A JUBILEE IN JUNE.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 71, 29 March 1921, Page 2

A JUBILEE IN JUNE.

AUCKLAND HARBOUR BOARD. FIFTY YEAHB' PROGRESS. THE FIRST MEETING. The first day of June, 1921, will be the jubilee of the Auckland Harbour Board, which held its first meeting on .Tune 1. 1871. It will he of interest to note the personnel of the Hoard at the iirst meeting. It consisted of Mr. J*. A. Phillips, then Mayor of Auckland, and Messrs. 0. yon der Hyde, 11. F. Anderson. \V. (\ Daldy, J. Smart. L. A. Nathan, 8. Jones," John Copeland. B. Tonks. T. Mncready, S. Cochrane, and J. Casey. The Mayor of the city (Mr. P. A. Phillips) presided at this first meeting, but Captain W. C. Daldy was soon afterwards appointed chairman, and he sat in the chair till 1877. The Board's revenue for the first halfyear amounted to £f>f>22 10/4. For last half-year it was £201,104. Tn 1871 the shipping for the whole year was 20* vessels, totalling 55.507 net tons. Last year it amounted to 5731 vessels, and 1,927,851 was the total of their net tonnage. Those figures will perhaps throw a little light on the progress of Auckland during the past fifty years. Half a cen- j tury ago the arrivals in the port just j broke the two-hundred mark, last year they were close on six thousand, aggregating very nearly two million tons. ; Fifty years ago the main wharf was a j wooden jetty that occupied a site somewhere about what is now the greatest tram junction of Auckland, at Lower Queen Street. To-day the wharves arc of fcrro-concrnte, and they extend out into what was once the open channel for the sailing vessels and whalers that used to conic in. Where the W'avcrley Hotel | now stands the Maoris fifty years ago used to sell their produce, and tlin main j wooden wharf ran out from somewhere ; near the Waitemata corner. To-day all! this land is reclaimed, and the Harbour Board's progressive policy of reclamation works will probably make the waterway* of to-day into sites in fifty years' time. This reclamation work car-I ried on through almost half a century has greatly improved the position of the Auckland Harbour Board, whose farsighted policies in the past are to-day Ix'aring fruit because they have furnished ! valuable endowments, while its Improvements to the harbour and the city fore- j shore have made it the wealthiest body | of its kind in the Dominion.