unded by Church
associations; but the Colony's education system has long been purely
secular. From the first those who governed the Islands laboured
earnestly to preserve and benefit the native race, and on the whole
the treatment extended to them has been just and often generous--yet
the wars with them were long, obstinate, and mischievous beyond
the common. The pioneer colonists looked upon New Zealand as an
agricultural country, but its main industries have turned out to be
grazing and mining. From the character of its original settlers it was
expected to be the most conservative of the colonies; it is just now
ranked as the most democratic. Not only by its founders, but for many
years afterwards, Irish were avowedly or tacitly excluded from the
immigrants sent to it. Now, however, at least one person in eight in
the Colony is of that race.

It would be easy to expand this list into an essay on the vanity
of human wishes. It would not be hard to add thereto a formidable
catalogue of serious mistakes made both in England and New Zealand by
those responsible for the Colony's affairs--mistakes, some of which,
at least, seem now to argue an almost inconceivable lack of knowledge
and foresight. So constantly have the anticipations of its officials
and settlers been reversed in the story of New Zealand that it becomes
none too easy to trace any thread of guiding wisdom or consistent
purpose therein. The broad result, however, has been a fine and
vigorous colony. Some will see in its record of early struggles,
difficulties and mistakes endured, paid for and surmounted, a signal
instance of the overruling care of Providence. To the cynic the tale
must be merely a minor portion of the "supreme ironic procession with
laughter of gods in the background." To the writer it seems, at least,
to give a very notable proof of the collective ability of a colonizing
race to overcome obstacles and repair blunders. The Colony of New
Zealand is not a monument of the genius of any one man or group of
men. It is the outcome of the vitality and industry of a people
obstinate but resourceful, selfish but honest, often ill-informed and
wrong, but with the saving virtue of an ability to learn from their
own mistakes.

From one standpoint the story of New Zealand ought not to take long to
tell. It stretches over less time than that of almost any land with
any pretensions to size, beauty, or interest. New Zealand was only
discovered by European