1873 - Trollope, Anthony. Australia and New Zealand [New Zealand Chapters Only] - Chapter LIX. Wellington and the Central Government, p 609-627

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CHAPTER LIX.

WELLINGTON AND THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.

WE went from Port Lyttelton by steamer to Wellington, passing on our way northwards the Kaikora mountains, which make the coast of the province of Marlborough magnificent. They are snow-clad, and of beautiful form, and to a member of the Alpine Club, would offer, I should think, irresistible temptation. The town of Wellington, now the capital of the colony, stands high up in a bay which was originally called Port Nicholson, and is still so named on the map. The site as seen from the sea is very lovely, as the town is surrounded by hills, and is open only to the water. It reminded me much of St. Thomas, --among the Virgin Islands; but in appearance only. St. Thomas is one of the most unhealthy places frequented by man, whereas there is perhaps no spot more healthy than Wellington. It is, however, noted for being windy, and the character seems to be deserved. The town is built only of wood, 1 including even the Parliament House, which is a very spacious building, and the Government House, which is a handsome English mansion. This has been found to be necessary, as the locality is subject to earthquakes. In 1848, the town, which was then but a small thing, was nearly destroyed, and there have been slighter shocks since that time. In 1848, the panic was so great that it was considered for a time that it would be necessary to desert the place. From the position in which Wellington stands, and the manner in which it is surrounded by the sea on all sides but one, it is too closely hemmed in, and too destitute of land immediately around it for extensive prosperity as a town. It contains something under 8,000 inhabitants, whereas the population both of the city of Auckland and Dunedin, with their suburbs, is over 20,000 each, and that of Christchurch is over 12,000. But it is a pleasant little town, and when the General Assembly is sitting it is gay enough. Of course, it is subject to the condition of all cities which have been chosen as capitals, not on account of their commercial prosperity, but because they are centrally situated for political purposes. Washington is a

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very poor place when Congress is not there, and I imagine that life at Ottawa must he slow when the representatives of the people are away from it.

There are interesting spots around Wellington. Within two or three miles of the town there are the remains of a New Zealand forest, --than which no forest is more lovely. They are absolutely impervious, unless a way be cut through them, owing to the thick growth of the forest vines. They are green throughout the year, -- not with a dull greyish green tint, such as that of the Australian gum, --but are bright with semi-tropical growth. The hills all round the town were a few years since covered with such forests, but there is now but little left of them. A botanical garden is in course of construction, which has great advantages in the lie of the lands and the shape of the surrounding hills. It is a pity perhaps that it was not commenced before so much of the surrounding timber was taken away. I visited the valley of the Hutt, so named after that old colonizer, the present member for Gateshead, up which one of the new railways is being formed, --with, I should think, questionable political economy, as there is water-carriage from Wellington up to the Hutt, and there may well be doubts whether the pastoral districts in the valleys beyond will afford traffic sufficient to pay for working the line. But it is the policy of New Zealand to spend money, and to look for that prosperity which is supposed to come from a generous expenditure. And I was taken up to the Horokiwi valley, a beautiful glen, some forty miles out of the town. From the head of the valley, on the coach-road from Wellington to Wanganui and Taranaki, the traveller rises on to a range of hills from whence he looks down on to the eastern coast, and the river, and the island of Kapiti. The view here is very fine, and at the same time very interesting to those who concern themselves closely in the history of New Zealand and her troubles; for here it was that the great chief Rauparaha lived, and near to this spot, at Porirua, he was taken prisoner, not in warfare, but by stratagem.

I cannot stop to tell the story of Rauparaha, with all its incidents, nor should I interest general readers were I to do so; --but he was a representative man, perhaps more so than any other chieftain, --in the early days of our New Zealand troubles. It was he who instigated the resistance which led to the Wairau massacre on the southern side of Cook's Strait, though the massacre itself was consummated by his companion in arms, Rangihaeta. After this he went across to the Northern Island, and lived either in the island of Kapiti, or opposite to it, at Otaki, on the mainland. Then there arose a great

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question whether Rauparaha should be taken and punished; but there was a doubt whether he were not justified in what he did by Maori laws, and he was pardoned, --to the great indignation of many settlers. Then he was for a time our ally, in the war about the Hutt and Wanganui, in 1845 and 1846, --our ally, or pretended ally. He was a great man, and great in our councils, --though still hated by the settlers, --till evidence came that he was in alliance also with the Maoris who were fighting us under Rauparaha's old friend, Rangihaeta; and then he was surrounded in his tent, near the Horokiwi valley, and taken prisoner. This was in July, 1846. He was kept ten months on board a man-of-war, and after that, was allowed to live in dignified but secure seclusion from the world till 1848, when at his own request he was permitted to go home to Otaki. There he died in November, 1849, --being then about eighty years of age. He had been a great cannibal, and had been a horrible scourge to the Maoris of the Middle Island, of whom he had devoured many. But he had a great reputation for wisdom, and managed, after all his troubles, both with Maoris and white men, to die in his bed at a fine old age. I had the pleasure of meeting his son at the Governor's table, and of playing battledore and shuttlecock with him in the Governor's hall. For this Rauparaha also is a great man among the Maoris, and is very friendly with the white men. It is said of him, the present man, that he has killed men, but never eaten them; of his father, the hero of my little tale, that he had killed and eaten men, --and he had no doubt eaten a great many; but of his grandfather, that he had killed men and eaten them, and had then himself been killed and eaten, like a true old Maori warrior as he was.

At Horokiwi we dined and slept, and the Governor, whose guests we were, asked an old chieftain who was coming along the coast to dine with us. He was tattooed all over, up to his hair, and round almost to the nape of his neck, --and he wore a great chimney-pot about 15 inches high, as some men used to wear in London a quarter of a century ago. He was very careful with his hat, and ate his dinner solemnly, with excellent appetite. When asked his opinion about this and that other Maori chief, he shook his head in disgust. They were all bad men, and had had too much land awarded to them. He rode a wretched old horse, and said that he was going about for pleasure to spend a month among his friends.

Of course it is known to all men that at present there are no imperial troops in New Zealand, and that it is not the intention of

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the British government to send troops there again. The subject is one on which many settlers in New Zealand still feel very keenly, -- expressing, almost with indignation, their conviction that if England really cared about New Zealand, she would not leave the colony altogether unprotected, --would not at any rate begrudge a few companies of soldiers, the whole expense of which the colony would willingly pay. But then I found also another conviction to exist, which seemed to me to be hardly compatible with the one I have above stated. All the European successes in the war, --say the colonists, --were achieved by colonial volunteers, and not by regular soldiers. The regulars were not fit for bush-fighting, and could not cope with the Maoris as men could do who had known them intimately. Without meaning here to question the efficiency of the British army in New Zealand, I cannot but say that I agree with the latter opinion. I have no doubt at all but that the settlers themselves are strong enough and astute enough to keep down the Maoris, -- and that their personal interest will be keen enough to induce them to do so.

Two certainly adequate reasons have existed for the withdrawal of the British troops. I will first put forward that which probably operated most strongly in producing the decision of our ministers at home. When the Maori early wars began, New Zealand was governed from home, and all responsibility for her well-being attached to our Secretary of State. In 1852, between the little and the big war, a free constitution was given to the colony as to her European affairs, but all matters affecting the Maoris were still left in the hands of the imperial authorities. In that condition of circumstances we sent 10,000 soldiers to New Zealand, and paid for them about £12,000,000. During the war the Statesmen in the colony complained of this divided government, and demanded that the management of Maori affairs should be given to them also. In this I think that they were distinctly right, as the "imperium in imperio" was unmanageable and dangerous. But it should have followed as a consequence in the minds of those who made the demand, that British troops could not be left in New Zealand at the disposal of a colonial parliament no more responsible to our parliament than is the Congress of the United States. An amalgamation of imperial and colonial authority was attempted in reference to our troops during the war, --with consequences so unfortunate and so absurd, with so many little jealousies, so much bickering, and so small a result, that now, --when it is all over, --he who attempts to review the past can only feel that the less said about the thing the

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better. The only excuse for referring to it is to be found in the necessity of showing that Great Britain has not behaved with that harshness to the colony of which she has been accused by Colonial Ministers of State.

The second reason is to be found in the fact that British troops were not needed for the purpose of suppressing the later Maori rebels. It was asked that one regiment should remain merely as a moral support: --that they should not be asked to fight; --that they should simply garrison towns and do that out-of-danger work in aid of the colonial soldiers, which in times of common peril has been often done by women in aid of their husbands and brothers! We were to lend a regiment of our men, with perhaps 1s. 6d. a day pay, to do this sort of work at the rear of colonial fighting soldiers, with 5s. a day pay each--and to do it under the control of colonial ministers who had already declared very plainly that they regarded the British soldier in no very high repute! Let any one consider how the British soldiers would have borne their condition; and consider also what moral support men so placed would be able to give! As for that third-rate work on which they were to be employed, surely New Zealand could find a thousand colonists to do it without borrowing an English regiment.

Mr. Fox, who was Prime Minister of New Zealand during my visit, in the despatches and memoranda which as Colonial Minister he has caused to be sent to our Secretary of State, deals largely with threats when he is applying for the retention of the regiment. The removal of the regiment will "precipitate a conflict," and "invite the rebels in arms to unite in devastation and massacre." He speaks of the "fearful loss of life which the removal of the imperial force at this perilous juncture would probably entail." One of his colleagues, writing under his auspices, and demanding the continued services of the regiment, says that the colony, "should be practically recognized as an integral part of that empire,"-- meaning of course Great Britain, --"and not thrust out beyond its pale, as of infinitely less consideration than a British subject in foreign lands." Mr. Fox, again, himself accuses our ministers at home of "unpatriotic harshness," and allows himself to say, in an official document, in reference to one special minister, that "To satisfy the theories of Lord Granville as to responsibility, New Zealand must cease to be a part of the empire." Mr. Fox has not only been a War Minister in New Zealand, but he has also been the historian of the war, --and I must put Mr. Fox the historian into the witness-box to give evidence against Mr. Fox the minister.

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Mr. Fox the minister is never weary in asking for a regiment of British troops to be used in New Zealand, under the control of a New Zealand statesman, --and when the request is not granted, uses towards statesmen at home terms of reproach which are not common in official documents even from superiors to inferiors, and which between equals are tantamount to the abandonment of the courtesies of life. But, as historian, Mr. Fox is never weary of telling us that all the successes of the war were achieved by colonial forces, and that the management of the imperial forces in New Zealand was so ridiculously bad as to make them comparatively useless. The reader, with Mr. Fox's history in his hands, is led to feel that New Zealand would hardly have had a war with the Maoris at all, --or, if so, would have got out of it very readily, --had there been no British troops, no 10,000 idlers, to trouble her. But when he has Mr. Fox's despatches in his hands, he is taught that New Zealand can be saved by one British regiment, but that salvation without it is impossible.

Up to the beginning of 1870, the Governor continually sent home remonstrances of this nature, --for the production of which he was not responsible, and which he could not repress. Read without the light of latter days, these documents would be very dispiriting. They foretell triumph to the Maori rebellion, and massacre to the Europeans, should the last regiment go. Early in 1870, the last regiment returned home. In 1872, the Governor, with his suite, made a journey through the very centre of the North Island, going through districts which a short time before had been a part of the "King" country, --and in his official report of his trip, has declared that he was received everywhere with enthusiastic loyalty. We have not yet conquered the Maoris. We probably never shall conquer them. They will melt. "O Governor, my word to you is to let King Tawhiao alone." I think no one now pretends to say that a better state of things than that existing would have been produced, had the one regiment been left to garrison the towns and afford moral support.

The Colonial Ministers of New Zealand in asking for a British regiment to be left in their hands, for them to do as they pleased, were asking for the top brick of the chimney. And they have cried very loudly because they did not get it.

But then there always arises in these discussions the sentimental view of the question, --"Why not let us have a few companies wearing the colours that are so dear to us, seeing that it is only for love that we ask them, and seeing also that we are ready to pay all

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the cost?" I could never get any colonist to agree with me that it was impossible for the colony to pay all the cost, --that the chief cost was the cost in men, and that England found a difficulty in getting soldiers enough for her absolute needs. It was quite in vain too that I pleaded that a bargain should be held as a bargain as well between friends, as between strangers or enemies; --and that as New Zealand had at her own request been allowed to raise her own revenues, and spend them, and to govern herself, there should be no semblance left of dependence on English assistance. There is a pride in seeing an English redcoat, which even an Englishman must visit the colonies to understand. Indeed, the pride which is felt in all English institutions, and the pride in England herself, makes itself very much more conspicuous among our distant offshoots than it is at home. I have found it cropping up even in the States of America, in a manner that it hardly takes among ourselves. "We, too, are English by descent, and speak the language, and are governed by the laws, and are therefore as good as you are." It is this feeling which, with its various ramifications, repeats England all round the world; and it is one with which an Englishman cannot but be in love. I have always myself felt a soft regret when I could not admit that there ought to be a company of English soldiers in a colonial town.

In the meantime, they have taken the matter up in New Zealand with substantial prowess, and have a body of armed constabulary, -- who are in truth soldiers, --and whose head-quarters are at Wellington. In addition to this, there is an armed contingent of Maoris, and there are the volunteers. I am inclined to think, that in regard to force with which to protect herself against the Maoris, New Zealand is better situated than when she had 10,000 British troops to protect her.

I have already spoken of the chief peculiarity of the constitution under which New Zealand is governed, the working of which was not fully commenced till the arrival in 1855 of Colonel, now Sir Thomas Gore Browne, as Governor. In 1846, an attempt had been made to divide New Zealand into two colonies, with a governor-in-chief and two lieutenant governors. The colonies were to be re-christened New Munster and New Ulster, and two lieutenant-governors were actually appointed. There was to be a Legislative Council appointed by the Crown, --and a House of Representatives elected by the people. But it was enacted that no man could vote who could not read and write English! Then, too, came out that doctrine from the Colonial Office, opposed to the

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assumption of property in land not absolutely occupied by the reputed owners, which was considered to be opposed to the treaty of Waitangi. From the first it was seen that this constitution could not work, and no real attempt was made to work it. It was out of the question that the Maoris should be told, --as they had been told over and over again, --that in the eye of the law, under their first sovereign, Queen Victoria, they were the same as white men, and that nevertheless they should be governed by a parliament with which they could have no concern unless they could read and write a language, of which none of them then had, and of which none of them still have, any knowledge. No doubt those very men who were most keenly alive to the necessity of giving votes to the Maoris, --and Governor Grey among the number who remonstrated against the constitution on this ground, and was authorized on this ground to postpone its execution, --all felt in their hearts that a parliament returned by Maoris would have unfitted the country altogether for European settlers. But they felt, also, that though the power of voting should be given to the Maoris, the Maoris would not use the privilege. In 1853, when the first elections really took place, and when another new constitution had come out, in which there was no clause as to reading and writing English, there was a very large majority of Maori population in the North Island which then returned twenty-three members to the House of Assembly, and a majority of white men only in the Middle Island which at that time was called upon to return but fourteen members. But the interference of the Maoris had no appreciable effect on the elections. It was, however, out of the question that they should be excluded from the franchise, after having been invested with the property in land, and having at the same time been made subject to English law.

In 1852 the parliament of Great Britain passed the act which gave its present constitution to New Zealand. Of course it contains the old arrangements as to king, lords, and commons, --the Governor taking the place of the king, the Legislative Council of the Lords, and the House of Representatives of the House of Commons; and there soon followed, as a matter of course, an Executive Council, consisting of the responsible ministers of the day, and taking the place of our cabinet, --though this natural sequence was not effected without considerable commotion among the new and untried politicians of the colony. In addition to all this the colony was divided into provinces, and to each province was given its own Provincial Assembly elected by the people, its own

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Superintendent, also elected by the people, --as are the governors of the separate States of America, --and its own political officers, who act as the Superintendent's cabinet. There can, I think, be no doubt that in all this there has been an attempt to graft the American form of State government on the monarchical forms of England. As regards the Upper House of the General Assembly the constitution is less democratic than that of Victoria or South Australia, in which colonies the members of the Legislative Council are elected by the people. In New Zealand they are appointed nominally by the Crown, in reality by the minister of the day, --as they are in New South Wales and Queensland. In other respects the constitution of New Zealand is more democratic than that of any other British colony, as it gives to each province the power of making certain of its own laws, of disposing of a large proportion of its own taxes, and of dealing with its own land, without reference to the General Assembly. The Governor has no doubt a veto on the laws passed in the Provincial Assemblies, ---as he has on the general legislation of the colony, --but this is a defence against crude legislation which cannot be frequently used, and which when used is of course unpopular. By this system of sub-government in the provinces a class of men of a standing lower no doubt in social condition, and lower probably in education, than those who find their way into the General Assembly, are enabled to act as legislators. Political critics will approve or disapprove of this according to their diverging political tendencies, --but there can, I think, be no doubt that the system has been devised with the intention of bringing the manipulation of political power closely into the hands of the people. There can be as little doubt that incompetent persons have been tempted to play at a little game of House of Commons at the public expense.

It must be acknowledged on the other hand that in these Provincial Assemblies is found a certain safeguard against dangers which have been injuriously felt in the Australian colonies. Taking the instance of New South Wales, we can see that the settlers in remote parts of that vast dominion feel no confidence in the manner in which they and their lands are dealt with by a parliament assembled at Sydney. Lands sold at, we will say, Moreton Bay, were supposed to be sold to the advantage of the people living very far from Moreton Bay. Duties collected at Moreton Bay were supposed to be spent in the vicinity of the favoured capital. The Executive was composed of men living at Sydney. The great bulk of the legislature was composed of men living at any rate much

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nearer to the centre than to the extremities, and thus was created a justifiable suspicion that a Sydney legislature was prejudicial to districts which were not only very remote from Sydney, but which had but very little communication with that city. Hence arose a cry for division, and Queensland became a separate colony. But Queensland itself is very large, and now it is thought that the interests of the settlers on York Peninsula and north of Rockhampton are sacrificed to Brisbane and Ipswich. No doubt to a great extent it is so. Brisbane, Ipswich, and the southern districts of the colony, return the greater part of the House of Representatives, and members of parliament will prefer the interests of places which return them to those of distant districts with which they have no concern. The same feeling prevails now with reference to the Riverina. The interests of the Riverinan district are naturally subordinated to those of the Illawarra, the Hunter, New England, Bathurst, Goulburn, and Sydney itself, which being more thickly inhabited, altogether dominate the Riverina in the councils of New South Wales.

The question must of course be one of degree, and the proposal for increased legislature may easily be carried to an absurdity. At home we should not be disposed to grant a separate parliament to the Isle of Wight, were she to consider herself injured by her connection with England at large. We are not even willing to grant a separate parliament to Ireland, which says that she is so oppressed. But with us at home the different elements have been more perfectly welded into one whole than can as yet be the case in a colony, and from that it comes to pass that our leading statesmen are taken from the country at large, and not as a rule from one favoured part of the country. There is hardly a suspicion that London receives more than it gives because of the action of parliament, and such a suspicion could hardly be well founded, as London has a thinner representation in parliament than any other part of the country. There are those who complain of this, not perceiving that what London loses in representation she gains by the presence of the entire parliament. But in the colonies there is no such balance of advantages, --and I shall hardly be unjust to colonial statesmen generally in saying that the condition of the colonies does not yet admit of the production of men capable, from education, position, and habit, of regarding the country as one whole which, as a whole, is confided to their patriotism, --as is I believe the case with us. Time and wealth have with us produced a race of statesmen and a race of legislators, and the feeling with us is general

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that the interests of the country will be fairly dealt with, let the men who deal with them come whence they may. Now and again there may be a gradual shifting of representation; --but, as a rule, Devonshire is not suspicious of Yorkshire, nor Lancashire of the metropolitan counties. In the colonies it is certainly otherwise; and the provincial governments of New Zealand have a tendency not only to allay the suspicion, but to prevent the injustice which has occasionally produced it. I must confess that at first I was tempted to ridicule these provincial parliaments, but before I left New Zealand I was reconciled to their action.

I found, however, in the colony generally, and, as I think, among the best men in the colony, a prevailing opinion antagonistic to the Provincial Councils, and from this I am led to imagine that they will gradually be deprived of their powers, and be ultimately abolished. They will by that time have perhaps done the work demanded of them.

The first elections under the new constitution took place in 1853, and the provincial parliaments at once went to work. The General Assembly did not sit till 1854, when it was convened by Colonel Wynyard, who acted as governor for twenty months, between the first reign of Governor Grey and that of Governor Browne. The Legislative Council at first consisted of ten members. In 1857 it was increased to twenty, and it now consists of forty-five, a number which seems to be out of all proportion to the size of the colony. There is nothing in the Constitution to prevent the Governor and the Minister of the day together from increasing the number as they may please, --as there is nothing to prevent the Queen and her Ministers from increasing the number of peers indefinitely in England. The number of the representatives was at first thirty-seven and is at present seventy-eight, which seems to be large for a population hardly, if at all, exceeding 300,000, --the Maoris included. By the census of 1871 the European population was found to be 250,393, --whereas the Maoris are estimated to be under 40,000 in all the islands.

I have found it difficult, in more than one of the colonies, to ascertain the exact condition of the public purse in reference to revenue, annual expenditure, and public debt; and though in New Zealand the greatest courtesy was shown in supplying me with everything that had been published on these subjects, I have not been able altogether to understand the figures thus supplied to me. I imagine that a special education is necessary to the easy comprehension of Treasury accounts. Additions and deductions

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have to be made to and from all the totals before the real fact sought for can be attained; and though, no doubt, the necessary information for such additions and deductions is given, -- if the seeker after financial facts only knew as much as the compiler of the accounts, -- it generally occurs to the poor tyro, when he begins to manipulate his figures, that he finds himself in the position of a man who should attempt to drive a locomotive without having learned the first principles of a steam-engine.

I think, however, that I can collect without doubt from the pages before me that the total revenue for New Zealand for the year 1871, exclusive of money borrowed, was £1,342,116. The total expenditure for that year is given as £2,657,586; but from this has to be deducted, as far as I can understand, something like £250,000 for money repaid, --so that the expenditure for the year would exceed the actual revenue by about £l,100,000, in a community consisting of less than 300,000 persons. I can state at any rate with certainty that the amount of the public debt up to June 30th, 1872, was £9,983,341; -- in round numbers, ten million pounds. I doubt whether any community ever got together has shown the same energy in obtaining and spending money on public purposes.

The circular published under the authority of the Colonial Office for the year gives the following details as to the population, revenue, and expenditure of certain colonies; but in looking at these figures the reader should remember that the column in which the revenue is stated can hardly be taken as affording accurate information, as the sums named contain not only the year's actual revenue but the amounts borrowed during that year for the year's wants. The population and the sums expended may no doubt be taken as exact: --

This certainly gives to New Zealand a grand pre-eminence. With a population not quite a fifteenth that of Canada, she can spend an

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amount of public revenue less than that of Canada by not quite a ninth. While Canada spends little more than £1 a head, New-Zealand spends more than £13 a head. But Canada with its partly French population may be thought to be a sleepy place. Victoria, however, is wide awake, and is supposed to know the value of stirring business. She spends about £4 10s. a head; and New South Wales, who nattered herself that she was certainly not deficient in spirit during that year, spent something over £7 a head. Poor Jamaica had not even £1 a head to spend, and lacked the spirit to spend all she had. There can be no doubt that if audacity, dash, and a true adherence to "go-a-head" principles will make a colony, New Zealand ought to flourish.

There is perhaps no subject more open to argument on both sides than that of the expenditure of public money; --no question on which a public orator would find it easier to declaim, first in one direction and then in the other, than the expediency of public economy and the expediency of public liberality. In private life it is the same. One man will tell you that you should never put out your arm so far as to lose the power of drawing it back, and that you should never owe more than you can pay, --while another will assure you that he who nothing dares will nothing have, and that no man can thrive as a merchant who trusts solely to ready money and ignores a system of credit. And then the same man will give you both the one lesson and the other almost in the same breath.

It must, I think, be conceded in reference to new countries, such as are our Australian colonies and New Zealand, that it would not only be impossible that they should develop their resources without borrowing money on the security of the wealth to be produced, -- but also that it would be unjust to the present generation to make the attempt, were it thought possible that success should be so achieved. In an old country, such as our own, --or at any rate in the old country, which is our own, --the government is not called upon to develop its resources. I will take railroads as an illustration of what I mean when I speak of the resources of a country. Railroads with us have been made by private companies, the members of which have considered that they saw the means of turning their capital to good account in such enterprises. Whether they have been right or wrong in so considering, the capital and the spirit to spend it have been sufficient, and the railways have been made. But in the colonies such a state of things is out of the question. The capital does not exist, and the fact is patent to all

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men that the railroads when made would not pay a fair interest, -- very often that they would pay no interest whatsoever, --on the money to be expended on their construction. It is equally patent that nothing tends so quickly to enrich a country and to enable a people to use the wealth which God has placed within their reach, as a ready conveyance for themselves and their goods. Wheat is not grown, because it cannot be conveyed to market. Copper and iron and coal are left unworked, because they cannot be profitably conveyed away. Wool-growers dare hardly venture to distant pastures, awed by the same difficulty. The young colony therefore demands a railroad, --which the government only can make, and can do so only by the means which its parliament shall grant to it. Then arises the question whether the present or a future generation shall pay for the railroad, --and it becomes at once apparent to the shallowest thinker that, even were it possible to saddle the country with immediate taxation sufficient for the purpose, it would be most unjust to do so. Why should we, who are struggling here to-day, make a railroad for the benefit of those who are to come after us, and who in all human probability will be much better able than we are to bear the expense? This same argument applies to roads, harbours, bridges, public buildings, and all institutions as to which the public will possess the completed property. Therefore the money is borrowed, and the present generation feels that it bears its fair share of the burden by paying the interest as it accrues.

The argument is good, and the practice will probably have the adherence of all sagacious statesmen, as long as the value of the property actually created by the expenditure does not sink below the amount of the debt incurred. As long as such a state of things is preserved, the colony or country cannot in truth be said to be in debt at all. Its assets are equal to its liabilities, and its annual revenue in such a condition will infallibly preserve it from any inconvenient pressure upon its means. The colony of Victoria now owes a debt of twelve millions, but very nearly the whole of this sum has been expended in railways, and the remainder on works of similar permanent value, --and Victoria is in truth not indebted. That unfortunately is not the case with New Zealand. Her wars with the Maoris, which have been declared by competent authority at home to have cost England twelve millions, have cost that colony nearly four millions and a half.

And again, in considering the matter of borrowing money for public works it must be remembered that, unfortunately, induce-

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ments other than those of the direct public good may allure ministers to ask for loans, and may allure members of parliament to grant them. Or even if the motives of ministers and of members be as pure as Patriotism herself, there may be lacking the sagacity necessary for the profitable expenditure of public funds. Or, as is much more commonly the case, the motives, and the sagacity also, may be mixed. A minister may assure himself that his sole object is his country's good, that he is spending himself night and day on her behalf, that he is remunerated, by a clerk's beggarly salary, for energies and intellect which would make a fortune for him if devoted to trade; and in this way he may be as sure of his own virtue as were Pitt and Peel. But not the less does he teach himself to think that the one thing most necessary for his country's welfare is his own continuance in office, and to effect that, --simply for his country's good, and to his own personal ruin, --he will make compromises with dishonesty, or perhaps rush into a policy of which the only value to his country will consist in the fact that it will obtain for himself a popularity among voters outside sufficient to keep him in office.

When a minister achieves the power of handling millions in the manufacture of railways, the temptation to waste hundreds of thousands is very heavy on him. Each portion of a colony, each district, or each province, wants its railway. "A railway for you gentlemen down south!" says a northern member. "Certainly, -- but on condition that we have one here, up north!" To an eager politician, anxious to please his own constituency, it matters little that it be shown to him that there will be nothing for the northern railway to carry, while the other may be expected to do a fair business. Votes are counted, and the northern gentleman has his way. Then, again, it comes to pass that a large part of the population in a new country finds so great a benefit from the immediate expenditure of the money, --labourers who get the government wages, and of course vote, and tradesmen who cater for the labourers, and of course vote, --that the patriotic minister, anxious only for his country's good, finds that the country will certainly be robbed of his services unless he maintain this popular condition of things. In such circumstances a minister is apt, --I will not say to become unscrupulous, --but to allow a great latitude to his scruples.

And then there is also the danger, --from which nations, as well as colonies, have suffered, --of there arising some Cagliostro in politics, some conjuror in statecraft, who shall be clever enough to

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talk steady men off their legs by fine phrases, and to dazzle the world around him by new inventions in the management of affairs. Such men can invest democratic measures with tendencies purely conservative, can run into debt upon theories of the strictest economy, and commingle patriotic principles with cosmopolitan practices in a manner very charming to weak minds. A statesman of this class is of necessity unscrupulous, and to a young community may be ruinous. It is his hope to leap to great success by untried experiments, --and being willing himself to run the risk of extermination if he fail, he does not hesitate to bind his country to his own chariot-wheels as he rushes into infinite space. Such a minister in a colony, should he get the power of the purse into his hands, will throw his millions about without any reference to the value of the property acquired. He will learn the charm of spending with profusion, and will almost teach himself to measure the prosperity of the community which is subject to him, by the amount which it owes.

When I reached Wellington, a vote of want of confidence in the present ministry had just been brought before the House of Representatives by Mr. Stafford, so that I had the opportunity of hearing a debate in which the ministry and their opponents were fighting for the possession of immediate political power. The same thing had occurred when I was at Sydney, and there the minister had been forced to resign, --after having obtained the Governor's sanction for the dissolution of the House, and having tried what a new parliament would do for him. I had again been present at a similar battle in Melbourne, in which the minister was defeated there also, --and had been driven to resign, after a terrible conflict, at the close of which the Governor refused to him the privilege of dissolving the House, for which he had pleaded. These facts doubtless affected the conditions of the combat in New Zealand. It was felt that the Governor would not dissolve the House, and that the ministers, if beaten, would not risk the chance of a refusal. There was therefore no immediate means of effacing their defeat within their reach, should they be beaten by the vote then to be given; and the fight was therefore signally one of life and death. Both at Sydney and Melbourne the ministry had been beaten by a very narrow majority, and the tendencies of men's minds were sufficiently well known to make it certain that the numbers would be very nearly equal at Wellington. When I reached the capital general opinion gave the ministers a majority of three or four. As days passed by this imagined superiority dwindled to a supposed

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tie. On the morning of the day on which the division was taken it was believed that there would be one against them. On that night they were beaten by a majority of two.

Three adverse resolutions were proposed to the House, but, as is usual in such cases, they who attacked the ministers assailed their entire policy. It did not require a long sojourn in the colony to enable an observer to understand that distrust of Mr. Vogel was the feeling which first made the attack possible and then rendered it successful. Mr. Fox was Premier, but I think that I shall not be held by that gentleman to do injustice to his position as a minister, if I say that Mr. Vogel was regarded in the colony as the acting spirit of the cabinet. Mr. Fox held no portfolio, whereas Mr. Vogel was, as we say, Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Colonial Treasurer as he is called at the Antipodes. Now New Zealand had latterly been pre-eminently conspicuous for spending money, -- and conspicuous also for the amount of money which she intended to spend. It had seemed to be Mr. Vogel's theory of government that blood should be infused into the veins of a young community, and energy given to the action of the heart, by an open-handed, and I may perhaps say, profuse liberality. Railways were to be created throughout the colony. Railways in Auckland, railways in Wellington, railways as I have before said even in Marlborough, railways from the southern point of the Middle Island through Otago and Canterbury, up to Nelson were to leave no district in the colony unsatisfied. And the natives were to be kept quiet by a good-humoured liberality, which would leave them nothing to gain by rebellion. That a colony should have life in it all New Zealanders were willing to allow, --for they are an energetic people. And they were ready to admit that public credit is too grand a thing not to be used for raising this life, ---for they are a sanguine people. Mr. Vogel's theory had had its charms for them, as is proved with sufficient clearness by the money which he has borrowed. But that which at first was taken for dash and good courage, seemed to many after a while to become recklessness and fool-hardihood. Mr. Vogel was playing a great experiment, at the expense of the community, and the colony began to ask who was Mr. Vogel, that it should trust him? I am constrained to say, looking back at the figures on the previous page, that I think. the colony trusted him too far.

The old ministry was beaten, and a new ministry came in. But when I left New Zealand it was held to he doubtful whether the new ministry could stand, and since I have returned home Mr. Vogel has been restored to his seat on the Treasury Bench. A

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majority of two for purpose of defeat does not give assurance of a working majority, --and it was said at once that there were dissensions. As I have given my own opinion of Mr. Vogel as a minister, I am hound to say that many men in the colony believe in him, -- that they think that a new prophet has arisen whose absence of timidity will enable him to manage politics as they have never been managed before, and who will create prosperity out of expenditure. Mr. Vogel is now again in a position to throw his money broadcast over the land, and it may be that he will continue to do so, --while the credit of the colony lasts.

I was often asked in New Zealand whether the line of parliamentary debate in that colony did not contrast favourably with that which I had heard in the Australian parliaments. I am bound to say that at Wellington I heard no word to which any Speaker of a House could take exception, and that this propriety of language was maintained while very hard things were being said by members, one of another. This is, I think, as it should be. The life necessary for political debate cannot be maintained without the saying of hard things; but the use of hard words makes debate at first unbearable, and after a time impracticable. But I thought that the method of talking practised in the New Zealand House of Representatives was open to censure on another head. I have never in any national debating assembly, --not even at Washington, --seen so constant a reference to papers on the part of those who were speaking as was made in this debate. It seemed as though barrows full of papers must have been brought in for the use of gentlemen on one side and on the other. From this arises the great evil of slowness. The gentleman on his legs in the House, --when custom has made that position easy to him, --learns to take delight in delaying the House while he turns over one folio after another either of manuscript, which has been arranged for him, or of printed matter which he has marked for reference. And then, to show how very much at home he is, while gentlemen are gaping around him, he will look out for new references, muttering perhaps a word or two while his face is among the leaves, --perhaps repeating the last words of his last sentence, and absolutely revelling in the tyranny of his position. But while doing so, he is unconsciously losing the orator's power of persuasion. I doubt whether Demosthenes often looked at his papers, or Cicero when he was speaking, or Pitt. Judging from what I have seen from the strangers' gallery at home, I should say that a New Zealand minister had learned to carry to an absurdity a practice which is authorized, and no more than authorized, by the

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usage of our House of Commons. A Speaker, on observing such fault, can hardly call the offender to order, --but he might have the power of putting out the gas.

I cannot conclude my remarks about the Wellington Assembly and the debate which I heard there, without saying that the four Maori members discreetly split their votes, two supporting, and two voting against, the ministry.

The province of Hawke Bay I did not visit at all, or even look upon its coast. It was separated from Wellington in 1858, and now contains a population of 6,059 souls, exclusive of natives, --of which 2,179 belong to its capital, the town of Napier. The staple industry of the province is the growth of wool on artificial grasses. Hawke Bay possesses nearly as many sheep as the whole of the remainder of the North Island put together, and considerably more than either Nelson or Marlborough, in the Middle Island; --but it produces little else. I am told that the province is prosperous. It has not been disturbed by war with the natives, as have Auckland, Wellington, and poor little Taranaki. Its land has belonged to a great tribe, the Ngatikahungunu, who have been friendly to the Europeans, --so that the grass farmers of Napier, Clive, and the Wairau, have been able to carry on their operations in comparative peace. It must be remembered by those to whom the pastoral concerns of New Zealand are a matter of interest, that the sheep-farming of the North Island is not at all like that of Australia. In Australia sheep are chiefly pastured on original grasses, at perhaps an average allowance of three acres to the sheep. In northern New Zealand they are pastured on artificial English grasses, at an average of perhaps five sheep to the acre. In the Middle Island of New Zealand the Australian system prevails, but even here the growth of English grasses is being adopted, to the greatly increased value of the land. Perhaps the most noticeable fact in reference to Hawke Bay is the circumstance that a rental of £12,500 a year is paid to the Maoris for pastoral lands used by the Europeans.