ve affairs; but it was at the
treasury that his prudent and successful finance made the chief mark. As
native minister his policy was pacific and humane, and in his last years he
contrived to adjust equitably certain long-standing difficulties relating
to reserved lands on the west coast of the North Island. He was resolutely
opposed to the sale of crown lands for cash, and advocated with effect
their disposal by perpetual lease. His system of state-aided "village
settlements," by which small farms were allotted to peasants holding by
lease from the crown, and money lent them to make a beginning of building
and cultivation, has been on the whole successful. To Ballance, also, was
due the law reducing the life-tenure of legislative councillors [v.03
p.0268] to one of seven years. He was actively concerned in the advocacy of
woman suffrage. But his best known achievement was the imposition, in 1891,
of the progressive land-tax and progressive income-tax still levied in the
colony. As premier he brought together the strong experimental and
progressive party which long held office in New Zealand. In office he
showed debating power, constructive skill and tact in managing men; but in
1893, at the height of his success and popularity, he died at Wellington of
an intestinal disease after a severe surgical operation. Quiet and
unassuming in manner, Ballance, who was a well-read man, always seemed
fonder of his books and his chessboard than of public bustle; yet his loss
to New Zealand political life was great. A statue was erected to his memory
in front of Parliament House, Wellington.

(W. P. R.)

BALLANCHE, PIERRE SIMON (1776-1847), French philosopher of the theocratic
school, was born at Lyons. Naturally delicate and highly-strung, he was
profoundly stirred by the horrors of the siege of Lyons. His sensitiveness
received a second blow in an unsuccessful love affair, which, however, he
bore with fortitude. He devoted himself to an examination of the nature of
society and his work brought him into connexion with the literary circle of
Chateaubriand and Madame Recamier. His great work is the _Palingenesie_,
which is divided into three parts, _L'orphee_, _La formule_, _La ville des
expiations_. The first deals with the prehistoric period of the world,
before the rise of religion; the second was to be an endeavour to deduce a
universal law from known historical facts; the third to sketch the ultimate
state of perfection to which