f the ports in Otago a steamer required new boilers, and
tenders were asked for. One was much lower than the others, and was
accepted. The name of the contractor appeared to be Macpherson, but
when sent for he turned out to be a Chinaman. He had been shrewd
enough to see that he had no chance of getting the work in his own
name. The total population of New Zealand is a little over 500,000,
and the public debt is about L37,000,000. This seems to show that
taxation must be high. A good deal of this large amount has, it is
true, been expended on railways, which all belong to the State, and
therefore the burden, though heavy, is not quite so heavy as it
appears at first sight. A friend at Auckland told me that New
Zealand is a paradise for working-men and for men with capital, who
can safely lend it at a high rate of interest. It is probably, too,
a capital place for domestic servants, who everywhere in the
Colonies seem to have pretty much their own way. I have also heard
that dentists are much in request. A lady, living near Auckland, had
to drive twelve miles, and then put her name down in a book three
weeks beforehand, to see the dentist! But for people who want to
find something to do, and have no money and no manual skill, the
prospect is not so smiling. For instance, I should not imagine that
teaching is a lucrative pursuit--private teaching that is to say,
for in public teaching the supply is in excess of the demand, and,
no doubt, rightly so, in a young community. New Zealand annually
spends on education L500,000, or L1 per head of the population, a
higher proportion than is spent by any other country. Formerly there
was the University of Otago and the University of New Zealand, but
the former has now ceased to have the power of conferring degrees,
and has been virtually amalgamated with the University of New
Zealand. This University has affiliated colleges at Auckland,
Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin, though the latter is still
styled the University of Otago. Each of these colleges has a staff
of highly-paid professors, with not much to do as yet in the strict
line of business, to judge by the number of students. But of course
the taste for advanced education has to be created before it can be
much in request. The salaries are large enough to tempt over some of
the best men from England, but a professor is expected to come out
as a public man much more here than at home. He is expected to
deliver a course of