PROGRESS OE AUCKLAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15668, 22 January 1913, Page 2

PROGRESS OE AUCKLAND.

ADDRESS TO VISITING BOWLERS. ' (From Our Own Correspondent.) AUCKLAND, January 20. Some astonishing facts and 'hgures indicative of the progress of Auckland were given by the Mayor (Mr C. J. Parr) in the course of a civic reception accorded this morning to a • party of visiting bowlers from Dunedin, (Jamaru, Tiniaru, and Palmerston. The visitors, he hoped, would liave time to look round Auckland and judge for themselves how the place was expanding. The • City Council, he said, was kept very busy striving to keep pace with private enterprise in building up the city during the last 20 yeais. The population in 1892 was 51,287; to ; day it totalled 100,400; so that in 20 years the population had doubled itself. The exports from the province in 1892 were worth £1,218,321; in 1912 they reached £4,960,000, which meant that in a score of years the amount had been trebled—an even better record, he thought, than the doubling of the population. Referring to the revenue of the city, Mr Parr said he was not dealing with contiguous local bodies, but with the development of the city proper. The revenue 20 years ago aggregated £58,992; to-day it represented an income of £214,962 —an increase by four times in the period named. In 1900 the revenue totalled £71,722; by 1912 it had reached £214,963, thus trebling itself and representing 200: per cent, of an increase. Twelve months ago the annual rateable value of, the city 1 was £679,369; to-day it had increased to £732,030—an increase of £52,661 in just a year. Placing j the annual value at 5 per cent, of the capital value, as'was done in Government valuations, it proved an appreciation of £1,053,220 for the year in capital value; in other words, the capital value of the city increased by over a million pounds in one year. The improvement, of course, was largely.dne. to the great number of large new warehouse, shop, and office blocks.