What New Zealand has done she will do. It is not yet seventy years since Captain Hobson, in presence of a few white folk, read his commission as Lieutenant-Governor of islands which were declared to be a mere extension of the boundaries of New South Wales. Wellington was not yet founded; Auckland was yet to be born; the Crown and the Company were for a time to divide the house against itself; the good will of the Maori was still to win and, since British sovereignty had not been declared, other claimants for possession had to be baffled. Yet with all these drawbacks and difficulties New Zealand was able not to struggle on, but to leap boldly from childhood into a youth which was fortunately vigorous, since in this phase she had not only to adjust a quarrel here and there, but to fight for her very existence. When the doors of the temple of Janus were at last shut after nearly thirty years of intermittent war, New Zealand set her feet firmly upon the high road of industrial progress and strode forward; nor has she since looked back. Is it likely that with the knowledge and experience she has gained she will do less than she was able to do when she had everything to learn? The idea is inconceivable. No. New Zealand accomplished much in her weakness, and in her strength she will accomplish more. If she has made good laws, she will make yet better and continue to legislate, as she has always done, not for the benefit of one class or section of the community, but for the common good. If she was able to hold her own against the strong, brave race she dispossessed and reinstated under better conditions, that "baptism of fire" shall avail to teach her how to arm against the jealousy of nations, older, it may be, than herself, and envious of her vineyard. Has she not already fought nobly for the Motherland, and shall she not know how to defend her own? More than once, indeed, she has been styled the "Britain of the South." What if Sir Joseph Ward's haughty assumption of her right to rule the South Pacific by virtue of geographical position be some day so fully recognised as truth that she shall acquire the right by the might of added moral superiority? If that day come, will New Zealand be happier? That waits to be seen. Yet she should in any case be happy, even though she mount not one step higher than that to which she has attained. Climate, soil, position and natural beauty, laws, social and commercial success, all unite to feed her hunger for happiness, and to satisfy. Save that Man must ever sigh for something which he has not, what more can she crave than that which God has already given her? Even now she may most fitly sing in a full-throated burst of rejoicing: Last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart-- On us, on us, th' unswerving season smiles, Who wonder, 'mid our fern, why men depart To seek the Happy Isles! _A ekore ana tatau e tutakina i te ao. A e kawea te kororia me te honore o nga Tauiwi ki reira._