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New Zealand is well advanced in its system of government; and as the smallness of the population and other characteristics of colonial life necessarily bring the people into constant intercourse with their rulers and representatives, the Colony is exceptionally situated for taking the van in all matters of political reform. Not only are the legislators mixed up with the people, but they are the people. Only a few of them can afford to give up all their time to legislating. Even some of the Ministers are actively engaged in mercantile pursuits for a small portion of the year; and several members of the Legislative Council have been specially selected from the ranks of labour, and return to their callings during the recess. In a colony where a man is a fledgling in a mutual improvement society one year and a member of Parliament the next, the legislation must accord more closely with the ideas of the people than that of older countries, where those in whose interests reforms are most needed seldom see and never converse with a representative of the people. In form and principle the machinery of government is much the same as that of the parent land, making due allowance for the difference in scale.