any collection of adventurous spirits-and but one gang of bushrangers -the Burgess gang.

Besides gold, New Zealand possesses many valuable minerals. The most curious of these is undoubtedly kauri gum, of which over £10,775,000 worth has been raised in the Colony since 1853. It was, however, worked long before by the Maoris, who found it more profitable to collect kauri gum than to engage in the wars of Hone Heke against British supremacy. At the present time there are about 7,500 Europeans and Maoris engaged in gum-digging, of whom some 1,700 are Austrians from Dalmatia.

Sir George Ferguson Bowen's term of office as Governor of New Zealand extended from the 5th February, 1868, to the 19th March, 1873. He was succeeded by Sir George Alfred Arney, the Chief Justice of the Colony, as Administrator from the 21st March to the 14th June of the same year, pending the arrival of Governor Bowen's successor, Sir James Fergusson, Bart., P.C., who was just fresh, as in the case of Sir George Grey, from the Governorship of South Australia. Sir James Fergusson governed the Colony of New Zealand from the 14th June, 1873, to the 3rd December, 1874, when he in turn gave place to the Marquis of Normanby.

In the meantime affairs political were culminating towards the accomplishment of Vogel's dream-namely, the abolition of the Provincial Governments and the control of the Crown lands by the Central Parliament. The Colony was at rest, good prices prevailed, much gold was won, and landed estate advanced rapidly in value. Especially was the last-mentioned condition of prosperity the case in the province of Canterbury, where the system of free selection without limitation of area or occupation attracted the speculative buyers. A "boom" in Canterbury lands set in, and hundreds of thousands of acres were bought from the Provincial Government at the fixed price of £2 per acre, and resold at, or held for, a rise.

The revenue of the Provincial Council was greater than it knew how to expend, even extravagantly. Vogel saw his opportunity, and appealed to the old Centralist Party to crush the provinces; but the provinces, particularly Otago and Auckland, resolved to make a strong fight for their old autonomy. In the pleasant islet of Kawau, near the city of Auckland, quietly resided Sir George Grey, deep in the study of Maori traditions and antiquities. Now, the old Constitution that Vogel sought to destroy had been practically Grey's creation, and he burned with indignation in the solitude of his island retreat that sacrilegious hands should be laid upon the instrument by which he had made New Zealand a nation. Forth he came from his studies in 1875, and entered the arena of politics. With wonderful vigour he threw himself into the conflict, mounted the public platform, and spoke with an eloquence that took his hearers by storm. They heard him with admiration, largely mixed with surprise, as no one had hitherto suspected the orator and the poet in the able explorer, the shrewd statesman, diplomatist, and soldier.

The fight was vehement on both sides. The Centralists were led by Major Harry Atkinson, who had won a high place in public esteem as an officer of bush fighters in the many wars with rebel Maoris, and who had greatly distinguished himself on several occasions at Taranaki. He leapt at once to the command of his party. Under his leadership the - Provincialists were beaten, the Crown lands passed under the control of the Central Government, and the functions of the Provincial Councils were handed over to Local Boards and organisations.

Julius Vogel left the Colony in 1876, and in the month of October, in the year following, Sir George Grey succeeded in ousting an administration led by Major Harry Atkinson, which had earned for itself the title of "Continuous." The new Premier formed a Ministry mainly composed of young men of great ability; and appealed for the first time to the democracy of the Colony from a platform deliberately advanced and, for the period, essentially socialistic. At this time, and on every available opportunity afterwards, he advocated triennial Parliaments, the principle of one man one vote, a direct land tax, and a land policy based upon Crown leases rather than upon Crown sales, and having especial regard to the restriction of the area that any one man might require. He was, indeed, the direct forerunner of John Ballance; but though he won office on the strength of his policy, he could not carry it into law. Among his colleagues was John Sheehan, Minister of Justice and for Native Affairs, the first of native-born whites elected a representative of the people to the Parliament of New Zealand. Sir George Grey's Ministry was not of long duration, nor was it especially brilliant. It ended its career, at the early age of two years, in 1879, its chief being deposed from the leadership of his party by his own followers. One of the causes of the collapse of the Grey Ministry was a financial depression which visited the Colony at about this time. Prices fell all round, especially those of wool and wheat; and the output of gold failed to keep up to the average of former years. There had, too, been a mad rush for land investments; much money had been borrowed to acquire estate, and to establish speculative businesses; and there was now a strong reaction in prices. The increasing financial tension brought to the ground many a business house of apparent commercial solidity, and it was not before 1894 that affairs took a genuine turn for the better. It is noteworthy of Sir George Grey's democratic programme that, though he himself failed to carry any one of his favoured propositions into law, he had the satisfaction of seeing them all placed upon the Statute Book (some by his friends, some by his opponents) save one, -the election, by the people, of the Governor of the Colony.

A feature of New Zealand politics was the long existence enjoyed by what has been termed the "Continuous Ministry." It came into office about the year 1869, and may be said to have ceased in the month of January, 1891. Out of a period of twenty-one and a half years it held office for some sixteen or seventeen. Sir Edward Stafford turned it out, but for a month only, in 1872; Sir George Grey for two years,

1877-9; Sir Robert Stout for three years, 1884-7. The "Continuous Ministry" represented a shifting series of combinations of politicians by which the Cabinet was modified, every now and again, without ever being intrinsically changed. It came into being under Sir William Fox, with provincial and mildly democratic sympathies. It quarrelled with the provinces, and killed them; and then it became conservative-of the New Zealand type of conservatism. Its leaders were Fox, Vogel, and McLean-1869-72; Fox left it in 1872; Major Atkinson joined it in 1874; Vogel left it in 1876; McLean died in 1877; put out of office by Sir George Grey, it was once more led, for a short time, by Sir William Fox; it came back to power in 1879 as a Hall-Atkinson-Whitaker combination; Hall retired in 1881, but Atkinson and Whitaker continued to direct it to the end. There is another matter to be noticed in connection with the Parliament of New Zealand. For about three decades the Maoris have sent four members of their own race to the House. When speaking they ordinarily use an interpreter; despite which, when discussing affairs concerning their own countrymen, they often display great fluency and become really eloquent.

In the year 1864 the Government had confiscated more land than the settlers could then utilise, and a portion of the alienated territory remained unoccupied. In the province of Taranaki, the unoccupied land fell into the possession of its original Maori owners, who built houses, cultivated farms, and exercised all the other rights of ownership thereon. A promise had also been given to the natives of Taranaki that the Government would give them a certain sum per acre as a solatium for the confiscation of their lands. Time passed on, the occupiers remaining undisturbed and actual ownership and exclusive possession were at times somewhat offensively asserted. Moreover, religious fanaticism gave cohesion to the Maoris who occupied the confiscated lands and caused them to gain adherents from many places until a large settlement became established in the Ngatiruanui country, at a place called Parihaka, under the leadership of a Maori prophet or soothsayer named Te Whiti. For some time it appeared as if the disposal of the disputed lands would result in another outbreak of war, but the decisive action of Mr. Bryce, Minister for Native Affairs, averted such a contingency. At the head of a force of armed constabulary, Mr. Bryce proceeded to Parihaka, where Te Whiti and Tohu allowed themselves to be quietly arrested. They were detained in custody until March, 1883, when they were taken back and placed on the reserves measured out for Maori occupation. Since then the natives have either become reconciled to dominance by the whites, or lack the power and desire to organise further resistance. At the time of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi the Maoris may have numbered 70,000; at the census of 1858 the returns gave 56,049; at that of 1886 (including half-castes) 41,627; at the census of 1891 the number was returned as 41,993, and at that of 1901 at 43,101.

During the period occupied by the foregoing political and social events, the Colony had several times changed its government. The Marquis of Normanby surrendered the reins of office on the 21st February, 1879. The government was then administered by Chief Justice James Prendergast, till the arrival of Sir Hercules G. R. Robinson, who ruled the colony from the 27th March, 1879, till the 8th September, 1880. During his régime, in the year 1876, Rewi, the hero of Orakau, visited Auckland for the first time in twenty years, and was lionised by the citizens. He returned to the Waikato in company with the Governor, deeply impressed by the marvels wrought by the all-subduing "pakeha." On the retirement of Sir Hercules Robinson, on the 8th September, 1880, Chief Justice Prendergast again administered the Government. He was relieved of his post by the Hon. Sir Arthur H. Gordon, who was Governor of the Colony from the 29th November, 1880, to the 23rd June, 1882; when Chief Justice Prendergast for a third time, administered the Government till the coming of Lieutenant-General Sir William F. D. Jervois, on the 20th January, 1883. It was during Sir Arthur Gordon's period of Governorship, early in the year 1882, that Tawhiao, the "King of the Maoris,' came forth from his long seclusion and visited Auckland, where all sorts of honours were lavished upon him. He subsequently visited England, and then returned to his home on the Waikato, where he lived quietly for several years. At the beginning of 1888, Tawhiao held a meeting at Maungakawa, at the invitation of the Ngatihaua tribe, when the following lines of policy were affirmed: "That the Maoris and pakehas shall be as one people; obey the laws of the Queen, and respect them in every way as loyal subjects; and that every native acting contrary to the Queen's laws shall undergo the same punishment as the pakeha'; that all natives avoid intoxication and other abuses; that no objection be offered to the Lands Court selling, or otherwise, so long as it is done legally." With this declaration the long dispute between the two races, which lasted from the very beginning of colonisation, may be said to have come to a conclusion.

Legislatively New Zealand has been a country of experiments. As far back as the year 1869 an Act was passed enabling the Government to grant life assurances and annuities on the security of the Colonial revenue, and the Government Insurance Department is now a prominent institution of the State. In 1873 a Public Trust Office was founded, by which it was sought to insure the faithful discharge of trusts, to relieve individuals from the responsibilities of trusteeship, and to substitute a permanent officer of the Civil Service in place of guardians. Notwithstanding the lavishness of its public works policy, the Government of the Colony always manifested a reluctance to divert any of its revenues from the ordinary channels of public expenditure to any costly schemes of coastal defence. New Zealand was more backward in this respect than any of her sister Australian colonies. It is,

perhaps, largely due to the exertions of one of the Colony's Governors, Sir William F. D. Jervois, that much was done to remedy this condition of affairs. Soon after his arrival in the Colony, in January, 1883, His Excellency made a tour of inspection of the coastal defences, with a view to the elaboration of a homogeneous scheme. He subsequently, by lectures and by personal influence, aroused public attention to the risk which the Colony would run in the event of a European war, and under his direction the chief ports have been strongly fortified and furnished with effective battery and torpedo defences. As a direct result of the native wars, there is, and has always been, a large military element in the population; and New Zealand is now one of the best equipped of the Australasian colonies, either for putting down an insurrection within its own borders, or for repelling an attack of a foreign enemy.

The period marked by the Governorship of Sir William F. D. Jervois was probably the worst, in a financial sense, that the Colony had hitherto seen. Prices of staple produce continued to fall year after year. Those who had purchased landed estate with borrowed money for a speculative rise, one after another failed; next came the turn of their mortgagees, and then that of the minor financial companies, whose speculative holdings were unsaleable, and whose funds were exhausted. Responsibility for all this disaster was placed on the shoulders of the Vogel policy of public works and internal expansion; but the mischief was really traceable to several other causes. The truth is, that it was the private indebtedness of individuals at a time of slump after a period of inflation of values, together with an appalling fall in the price of raw products, rather than the spending of borrowed money on reproductive works, that plunged the Colony so long and so deeply in the mire of financial difficulties.

Political life during this period became chiefly a series of expedients for keeping the Treasury from absolute depletion, and carrying on the settlement of the land. The industrial outlook in New Zealand was probably never worse than in the years 1885 and 1886. The policy of retrenchment had been tried before with some results of partial salvation. It was tried again. The salaries of the Governor and the Ministers were diminished, as also were the size and the pay of the House of Representatives; the Customs duties were raised, and the taxes on property were increased. The result of these exertions to restore financial balance was a measure of strained but solvent success, and is creditable to the Hall, Atkinson, and Whitaker Ministry, which was called upon to meet the emergency.

While the provinces had their own Governments, they had also their own Land Laws. With these the General Assembly of the Colony had little to do. Upon the abolition of the provinces, the management of the public lands came into the domain of the central Parliament, and some fifty-four divergent statutes and ordinances had to be repealed. Uniformity could not, of course, be at once secured, as land was under