PROSPEROUS PROVINCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15504, 10 January 1914, Page 9

PROSPEROUS PROVINCE.

DEVELOPING THE LAND.

NEED FOR RAILWAYS.

IMPROVING PORT FACILITIES.

Within a decade the productivity of the Auckland Province and its export trade will be doubled as a result of expanding settlement and more intensive cultivation. That is the conclusion at which Mr. C. J. Parr (Mayor of Auckland) has arrived at from his observations during a motor tour of 400 miles through the southern and eastern districts. In the past week he has travelled through the Waikato, Thames Valley, East Coast district as far east as Te Puke, and the Rotorua district. He staled last evening that he has . never before seen" the country presenting so prosperous an appearance. "I have returned with a feeling of buoyant confidence in tha future of the province and of the city," he said. " New markets are being opened for our produce in the United States, the demand from Canada is steadily increasing, and there lies before the province the prospect of a new era of prosperity. No other province of the Dominion has such a future before it. The main factors essential to the realisation of its promise are railway services through the East Coast districts and into the Northern districts." An illustration of the rapid improvement which has been made in the lands of the Waikato came under Mr. Parr's notice. Eleven years ago, a small dairy farm near Cambridge was sold at £14 per acre; last month it brought £47 10s per acre. The best land in this district is valued at £40 per acre", and farmers declare that, while butter and cheese maintain their values, this land can be worked profitably. In the Thames Valley, good dairy land in a high state of cultivation can be obtained at £15 to £20 per acre. Even these prices are not so high as tha values placed upon dairy farms in Taranaki and Wellington, and while their products command the world's markets, such assessments, he considers, cannot be considered unreasonably high.

"The city must march with the countr in its progressive development," Mr Par continued. "It must realise its responsi btlities as the capital of the North. Th. produce of this rapidly-expanding proving must pass through the Port of Auckland oi its way to the overseas markets. Th schemes of the Harbour Board are some times described as extravagant in thei scope, but anyone who regards the grea future of lie district must admit that th. board is merely anticipating the certah needs of the province for shippin, facilities. The trade of the port i, increasing 60 rapidly that the boarc needs to continue its present progressiva policy, and judging from the opinions oi such authorities as Lord Pirie and Six John Byles it will before many years be required to make even greater efforts to provide for the ocean shipping of the future Fortunately the board is in a very strong financial position, and can face the future with perfect equanimity, lte endowments must be worth fully two millions, and its revenue is wonderfully buoyant, so that it should have no difficulty in keeping pace with the demands of the province's production." In view of the prediction by Mr Parr that the trade of Auckland will be doubled m the next decade, the progress of the past period is interesting. In 1903 the value of the exports through the Port of Auckland was £2,501,605; during last year exports valued in the aggregate at about £4,000,000 passed through the port. The increase is equivalent to nearly 60 per cent.