When peace at last gave the Colonists time to look round, the constitution which Grey and Wakefield had helped to draw up was still working. Not without friction, however. Under the provincial system New Zealand was rather a federation of small settlements than a unified colony. This was in accord with natural conditions, and with certain amendments the system might have worked exceedingly well. But no real attempt was ever made to amend it. Its vices were chiefly financial. The inequalities and jealousies caused by the rich landed estate of the southern provinces bred ill-feeling all round. The irregular grants doled out by the Treasurer to the needier localities embarrassed the giver without satisfying the recipients. The provinces without land revenue looked with hungry eyes at those which had it. There was quarrelling, too, within each little provincial circle. The elective superintendents were wont to make large promises and shadow forth policies at the hustings. Then when elected they often found these views by no means in accord with those of their council and their executive. Yet, but for one great blunder, the provinces should and probably would have existed now. 1870 is usually named as the birth-year of the colonial policy of borrowing and public works. This is not strictly true. In that year the central and provincial exchequers already owed about seven millions and a quarter between them. The provincial debts, at any rate, had been largely contracted in carrying out colonizing work, and some of that work had been exceedingly well done, especially in Canterbury and Otago. What the Central Government did do in 1870 was to come forward boldly with a large and continuous policy of public works and immigration based on borrowed money. The scheme was Sir Julius Vogel's. As a politician this gentleman may not unfairly be defined as an imaginative materialist and an Imperialist of the school of which Cecil Rhodes is the best-known colonial exponent. His grasp of finance, sanguine, kindly nature, quick constructive faculty, 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.