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178 in vivid colours. They are well to do, having plenty of land reserved to them by Government, intelligent, well-mannered people, many of them able to talk English. I heard a good story of one of the Maori representatives in the Upper House, which illustrates the difficulty English visitors may have in estimating correctly the character of a people lately emerged from a state of barbarism. A new steamer arrived in Wellington for the first time, attracting many visitors, and amongst them this Maori, a fine figure of a man, dressed in a suit of English tweeds, with the bearing of a native gentleman. A couple of English passengers on board, young fellows, went up to him, and invited him to come below and have a drink. He looked them calmly up and down, and, in perfect English, replied: "Thank you, gentlemen, I never drink with strangers,—like yourselves." Then he turned away, and left them to revise their ideas of a Maori Chief.

Six Bishops, with clerical and lay members from each diocese, met in Synod. Two important events had occurred since the last Synod: Bishop Patteson's death in the Island of Santa Cruz, and the consecration of a Bishop for the newly formed see of Dunedin, hitherto part of the diocese of Christchurch. Many subjects of practical importance came under discussion, but I will limit myself to one, the sequel of that constitutional question debated in Synod at Auckland six years ago, and renewed in 1871, viz.: the necessity of self-government in the Church in New Zealand, and her legal right to exercise it. On each occasion it fell to my lot to lead the discussion, of which I give you a summary.

By the terms of our Church Constitution, agreed to by a Convention of Church people in 1857, revised