ersity professors, and preachers; the leading barrister
is a Shetlander. Two or three, and two or three only, of the
first-class positions in the civil service are filled by natives. On
the whole, Young New Zealand is, as yet, better known by collective
usefulness than by individual distinction.

The grazing of sheep and cattle, dairying, agriculture, and mining for
coal and gold, are the chief occupations. 47,000 holdings are under
cultivation. The manufactures grow steadily, and already employ 40,000
hands. A few figures will give some notion of the industrial and
commercial position. The number of the sheep is a little under
20,000,000; of cattle, 1,150,000; of horses, 250,000. The output of
the factories and workshops is between L10,000,000 and L11,000,000
sterling a year; the output of gold, about L1,000,000; that of coal,
about 900,000 tons. The export of wool is valued at L4,250,000. Among
the exports for 1897 were: 2,700,000 frozen sheep and lambs; 66,000
cwt. cheese, and 71,000 cwt butter; L433,000 worth of kauri gum;
L427,000 worth of grain. The exports and imports of the Colony for
the year 1897 were a little over L10,000,000 and L8,000,000 sterling
respectively. It would appear that, taking a series of years, about
three-quarters of the Colony's trade has been with the mother-country,
and nearly all the remainder with other parts of the Empire. The
public debt is about L44,000,000; the revenue, L5,000,000. The State
owns 2,061 miles of railway.

[Illustration: A RURAL STATE SCHOOL

Photo by BEATTIE & SANDERSON, Auckland.]

Socially the colonists are what might be expected from their
environment. Without an aristocracy, without anything that can be
called a plutocracy, without a solitary millionaire, New Zealand is
also virtually without that hopeless thing, the hereditary pauper
and begetter of paupers. It may be doubted whether she has a dozen
citizens with more than L10,000 a year apiece. On the other hand, the
average of wealth and income is among the highest in the world.

Education is universal. The lectures of the professors of the State
University--which is an examining body, with five affiliated colleges
in five different towns--are well attended by students of both sexes.
The examiners are English; the degrees may be taken by either sex
indifferently. Not two per cent. of the Colony's children go to the
secondary schools, though they are good and cheap. It is her primary
education that is the