The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1906. AUCKLANDS TRADE PROSPERITY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 51, 28 February 1906, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1906. AUCKLANDS TRADE PROSPERITY.

■ ». For the cause that lacks assistance, For the icrong that needs resUtanct, For the future in the distance. And the good that we can do.

'■'If general interests are neglected private interests must suffer," the Mayor is reported to have said in moving a vote of thanks to the retiring President of the Chamber of Commerce at yesterday's annual meeting of that body. The phrase, embodies a truism that is insufficiently appreciated in Auckland. For very many years in LOinthercial circles in the southern part of the colony the business community of this city has been credited with lack of enterprise, an impeachment that while exaggerated has not been wanting in its foundation' of truth.. One. phase —and an important one—of this la_ness was the wide indifference displayed to the promotion of "the general interests" referred to by the Mayor yesterday. The old reproach is we trust losing its application, and as one indication of a more healthy state of affairs we are pleased to be able to point to some of the facts of day's meeting of the Chamber of Commerce. The annual report submitted to the meeting showed the substantial accession of 51 members, and whereas at the commencement of 1905 there were 206, at its close there were 250. Further, the report and chairman's speech gave evidence of an active year in the interests of the commercial prosperity of town and country. In its efforts to ■impress on the Government the need of opening up the waste lands of the province, and the urgency of the work of railway extension, the Chamber is working on grounds outside controversial limits; and in urging the bringing into, line by the Shipping companies of their receipts with the present New Zealand \iw and the investigation and straightening out by Government of a most com-, plicated and confusing mass of "Customs tariff decisions," the Council of the , Chamber has been engaged on work of practical benefit to the commercial community of the city. It is to be hoped' that the increased and well-directed spirit of activity displayed during the just expired term of the late president 'will continue and be auojneuted in the history of a body which, unfortunately, has at times sunk into a more or less moribund condition.

Whilo on the subject of provincial commercial activity and prosperity, it is interesting to glance at the figures of the port of- Auckland for last year, which were made the basis of some comparisons by the retiring president of tins 'Chamber in his speech yesterday afternoon. The total foreign import and export trade of Auckland in 1005 was of the valiw of £5,802,593, a substantial increase on the £5,761,051, which were the figures for 1904. While imports bad decreased by £91,033 to £3,157,090, exports bad increased by £130,565 to £2,643,503. The astonishing part of the import side was the fact that the customs duties collected in 1905 amounted to £669,917, and were £3406 more than in the previous year. Turning to the exports there are several satisfactory features to' dwell on. The £old and silver export, exceeded in value a million sterling; there were shipped 1689 tons of kauri gum more than in 1904, despite the oft-repeated statement that the sources of this fossilised resin are on the. brink of exhaustion, and the value was £59,631 greater; while, although for the whole colony there was . a decrease in the flax export, Auckland showed a Blight increase, and the total value of the. product shipped abroad from this port reached the respectable total of £191,827Less satisfactory was the decline in the butter export from £248,602 to £233,058. As was pointed out by Mr. Bagnall at yesterday's meeting, the fall might fairly be ascribed to the drought in the early part of the year; and it is further reassuring to-find the- Chief Dairy Commissioner on return to Wellington, this week from a tour of this province, expressing the opinion that Auckland is going 1 to become one of the foremost dairying districts of the colony, and that this season the export will be about 100,000 boxes, a record shipment. More serious is the decline from £238,991 to £150,244 in the export of wool, especially when taken in conjunction with the figures for frozen meats, which in 1904 were £44,701, and in 1905 had receded to £29.289. These totals are not so readily subject to explanation as those with respect, to butter, and their corrective seems to rest largely in the direction that the Chamber of Commerce is urging Government to move, that is to say, in the more active settlement of the

waste lands of this province. On the Whole, however, the figures of the trade of the port of Auckland for 1905 may be accepted as a reliable indication of the continued prosperity of the district, a j prosperity which the opening months of | 1906 have shown no abatement in.