n a thousand miles from its nearest neighbors,
possessed of practically unlimited powers of self-government, and
inhabited by a prosperous and intelligent population, substantially
of unmixed British race, there is little either in their external
relations or internal circumstances to prevent the colonists of New
Zealand making many experiments in economic legislation. And during
the last quarter of a century this fact has been fully realized by the
people and their leaders. They have established a system of education
which is at once more popular, free, and comprehensive than even the
most complete systems in force in this country; they have placed local
option in the control of the liquor traffic upon a broad and entirely
popular basis, which has rendered New Zealand the most sober and
law-abiding of communities, without introducing the doubtful principle
of prohibition; they have thrown open the franchise unreservedly to
all persons of full age and competent education, without regard to
sex; and they have successfully introduced life insurance and
trusteeship of estates by the government, as well as many others of
the proposals which are generally comprehended under the term "State
Socialism."

It is by no means surprising that a community which has made so many
experiments in legislation should have turned its attention to the
question which may perhaps be looked upon as most specially inviting
attention from social reformers in a new country. The circumstances of
New Zealand in relation to the land were from the first exceptional.
In every other country occupied by savage tribes in modern times which
has been taken possession of for purposes of settlement by people of
European race, the ownership of the soil has been assumed, as a matter
of course, to vest not in the aboriginal natives, but in the intruding
settlers. Spain, England, France, Holland, Germany, and the United
States have one after the other adopted this convenient theory of
international morality, and entered with a cool assumption of right
upon the inheritance of their comparatively helpless predecessors. In
New Zealand the conditions of the country and its inhabitants rendered
this popular system wholly inapplicable. The area of the country was
limited, to an extent which rendered it impossible to adopt the
fiction which has lain at the root of nearly all the forcible
confiscation of the territory of native tribes, namely, that they
could make no p