SIR JULIUS VOGEL AND HIS POLICY.

Patea Mail, 21 June 1881, Page 4

SIR JULIUS VOGEL AND HIS POLICY.

A contemporary, after enumerating the sad condition of affairs in New Zealand to the close of 1869, the depression then greatly exceeding anything lately experienced, refers to the advent to power of Sir Julius Vogel, and says— The object he had in view was to make a nation of the colony. His policy was to force its growth by the stimnlons of a liberal expenditure upon immigration and public works. Let us see how he has succeeded. In 1868, the year before Sir Julius Vogel went into office, the population of New Zealand was 226,000; it is now 489,000, being an increase of 263,000, more than double the number. In 1869 the value of wool exported from the colony was £1,371,230, and in 1879, the latest statistics published, it was £3,126,439. The revenue in 1869 was £1,407,586, and in 1879, the year of late depression, £3,085,495. The imports in the year 1869 were valued at £4,976,126, which had increased to £8,374,588 in 1879; and the exports of produce had increased from £4,090,134 in 1869, to £5,563,455 in 1879. During those ten years the extent of land under cultivation had increased from 783,435 acres in 1869 to 3,982,866 acres in 1879 ; horses from 65,745 to 137,000 ; horned cattle from 312,835 to 578,430; and sheep from 8,413,579 to 13,069,338. In 1869 there were but 1,611 miles of telegraph wire, and in 1879 there were 3,512 miles; whilst previous to 1873 there was not a mile of railway in working order, in 1879 we find that 1171 miles were open for traffic, and 284 miles under construction. And all this was accomplished too without any visible addition to taxation, the revenue required being entirely from sources which the people did not feel. The rise in private property since 1869 has been enormous. This shows that the progress of the colony was not ephemeral, but a firm, solid, and enduring prosperity ; and which, but for Sir Julius Vogel’s brilliant genius, would not have taken place.