AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 39, 13 December 1842, Page 2

AUCKLAND.

(From the Auckland Times.) Afire occurred here on Friday the 21st of October, which had likely to have proved serious. The morning had bee# squally with occasional thunder and veiy vivid lightning and about 3 o’clock p.m. smoke was observed to issue from an empty store on the beach, where a case of damaged lucifers had been left as worthless, and it is supposed the electric fluid ignited them. The exertions made by Mr. Smith and Mr. Russel prevented the flames from spreading. The bonded stores, full of spirits, were separated by a weather-boarded partition only. The preservation of a great part of the town is almost miraculous, for a strong south-westerly breeze was blowing at the time. Had this accident occurred at night it is impossible to calculate the extent of the mischief. We think if a fire should destroy the bonded stores in which spirits are compulsorily deposited, the Government would be liable to the owners of the property for licensing such buildings for the purpose. The inhabitants of Auckland should learn from this escape to abandon the idle, extravagant, and improvident system of building with wood. We are quite sure that with only a little management, bricks and mortar would soon be found cheaper than sawn timber, not to say one word about the security and durability. As it is, property in the town is of no value, it cannot be insured, and however costly

it may have been in the erection, it is scarcely more than useless as a mortgage pledge.

Tins Copper Mine at the Great Barrier. We have great pleasure in being able to inform our readers, that the practical commencement of mining, in this place, has been of the most satisfactory nature. The quality and quantity of the ore has been found, upon actual exfoliation, to be superior to the average of any copper mines now known.

By the Duchess of Argyle, we receive the important information, that Lord Stanley has commenced, in our case, the liberal and judicious system, which had been before applied to some of the southern colonies, we mean the plan of sending out capital and labour together, pledged and united to each other, by the bonds of mutual interest and personal attachment. The plan is this, Lord Stanley sells, in London, land in parcels of not less than one hundred acres, the buyer is to have in return the following important advantages, viz.: the right of selection, Kit the upset price of One pound per acre, from any land surveyed—the Surveyor General’s Department is to be so strengthened, as to enable that officer (than whom, we would not wish for any more able or more zealous for the public welfare,) to have some considerable tracts of good land open to the demand created; besides this, for every hundred acre, purchase the buyer may bring out, free of cost, four servants of his own selection, under indent to himself, if he so pleases: thus securing to the colony the advantages of labour and population, and at the same time insuring to each individual capitalist the immediate benefits which he himself creates for the general good. These land orders are to be addressed to the Surveyor General, with instructions to that officer to assist the bearer of them in the choice of his selection, and are not in any way liable to be thwarted by the caprice of local authority. The vile system of Auction Sales, which has wrought such infinite mischief to the bond fide settler, for the benefit of land gamblers only, has now therefore got. the axe laid to its root, it must inevitably fall, the colonists can never be so weak as to go to the periodical sales of little bits of land, which the local Government, in its avaricious cunning, may condescend from time to time to offer, and there and then repeat the folly of cutting each others respective purses, by mutual defiance in bidding.

Some of the passengers, by the St. George, have brought Land Orders, purchased in Down-ing-street; by which it has been contracted that the holder should possess the immediate power of selection. It is strange to say, but it is nevertheless true, that His Excellency the Acting Governor is so wedded to the old extortionate system, that he refuses to acknowledge these orders, except in payment for land purchased at his auctions ! and that there may be no want of opportunity to buy, he has generously advertised afresh, in last Wednesday’s Gazette, the land which was so scornfully refused by a large assembly of intending buyers on Monday, excellent land as it is for growing—scoria ! His Excellency further refuses to permit the holders of these orders to purchase lands, already rejected at auction, unless they be, by a repetition of that ingenious process, proved to be dear at the upset price !

A considerable proportion of the adult male emigrants by the Duchess cf Argyle and Jane Gifford are already dispersed into private service, and the remainder are employed on the roads. The government are entitled to praise for the promptitude with which they have met the emergency of the case.

The Emigration Agent was busy the other morning, in our presence, paying over to each emigrant, the sum of one pound, which had been put down by him, in Scotland, as a deposit to secure his acceptance of the best employment, which could be provided for him on arrival. We could not help thinking how much more judicious it would have been to have transferred this little money to a savings’ bank, subject, of course, to the disposal of the owner, but dropped there as the nucleus of a little fund of frugality. After the tedium and restraint of a four months’ voyage, it is no difficult matter to guess the road that very many of these one pound notes have travelled, under the careless guidance to which they have been subjected. Is there some physical defect in Auckland, which makes it impossible to establish so desirable, so necessary, so universal an institution, as a savings’ bank ?