HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 



1027 



works and other purposes. His policy was almost unanimously adopted, and the colony 

 entered upon its career of public works and immigration. At the end of the year 1870, 

 New Zealand contained a European population of two hundred and forty-eight thousand, 

 having increased threefold in number since the commencement of the Taranaki War in 

 1860. The revenue at that elate, which was four hundred and sixty-four thousand pounds, 

 had expanded in the next ten years to one million three hundred and eighty-four thou- 

 sand. Exports and imports had a corresponding increment, and land under cultivation, 

 sheep, and horned cattle, had increased 

 sevenfold. Erom the date of the ac- 

 ceptance by the Legislature of Mr. 

 Vogel's proposals, in August, 1870, to 

 October, 1877, the Administration of 

 the country continued in the hands of 

 the same persons, though some seven 

 different combinations gave cause for 

 a corresponding change in the nomen- 

 clature of Ministries. The public debt, 

 which in 1870 amounted to seven 

 million eight hundred and forty thou- 

 sand pounds, or thirty-one pounds per 

 European inhabitant, in 1877 nac ^ risen 



SIR WILLIAM JERVOIS. 



to twenty million seven hundred thou- 

 sand pounds, or fifty pounds per 

 European inhabitant; but the borrowed 

 money had, among other things, enabled 

 the Government to construct over a 

 thousand miles of railway. Meanwhile, 

 Sir James Fergusson and the Marquis 

 of Normanby had respectively succeeded Sir George Bowen as Governors, and the 

 provinces, as institutions of the colony, had been abolished. 



In 1875, Sir George Grey entered the arena of colonial politics, and in October, 

 1877, succeeded in ousting an Administration led by Major Atkinson, that had earned 

 for itself the name of " Continuous." He formed a Ministry composed mainly of young 

 men of great ability, and succeeded in holding office for two years. As a noteworthy 

 ripple on the stream of public life, it may be mentioned that Sir George Grey had as 

 a colleague a Mr. John Sheehan, who was the first native of European parentage elected 

 as a representative of the people to the Parliament of New Zealand. His capacity and 

 aptitude for public business afforded evidence of the swiftness of the current of events, 

 the youth of the colony being now qualified not only to take part in its councils but 

 to assist in controlling the public business and policy of the country. 



The Government having confiscated in 1864 more land than the settlers could utilize, 

 a portion of the alienated territory remained unoccupied, and in the province of Taranaki 

 fell into the possession of the original owners, who built houses, made cultivations, and 

 exercised other rights of ownership thereon. A promise had also been given to the Maori 



