The enormous expenditures of the Brazilian government furnished a splendid cash market for Argentine stock and produce, and the resulting profits compensated for the pecuniary sacrifices involved. In two years' fighting both the Argentine and the Brazilian armies suffered tremendous losses on the field and in the cholera hospitals. After the great repulse at Curupayty in 1867 the number of Argentine troops was largely reduced. When the Brazilian fleet finally forced the passage of the river, opening the way to Asuncion, Mitre resigned the command into the hands of the Brazilian general Caxias, and the last two years of the war were carried on principally by Brazilian troops. By the peace of 1870 Argentina's title to certain valuable territory was quieted, and she gained an important commercial advantage by the opening of Paraguay to her trade. Her commercial and industrial leadership in the Plate valley has never since been endangered. Politically also the indirect results were gratifying. The tremendous sacrifices in men and money had sickened the Brazilian government and people of foreign complications. Thereafter, the emperor pursued a policy of non-interference, which has left to his Spanish neighbours a free hand among themselves. With the withdrawal of the Brazilian troops from Paraguay, the balance of political power began slowly to pass from Rio to Buenos Aires. Sarmiento, the "schoolmaster president," succeeded Mitre in 1868. His election is said to have been the freest and most peaceful ever held in the republic and to have represented as nearly as any the will of the electors. The development of population, wealth, and industry continued in increasing geometrical proportion. During forty-five years before 1857 the population had only a little more than doubled; during the forty-five years since that date, the increase has been four hundred and fifty per cent. The yearly increment holds fairly steady at four per cent., which is as large as that of any country in the world. In 1869 the city of Buenos Aires had one hundred and eighty thousand people, and in 1902 it contained eight hundred and fifty thousand. Immigration had begun to pour in at the rate of twenty thousand per annum, and had rapidly increased to over a hundred thousand, when the great crisis of 1890 temporarily interrupted the flow. The years from 1868 to 1872 were prosperous over much of the civilised world, but nowhere more so than in Argentina. Sarmiento's administration was, however, characterised by the beginning of that policy of governmental and commercial extravagance which has so deeply mortgaged the future of Argentina, and has repeatedly hampered the legitimate development of this marvellously fertile region. In the ten years prior to 1872 foreign commerce doubled, but the foreign debt increased fivefold.