shall grudge him this modest satisfaction? As Mr. Gladstone once said of Peel, "I should not say that he was egotistical, but I should say that his own personality occupied no inconsiderable area in his mental vision." There are worse men and weaker kings than Tongia of Niué-Fekai.
The future of this interesting little people depends upon the man chosen by the New Zealand Government to be the first Resident. A wise, sympathetic, and patient man, endowed with a sense of humour, not over-sensitive about his dignity, and content to gain his point by suasion rather than pressure, will be able to do what he pleases with the people; a pompous or choleric person will have the island about his ears before he has been there a month. New Zealand has not always been wise in her choice of residents for her dependencies, though no colony has better material to choose from. During the next few years she will be on her trial: if she governs her new dependencies wisely, keeping out the liquor traffic, and fostering the prosperity and contentment of her native fellow-subjects, she may prove herself fit to be entrusted with the government of a great South Sea confederation; but if she uses her new dependencies merely as a means of rehabilitating her declining
