osen by Maoris, and who must themselves be Maoris or
half-castes. Two of their chiefs were at the same time called to the
Legislative Council.

In 1853, the year of the land regulations, the Governor was entrusted
with the task of proclaiming the constitution. He took the rather
curious course of bringing the Provincial Councils into existence, and
leaving the summoning of the central Parliament to his successor. He
left the Colony in December of the same year, praised and regretted
by the Maoris, regarded by the settlers with mixed feelings.
Nevertheless, it would not be easy now to find any one who would
refuse a very high meed of praise to Governor Grey's first
administration. It was not merely that he found the Colony on the
brink of ruin, and left it in a state of prosperity and progress. Able
subalterns, a rise in prices, the development of some new industry,
might have brought about the improvement. Such causes have often made
reputation for colonial rulers and statesmen. But in Grey's case no
impartial student can fail to see that to a considerable extent the
change for the better was due to him. Moreover, he not only grappled
with the difficulties of his time, but with both foresight and
power of imagination built for the future, and--with one marked
exception--laid foundations deep and well.

If the Colonial Office did not see its way to retain Grey in the
Colony until his constitution had been put into full working order,
it should, at least, have seen that he was replaced by a capable
official. This was not done. His successor did not arrive for two
years, and meanwhile the Vice-regal office devolved upon Colonel
Wynyard, a good-natured soldier, unfitted for the position. The first
Parliament of New Zealand was summoned, and met at Auckland on the
Queen's birthday in 1854. Many, perhaps most, of its members were
well-educated men of character and capacity. The presence of Gibbon
Wakefield, now himself become a colonist, added to the interest of
the scene. At last, those who had been agitating so long for
self-government had the boon apparently within their grasp. In their
eyes it was a great occasion--the true commencement of national life
in the Colony. The irony of fate, or the perversity of man, turned it
into a curious anticlimax. The Parliament, indeed, duly assembled. But
it dispersed after weeks of ineffectual wrangling and intrigue, amid
scenes which were discreditable and are still ridiculous. Tho