licenses; 94,500 for (2) reduction and 98,300 for (3) no license. In fifty-two districts the majority was for continuance; in four a majority, but not the necessary three-fifths majority, voted for prohibition; and in the remaining six no proposal was carried. In this poll, it must be remembered, half the electors were women.
Education in New Zealand, as in the other colonies, is free (that is to say, it is provided for by annual vote by Parliament out of the Consolidated Fund); secular; and compulsory. The system is administered by a Government Department, through Education Boards, which in turn are served by school committees in charge of the sub-divisions of the various school districts. Technical education is yet comparatively in its infancy; but the urgent necessity for some proper and complete system of technical education is generally recognised, and there is every probability that the disadvantage under which New Zealand is labouring in this respect will be removed in the course of a very few years. There is a University of New Zealand; affiliated colleges being situated at Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. There are also schools for the instruction of native children, and the usual industrial schools under Government control.
The people of New Zealand may be generally regarded as sober and law-abiding. Serious crimes are rare, while drunkenness, which used to be so frequent among the old-time hands, in the days of the gold rushes, when money was plentiful, is becoming every day less frequent, especially among the younger members of the community.
While the New-Zealand-born formed at the last census 63 per cent, of the whole population of the colony, they contribute not more that 25 per cent, of the prisoners received in gaol. Of the New-Zealand-born population, however, a large number are under 15 years of age, a
