and widespread belief that without duties the variety of industries needful to make a civilized and prosperous nation could not be attained in young countries where nascent enterprises are almost certain to be undercut and undersold by the giant capitalists and cheaper labour of the old world. Such a belief may conceivably be an economic mistake, but those who hold it need not be thought mere directors or tools of selfish and corrupt rings. The Colony will not adopt Free Trade unless a change comes over the public mind, of which there is yet no sign; but it is not likely to go further on the road towards McKinleyism. Its protection, such as it is, was the outcome of compromises, stands frankly as a compromise, and is likely for the present to remain as that. So long as the Provinces lasted the General Assembly had little or nothing to do with land laws. When, after abolition, the management of the public estate came into the hands of the central authority, the regulations affecting it were a bewildering host. Some fifty-four statutes and ordinances had to be repealed. Nor could uniformity be substituted at once, inasmuch as land was occupied under a dozen different systems in as many different provincial districts. Only very gradually could these be assimilated, and it was not until the year 1892 that one land act could be said to contain the law on the subject, and to be equally applicable to all New Zealand. In the meantime the statute-books of 1877, 1878, 1883, 1885 and 1887 bore elaborate evidence of the complexity of the agrarian question, and the importance attached to it. On it more than on any other difference party divisions were based. Over it feelings were stirred up which were not merely personal, local, or sectional. It became, and over an average of years remained, the matter of chief moment in the Colony's politics. Finance, liquor reform, labour acts, franchise extension may take first place in this or that session, but the land question, in one or other of its branches, is always second. The discussions on it roused an enduring interest in Parliament given to no other subject. The Minister of Lands ranks with the Premier and the Treasurer as one of the leaders in every Cabinet. Well may he do so. Many millions of acres and many thousands of tenants are comprised in the Crown leases alone. Outside these come the constant land sales, the purchases from the Maori tribes, and in recent years the buying back of estates from private owners, and the settlement thereof. These form most, though not all, of the business of the Minister of Lands, his officers, and the administrative district boards attached to his department. If there were no land question in New Zealand, there might be no Liberal Party. It was the transfer of the land from the Provinces to the central Parliament in 1876 which chiefly helped Grey and his lieutenants to get together a democratic following. [Illustration: A NEW ZEALAND SETTLER'S HOME Photo by WINCKLEMAN]