What they see is the Government of their Colony, which they had been accustomed to control, in the hands of men whose characters they despise or detest, and the House of Representatives, which was once the most dignified and distinguished assembly in the Colonies, now become (in their circle at any rate) a byword of reproach—­full of men who vote themselves for a three months’ session salaries which many of them would be unable to earn in any other walk of life.”

Despite the Socialistic tendency of the Acts thus denounced, it must not be thought that there is any strong party of deliberate State Socialists in the Colony at all corresponding to the following of Bebel and Liebknecht in Germany, or even the Independent Labour Party in England.  There is not.  The reforms and experiments which show themselves so many in the later chapters of the story of New Zealand have in all cases been examined and taken on their merits, and not otherwise.  They are the outcome of a belief which, though much more boldly trusted and acted upon by the Progressives than by the Conservatives, is not now the monopoly of one political party.  The leaders of the rival parties, the robust Mr. Seddon and the kindly Captain Russell, both admit one main principle.  It is that a young democratic country, still almost free from extremes of wealth and poverty, from class hatreds and fears and the barriers these create, supplies an unequalled field for safe and rational experiment in the hope of preventing and shutting out some of the worst social evils and miseries which afflict great nations alike in the old world and the new.

To sum up the experiments themselves, it may be said that the Colony has now reached the stage when the State, without being in any way a monopolist, is a large and active competitor in many fields of industry.  Where it does not compete it often regulates.  This very competition must of course expose it to the most severe tests and trials.  Further progress will chiefly depend on the measure of success with which it stands these, and on the consequent willingness or unwillingness of public opinion to make trial of further novelties.

Chapter XXIII

THE NEW ZEALANDERS

“No hungry generations tread thee down.”

Some 785,000 whites, browns, and yellows are now living in New Zealand.  Of these the browns are made up of about 37,000 Maoris and 5,800 half-castes.  The Maoris seem slowly decreasing, the half-castes increasing rather rapidly. 315,000 sheep, 30,000 cattle, many horses, and much land, a little of which they cultivate, some of which they let, support them comfortably enough.  The yellows, some 3,500 Chinese, are a true alien element.  They do not marry—­78 European and 14 Chinese wives are all they have, at any rate in the Colony.  They are not met in social intercourse or industrial partnership by any class of colonists, but work apart as gold-diggers, market-gardeners,