I daresay its selling price might be rated at a higher figure than the value of the whole of New Zealand when we annexed it. Some of this great property is leased to white tenants; most of it is still retained by the native tribes. So long as they can continue to hold land on a considerable scale they will always have a chance, and may be sure of respectful treatment. At the worst they have had, and still have, three powerful allies. The Government of the colony may sometimes have erred against them, but in the main it has stood between them and the baser and greedier sort of whites. Maori children are educated free of cost. Most of them can now at least read and write English. Quite as useful is the work of the Department of Public Health. If I am not mistaken, it has been the main cause of the lowered Maori death-rate of the last ten years. Then the clergy of more than one Church have always been the Maori’s friends. Weak--too weak--as their hands have been, their voices have been raised again and again on the native’s behalf. Thirdly, the leaders of the temperance movement--one of the most powerful influences in our public life--have done all they can to save the Maori of the interior from the curse of drink. Allies, then, have been fighting for the Maori. Moreover, they are citizens with a vote at the polls and a voice in Parliament. Were one political party disposed to bully the natives, the other might be tempted to befriend them. But the better sort of white has no desire to bully. He may not admit that the brown man is socially his equal; but there is neither hatred nor loathing between the races. [Illustration: A PATAKA]