Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/57

Rh monarchy, it likes kingly honors, and it has its knighted citizens. But it cares not for all the glittering bestowals of a king. With all its love for "Home,"—in some measure due to the extensive trade relations between itself and the mother country, which buys about eighty per cent of the Dominion's exports,—New Zealand desires no hereditary titles on which to found a permanent aristocracy. It prefers a "Digger Dick" or a "Plain Bill" to a baronet. Despite their official obligations to a kingdom, the New Zealanders govern themselves. On questions affecting Great Britain's international and intercolonial interests, imperial authorities are consulted, but otherwise New Zealand is free to legislate and govern as it chooses. In national issues both men and women have a voice. Even the Maoris enjoy universal suffrage and elect members of their own race to Parliament, and they also have their own representatives in the Legislative and Executive Councils. At first—excepting during the year the colony was a dependency of New South Wales—the government of New Zealand was vested entirely in a Governor, who was answerable only to the Crown. In 1852, the British Parliament granted the colony a General Assembly, comprising a Legislative Council, nominated by the