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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Auckland Provincial District]

Professional, Commercial and Industrial

page 308

Professional, Commercial and Industrial.

As important factors in the life and progress of a country, the commercial and industrial activities of large towns could not be overlooked in a work like the Cyclopedia of New Zealand. Hence, this section, which is as complete as circumstances and the sympathy or apathy of the persons immediately concerned have enabled the conductors of the work to make it. Apart from other things, the limits of time and space alone would make it impossible to enter into minute details concerning all the professional, commercial, and industrial firms in so large a town as Auckland; but a comprehensive, conscientious effort has been made to give salient facts in connection with all important businesses and industries. If, notwithstanding this, there are still omissions worthy of remark, they are not due to conscious oversight on the part of the conductors, but to disinclination or want of spare time on that of persons immediately concerned, to supply the necessary information. But, even after making the fullest allowance for this, the section will be found to be of exceptional value and interest as a trustworthy historical index to the professional, commercial, and industrial activities of the city of Auckland.

By carefully going through these pages, an intelligent reader will gather how much the people of Auckland have done for the commercial and industrial development of their city and province, in spite of all the drawbacks due to troubles with the Maoris, to geographical position, the characteristics of much of the land and to the ups and downs inseparable from the arduous work of colonisation; and will also learn how well the city and province are both now fitted to take advantage of the improved conditions that will follow the completion of the Main Trunk Railway, which will connect Auckland and its incomparable harbour with large areas of fertile land hitherto so isolated as to be barred to progressive settlement.

The information and suggestions presented to the reader by the various subsections of this division of the work, and by the division as a whole, have an interest and value for many besides New Zealanders; for public writers, statesmen, manufacturers, exporters, and other commercial men in other parts of the world will thus be enabled to arrive at definite conclusions concerning the kind of business men and the class of businesses that flourish in Auckland. In this way the city and province will be brought into closer and larger relations with the rest of the world, with increased probabilities of commercial and industrial expansion.

Apart from the timber industry and the cultivation of the land, Auckland has two potent industrial factors in gold-mining and digging for kauri gum. The kauri gum industry has a sub-section to itself in this division; but on account of their number and character, all articles dealing with mining, and those connected with it, will appear further on in the volume in a separate division, and under sub-headings which will mark their appropriate classification.

Albert, Park, Aukland.

Albert, Park, Aukland.