aculty, and
peculiarly persuasive manner rapidly brought him to the front in New
Zealand, in the face of personal and racial prejudice. As Treasurer in
1870 he proposed to borrow ten millions to be expended on railways,
roads, land purchase, immigration, and land settlement. With great
wisdom he suggested that the cost of the railways should be recouped
from a public estate created out of the crown lands through which they
might pass. With striking unwisdom the Provincialists defeated the
proposal. This selfish mistake enabled them to keep their land for
five years longer, but it spoilt the public works policy and converted
Vogel from the friend into the enemy of the Provinces.

His policy, _minus_ the essential part relating to land settlement,
was accepted and actively carried out. Millions were borrowed,
hundreds of miles of railways and roads were made, immigrants were
imported by the State or poured in of their own accord. Moreover, the
price of wool had risen, and wheat, too, sometimes yielded enormous
profits. Farmers were known who bought open land on the downs or
plains of the South Island at L2 an acre, and within twelve months
thereafter made a net profit of L5 an acre from their first wheat
crop. Labour-saving machinery from the United States came in to
embolden the growers of cereals; the export of wheat rose to millions
of bushels; and the droning hum of the steam threshing-machine and the
whir of the reaper-and-binder began to be heard in a thousand fields
from northern Canterbury to Southland. In the north McLean steadfastly
kept the peace, and the Colony bade fair to become rich by leaps and
bounds. The modern community has perhaps yet to be found which can
bear sudden prosperity coolly. New Zealand in the seventies certainly
did not. Good prices and the rapid opening up of the country raised
the value of land. Acute men quickly bought fertile or well-situated
blocks and sold them at an attractive profit. So men less acute began
to buy pieces less fertile and not so well situated. Pastoral tenants
pushed on the process of turning their leaseholds into freeholds. So
rapid did the buying become that it grew to be a feverish rush of men
all anxious to secure some land before it had all gone. Of course much
of this buying was speculative, and much was done with borrowed money.
The fever was hottest in Canterbury, where the Wakefield system of
free selection without limit as to area or condition as to occupa