ord), followed slowly in the sheep farmer's wake. As late
as 1857 there were not fifty thousand acres of land under tillage
in the South Island. Even wheat at 10s. a bushel did not tempt much
capital into agriculture, though such were the prices of cereals that
in 1855 growers talked dismally of the low price of oats--4s. 6d. a
bushel. Labour, too, preferred in many cases, and not unnaturally, to
earn from 15s. to L1 a day at shearing or harvest-time to entering on
the early struggles of the cockatoo. Nevertheless, many workers did
save their money and go on the land, and many more would have done so
but for that curse of the pioneer working-man--drink.

The Colony's chief export now came to be wool. The wool-growers looked
upon their industry as the backbone of the country. So, at any rate,
for many years it was. But then the system of huge pastoral leases
meant the exclusion of population from the soil. A dozen shepherds and
labourers were enough for the largest run during most of the year.
Only when the sheep had to be mustered and dipped or shorn were a band
of wandering workmen called in. The work done, they tramped off to
undertake the next station, or to drink their wages at the nearest
public-house.

The endowed churches, the great pastoral leases, high-priced land (in
Canterbury), and the absence of Maori troubles, were the peculiar
features of the southern settlements of New Zealand. These new
communities, while adding greatly to the strength and value of the
Colony as a whole, brought their own special difficulties to its
rulers. With rare exceptions the settlers came from England and
Scotland, not from Australia, and were therefore quite unused to
despotic government. Having no Maori tribes in overwhelming force at
their doors, they saw no reason why they should not at once be trusted
with self-government. They therefore threw themselves heartily into
the agitation for a free constitution, which by this time was in
full swing in Wellington amongst the old settlers of the New Zealand
Company. Moreover, in this, for the first time in the history of the
Colony, the settlers were in accord with the Colonial Office. As
early as 1846, Earl Grey had sent out the draft of a constitution the
details of which need not detain us, inasmuch as it never came to
the birth. Sir George Grey refused to proclaim it, and succeeded in
postponing the coming-in of free institutions for six years For many
reasons he was probably