ANNUAL MEETING OF THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 28, 4 November 1842, Page 3

ANNUAL MEETING OF THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.

(From the Colonial Gazette)

At the annual meeting of the Proprietors of the New Zealand Company, held yesterday at their house in Broad Street Buildings, the Directors presented their Fifth Report. It begins by allusions to past reports, and then proceeds to mention the settlement of Nelson; giving descriptions of the place from Captain Wakefield’s dispatches, which have already appeared in the Colonial Gazette. The Report then describes the progress of Port Nicholson — “Your Directors are happy to find that the reports of your principal Agent are in entire accordance with the accounts received from other sources. They do not attach any undue importance .to the high prices for which sections of town-land may have been sold, since that circumstance might be rather an evidence of unwholesome speculation than of the stable well-being of the community. But it appears, from a body of concurrent testimony, that the recently attained security of their titles, and a practical conviction that the expense

of clearing the land has been greatly overrated,* and would be abundantly compensated by the immediate returns from its extreme fertility, had induced many 6f the settlers to betake themselves vigorously to the cultivation of their country sections. “ Colonel Wakefield reported, in a letter dated the 7th November The produce of the valley of the Hutt will this year be nearly all exported or consumed by ships visiting us, whilst the cultivation of the town-land and vicinity will supply the wants of the residents. Numerous arrivals are taking country-land, with a certainty of doing well with it.’ This statement is corroborated by the appearance of several advertisements in the New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, offering ready money for eligible sections of country-land. Your Directors are informed by Mr. Heapliy, late their draftsman in the colony,f (several of whose interesting views have already been published,) that when he left Wellington in November last, thirty-one individual capitalists were actually engaged in clearing and cultivating land in the valley of the Hutt, in the Porirua and Ohiro districts, in the Karori valley, round the harbour, and at Lyall Bay. It may be confidently expected, as the first fruits of this energetic attention to the great source of all real and enduring wealth, that effectual progress will soon be made in the systematic growth and: preparation for shipment to this country of the flax, which appears destined by nature to be the staple export of the agricultural districts of New Zealand; and which, it is understood, is already supplied in considerable quantities to the Sydney market. In connexion with this branch of their subject, your Directors have sincere pleasure in informing you, that two associations of working men have been formed at Wellington, for the purpose of applying their combined savings to the purchase of land, to be eventually divided among the subscribers.”

The White population is calculated by Mr. Heapliy at 4,600. About 200 natives are completely domesticated in the families of the settlers', and are to be reckoned among the civilised inhabitants. There are 445 houses in Wellington,' exclusively of the neighbouringvillages ; 195 substantially built of brick or wood, at an aggregate cost of 23,600/.

“ Many of the dwellings and warehouses are stated to be excellent, and some of the former to possess much architectural beauty. Land suitable for building near the beach was letting at the close of last year, for short terms of years, for 10s. per lineal foot of street-frontage, and that on the beach for 1/. per foot water-frontage. Commerce and trade were flourishing, as is' indeed proved by the great number of vessels which have visited the port during the short period of its settlement, from the Australian Colonies and the whaling-grounds; those of the latter description being of course excellent customers for provisions. The pecuniary difficulties of New South Wales had been the means of furnishing Wellington with a large supply of live stock at very low prices. Coal has been found at several points near the settlement. When Mr. Ileaphy left Wellington, there were twenty vessels in the harbour, several of which were owned by merchants of the place: and one vessel of sixty tons burden was on the stocks, and nearly ready for launching. From another authentic source, your Directors have learned that the receipts of the Custom-house in the first month after it was opened amounted to 1,000/. Mr. Ileaphy mentions, that up to the time of his quitting the settlement, only one failure in business had taken place, and he believes that in that instance the insolvent party paid 15s. in the pound. Several scientific men had taken up their residence at Wellington, and the formation of a Horticultural Society shows the existence of a disposition to pursue objects of science as well as those of profit. There is no want of other indications that our countrymen, in undertaking the war upon the wilderness, have not forgotten, and are not inclined to neglect, the tastes and pursuits of civilised life.”

The settlement of New Plymouth is also mentioned. An explanation is given of peculiar arrangement respecting the new town of “Petre,” at Wanganui; where the sections of the holders of the secondary series have been selected—

“ The landowners in that district were anxious that the most eligible site in the block from which they had to make choice of their respective allotments should be set apart by the Company for a town ; and they solicited, that in consideration of the inferioi’ity of their situation to that held by parties possessed of sections in Wellington, half an acre in the new town should be granted gratuitously to each proprietor of a country-section, with a consecutive right of choice, following the order in which they had taken up those allotments. But your Directors did not think it reasonable, not even for the interests of tbe parties making this request, to accede to it specifically. They accordingly instructed your principal Agent to lay out a town of 500 acres into quarter-acre allotments; and then to permit the holders of the secondary sections to draw for the choice of these town-lots, alternately with an officer acting on behalf of the Company; directing further, that the lots so acquired for the Company should be sold by public auction, after reasonable notice in Wellington and the adjacent settlements. If by these means other parties possessed of capital are brought to settle in the town, your Directors are persuaded that the parts of it which shall fall to the lot of the holders of the secondary sections will be more valuable than if they had been permitted to appropriate the whole of the town, or at least all the most eligible sites in it, to themselves.”

* “ Some discouragement has resulted to the agricultural interest of the settlement from an incautious statement in a letter from one ot the principal colonists, and published in the newspapers in this country, that the forest-land could not be cleared at a less cost than 40/. per acre. Experience has proved that the actual cost is between 10/. and 12/. per acre ; and it is not doubted that the work will eventually be done much cheaper. As a proof of what may be effected by energy and industry, Mr. Heaphy mentions the case of two young Scotchmen owning a section in the Karori valley, having cleared about twenty acres of heavily-timbered land and built themselves a house, in the space of six months, with no assistance but that of a native employed to bring their provisions from the town.” t “The passages hereafter quoted from Mr. Heaphy have been taken from, a pamphlet now in preparation for the press by that gentleman, and communicated by him to the Directors.”