WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1848.

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 251, 25 October 1848, Page 2

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1848.

On the Ist proximo, slaughtering, and the many nuisances which it creates, is no longer to be tolerated within the precincts of Auckland. " For such relief much thanks !" It ' is one step towards the preservation of the health of a thickly crowded and badly lodged community. Badly lodged, because the frail tenements, of which the town is mainly composed, are in too many instances huddled together, as though they had been jammed into the dense and overpeopled centre of a fortified city, where a corner to construct a crib, and permission to inhale a vitiated atmosphere — joint exhalations of the unreclaimed morass, and unventilated lanes and alleys — was meted at its measure in gold. The comparatively petty space into which the heart of Auckland has been screwed is of itself prejudicial to health, seeing that the most populous and commercial part of the town is situated at the mouth of a gorge that, for lack I of the simplest expedients, lovingly retains the thainage of the encircling heights, for which no vent has been hitherto devised, and from whose noisome influences no escape as yet exists. The radius, around %\hich are agglomerated the dwellings of the inhabitants, and which appear to be constructed upon an experimental princi- ! pie of ascertaining within how many square feet of weather boarding mortality may be compressed and live — is Queen-street : — rich in j name, but rank in nature; the most ordinary shower converting it to a stagnant slough, from whose fetid depths the genial sun draws mephitic poison to contaminate the air. Contrast Auckland — comparison is out of the question — uith any one town of Australasian growth, and it must sink into insignifi- j cance. Survey its centre from the Barrack Hill, and one cannot but look with surprise, not unmingled with disgust, upon its motley wooden tenements, flung, apparently haphazard, in a heap. If the eye does rest here and there upon occasional structures of brick, they are like lights in a coal-pit, just sufficient to reveal the surrounding gloom. And why is this 1 ? Wherefore should the tenements and streets of Auckland be so deplorably inferior to those of any Australasian town % Why beneath comparison with those of Wellington'? Mr. Goodfellow, in his recent letter to the Governor, has, in a great measure, unfolded the reason : — Because the good folks of Wellington get one acre of town, and one hundied acres of rural land for one hundred and one pounds, whilst, in Auckland, the lowest average price of one acre of town land alone is some Four Hundred pounds. Hence the continued erection of wooden tenements, to the serious detriment of the town and the imminent hazard of the lives and property of the despoiled inhabitants. Ruinous as the Wakefield system has proved to all colonial prosperity, it, at least evinced one spark of judgment by the provision made i'or the occupancy of town lands, the acquisition of an acre of which, upon such easy terms, was the surest guarantee for urban progress and stability. We appeal to any one conversant with the city of Adelaide, and would ask if that capital would have been the fine and well built town to which, in a few years, it sprang, had the emigrants thither been compelled to disburse some five or six hundred pounds, instead of twenty shillings, for an acre whereon to domiciliate 1 The very idea is preposterous, and the question receives its own reply in the present condition of Auckland, the only colonial town which has been almost from its birth, subjected to a ruinous exaction for the smallest segments of its lands. We have, heretofore, dwelt at large upon the springs and motives to the once unexampled prospeiity of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, and we trust we shall be pardoned if we direct attention to the rapid rise and progress of Hobart Town, and to the causes and incentives to that rapid and substantial progression. We select Hobart Town in preference to Sydney because, as a whole, it is a city much more judiciously laid out, and much more solidly and substantially built. In those good old days, when the advancement of the Colonies, rather than the rendering them the victims of a suicidal rack-rent, was j the object of a British Secretary of State, the facility of obtaining town allotments, was equal to that of acquiring rural sections, and the accommodation afforded to grantees was such as enabled all, with the means and the intention to build, ample time to effect their arrangements. A plot was alloted, commenSlirate with thft class of strnrtnrp rWinmpd *r» V»o

raised, and of a magnitude and in a situation such as to induce the holder to found a durable and an eligible duelling. If we err not, these plots measured from a quarter of an acre to three acres for a town allotment, and from five to ten acres for a suburban. A certain period was permitted for the locatee to fence in, cultivate the ground, and finally to build his house ; which conditions, when complied with, were acknowledged by a Crown grant, in lieu of the previous location order. If unfulfilled, the land was resumed, and transferred to another. In this manner, arose those goodly edifices of stone and brick, whose fair proportions, solid foundations, and healthful accommodations, have rendered Hobart Town the theme of wondering eulogy to most strangers. The streets are wide, spacious and any, and from the sufficient room given in the first instance to the speculative, their allotments afforded ample verge to erect other tenements, generally superior to the first, without the smallest occasion to over crowd or impair the plan of the city. Moreover, when the holder of one allotment had faithfully implemented the conditions of its allocation, he was entitled to a second and a thiid. The early settler in Hobart Town was thus elevated to wealth and station, whilst his counterpart, his equal in means, in industry, and in enterprise, is, in Auckland, kept with his nose to the grind stone, because the mere land on which he may be solicitous to build, in a way to enrich himself and to aggrandise and to ornament the town, would fleece him of a sum for which the early Hobart Town speculator erected a commodious and a durable edifice, and with eleven twelfths more land whereon to erect more. We instance the granting system of Van Diemen's Land, and New South Wales, and the twenty shillings an acre prices of Wellington, Nelson, and Ade'aide, neither with a desire nor a hope that the one or the other should now be adopted here, but as evidences of the ruinous injustice against which Auckland has been forced to contend, and as an argument why some modification of the land act, which oppresses her to destruction, should be conceded. Her citizens would do well to ponder their position — to contrast their own harsh preventions with the liberal facilities afforded to the denizens of other capitals, in acquisition of a freehold. And having satisfied themselves how small an amount of fair play has fallen to their lot, they would do better still earnestly and urgently to memorialize the Queen and Parliament, through His Excellency the Governor, for a relaxation of those laws which crush them to the dust. Grumbling and growling will not avail. They must demonstrate their wrongs and if they do so fearlessly and firmly, we have little doubt of a favourable result — convinced, as we are, that to an honestly authenticated and proved grievance, neither the Governor nor the Parliament will turn a deaf ear. At all events, to make it clear to those in whom abides the power to remove or diminish a grievance, is a duty which the Colonists owe alike to themselves and their children. Render Town lands easy of purchase and rural lands fairly accessible, and Auckland will spring into a flourishing city, New Zealand into a prosperous colony. At the present famine prices of both, the one will, as long as the Commissariat issues continue, present but a bazar for the camp follower and the contractor — the other prove but the tomb of the means invested in its purchase.

Dedication of the New Wesley an Church. The dedication of this goodly edifice took place on Sunday last, and, in defiance of the previous inclemency of the weather, and the

We perceive, by advertisement, that Mr. Hyam Joseph has been instructed to sell the horses by the " Emma," at the Blue Bell, an Thursday next. They are said to he a very superior selection. On Friday, Messis. Connell and Ridings will sell at their stockyard, the Cows, Heifers and Bullocks, ex the same vessel.