Auckland of the ’Forties

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 376, 9 June 1928, Page 8

Auckland of the ’Forties

PRINTED PICTURE FROM THE PAST

IX a day when fast expresses convey mails between Auckland and Wellington overnight, it is not easy to picture conditions as they existed when a reply to a letter sent from Auckland might not be received for four weeks, seven weeks, or even five months. Yet these were the conditions of eighty years ago. in

years when, even then, Auckland was the chief centre of New Zealand, though William Fox wrote of it that “as an instance of colonisation, it was altogether rotten and delusive.”

TN' a little volume, “The Six Colonies of New Zealand,” dated ISSI, Mr. Fox made some statements that he must afterwards, as Sir William Fox and a leading statesman of the growing colony, have bitterly repented.

Many of his observations were undoubtedly inspired by his political differences with Sir George Grey, and others are predictions based largely on the rather shadowy knowledge of the period; but when these are overlooked the book yields a valuable insight into Auckland and New Zealand as they were in the early days of colonisation. “Auckland,” writes this candid critic, an Oxford graduate, and a barrister to boot, “has one or two very good streets, but the lower parts are as filthy as Deptford and Wapping, the navy-building towns.” He was perhaps prejudiced against Auckland because it was the seat of government and the home of Governor Grey, for a jaundiced vision Is

revealed as he proceeds: "Very little except shopkeeping was going on in Auckland when I was there. The amount of cultivation was small, and consisted almost entirely of a few fields of grass within four or five miles of the town. In short, the settlement, filled with tradesmen, was a mere section of the town of Sydney transported to the town of New Zealand. The population had no root in the soil, as was proved when hundreds of them packed up and rushed away to California- as soon as the news of that land of gold arrived. “Nearly the whole population of Auckland has been imported from

Sydney and Van Diemen’s Land. The returns of crime, compared with the southern settlements, exhibit fearful traces of the origin of its population. In the year ending December, 1547, one in six of the population was convicted of some crime or other; one in eight, of drunkenness. At Wellington, the proportion was one in 40, and at Nelson one in 79.” It is well to note that, at the time when Auckland's character was thus blackened, much as it was blackened SO years later by a respected police commissioner (he, too, disliked the name of Grey), the population of the infant city and its surrounding distinct was just over 7,000. Compared with 4,700 in and about Wellington, 3,300 at Nelson, and some thousands or so in each case in Canterbury and Otago. Among Auckland's population were a large number of soldiers, as well as the inhabitants of the “pensioner villages” established on the outskirts of Auckland as an outlying defence against a native invasion. These villages Mr. Fox heartily condemns, either from the point of view of their establishment as a stimulus to colonisation, or as a military measure. "They are mere straggling villages, without any sort of fortification. . . . The natives, if they wished to attack the capital, could walk through the whole of them, massacre the populations in their beds, and, having seized their arms and ammunition, proceed on their way to Auckland.” WAIKATO OVERLOOKED So much for Auckland and Its environs. Of country further south, and of the North Island as a whole, the author says: “The eastern plains of the middle island, and some extensive plains on the northern shore of Cook Strait, are clothed with most excellent natural pasture. To the north of this, scarcely any indigenous grass is to be found. The grazing operations of the colony will consequently be confined to that portion of it which lies south of a line drawn from Cape Egmont to Hawke’s Bay. The portions north of that line present no facilities for grazing, and can never become a field for pastoral enterprise. “Even in his own time, before the 20th century brought the Waikato into line with the world’s greatest dairying districts, Sir William must have realised the rashness of this prediction. At this time no more than the shores of New Zealand were accurately mapped. The map that accompanies the booklet—a rare copy of which was found recently in an Auckland second-hand shop—is palpably out in the bearings of some of the main topographical features, though in coastal detail it is surprisingly complete, while in certain place names—“Shoukianga” (Hokianga), “Sliouraki” (Hauraki) —there are diverting instances of an unconsolidated orthography. The author, his errors condoned, presents a refreshing picture, prompting this generation to wonder if the changes of the next 80 years will be as stupendous as those which have altered the face of New Zealand in the >BO years just past.