Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/514

   VOGEL, JULIUS (1835–1899), premier of New Zealand, son of Albert Leopold Vogel and his wife Phoebe, daughter of Alexander Isaac of Russell Square, London, was born in London on 24 Feb. 1835. He was educated at University College School, London, and at the Royal School of Mines. Both his parents died when he was sixteen, and after serving as a merchant's clerk in his grandfather's office he emigrated to the gold-fields of Victoria, where, after gaining a livelihood by various shifts, he became editor of a small country newspaper, 'The Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser.' After being beaten in an attempt to enter the Victorian parliament he was drawn in 1861 to Otago, New Zealand, by the large discoveries of gold then made there, and, settling in Dunedin, bought a half-share in the 'Otago Witness' and started the 'Otago Daily Times.' As brother-editor and partner he had the novelist, Mr. B. L. Farjeon. He quickly made his paper what it still is, one of the leading morning journals in the colony, and with its help was chosen in 1862 a member of the Otago provincial council. There in 1866 he became, and for three years remained, head of the provincial executive.

Vogel's entry into the New Zealand House of Representatives was made in 1863, and six years later he was appointed colonial treasurer in the cabinet of Sir William Fox [q. v. Suppl.] To the treasury were soon added the post office and the departments of customs and telegraphs, and he became the moving mind of what was quickly called the Fox-Vogel ministry. In 1869 the colony, still struggling with the native tribes, was exhausted by nearly a decade of intermittent and inglorious warfare with them, and it was embarrassed by English disfavour and the low price of its staple export, wool. The imperial troops had been withdrawn, and though, with some reluctance, the imperial government guaranteed a loan of 1,000,000l. to enable the colonists to carry on the warfare with their own militia, the colony and the provinces owed some 7,000,000l., and were depressed and disheartened. Vogel believed that if peace could be secured the great natural resources of the islands might 