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During the last period covered by this history—from 1928 to 1953—two events of world-wide importance—the economic depression and World War II—greatly affected most aspects of life in Ashburton as elsewhere. Two New Zealand events were also influential—the advent of the first Labour Government with its progressive economic and social policies and the sudden rise in wool prices in 1950. References to the two great social catastrophes recur throughout this part of the Ashburton story like a refrain. They deserve to be described first.

So far as can be judged, Ashburton farmers suffered far less from the decline in the price of their products during the slump of the 1930s than in the 1880s. This appears to contrast with the experience generally throughout Canterbury. In 1879-80 local farmers had just emerged from the hectic land buying of the boom years and were less able than those elsewhere to resist financial stringency. A similar factor in the later depression was the excessive prices farmers had paid for their land especially after the 1914-18 war. As against this difficulty they could rely in the 1930s on better wheat prices and they found the government and the stock firms much more ready to organize assistance for them.

The number of bankruptcies is not an especially good indication of the relative position of farmers in the two periods, but it is the only one available. Throughout the 1880s, thirty to sixty failures were registered yearly in the Ashburton magistrate’s court. With