AUCKLAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 63, 11 September 1862, Page 2

AUCKLAND.

Rush to Otago.— The news regarding the great finds in Otago created quite a sensation in town) on Satlrday, and our enterprising merchants at once laid on three vessels for Dunedin. The superb clipper ship, Queen of the North, which came out here with passengers from London, is advertised by Messrs. Brown, Campbell, and Co., for Dunedin. The well-known schooner Rebecca, and the fore and aft schooner Lombard, are likewise advertised in to-day’s paper, for the same port, and the three masted schooner Vistula, is to be laid on from the Manakau. We do not anticipate that any of the men who have proved Coromandel will forsake the rich quartz reefs, which only wait the arrival of machinery to prove rich beyond precedent, for the lottery of a new diggings in a severe climate, and most difficult to get at. Except the rain no hardship need be experienced at Coromandel. No doubt a large proportion of the diggers now in Auckland will find their way to the South, where we may hope they may be successful, but their departure will not greatly affect, if it does so at all, the prospects of Coromandel. The fortunes made on the Otago gold-fields have been few. Wo had a letter by the Queen, from an old Aucklander, apprising us that ho was off to the new ground to try his luck at gold-digging once more, but hitherto he has been a loser rather than a gainer. We hope, however, that the anticipations regarding the newground in Otago may bo fullvp-calized.— Daily Southern Cross, Sept. 1. COMMERCIAL SUMMARY. Auckland, Sept. 5, 1862. The business for the past month has not been brisk. Two causes may be assigned for this, namely, the continued wet and cold weather, and the impassable state of the roads. Country buyers have been doing next to nothing, and the extern market has been principally confined to settlements along the coast, to which there is water-carriage. The coast trade, on the whole, has been considerable, but the business with the natives along the coast is gradually falling otf. Money is scarce with the natives, owing no doubt to the almost general abandonment by them of industrial pursuits; but the increasing numbers of Europeans in our out settlements are rapidly compensating for the falling of of native consumption. Although trade has been dull, wo are glad to report that it never has been in a sounder state. Bills have been met with great punctuality, and confidence prevails among all classes.— Southern Cross, Sept. 1. Timbek.— This is the only largo export trade at present identified with the province, and its extension of late has raised it to a very important position. Large capitals are invested, and sawing machinery erected in many districts of the country, affording hundreds of men constant employment. The late severe weather caused the

supply of sawn timber to fall off, and as tho local demand is largely on the increase, owing to tho number of residences in course of erection, there is little chance of prices falling. The export to Otago is becoming larger monthly. As an example we may mention that upwards of 200,000 feet of sawn timber were exported by two firms for the South, last week. The news of a new gold field in Otago has caused a rush from Auckland thither. None of the old hands have left; those who go south to try their luck at the Hartley diggings being men who have not personally tried Coromandel. This news from the south has given a considerable impetus to business here. The question of the Panama steam postal route has been revived in the General Assembly, where £30,000 per annum as a subsidy from New Zealand, for that project, from 1864 has been voted. Wo believe Mr. Ward, postmaster general, will go home to try and negotiate for the service. There has been a fair amount of steady business transacted. In some class of goods the market may be said to be unseasonably overstocked, owing to the unsatisfactory mode of shipment on the other side, the inferior class of vessels in some instances employed, the long and tedious detention in the London docks, the protracted passages experienced across, and lastly, the snail-like pace of their delivery on arrival. These are subject matters of complaint, upon which the mercantile and trading community have loudly expatiated, and it is to be hoped not without the prospect of future amendment. The trade with Sydney both as regards goods and passengers is improving, and of late a considerable export of potatoes and other colonial produce has taken place. In the passenger traffic, which the war had turned greatly in favour of Sydney, the balance now inclines materially the other way. The inter-colonial mail steam ship Lord Ashley, is becoming too small for this trade; large quantities of goods having again and again been shut out; and the passenger accommodation has been found to be too much circumscribed. As the operations of the Company are extending, and as their squadron is being rendered more efficient and enlarged, we may expect to see them entering more spiritedly into the business thus opening upon them. Their new ship, the Claude Hamilton is, no doubt by this time in Sydney, and with her new boilers for the Prince Alfred ; one or other of these ought surely to take the Auckland berth, and as that would release some of their other ships, we 'cannot but think that the Airedale might be very advantageously placed on the interprovincial East Coast line between Auckland and Otago, in lieu of the ill-fated White Swan. With Auckland, Napier, Wellington, Lyttelton, and Dunedin the traffic will undoubtedly greatly increase, and nothing will tend more largely to promote that increase than the establishment of a comfortable and competent medium of steam communication. With Melbourne, the intercourse of Auckland is altogether indirect, being conducted vid Otago. Even the quartz-crushing machinery for Coromandel has, of necessity, gone the Southern tour, and we must abide its arrival here with what grace we may, before the patient and industrious miners of Coromandel can have their auriferous stores converted, amalgamated, and transformed to merchantable gold. In a few weeks more, such means will be had ; we shall then, in all probability, learn the success which has attended the industrious and intelligent, and which has bound them with so much patience, under so many difficulties and privations, to the spot. The problem of coromandcl is on the eve of solution; we have every confidence that the answer will be a golden one, and a prosperous summer awaits us. — New Zealander, September 6.