during that period. Mr. Fox, the most
impulsive, pugnacious, and controversial of politicians, usually
headed the peace party; Sir Edward Stafford, much more easy going in
ordinary politics, was usually identified with those who held that
peace could only be secured by successful war.

The other principal moving cause in public affairs between 1856 and
1876 was the Provincial system. That had had much to do with the
confusion of the sessions of 1854 and 1856. Then and afterwards
members were not so much New Zealanders, or Liberals, or
Conservatives, as they were Aucklanders, or men of Otago, or some
other Province. The hot vigorous local life which Provincial
institutions intensified was in itself an admirable thing. But it
engendered a mild edition of the feelings which set Greek States and
Italian cities at each others' throats. From the first many colonists
were convinced that Provincialism was unnatural and must go. But for
twenty years the friends of the Provinces were usually ready to
forego quarrelling with each other when the Centralists in Parliament
threatened the Councils. There were able men in the Colony who devoted
their energies by preference to Provincial politics. Such was Dr.
Featherston, who was for eighteen years the trusted superintendent of
Wellington, and who, paternally despotic there, watched and influenced
Parliament, and was ever vigilant on the Provinces' behalf.

In truth the Provinces had been charged with important functions. The
management and sale of Crown lands, education, police, immigration,
laws relating to live-stock and timber, harbours, the making of roads
and bridges--almost the entire work of colonization--came within their
scope. By a "compact" arrived at in the session of 1856 each Province
was in effect given the entire control of its public lands--an immense
advantage to those of the South Island, where these were neither
forest-covered nor in Maori hands. On the other hand, it would have
been grossly unfair to confiscate them for general purposes. The
Wakefield system in Canterbury would have been unbearable had the
L2 paid by the settlers for each acre been sent away to be spent
elsewhere. The Wakefield price was a local tax, charged and submitted
to to get a revenue to develop the lands for which it was paid. As
it was, half a crown an acre was handed over by each Province to the
Central Treasury as a contribution for national purposes. Loans were
also raised by Parlia