Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 90, 16 February 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1863.

The progress which the arts, manufactures, and with them the civilisation of mankind has made within the last twenty-five years, is a progress the counterpart of which it is impossible to discover in the history of those nations which once stood prominently forward as the standard of refinement and of luxury, hut which, like a fading vision, have passed away for ever. England, pre-emi-nent in the arts of peace and in the arts of war, —pre-eminent alike for the wisdom and enlightenment of her Government, and for the freedom and liberty of her people, stands forth as the nation, of all others, which most particularly and most forcibly illustrates our assertion. Her Colonies, dotting the whole inhabitable surface of the globe, her people mixed up with all the nations on the face of the earth, her ships carrying her flag and her merchandise to the remotest corners of the civilised and uncivilised world, alike attest the greatness—the never-dying renown which she has gained, and will ever maintain.

That the prodigious strides which the British nation or her sons has taken towards the subjugation of all that yet remains of the barbarous peoples of this earth are to be attributed to the introduction of Steam no one can for a moment doubt, and that that glorious invention has been the main cause of the great discoveries in all branches of the sciences and of the useful arts is an equally well known and incontrovertible fact. Where the railway or the steamboat have touched, there, as if by magic, rises a large and thriving town, and on the place where a while ago nothing could be seen but desolation and a wilderness, there resounds the buzz of busy thousands.

From this, then, it would seem that without the assistance of steam locomotive power

applied either'on the land or on the water, no place can in these days hope to make any progress, but must remain in an inert if not a retrograde state. Hawke’s Bay has at last, finding that the other Provinces were rapidly steaming away from her altogether, made an effort to establish for herself an independent Steam Navigation Company, and that, too, with considerable vigour. This, we are delighted to see, shows that the settlers of this Province can, when they, choose, pull together, and accomplish a great object; and in spite of the innumerable obstacles put in the way of her progress by a weak Government and a servile press, she will rise like Yenus from the sea, only with the addition of a steamboat or two of her own, which to us mere everyday working people, would materially heighten the charms of that irresistable creature, were she once more to favor us with a visit.

The Hawke’s Bay Steam Navigation Company is a most excellent undertaking, and one which we feel sure will meet with eminent success,—such success, indeed, that those enterprising individuals who have subscribed towards it will, we make no doubt, realise as the harvest of their seed at least a hundred-fold; and to them will be attributed the advantages which must of a certainty accrue to the rest of the Province, and to them will a future generation of Hawke’s Bayites give all the praise for having laid such a substantial foundation whereon can be built their prosperity. To us the long absence of this great desideratum has appeared remarkable, because, when we have considered all the loss and delay, all the anxiety and difficulty which our dependent state has entailed upon our merchants, and more or less upon the rest of the people, we have often expressed an opinion that unless some steps be taken to render ourselves independent, we should presently be left completely in the lurch by the capricious doings of some rival Province. Success, then, attend the Hawke’s Bay Steam Navigation Company, and may the waters be smooth and the winds fair whenever it trusts its precious treasures to them, and may they be the means of bringing to our port all those necessaries of life and those luxuries of refinement at a more moderate cost, which tend so materially to advance a people, and to render them worthy to rank amongst civilised nations.