EARLY NEW ZEALAND.

Shannon News, 30 January 1923, Page 4

EARLY NEW ZEALAND.

WANGANUI IN 1858. A copy of the Wanganui Chronicle and Rangitikei Messenger of August 12, 185 S, was skown to a reporter by a resident of Palmerston North. The journal was then a four-page with a small single leaf supplement," and the tone of its advertisements indicates the primal needs of the country at the period, rum, wines, and other liquors, flour, sugar, oatmeal and hardware being the commodities mostly in ' evidence.. Muslin suitable for mosquito netting wWe also apparently deemed a necessity in those days. Retail prices current in Wanganui at December 28, 1853, were given as: Flour, 30s" per 1001bs.; bread, 8d per 21b loaf; beef, Id to 7d per lb; bacon, ,8d per lb; potatoes, 2s 6d per cwt.; butter, Is Gd per lb; eggs, Is per doz.; pork, 5d per lb; firewood, 13s per cord.

An advertisement in the issue states that each immigrant,. as soon as he repaid to the Government the. amount of his passage money, was entitled to receive 10 acres of land for every £2O so paid on account of himself and his family. A schedule of upset prices for reclaimed land, near Lambton Quay, Wellington, in connection with- a sale held there on September 1, 1858, was as follows: Lambton Quay, 30ft at. £l"2 per foot, 40ft. at £8 per .foot, 35ft. at £4 per foot; Customhouse Quay, 30ft. at £ls per foot, etc.

Describing the arrival of a southern mail the journal states that lonly one newspaper was received at Wanganui. There appears in the issue a repprt furnished to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce on the progress and prospects of the province of Wellington. Inter alia it states that the value of imports in 1843 was £112,000, out this "was deemed to be due largely to a speculative spirit, because in 1852, when the population had almost doubled, imports totalled only £IOI,OOO. The decay of the whaling and fishing industry was deplored, the report pointing out that, whereas in 1844 and 1846 an export value of £IB,OOO and £17,000 respectively was derived from"" that source, in 1858 the industry had been practically abandoned.