office. The incoming Treasurer found his task a simple one, and with a revenue swollen by large increases in Customs and Railway receipts, there was a surplus of over £72,000. In October of this year Tasmania despatched her first contingent for service in South Africa.

The year 1900, on the whole, proved to be one of remarkable prosperity for Tasmania. Improved prices were maintained for farm stock, but the seasons were generally unpropitious for agriculture, and light crops resulted in farm and orchard. As regards mining, however, a notable increase in production was recorded, the value of the output being nearly £500,000 in excess of the return for the previous year. During January and February serious damage was occasioned by bush-fires in various districts, while parts of the colony were devastated by floods in August. A short session of Parliament was held in April in compliance with the Act, but the session proper, which began in June, lasted until December, during which period no fewer than 100 measures were passed and placed on the Statute Book. Notwithstanding the extra expenditure in connection with the despatch of troops and the precautions against bubonic plague, the Treasurer had a credit balance at the end of the year, and the total deficit was reduced to £52,555, or considerably less than that at the beginning of the decade. On the 14th August, Viscount Gormanston left for England, and the Chief Justice, Sir John Stokell Dodds, took up the administration, pending the arrival of the new Governor.

The fruit season of 1901 was a record one as regards the quantity shipped to England, while the export of jam was higher than in any previous year. At the beginning of the year the Treasurer anticipated a surplus, but the delay and dislocation caused by the imposition of the Federal tariff changed the aspect of affairs, and a disappointing deficit of £90,000 had to be faced, with a prospect of further losses in 1902. The polling for the Federal elections took place at the end of March, the whole state voting as one constituency under the "Hare" system. On the 3rd July, T.R.H. the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived in Hobart, and during their stay in the island state were received everywhere with great enthusiasm. The new Governor, Sir Arthur Elibank Havelock, who had been appointed in May, reached Hobart on the 8th November, 1901.

In the early months of 1902 a series of interesting conferences took place at Hobart. The Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science met in January, and this was followed by conferences of State Statisticians, Attorneys-General, and Ministers of Agriculture, dealing with matters of interest to the Commonwealth. Considerable dissatisfaction was aroused by the action of the Federal Government, under the provisions of the Postal Act, in refusing to carry letters addressed to Tattersall," in connection with consultations on horse-races. The Tasmanian Government characterised the action as an undue interference with state rights, as these "sweeps" were legalised and carried on under Government supervision. It is probable that the question will be amongst the first submitted for the consideration of the High Court,

when that tribunal is established. During the first portion of the year Tasmania continued the despatch of contingents to South Africa, the total number of men sent from the island state, up to the last quota for the Australian Commonwealth Horse, being 734.

In the following table will be found a list of the successive Ministries which have held office since the inauguration of Responsible Government in Tasmania, together with the dates of their appointment and retirement :

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NEW ZEALAND.

THE HE Maori name of New Zealand is "Ao-tea-roa" (the long white cloud); of the North Island, "Te ika-a-Maui" (the fish of Maui); of the South Island, "Te-wai-pounami" (the place of the greenstone); and of Stewart Island, "Rakiura."

Of all the tribes native to the "seven colonies" the Maoris of New Zealand alone have given serious trouble to the white population. From the visit of Tasman to Murderers' Bay till comparatively modern times, the Maori has been a menace to European colonisation. He alone of all the Australasians dared defend his own with a courage, a pertinacity, and a skill which have extorted the admiration, and frequently compelled the terror of the white invader. Though not aboriginal to New Zealand, he is so identified with the history of the Islands from our first knowledge of them, that it is convenient to consider him briefly before proceeding to trace the progress of European settlement in "Ao-tea-roa."

Much doubt exists as to the ancient cradle of the Maori race. Many theories have been advanced on this subject, but the favourite one appears to be that which gives as their place of origin some island of the Samoan Group, or, as their own traditions designate the place of their exodus, "Hawaiki.” The legend runs that a chief of Hawaiki left the island after a civil war, voyaged to Ao-tea-roa, and returned thence to the land of his birth with marvellous accounts of all that he had seen in his adventurous journey, and of the wealth of the new country that he had visited. This daring navigator was named either Kupe or Ngahue; but though traditions vary concerning this, they concur in making him the leader of the expedition that planted his race in its present home. Tasman describes the natives of Golden or Murderers' Bay as being possessed of double canoes, though when the country was annexed, some 200 years afterwards, the Maoris had forgotten how to build them. It is, however, quite possible that they journeyed safely over the thousands of miles of open ocean which separate New Zealand from the tropical islands of the Samoan group in these typical vessels of the South Sea Islands. The Maori race is brown in colour, handsome of feature, and evidently identical with the people who have spread throughout the broad Pacific from Hawaii to Raratonga, and who have in some of the groups mingled their blood with that of inferior Melanesian peoples. Recently a well-known authority has stated that ethnological

investigations seem to point to the conclusion that prior to its occupation of the islands in the Pacific, the Maori race dwelt on some mainland-probably on the plains and foothills of the Himalaya Mountains of India.

When Cook landed he found the islands apparently crowded by a dense population. This appearance was, however, misleading, and merely arose from the tendency of the Maoris to cluster along the shore line and at the mouths of rivers. It has since been computed that the total number of Maoris at that time could not have been more than 150,000, which had decreased to 80,000 by 1840, and has now further shrunk to about half that number. Except on the shores of Cook's Straits, they planted only a few scattered outposts in the South Island. This is the larger island of the two, but it is also the colder, and therein lies the chief secret of the check to the Maori increase. They were a tropical race transplanted into a temperate climate. They showed much the same tendency to cling to the North Island as the negroes in North America to herd in the Gulf States.

Respecting their antiquity as an imported race from a Polynesian home, it is noteworthy that the names of most of their canoes are still remembered, and all the tribes agree in their accounts of the doings of the people of the principal canoes after their arrival in New Zealand; and from these traditional accounts the descent of numerous tribes has been traced. Calculations, based on the genealogical staves kept by the "tohungas," or priests, and on the well-authenticated traditions of the people, indicate that about twenty-one generations have passed since the immigration, which may, therefore, be assumed to have taken place about 525 years ago. The position of the legendary Hawaiki is unknown, but many places in the South Seas have been thus named in memory of the mother-land. The Registrar-General of New Zealand notes that the Maoris speak a very pure dialect of the Polynesian language the common tongue, with more or less variation, in all the Pacific Islands; and that Captain Cook, when he first visited New Zealand, availed himself of the services of a native of Tahiti, whose speech was easily understood by the Maoris, and who obtained from them much of their traditional history. Cannibalism existed in New Zealand from the earliest periods known to Europeans, and sailors belonging to the expeditions of Tasman, Cook, and others were devoured by the Maori patriots. The custom of eating the bodies of enemies killed in battle obtained up to a very late period. The practice of tattooing was general in the early days of European colonisation, but is now rapidly dying out among the younger generation

of Maoris.

The visits of Tasman, Cook, and other voyagers to New Zealand have been described at some length in the chapter of this volume dealing with the Discovery of Australia. It was in virtue of the sovereignty proclaimed by Captain Cook in the year 1770 that the islands of New

Zealand were included as a part of the British dominions in the Royal Commission appointing the Governor of New South Wales in 1787. In the following year Captain Arthur Phillip and his little colony of convicts. established themselves on the shores of Port Jackson, New South Wales. As stated in the opening chapter of this work, the choice of New South Wales as the locality for the first penal settlement in Australasia was in some measure due to dread of the ferocity and cannibalism of the old-time Maori.

In 1791 Captain Vancouver anchored in Dusky Bay when on his voyage round the world, and in 1793 Admiral D'Entrecasteaux touched at New Zealand in his search for the unfortunate La Perouse. In the latter year, also, the “ 'Dædalus," under the command of Lieutenant Hanson, was sent by the Governor of New South Wales to cruise about the New Zealand coast with the avowed intention of kidnapping one or more Maoris to teach the convict settlers of Norfolk Island the Maori method of flax-dressing. Unfortunately, one of the captives secured was a priest ("tohunga") and the other a chief ("rangatira”), and they would not admit that they knew anything about such work, and were restored to their homes after several months' detention.

In the year 1793, Sydney whalers began to visit the coasts of New Zealand; and adventurous spirits, honest and outlaw, ran into the ports of the islands for spars and flax, preserved human heads, and other native curiosities. Frightful atrocities were at times perpetrated by the Maoris, although it must be admitted that in some cases the knavery and cruelty of the traders were directly responsible for them. In 1807 a vessel had been taken by the east coast natives, and the entire crew, with one exception, were killed and eaten. In 1809 occurred the "Boyd" massacre, when fifty Europeans were murdered at Poverty Bay; this was an act of retaliatory vengeance dealt out to the passengers and crew of the ship "Boyd" for the flogging of a chief's son. In 1816 the brig Agnes was stranded in the same locality, and out of a crew of fourteen all save one were killed and eaten.

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A remunerative trade in seal-skins was carried on for a time, these being amongst the first articles of export from the then territory of New South Wales, but the unrestricted slaughter of the animals between 1800 and 1820, caused their capture to be no longer a paying enterprise. There was also a trade in timber hewn near the shores of the Hauraki Gulf, and shipped at profitable prices from Sydney to India and the Cape of Good Hope. The Bay of Islands was also the centre of much activity during the palmy days of the whaling industry.

In 1814 the Church Missionaries appeared, and strengthened the feeling of security which had grown up through trade, though New Zealand continued to have the evil reputation of being the Alsatia of the Pacific. Missionary enterprise was made possible by the growing intercourse between the whites and the Maoris. To the islands flocked deserters and shipwrecked seamen, runaway convicts, and all kinds of nondescript adventurers of the "Bully" Hayes type. Sometimes