mining factors of party divisions. It must be obvious that, in a country without an aristocracy or House of Peers, without a State Church or denominational school system, without a standing army, a navy, a foreign policy, or a millionaire class, politics must concern themselves chiefly with economic questions, matters of administration, and reforms aiming at some improvement of public morals. Under this last-named head a powerful cross-issue in the shape of the temperance movement has in the last decade cut across class and ordinary party lines. Started by the petite bourgeoisie, and heavily recruited from the work-people and smaller farmers, the temperance or prohibition agitation is the strongest united force at work in New Zealand politics to-day. Its strength, together with the devoted attachment of the people to their national system of education, and the practical daily interest they take in their schools, go to negative the suggestion that the New Zealander is a mere gloss materialist. Artistic he is not, ascetic he is not, but moral ideals and religious speculation have their share of attention. Above all, the colonist is a reader, and not of novels only. It is often his ambition to be a writer. The books written in or about the islands would fill many shelves. A severe critic might say that only two of them—Maning's 'Old New Zealand' and Domett's 'Ranolf and Amohia'—show unquestionable distinction. There has been, however, a fair amount of meritorious writing done by others, and the newspapers, though they make public life disagreeable enough, are, on the whole, a credit to the country.
As yet the little nascent island race has done nothing in art, and hardly anything in literature. In practical statesmanship its name is linked with some bold experiments, rumours of which have gone abroad and which are much disliked by the educated and wealthy classes everywhere. So far its contribution to the world's intellectual stock has been nought. It seems, therefore, a daring, almost absurd, suggestion to hint
