dose of taxation-cum-retrenchment. They
cut down the salaries of the Governor and the ministers, and the size
and pay of the elected chamber. They made efforts, more equitable this
time, to reduce the cost of the public departments. They stiffened
the property-tax, and for the second time raised the Customs Duties,
giving them a distinctly Protectionist complexion. The broad result
was the achievement of financial equilibrium. For ten years there have
been no deficits in New Zealand. Apart from retrenchment, Atkinson had
to rely upon the Opposition in forcing his financial measures through
against the Free Traders amongst his own following. This strained his
party. Moreover, in forming his cabinet in 1887 he had not picked some
of his colleagues well. In particular, the absence of Mr. Rolleston's
experience and knowledge from the House and the government weakened
him. Mr. Rolleston has his limitations, and his friends did the enemy
a service when, after his return to public life in 1891, they tried to
make a guerilla chief out of a scrupulous administrator. But he was
a capable and not illiberal minister of lands, and his value at that
post to his party may be gauged by what they suffered when they had
to do without him. The lands administration of the Atkinson cabinet
became unpopular, and the discontent therewith found a forcible
exponent in an Otago farmer, Mr. John McKenzie, a gigantic Gael, in
grim earnest in the cause of close settlement, and whose plain-spoken
exposures of monopoly and "dummyism" not only woke up the Radicals,
but went home to the smaller settlers far and wide. It may be that
these things hastened the breaking-down of Sir Harry Atkinson's health
in 1890. At any rate fail it did, unhappily. His colleague, Sir
Frederick Whitaker, was ageing palpably. Nor did Sir John Hall's
health allow him to take office.

[Illustration: THE HON. JOHN MACKENZIE

_By permission of_ Messrs. SAMPSON LOW]

With their _tres Magi_ thus disabled, the Conservative party began to
lose ground. More than one cause, no doubt, explains how it was that
up to 1891 the Liberals hardly ever had a command of Parliament equal
to their hold upon the country. But the abilities of the three men
just named had, I believe, a great share in holding them in check. Sir
John Hall's devotion to work, grasp of detail, and shrewd judgment
were proverbial. He was the most businesslike critic of a bill in
committee the House of Representatives