At the close of the session, the Conservative Party made a great effort to organise, and gatherings were held in Otago and Canterbury.
At the end of 1891, while the new Government was carrying out its drastic policy of retrenchment, an announcement was sent from Wellington to all parts of the colony that “The Exodus” had stopped. It had not only stopped, but had ebbed back until it became an influx.
The first ten months of the year had seen a serious loss of population. It was the worst year as far as “The Exodus” was concerned the colony had experienced since the appalling record of 1888, when the colonists were shocked to learn that the total excess of departures over arrivals reached 9,175 souls. In 1889 a large exhibition held at Dunedin and other causes enabled the statistics to show a slight balance in the colony’s favour. It amounted to only 224, but the colonists said that it was better than nothing. In 1890, the year of the strike, hearts dropped when the colony’s life-blood flowed out again. The year 1891 began badly, there being a loss of 187 persons in January alone. It went from bad to worse: in February, 334; in March, 808; in April, 511; in May, 1,431; and in June, 635; so that the first six months showed an excess of departures over arrivals amounting to 3,916, and it was said that the Liberal Government was chasing people as well as capital from the colony. In the latter part of the year, the flow slowed down. In October the loss was only 51, and the colony saw that the turn of the tide had been almost reached. In November the stream began to set in to the colony’s shores again, for in that month the arrivals exceeded the departures by 1,156.
The depression had crossed the Tasman Sea to Australia. New South Wales had a large deficit, and was committed to an extravagant public works expenditure, while Melbourne was so distrusted that it failed to float a large drainage loan. Monetary and commercial institutions in Australia crashed to the ground, and the disasters that resulted made that country attractive to New Zealand’s floating population no longer. On the top of this, the colony had a very good season for grass and grain; the frozen meat trade was now firmly established, and was bringing
