to persuade men or families to leave their homeland. However the 1866 recession in copper-mining in Cornwall and bitter disputes between farmers and farm labourers assisted the recruiters. Charles Carter (1822–1896), a member of Featherston's recruitment staff who interviewed nearly all the "Brogden navvies", had been a Chartist sympathiser and an active propagandist for improved working class conditions before emigrating to New Zealand in 1850 and the campaign worked closely with the unions. In 1872 the company was given six rail contracts as follows: Auckland and Mercer: completed 1875 Wellington and Hutt: reached Lower Hutt in 1874 Napier and Paki Paki Picton and Blenheim: completed 1875 Dunedin and Clutha: part opened 1 July 1874, completed 1 September 1875 Invercargill and Mataura: part opened 12 February 1874, completed 30 August 1875 for sections of railway totalling at a cost of £808,000. There were considerable difficulties in the operation of the contracts and the management of the men. During the period 1870–1875, political power gradually transferred from the Provinces to the central government, partly because of the railway question. The Bill to abolish the Provinces was carried in October 1875 and implemented a year later. However, in the interim it was very difficult for Brogdens to get clear prompt decisions. Brogdens got less work than they had hoped and it became available more slowly than expected. Communications between UK and New Zealand were obviously slow so it was difficult to know how many men to send at any given time. Sometimes Brogdens could not find work for the men when they arrived. Men reneged on their promissory notes. There were disputes over working hours, wages and whether they should be paid when the weather stopped the work. Gradually the men drifted away. By August 1873, 2172 English immigrants had been brought out. They included 1299 working-age men who were contracted to work for Brogdens for two years but only 287 of them were still working for them. Most of the men were agricultural labourers, rather than true navvies and they found local agricultural labour and working conditions more attractive than navvy work. Consequently, work was slower than expected and in 1879 the company was in dispute with the New Zealand Government over contract payments. Bankruptcy soon followed. Although this was not a happy result for Brogdens, the results for New Zealand and the families themselves were good. New Zealand obtained useful citizens