So New Zealand, having resisted the blandishments of her big neighbour, and refused to allow her identity to be submerged in the Commonwealth of Australia, craved a gift from the King, who gave her what she craved,--a designation which should convince the world that she had climbed from the ruck of the colonies into a position of distinction. Few would in any case have denied this; but the change of designation made, as was intended, New Zealand's improved status apparent to all. The gift of this new designation was a public recognition of New Zealand's right to take her place on equal terms among the great self-governing colonies, and in asking for such recognition New Zealand did wisely. Great names were in the air in the South Sea, and for New Zealand not to have chosen one, now that she had elected to stand alone, would have been deliberately to hide her light under the bushel of self-effacement, and quite unnecessarily to seek a lower place than that which Australia had assumed. So, King Edward having granted her petition, His Excellency the Governor, Lord Plunket, at eleven o'clock on Thursday morning the 26th of September, 1907, read in public His Majesty's Proclamation, and New Zealand ceased to be a Colony and became a Dominion. * * * * * And what of New Zealand's future? The only possible answer to that at present is in the words quoted at the head of this section. God in His wisdom hides the future from our eyes, but it is allowable to construe the future from the past; it is permissible to infer what will be from what has been, and it is only reasonable to admit that none who know New Zealand's past ought to have any well-grounded fears for her future. What she has done she will do again yet more perfectly: what she has not done, but has a mind to do, she will accomplish. Less than seventy years ago New Zealand, like her own peculiar birds, the _moa_ and the _kiwi_, was unable to fly; but, like them, she could and did run very fast. Then, as in the course of years--and few enough of them--her wings grew, she did not hesitate, but accomplished flight after flight, each more daring than the last, until her pinions, like those of the albatross of her own seas, now bear her untired whithersoever she will. "_Ab actu ad posse valet illatio!_" What New Zealand has done she will do. Even if she never attain to the position which Sir Joseph Ward seems to consider should be hers, and become the actual as well as the natural centre for the government of the South Pacific, she can still soar as high in her proud independence, and perhaps higher, if she ever strive to attain to Sir Joseph Ward's ideal, "a true Dominion in the head and heart of her own people."