In the Ministry.

He was offered a portfolio, Education, when he had been only three years in Parliament. He held this for a few months, then became Colonial Treasurer; but Grey was a difficult man to get on with, as most of his colleagues discovered sooner or later, and Ballance resigned after eighteen months' experience of ministerial life. That was in the middle of 1879. (It was in that year that Richard John Seddon first entered the House.) In 1884 Ballance was in the Cabinet room again, this time as Minister for Native Affairs in the Stout-Vogel Government; to this responsibility was added the administration of Defence and Lands. Ministries rose and fell rapidly in that era of New Zealand's political life. It was in 1891 that the great opportunity came. John Ballance was called upon, to form a Ministry. He was Premier for only two years before death cut short his work and plans; but short as it was that period of extraordinary legislative vigour was long enough to enable Ballance and his party to bring in and pass into law an instalment of the great Liberal policy measures which attracted world wide attention to New Zealand.