446 AUSTEALASIA. 



Nevertheless, financial difficulties and conflicts with the government prevented 

 the complete realisation of this social scheme. The projects of other companies 

 that had secured concessions of extensive domains in the southern island proved 

 more successful. The province of Canterbury, so named by zealous Anglicans 

 from the primatial see of England, was at once constituted under the direct spiritual 

 and partly temporal control of the Anglican clergy, and was divided into parishes 

 and " flocks." On the other hand the Scotch immigrants of the Free Kirk, who 

 had settled in the southern part of the same island, and who had given to their 

 capital the Gaelic name of Dunedin, synonymous of Edinburgh, also possessed their 

 religious constitution intended to maintain them in a distinct community. But 

 the discoveries which suddenly attracted thousands of gold-hunters to this rigid 

 Presbyterian settlement soon broke up the narrow organisation of the young 

 colonial churches, and New Zealand no longer differs from the other British 

 colonies in its social religious constitution. Sects of all denominations are now as 

 numerous as elsewhere. The majority, however, are still members of the Anglican 

 Church. 



From the very first agriculture has been the chief industry of the colony. Since 

 the first sale of public lands down to the end of March, 1888, planters and others 

 had acquired an extent of 11,500,000 acres at a total cost of £13,000,000, to a very 

 large extent secured by a limited number of capitalists. Seven proprietors possess 

 each over 100,000 acres, while two hundred and fifty-nine own domains each 

 exceeding 10,000 acres. The regions still available for tillage are at least as 

 extensive as those alread}^ disposed of ; but the uplands, especially in South Island, 

 can scarcely be utilised except for their forests and pasturage. North Island is 

 the more fertile of the two, thanks to its decomposed volcanic tuffas, and it also 

 enjoys a milder climate ; hence in former times the Maori were concentrated 

 chiefly in this region, which however is the smaller in extent ; and here also the 

 settlers have a far less extent of land at their disposal. 



The 33,400 farms which existed in 1887 in the archipelago were all under pre- 

 cisely the same crops as those of Great Britain, the only perceptible difference being 

 a few fruit trees in North Island, where the fruits of Italy ripen side by side with 

 those of England. New Zealand is less favourably placed than Australia for stock- 

 breeding ; nevertheless, the livestock is already considerable, and wool is now exported 

 to the annual value of over £3,000,000. Meat-preserving is also a flourishing local 

 industry, and New Zealand has recently turned its attention to the preparation of 

 butter for the home market. 



Both islands abound in minerals, although the gold mines alone have hitherto 

 been actively worked ; in 1887 nearly twelve thousand miners, of whom one-fourth 

 were Chinese, were engaged in extracting the precious metal from the quartz 

 rocks and auriferous sands. Between 1857, when the gold-fields were discovered, 

 and 1887 the total yield was over £44,000,000, and in the single year 1886, the 

 produce was no less than £28,000,000. The decrease in the exportation of gold 

 will probably be followed by greater activity in the coal mines, which already em- 

 ploy over a thousand hands, with a total yearly output of more than 500,000 



