Many regard the usual “preface” to a book as of questionable value, but custom may justify the continuance of its use.

I had long been a student of Anglo-Saxon history, but until I went to Australia in 1893, I had seen little hope for a realisation of the higher aspirations of the race.

Being an individualist, a democrat of democrats, I hold that the unit of society is its basic factor, and, while in those far-off lands, I saw a vague recognition of this truth, I also saw a mergence of democracy into socialism, that failed to satisfy my definitions.

I came to New Zealand in early 1903, on a lecture tour. I was well received; and, as I could never remain in a place over night without inquiring “who started the town,” and for what purpose, I began an inquiry into the situation.

I had heard and read that this colony was “submerged with socialism,” and “given over to the falsehood of extremes,” so I studied the literature, I mingled with the people, I attended the parliamentary sittings, and—took notes.

I found in the Press, a broad independence; in the people, a sturdy self-reliance; and in the statesmen, a feeling that they were the chosen servants of the public, by whom a ripened sentiment was to be clothed in the forms, and vitalised with the force, of law.

I found that what the uninformed derisively-called “Socialism” consisted chiefly in a series of co-operative measures, that seemed to promise, not “nerveless socialism,” but the most sturdy democracy civilization had ever produced.

In my reveries, I reviewed the old books; I re-trod the path of human progress; I re-measured the struggles and the achievements of the Anglo-Saxon race, and, comparing the environing conditions with the social forces now at work, I wrote.

Being a “stranger,” I had no interest, save in seeing my long-cherished theories on the way to realisation; having no acquaintances, I had no friends to flatter or enemies to criticise; and, having no favors to ask, I found it easy, in a free off-hand way, to note my impressions with impartiality.

I clothed my subject in a garb of fiction, that I might wrest from the reader the memories of the daily struggle with stubborn facts; I adopted a style, that I believed would be appreciated for its audacious novelty, and, though the eloquent flights of my chief character may seem picturesque, he but expresses the impressions, the feelings, and, further, the opinions of—

The Author.