The prospects of Queensland had seldom been brighter than they were at the opening of the 1880-90 decade. The seasons were good, the outlook was regarded as brilliant, and a general air of confidence reigned. The Government were spending loan money lavishly, and large amounts were being spent in introducing a stream of immigrants from Europe. These and other causes contributed to the prevailing over-confidence and the consequent excessive values put upon fixed property. One was the influx of capital for investment on private account, for the confidence felt in Queensland mortgage securities not only extended to the other colonies of Australia, but also to the mother country. Another was the discovery of subterranean water in Western Queensland, and the opinion expressed by geologists that more than one-half the total area of the colony, and that in the driest parts of the far West, was artesian water-bearing country. The discovery, it was argued, had added a new province to Queensland, and one whose fertility, water once provided, would not be excelled, despite a normally light rainfall, by any other part of the continent. One consequence was the sale of Western stations at high prices, and the investment by their late owners of the proceeds in city and town properties. They had experienced the risks of the far inland climate, and they wanted to invest in land in the seaport towns, which must quickly become centres of extensive trade. Another cause was the raising of rating values by the local authorities, of whom those having jurisdiction in suburban or country areas were endowed with L2 from the Treasury for every L1 raised by rates. To augment the claims for endowment, although the rate levies were in a few cases raised to the maximum legal limit, in most the valuations alone were raised, and the rate levy left untouched. It was held that it paid the property owner to contribute a high rate when with the endowment it meant three times that sum, most of which would be spent in improving his land by making roads and carrying on other local works calculated to enhance property values. A further cause of inflation was the cutting up of suburban land into 16-perch allotments, and selling them on long terms to working men and to speculators. A still further cause was, as already mentioned, the influx of external money at reduced rates of interest through the financial institutions. At first rents were so high as apparently to justify an advance on true values; but as the expanding process went on vendors ridiculed a capital value based on income-earning capacity. "What is the use of talking nonsense!" the agent would exclaim; "it is not what this property will bring in annually now, but what it will be worth in twenty years' time."