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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Auckland Provincial District]

[introduction]

page 536

The Northern Districts of Auckland have characteristics dear to all who inhabit them, and fascinating to those who know them by hearsay or history. It was in the Far North that the colonisation of New Zealand was cradled, and almost every bay, river and valley has its haunting bit of tradition, story, or romance. Whalers and free lance traders frequented the Bay of Islands as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century, and it was there, too, that the Rev. Samuel Marsden began his apostleship in the year 1814. It was also there, in 1840, that the arikis or paramount chiefs of New Zealand ceded their sovereign rights to Great Britain by signing the Treaty of Waitangi submitted to them by Captain Hobson, the first Governor of the colony, which had its first capital in the same district. Then Heke's war, which signalised the first serious trouble between the Maoris and the colonists, was carried on there in 1845–46.

These and many other happenings on land and water, connected with the early settlement of the country, and with the Maoris themselves long before the days of colonisation, have scattered the seeds of romance hither and thither in the province of Auckland, and especially throughout its northern districts. Those districts themselves contain some of the best land in New Zealand, and they have many resources. Hitherto the kauri gum trade has been the chief industry, but fruit-growing and sawmilling have also been well to the front in that respect. Agriculture, sheep-farming and cattle-breeding will increase very largely as the gumfields become worked out, and in proportion as settlement is adequately helped by means of roads and railways. A deplorable deficiency in this respect has hitherto grievously retarded the progress o[unclear: f] Auckland's northern districts, but the configuration and geographical features of the country have been very considerable factors in this connection.

However, the movement to supply the northern districts with sufficient roads and railways has never at any time been without life, and it must ere long succeed in securing complete railway communication between the city of Auckland and the rich far away country beyond Whangarei, and in adequately intersecting the intervening districts with the roads which are indispensable to the progress of settlement and the prosperity of the settlers. Happily, both coasts of the peninsula possess many excellent harbours, and apart from local enterprise in the various adjacent districts, business men in the city of Auckland have built up fleets of steamers and small sailing vessels, by means of which settlement and inland industries have been able to move ahead with very considerable success. This communication by sea has, in fact, been the mutual mainstay of Auckland and the inland districts, and it will probably never cease to be necessary or beneficial, for roads and railways, by promoting settlement, will at the same time add to the value of the coastal harbours and give the shipping more to carry to and fro.

A Woodland Waterfall.

A Woodland Waterfall.

An assured future therefore awaits Auckland's northern districts. The kauri gum trade not only may, but almost certainly will fall off, but industry in connection with coal and other minerals will increase, and fish-curing, saw-milling, ship-building, agriculture, dairying, cattle-rearing, and sheep-farming, will cover the country and feed the towns with a prosperity far ahead of anything experienced or dreamt of in the past. This anticipation is justified by what has been and is being done in and for Auckland's northern districts, and by a consideration of what they produce under comparatively unfavourable conditions, and what their native and enduring resources will enable them to yield, with increased and improved opportunities supplied by industrial science and the continued fostering care of man. Of things as they are at present the articles drawn together in this section of the Cyclopedia give a fairly comprehensive view, with indications of what the past has been and intimations of what the future will be. Neither the completeness of a catalogue nor the minuteness of a diary is aimed at, but of the people, places, and industries within the boundaries of the area dealt with more may be learned from this section than from any other single source at present in existence.