m from being hard bargainers in business.

Compared with the races from which they have sprung, the Islanders
seem at once less conventional, less on their guard, and more
neighbourly and sympathetic in minor matters. In politics they are
fonder of change and experiment, more venturesome, more empirical,
law-abiding, but readier to make and alter laws. Hypercritical and
eaten up by local and personal jealousies in public life, they are
less loyal to parties and leaders, and less capable of permanent
organization for a variety of objects. They can band themselves
together to work for one reform, but for the higher and more complex
organization which seeks to obtain a general advance along the line of
progress by honourable co-operation and wise compromise, they show no
great aptitude. In politics their pride is that they are practical,
and, indeed, they are perhaps less ready than Europeans to deify
theories and catchwords. They are just as suspicious of wit and humour
in public men, and just as prone to mistake dulness for solidity. To
their credit may be set down a useful impatience of grime, gloom,
injustice, and public discomfort and bungling.

In social life they are more sober and more moral, yet more
indifferent to the opinion of any society or set. Not that they run
after mere eccentrics; they have a wholesome reserve of contempt for
such. British in their dislike to take advice, their humbler position
among the nations makes them more ready to study and learn from
foreign example. Though there is no division into two races as in
London, it would be absurd to pretend that social distinctions are
unknown. Each town with its rural district has its own "society." The
best that can be said for this institution is that it is not, as a
rule, dictated to by mere money. It is made up of people with incomes
mostly ranging from L500 to L2,000, with a sprinkling of bachelors of
even more modest means. Ladies and gentlemen too poor to entertain
others will nevertheless be asked everywhere if they have either
brightness or intellect, or have won creditable positions. You see
little social arrogance, no attempt at display. Picnics, garden
parties, and outings in boats and yachts are amongst the pleasanter
functions. A yacht in New Zealand means a cutter able to sail well,
but quite without any luxury in her fittings. The indoor gatherings
are smaller, more kindly, less formal, less glittering copies of
similar affairs in the