[1642-1814 A.D.]

Taxation laws must deal with only one subject of taxation; but customs and excise duties may, respectively, be dealt with together. Votes for the appropriation of the revenue shall not pass unless recommended by the governor-general. The constitution provides means for the settlement of disputes between the houses and requires the assent of the sovereign to all laws. The executive power is vested in the governor-general, assisted by an executive council appointed by himself. He has command of the army and navy, and appoints federal ministers and judges. The ministers are members of the executive council, and must be, or within three months of their appointment must become, members of the parliament. The judicial powers are vested in a high court and other federal courts, and the federal judges hold office for life or during good behaviour. The high court has appellate jurisdiction in cases from other federal courts and from the supreme courts of the states, and it has original jurisdiction in matters arising under laws made by the federal parliament, in disputes between states, or residents in different states, and in matters affecting the representatives of foreign powers. Special provisions were made respecting appeals from the high court to the sovereign in council. The constitution set forth elaborate arrangements for the administration of finance and trade during the transition period following the transference of departments to the commonwealth. Within two years uniform customs duties were to be imposed; thereafter the parliament of the commonwealth had exclusive power to impose customs and excise duties, or to grant bounties; and trade within the commonwealth was to be absolutely free. Exceptions were made permitting the states to grant bounties on mining and (with the consent of the parliament) on exports of produce or manufactures West Australia being for a time partially exempted from the prohibition to impose import duties.

The constitution, parliament, and laws of each state, subject to the federal constitution, retained their authority; state rights were carefully safeguarded, and an inter-state commission was given powers of adjudication and of administration of the laws relating to trade, transport, and other matters. Provision was made for necessary alteration of the constitution of the commonwealth, but so that no alteration could be effected unless the question had been directly submitted to, and the change accepted by, the electorate in the states. The seat of government was to be within New South Wales, not less than 100 miles distant from Sydney, and of an area not less than 100 square miles. Until other provision was made, the governor-general was to have a salary of £10,000, paid by the commonwealth. Respecting the salaries of the governors of states, the constitution made no provision.d

NEW ZEALAND

The first European discoverer of New Zealand was the famous Dutch navigator, Tasman, who sailed about the islands in 1642, but it remained practically unknown until 1769, when Captain Cook made a careful examination of its coast. He visited the islands several times, and introduced pigs, fowls, and several European vegetables. From Cook's final voyage in 1777 to 1814 little is known of it, but during this period a few white men, mostly shipwrecked sailors and runaway convicts from Australia, settled along its coasts. In 1814 Rev. Samuel Marsden, colonial chaplain of New South Wales, established the first mission in the islands at the Bay of Islands. Other missions, both Catholic and Protestant, were soon formed, and in thirty years a great

[1837-1882 A.D.] part of the native Maori population had at least nominally accepted Christianity.

The country had been officially declared a possession of Great Britain as early as 1787, but fifty years elapsed before a systematic attempt at colonisation was made. In 1837 the New Zealand Association was formed under the auspices of Lord Durham, and largely through the exertion of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, upon whose "system" South Australia was established. This association failed in obtaining a charter for colonising because of the hesitating policy of the ministry, but it awakened interest in the colonisation movement. A second organisation was formed by the resourceful Wakefield in 1839, known as the New Zealand Land Company, with Lord Durham as governor. Wakefield determined not to risk another failure, therefore, in the name of the new company the ship Tory was secretly despatched to the islands with a company of colonists under Col. Wm. Wakefield, a brother of the promoter. By him the settlement of Wellington was formed. The colony of New Zealand thus came into existence independent of crown authority. The hands of the government being forced it proceeded to attach the settlements in New Zealand to the colony of New South Wales with Captain William Hobson as resident lieutenant-governor. There was some conflict between the land company's settlers and Governor Hobson, but they ultimately recognised his authority. In February, 1840, an assembly of Maori chiefs at Waitangi acknowledged their submission to the British crown. In the following September, Governor Hobson hoisted the British flag over the newly founded town of Aukland, which in 1841 became the capital of the colony.

May 3, 1841, New Zealand was proclaimed a separate crown colony. The early history of the colony is a long and tedious tale of quarrels over land titles between the land company, later settlers, and Maori chiefs. Hostilities between the settlers and natives were inevitable. One of the most serious wars was that led by Hone Heke in 1845. Other and more serious revolts occurred in 1863 and 1864, the suppression of which was accomplished only by the aid of several regiments of British troops and the co-operation of warships. An imperial act granted the colony representative government in 1852. Gold was discovered in 1862 and the colony grew rapidly. A new immigration policy adopted in 1870 still further stimulated the growth. The population leaped from 267,000 in 1871 to 501,000 in 1881.a

HISTORY, 1882-1902

Between 1882 and 1902 five governors represented the crown in New Zealand. Of these Sir Arthur Gordon quitted the colony in June, 1882. His

[1883-1895 A.D.]

successor, Sir William Drummond Jervois, arrived in January, 1883, and held office until March, 1889. The earl of Onslow, who followed, landed in June, 1889, and resigned in February, 1892. The next governor, the earl of Glasgow, remained in the colony from June, 1892, to February, 1897, and was succeeded in August of the last-mentioned year by the earl of Ranfurly. The cabinets which administered the affairs of the colony during these years were those of Sir Frederick Whitaker, Sir Harry Atkinson (3), Sir Robert Stout (2), Mr. Ballance, and Mr. Seddon. Except in one disturbed month, August, 1884, when there were three changes of ministry in eighteen days, executives were more stable than in the colony's earlier years. The party headed by Mr. Ballance and Mr. Seddon held office without a break for more than eleven years, a result mainly due to the general support given to its agrarian and labour policy by the smaller farmers and the working classes.

The industrial history of New Zealand during these two decades may be divided into two unequal periods. Thirteen lean years-marked, some of them by great depression-were followed by seven years of prosperity. The colony, which in 1882 was under a cloud, has not often been busier and more self-confident than in 1902. A division into two periods also marks the political history of the same time; but here the dividing line is drawn in a different year. Up to December, 1890, the conservative forces which overthrew Sir George Grey in 1879, controlled parliament in effect, though not always in name; and for ten years progressive legislation was confined to a mild experiment in offering crown lands on perpetual lease, with a right of purchase (1882), and a still milder instalment of local option (1881). In September, 1889, however, Sir George Grey succeeded in getting parliament to abolish the last remnant of plural voting. Finance otherwise absorbed attention; the task of successive ministries was to make the colony's accounts balance, and search for some means of restoring prosperity. The years 1884, 1887, and 1888 were notable for heavy deficits in the treasury. Taxation, direct and indirect, had to be increased, and as a means of gaining support for this, in 1888 Sir Harry Atkinson gave the customs tariff a distinctly protectionist complexion. The commercial revival came but slowly. The heavy borrowing and feverish speculation of the seven years 1872-79 must in any case have been paid for by reaction. The failure of the City of Glasgow Bank in 1879 precipitated this, and the almost continuous fall in the price of wool and wheat, together with the dwindling of the output of alluvial gold, postponed recovery. The principal local bank the Bank of New Zealand was in an unsound condition, and until in 1895 it was taken under control and guaranteed by the colony, the fear of its collapse overshadowed the community. The financial and commercial improvement which began in 1895 was doubtless to some extent connected with this venturesome but apparently successful stroke of policy.

SOCIALISTIC NEW ZEALAND

During the years 1882-90 the leading political personage was Sir Harry Atkinson. In December, 1890, he was overthrown by the progressives under John Ballance. Atkinson's party never rallied from this defeat, and a striking change came over public life, though Ballance, until his death in April, 1893, continued the prudent financial policy of his predecessor. The change was emphasised by the active intervention in politics of the trade unions. These bodies, impelled by a socialistic movement felt throughout Australia and New Zealand, decided in 1889 and 1890 to exert their influence in returning work

[1895-1902 A.D.]

men to parliament, and where this was impossible, to secure pledges from middle class candidates. This plan was first put into execution at the general election of 1890. The number of labour members thus elected to the general assembly was small, never more than six, and no independent labour party was formed. But the influence of labour in the progressive or, as it preferred to be called, liberal party, was considerable, and the legislative results noteworthy. These did not interfere with the general lines of Atkinson's strong and cautious finance, though the first of them was the abolition of his direct tax upon all property, personal as well as real, and the substitution therefor of a graduated tax upon unimproved land values, and an income-tax also graduated, though less elaborately. The income-tax is not levied on incomes drawn from land. In 1891 the tenure of members of the legislative council or nominated upper house, which had hitherto been for life, was altered to seven years. In 1892 a new form of land tenure was introduced, under which large areas of crown lands have since been leased for 999 years. In the same year a law was also passed authorising government to repurchase private land for closer settlement. At first the owner's consent to the sale was necessary, in 1894 power was taken to buy land compulsorily. So energetically was the law administered by John Mackenzie, minister of lands from 1891 to 1900, that in March, 1901, more than a million acres had been repurchased and subdivided, and over 6,000 souls were living thereon.

but

On Ballance's sudden death his place was taken by Richard Seddon, minister of mines in the Ballance cabinet, whose first task was to pass the Electoral Bill of his predecessor, which provided for granting the franchise to all adult women. This was adopted in September, 1893. In 1893 was also enacted the Alcoholic Liquor Control Act, greatly extending local option. In 1894 the Advances to Settlers Act authorised state loans on mortgage to farmers at 5 per cent., and about £2,500,000 has been lent in this way, causing a general decline in the rate of interest. The same year also saw the climax of a series of laws passed by the progressives affecting the relations of employers and workmen.

Meanwhile the keystone of the regulative system had been laid by the passing of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, under which disputes between employers and unions of workers are compulsorily settled by state tribunals; strikes and lock-outs are virtually prohibited in the case of organised work-people, and the conditions of employment in industries may be, and in many cases are, regulated by the awards of public boards and courts. The Arbitration Act, consolidated and extended in 1900, was soon in constant use. The Old Age Pensions Bill, which became law in November, 1898, by 1902 had become the means of conferring a free pension of £18 a year, or less, upon 12,300 men and women of 65 years of age and upwards whose private income was less than £1 a week. About 1,000 of these pensioners were Maori. The total cost to the colony was about £205,000 annually. In 1900 the English system of compensation to workmen for accidents suffered in their trade was adopted with some changes. In 1895 borrowing on a large scale was begun, and in seven years as many millions were added to the public debt. Before this the Ballance ministry had organised two new departments, those of labour and agriculture. The former supervises the labour laws, and endeavours to deal with unemployment; the latter has done much practical teaching and inspecting work, manages experimental farms, and is active in stamping out diseases of live stock, noxious weeds, and adulteration.

Blessed with a climate resembling that of England, New Zealand has been

[1895-1902 A.D.]

properly regarded as the future Britain of the southern hemisphere. The progress which the colony has made has both encouraged and apparently justified the prediction. Yet there are few subjects on which ordinary people betray greater ignorance than on the position of New Zealand. Sir Charles Dilkem has pointed out that, though "the future of the Pacific shores is inevitably brilliant, it is not New Zealand, the centre of the water hemisphere, which will occupy the position that England has taken in the Atlantic, but some country such as Japan or Vancouver, jutting out into the ocean from Asia or America, as England juts out from Europe." New Zealand, separated from Australia by more than a thousand miles of stormy ocean, can never prove to Australia what England has proved to Europe. Her own advantages of soil and climate may raise her to greatness. She will not rise to greatness as the emporium of Australian trade. i

The Maoris

The Maoris are one of the most important families of the brown Polynesian stock, being those who have developed its peculiar mental and physical characteristics to the highest

degree. This is due in part to their having to maintain themselves in a far less favourable climate than their fellows of the tropical islands. They became skilful hunters and fishers, and good agriculturists; and the amount of skill and energy necessitated in these pursuits in building houses and canoes, in making clothing, and in forming the various weapons

and implements which they required from stone, wood, or shell, furnished the needful stimulus for an active and healthy existence. War, too, as among all savage tribes, occupied them greatly, and the construction of forts and defences was added to the regular labours of every community.

The earliest European settlers thus found the Maoris in a state of civilisation not often to be met with among a barbarous and savage people. They lived together in villages, in huts well constructed of wood and reeds, ornamented with ingenious and fanciful carvings, and painted with gay-coloured arabesques. They protected their villages with ditches and palisades, and surrounded them with extensive plantations. They manufactured flax from a native plant, and from it wove mats and clothing, which they dyed with various kinds of bark and roots, and ornamented with the bright feathers of birds; and they made cloaks of great value from the dressed skins of their dogs. Their faces and some parts of their bodies were elaborately and elegantly tattooed, more largely in the men than the women, and the heads of the great chiefs were skilfully embalmed and preserved, either as trophies of the fight or in affectionate remembrance of the dead. Although they had no written language, they had numerous songs and proverbs, legends and traditions, transmitted orally from generation to generation. They knew every plant and bird and insect of the country they inhabited, and designated them by distinctive names; and they distinguished the various kinds of rock with