters on the South Island before settlement. Fitzgerald's selections from Godley's writings and speeches is made more valuable by the excellent biographical sketch with which it opens. Dr. Richard Garnett's admirable "Life of Gibbon Wakefield" is the event of this year's literature from the point of view of New Zealanders.

Of the books on the Eleven Years' War from 1860 to 1871, Sir William Fox's easily carries away the palm for vigour of purpose and performance. Sir William was in hot indignation when he wrote it, and some of his warmth glows in its pages. It is a pity that he only dealt with the years 1863-65. Generals Carey and Alexander supply the narrative of the doings of the regulars; Lieutenant Gudgeon that of the militia's achievements. General Carey handles the pen well enough; not so his gallant brother-soldier. Of Gudgeon's two books I much prefer the Reminiscences, which on the whole tell more about the war than any other volume one can name. Sir John Gorst describes the King Movement and his own experiences in the King's country. Swainson takes up his parable against the Waitara purchase.

Gisborne's "Rulers and Statesmen of New Zealand," though not a connected history, is written with such undoubted fairness and personal knowledge, and in so workmanlike, albeit good—natured, a way, as to have a permanent interest. Most of the many portraits which are reproduced in its pages are correct likenesses, but it is the pen pictures which give the book its value.

Of volumes by travellers who devote more or less space to New Zealand, the most noteworthy are Dilke's brilliant "Greater Britain," the volumes of Anthony Trollope, and Michael Davitt, and Froude's thoughtful, interesting, but curiously inaccurate "Oceana." Mennell's serviceable "Dictionary of Australasian Biography" gives useful details concerning the pioneer colonists.

Scientific students may be referred to the Works of Hooker and Dieffenbach, to Von Haast's "Geology of Canterbury and Westland," Kirk's "New Zealand Forest Flora," Sir Walter Buller's "Birds of New Zealand," Hudson's "New Zealand Entomology," and to the papers of Hector, Hutton and Thompson.

Dr. Murray Moore has written, and written well, for those who may wish to use the country as a health resort.

Mountaineers and lovers of scenery should read Green's "High Alps of New Zealand," and T. Mackenzie's papers on West Coast Exploration. Mannering Fitzgerald and Harper are writers on the same topic. Murray's guide book will, of course, be the tourist's main stay. Delisle Hay's Brighter Britain deals in lively fashion with a settler's life in the bush north of Auckland and in the Thames goldfields. Reid and Preshaw have written of the Westland gold-seekers; Pyke of the Otago diggings. Domett's "Ranolf and Amohia" is not only the solitary New Zealand poem which has achieved any sort of distinction, but is also an interesting picture of Maori life and character.

The Official Year-Book is a mass of well-arranged information, and the economic enquirer may be further referred to Cumin's "Index of the Laws of New Zealand," and to the numerous separate annual reports of the Government offices and departments. Historical students must, of course, dive pretty deeply into the parliamentary debates and appendices to the journals of the House of Representatives, into the bulky reports and correspondence relating to New Zealand published in London by the Imperial authorities, and into the files of the larger newspapers The weekly newspapers of the Colony are especially well worth consulting. For the rest, Collier's New Zealand Bibliography (Wellington), and the library catalogues of the N.Z. Parliament and of the Royal Colonial Institute, London, are the best lists of the books and pamphlets on New Zealand.



INDEX

Aborigines' Protection Society, 291. Absentee Tax, 374. Adoption of children, 381. Advances to Settlers Act, 376. Agriculture of the Maori, 42. Akaroa and the French, 192. Alligator brig at Taranaki, 160. Alps of New Zealand, 29. Annexation, 170, 179, 180. Annexation proposals, 157, 163-165. Arawa and Tainui, 37. Arbitration, Court of, 387, 389. Architecture of the Maori, 44. Artistic development, 405, 409. Athletic development, 402, 408. Atkinson, Sir Harry, 272, 274, 286, 329, 342-344, 346, 351. Auckland chosen as capital, 193.

Ballance, John, 341, 345, 361, 369-371, 377, 378. Barrett the Whaler, 126, 142. Bird-snaring, 43. Borrowing, Prevalence of, 331. Bowen, Charles, 340. Boyd massacre, 104, 105. Browne, Governor, 260, 264. recalled, 275. Busby as British Resident, 158-162. Busby's Federation Scheme, 161.

Cameron, General, 278-283, 290, 292. Cannibalism, 41. Canterbury settled, 234. Cargill, Captain, 232, 233. Cattle introduced, 15. Canoes of Polynesians, 35. Characteristics of Maoris, 34, 53-59. Characteristics of New Zealanders, 399-414. Chatham Islands Escape, 299. Cheap Money Scheme, 396. Chinese element, 398. Christchurch founded, 235. Church endowment in the South, 247. Church Missionary Society, 114, 119, 172. Church statistics, 400. Chute, General, 292. Civilization and the Maori, 55, 59. Clean Shirt Ministry, 253. Cliff scenery, 25, 26. Climate, 11. Clutha and Prohibition, 365. Colenso's New Testament, 120. Colonising companies, 157. Commissioners and New Zealand Company, 197. Conciliation Boards, 386, 387-390. Confiscation of native land, 289. Continuous ministry, 335, 336. Contractors, 382. Contrasts in scenery, 13. Conveyance of land, 115. Convicts and Maori, 98. Coal Mines Act, 391. Cook, Captain, 79-81. Co-operative Contract System, 393. Coromandel goldfields, 318. Costume of the Maori, 45. Creation of man, 67. Crime, Absence of, 241. Crozet, 87-91. Cruelty of traders, 102-104. Customs duties, 208, 343, 352.

Dairy produce exports, 343. Dark side of Maori life, 52. Darwin on New Zealand, 118. Death and future existence, 61. Death customs and beliefs, 72. Debts, private, 332. Defeat at Puke-te-kauere, 273. Depreciation of land, 375. Despard repulsed by Heke, 215. De Surville at the Bay of Islands, 86, 87. Discovery, 3. Domett ("Waring"), 47. Drink, 409. Dunedin, 232, 311.

Education, 340, 383, 407. Egmont volcano, 28. Eloquence of the Maori, 51. Employers' Liability Act, 382. Endeavour visited by the Maori, 84. Episcopal Church in New Zealand, 226. Escapes of Maori prisoners, 298. Export development, 335, 343. statistics, 406.

Factories Act, 382, 383. Financial changes, 331-334, 351. Fitzgerald first premier, 253. Fitzroy, Governor, 204, 206-209. Floods, 23. Flood myth, 67. Flora and fauna, 5, 16. Forest scenery, 6-9. Fox, Sir William, 336, 419. Franchise reforms, 378. French attempts at colonisation, 163, 192. French and English in New Zealand, 86. Frozen meat, 343.

Gambling, 409. Gaols, primitive, 233. Garnett, Dr. Richard, 234, 419. General Assembly founded, 250. Gisborne's book, 420. Glaciers and snow, 31. Gladstone and annexation, 172. Godley as Administrator, 236. Gold discovered in Otago, 310. Gorst, Sir John, 276, 277. Grazing, 406. Grey's achievements, 227. Grey and Atkinson, 341, 345, 346. Grey, Earl, 231, 245. Grey, Sir George, 199, 217-230, 291, 339. attacks Weraroa, 291. leaves New Zealand, 251. recalled, 323. second command, 275. Gum-digging, 319. Gun-selling, 264.

Hadfield, the Missionary, 153. Hall and Atkinson, 337, 342-344, 345. Half-castes, 398. Hau-Hau defeat at Moutua, 287. outrages, 286, 295, 301. Hau-Haus finally crushed, 303. Hawaiki, 37. Hawes outrage, 105, 106. Head-trading, 97, 98. Heaven and Earth separated, 65, 66. Heaven and the Underworld, 62. Heke craves peace, 219. Heke's bold acts, 211. Hobson and Auckland, 193. and Colonel Wakefield, 189. and the land-sharks, 181. character, 194, 195. Hochstetter Fall, 31. Hocken, Dr., 419. Hongi, chief of the Ngapuhi, 130-136. at Rotorua, 135. and the missionaries, 153. in England, 131. Hongi storms Mataki-taki, 134. his treachery at Totara, 133. Hot Springs, 21. Hokitika founded, 315. Hospitals and the State, 368. Houses, 401. Huka waterfall, 22.

Imperialism, 227. Imperial troops withdrawn, 292. Income Tax, 373. Industrial Schools, 381. Infants' Life Protection Act, 381. Insurance Department, 337. Irish riots in Hokitika, 317. settlers, 2.

Jade, or greenstone, 36. Jewish element, 400. Joint-Stock companies, 375.

Kaiapoi attacked, 149. falls before Rauparaha, 151. Kaikouras, 28. Kauri gum, 319-322. pines, 320. Kelly's escape, 108, 109. Kemp, 292-294. Kepa, see Kemp. King-maker, 262. King movement, 263. Kingi, see Wiremu, pp. 264, 265, 273. Kororareka an Alsatia, 154, 155 burnt, 213.

Labour Department, 392. laws, 381, 382. Labour members, 347. party, 369. problems, 367-372. Lakes, 21. Land Commissioners' Strictures, 198. difficulties, 187, 188. law reforms and dissensions, 353-360. laws of Grey, 248. Minister of, 354. purchase, 164. purchase regulations of Fitzroy, 209. questions, 246. Tax, 373. tenure in early Maori days, 39. Transfer Law, 339. leasehold question, 357. Lee, Professor, 119, 131. Legislative Council, 250, 376. Literature, 409. on New Zealand, 415-422. Liquor questions, 362-366. Local administration, 330. Lodging regulations, 384. Lower House, 347. Lunatic asylums, 368. Lynch law at Kororareka, 155.

Macquarie appoints magistrates, 156. Maning, the Pakeha Maori, 100, 199, 416. Maori ailments, 54. before the mast, 111. bravery, 281. codes of observances, 69. Maori, decrease of, 398. fishing, 40, 43. language written, 119. lore and legend, 68. Members of Parliament, 348. place names, 51. trading, 262. voyages, 35. Marion du Fresne, 87-91. Marsden, 129. as missionary, 111-117. Martin, Sir William, 224. Mata-ora, 62. Maui, 45. the God-hero, 67. McDonnell, Colonel, 297, 298. defeats Te Kooti, 304. McKenzie, John, 344, 359, 362, 370. McLean, Sir Donald, 307, 308. Migration of the Maori, 36. Mining Acts, 391. Missionaries, 198, 199, 306. Missionary efforts, 111-120. reforms, 97. Mountains, 27. Mountain scenery, 10. Moko, or tattooing, 45-48. Municipal shortcomings, 329. Murray at Waireka, 270. Muri Whenua, the Land's End, 61. Muru, Law of, 56. Mythology of the Maori, 60-74.

Native Department, 260. Nature and the Maori, 50, 51. Nene, 221. Nene at Okaihau, 214. honoured by Grey, 219. New Plymouth under martial law, 268. Newspapers, 410. New Zealand Association, 171. Company, 231. Company wound up, 246. Land Company, 173. Ngapuhi finally checked, 139. Ngatapa captured, 303. Ngutu-o-te-manu retreat, 298. Niger bluejackets at Waireka, 271, 272. Notable whalers, 127.

Occupation of New Zealanders, 406. Ohaeawai attacked by Despard, 215. Old Identities, 233. Omaranui victory, 297. Orakau besieged, 281. Otago Daily Times, 410. goldfields, 312, 313. settled, 231. Otira Gorge, 29. Overtime, 383.

Pakeha Maori, 100. Maori, see Maning. Papa, 25. Paper money issued by Fitzroy, 209. Parihaka, 308. Parliament, account of, 347-350. established, 250. Parties in Parliament, 258, 259. Pa, or fortified village, 48. Pastoral developments, 242, 243. restrictions, 356. Pasture land, 14. Payment of Members, 347. Pests, animal and vegetable, 18, 19. Physical features, 5, 10. Pohutu-Kawa, 61. Polynesian origin of Maoris, 33. Poll-tax on Chinese, 398. Population, 401, 402. Postal difficulties, 239. Poverty Bay massacre, 301. Pratt, General, 273, 274. Presbyterians, 231. Preservation of scenery, 32. Priests as instructors, 68. Printing, first attempts, 120. press established, 119. Prohibition movement, 363. Property Tax, 372. Protectionist policy, 352. Provincial Councils established, 250. system, 256, 324. Provincialism abolished, 328. Public debt, 406. Trustee Office, 337, 338. Works policy, 325, 330.

Quartz mining, 319.

Railways, 326, 367, 406. Rata, 8. Rangi, 60, 62, 65. Rangihaeata, 219. kills Captain Wakefield, 201. Rangitiri, fight at, 280. Rauparaha, 140, 143-151, 187. and Captain Wakefield, 200. at Akaroa, 148. taken by Grey, 220. Rauparaha's treachery toward the Ngaitahu, 146. Reeves, Hon. W.P., 395. Reform, 354. Rehua, 60. Rent of Government land, 359. Revenue, 406. Rewi, 282. Rivers and streams, 22-24. Robe, the Charon of the Maori, 62. Rolleston, 344. Rona of the Moon, 64. Ropata at Ngatapa, 302, 303. Ropata Te Wahawaha, 294-296. Ruapehu volcano, 28. Rua-peka-peka taken, 218. Ruatara, 112-115. Rusden's History, 418.

Schools in Otago, 232. public, 340. Scots settlers, 232. Scriptures translated into Maori, 119. Seddon, Rt. Hon. R.J., 362, 370, 393. Self-reliance policy, 290. Selwyn, Bishop, 212, 225, 261. Sentry Hill repulse, 287. Servants' registry regulations, 386. Settlement by Polynesians, 33. Settlers among the Maori, 99. difficulties, 238. sent to Port Nicholson, 177. Sheep-lifting by Mackenzie, 241. Shipping and Seamen's Act, 390. Shop Acts, 384, 385. Assistants Act, 395, 396. Shortland as Acting Governor, 196. Shortland's financial troubles, 202, 203. Slang, 403, 404. Smith, Percy, 417. Social life, 412. Socialism, 396, 397. South Island a later settlement, 191. South Sea tribes, 33. Speech of New Zealand, 403. Spelling of Maori words, 121. Spirits' Leap, 61. Stafford and Fox, 256. State institutions, 367. Land Board, 358. socialism, 396, 397. Stewart arrested, 149. assists Rauparaha, 147. Stout, Sir Robert, 345, 362, 364. Strikes, 388. Sugar-Loaves pa attacked by Te Whero Whero, 141. Sunday schools, 401. Swainson as Speaker, 254. Swainson's book, 418. ordinances, 224.

Tainui stories, 38. Tai Porutu killed, 274. Tane and Tu, 65, 66. Taniwha's account of Captain Cook, 83. Tapu, Law of, 46. (taboo) Customs 70-73. Taranaki devastated, 143, 267. crippled by Fitzroy, 208. settlers' grievances, 261. Tasman sights New Zealand, 75. refused a landing, 76. reaches North Cape, 77. Tattooed heads, 157. heads for sale, 97. Tattooing, 45-48. Tauranga defeat, 283. tribe attacked, 282. Tawhaki, 63. Tawhiri-Matea, the god of storms, 66. Taxation difficulties, 342, 343. Te Heu Heu opposes annexation, 180. Te Kooti a fugitive, 304. at Mohaka, 304. pardoned, 305. Te Kooti's escape from the Chathams, 300. revenge, 301. Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke, 277. Te Rangi engagement, 283. Te Waharoa, 136-140. Te Whero Whero, 140-142, 221, 263. Te Whiti, 308. Thames goldfields, 318. Thierry, Baron de, 162. Thompson, William, 139, 262, 278, 285. Titokowaru leads the insurgents, 297. Torere, or Maori cemeteries, 73. Trade statistics, 406. Union disputes, 386. Unionism, 369, 385, 388, 389. Trading with the Maori, 96. Treasury deficits, 203. Tregear, Edward, 418. Tribal customs, 41, 42, 57. Truck Act, 382. Tuapeka goldfields, 311. Tutari killed by Hau-Hau, 302.

University, State, 407. Upper Chamber, 376.

Vancouver, 95. Victorian assistance, 268. Vogel, Sir Julius, 325-330. Vogel's reforms, 337-339. Volcanoes, 20. Volckner murdered, 295.

Wages, 382. Waiapu victory, 296. Waikato defeated at Koheroa, 278. land invaded, 278. river, 22. troubles, 264. Wairau fiasco, 200, 201. Waitangi, Treaty of, 180. Waitara massacre, 140. Wakefield, Arthur, 199, 200. Wakefield, Arthur, surrenders to Rauparaha, 201. murdered, 201. Wakefield, Colonel, 172-176. Wakefield, Gibbon, 166-172. and Canterbury, 234. in Parliament, 254. Wakefield's land schemes, 169. Wakefield system, 247, 257, 327, 328. War, a game, 49. customs, 48, 49. with Maori, beginning of, 200. begun by Heke, 211. outbreak in 1860, 265. at an end, 305. statistics, 306. Weld, Sir Frederick, 289, 290. Wellington, 127. as capital, 194. Duke of, 157, 158. Weraroa captured, 292. Wesleyan missionaries, 153. Westland goldfields, 314. Whalers approach New Zealand, 122. and their Maori wives, 125. at Kororareka, 154. Whaling stations erected, 123. Whitaker, Sir Fredk., 337, 343, 344, 345. Whitmore, Colonel, 297, 298, 300, 301, 305. Williams, Henry, 116, 193, 212. Wiremu Tamihana, see Thompson, William. Wool-growing, 244, 245. Women and the franchise, 378-381. Women-fighters, 282. Work hours, 383. Wynyard as Viceroy, 252, 253.

THE END