It may perhaps prove of no little benefit to other communities that one self-governing country has been found which has been both able and willing to make trial of the principle which has been so strongly contended for by the author of "Progress and Poverty," and by those who have seen in his proposals a way of escape from many of the most serious difficulties that beset civilized communities at the present day. There is probably no other country which is to-day in so good a position to enter upon experimental legislation in this and other directions as the British colony of New Zealand. An island community separated by more than a thousand miles from its nearest neighbors, possessed of practically unlimited powers of self-government, and inhabited by a prosperous and intelligent population, substantially of unmixed British race, there is little either in their external relations or internal circumstances to prevent the colonists of New Zealand making many experiments in economic legislation. And during the last quarter of a century this fact has been fully realized by the people and their leaders. They have established a system of education which is at once more popular, free, and comprehensive than even the most complete systems in force in this country; they have placed local option in the control of the liquor traffic upon a broad and entirely popular basis, which has rendered New Zealand the most sober and law-abiding of communities, without introducing the doubtful principle of prohibition; they have thrown open the franchise unreservedly to all persons of full age and competent education, without regard to sex; and they have successfully introduced life insurance and trusteeship of estates by the government, as well as many others of the proposals which are generally comprehended under the term "State Socialism."