the mainstay of his party.  He carried through the abolition of the Provinces; he twice reorganized the finances; he was the protagonist of his side in their battles with Grey, Ballance, and Stout, and they could not easily have had a better.  This chief of Grey’s opponents was as unlike him in demeanour and disposition as one man can well be to another.  The two seemed to have nothing in common, except inexhaustible courage.  Grey had been trained in the theory of war, and any part he took therein was as leader.  Atkinson had picked up a practical knowledge of bush-fighting by exchanging hard knocks with the Maoris as a captain of militia.  Grey was all courtesy; the other almost oddly tart and abrupt.  Grey’s oratory consisted of high-pitched appeals to great principles, which were sometimes eloquent, sometimes empty.  His antagonist regarded Parliament as a place for the transaction of public business.  When he had anything to say, he said it plainly; when he had a statement to make, he made it, and straightway went on to the next matter.  His scorn of the graces of speech did not prevent him from being a punishing debater.  Theories he had—­of a quasi-socialistic kind.  But his life was passed in confronting hard facts.  Outside the House he was a working colonist; inside it a practical politician.  The only glory he sought was “the glory of going on,” and of helping the Colony to go on.  When, with tragic suddenness, he died in harness, in the Legislative Council in 1892, there was not alone sincere sorrow among the circle of friends and allies who knew his sterling character, but, inasmuch as however hard he had hit in debate it had never been below the belt, his opponents joined in regretting that so brave and faithful a public servant had not been spared to enjoy the rest he had well earned.

[Illustration:  SIR HARRY ATKINSON

By permission of Messrs. SAMPSON LOW.]

What kind of an assembly, it may be asked, is the New Zealand Parliament which Atkinson’s force of character enabled him to lead so long, and which has borne undivided rule over the Colony since 1876?  The best answer can be found in the story of the Colony, for the General Assembly, at all events, has never been a faineant ruler.  It has done wrong as well as right, but it has always done something.  After the various false starts before referred to, it has, since getting fairly to work in 1856, completed forty-three years of talk, toil, legislation and obstruction.  It may fairly be claimed that its life has been interesting, laborious and not dishonourable.  It has exactly doubled in size since Governor Wynyard’s day.  Old settlers say that it has not doubled in ability.  But old settlers, with all their virtues, are incorrigible laudatores temporis acti.  The industry of the members, the difficulties they had to cope with in the last generation, and the number and variety and novelty of the questions they have essayed to solve in this, are undoubted.  Their work must, of course, be tested by time.  Much of it has already borne good fruit, and any that does manifest harm is not likely to cumber the earth long.  If laws in colonies are more quickly passed, they are also more easy to amend than in older countries.