JOHN

See also:

• JOHN BALLANCE (1839-1893)

BALLANCE (1839-1893)  , New Zealand statesman, eldest son of Samuel Ballance, farmer, of Glenavy, Antrim, Ulster, was born on the 27th of March 1839 . He was educated at a national school, and, on leaving, was apprenticed to an ironmonger at Belfast . He became a clerk in a wholesale ironmonger's house in Birmingham, and migrated to New Zealand, intending to start in business there as a small jeweller . After settling at Wanganui, however, he took an opportunity, soon offered, of founding a newspaper, the Wanganui Herald, of which he became editor and remained chief owner for the rest of his life . During the fighting with the Maori chief Titokowaru, in '867, Ballance was concerned in the raising of a troop of volunteer horse, in which he received a ' commission . Of this he was deprived owing to the appearance in his newspaper of articles criticizing the management of the campaign . He had, however, behaved well in the field, and, in spite of his dismissal, was awarded the New Zealand war medal . He entered the colony's parliament in 1875 and, with one interval (1881-1884), sat there till his death . Ballance was a member of three ministries, that of Sir George Grey (1877-1879); that of Sir Robert Stout (1884-1887); and that of which he himself was premier (1891-1893) . His alliance with Grey ended with a notorious and very painful quarrel . In the Stout government his portfolios were those of lands and native affairs; but it was at the treasury that his prudent and successful finance made the chief mark . As native minister his policy was pacific and humane, and in his last years he contrived to adjust equitably certain long-standing difficulties relating to reserved lands on the west coast of the North Island .

He was resolutely opposed to the

sale of crown lands for cash, and advocated with effect their disposal by perpetual lease . His system of state-aided " village settlements," by which small farms were allotted to peasants holding by lease from the crown, and money lent them to make a beginning of building and cultivation, has been on the whole successful . To Ballance, also, was due the law reducing the life-tenure of legislative councillors to one of seven years . He was actively concerned in the advocacy of woman suffrage . But his best known achievement was the imposition, in 1891, of the progressive land-tax and progressive income-tax still levied in the colony . As premier he brought together the strong experimental and progressive party which long held office in New Zealand . In office he showed debating power, constructive skill and tact in managing men; but in 1893, at the height of his success and popularity, he died at Wellington of an intestinal disease after a severe surgical operation . Quiet and unassuming in manner, Ballance, who was a well-read man, always seemed fonder of his books and his chess-board than of public bustle; yet his loss to New Zealand political life was great . A statue was erected to his memory in front of Parliament House, Wellington . (W . P .