An Epitome of Official Documents Relative to Native Affairs and Land Purchases in the North Island of New Zealand
Lands acquired or under Negotiation
Lands acquired or under Negotiation.
The extent of land already acquired by purchase from the Natives in this district may be estimated at 268,000 acres; lands for which negotiations are now pending at 58,210 acres.
In addition to the districts in the immediate vicinity of the Harbour of Whangarei, the Government is now in treaty for the purchase from the Natives of extensive tracts upon the Kaipara and Wairoa Rivers, from which places some valuable cargoes of kauri spars have been exported for the British navy. These districts, intersected with fine navigable rivers, which swarm for thirty miles upward from their mouths with mullet and other fish, are capable of maintaining a large and flourishing population, and still carry magnificent forests of kauri timber, easy of access, which have never yet been touched with the axe, and which might be worked with great advantage both to the European colonists and also ton the Native, population, who from long experience are very expert in dragging out the spars and preparing them for export. The settlers of Whangarei are of a highly respectable class, and already thriving, though it is only within the last few years that they have established themselves there.