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Early in 1878 the Ashburton County Council assumed its active role in local government and later that year the town of Ashburton became a borough. These changes opened a new period in the history of the region and gave promise of the development that indeed occurred. But the land boom also ended in 1878 and financial stringency immediately made itself felt. As a result, much of the second quarter century of Ashburton history was overshadowed by a lengthy depression. In New Zealand history the last decades of the century are remembered not only for the slump but also as the period of wheat farming practised on extensive areas and of government action in buying large estates in order to put men on farms under easy conditions. The most prominent social movement of the time was directed towards the control or abolition of the licensed liquor traffic. The slump, wheat export, the demand for land for small farmers and ‘no-licence’ were all leading features in the life of Canterbury and of other provincial districts. Ashburton added a feature of its own: water supply to town and country.

One aspect of the economic life of the country—the management of the remaining pastoral runs—might appear to be free from the influence of the changes affecting life on the farms and in the town