STEAM NAVIGATION. [From the "Times" City Article, November 28.]

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 522, 16 April 1851, Page 4

STEAM NAVIGA TION. [From the "Times" City Article, November 28.]

The delay «f the GoTernmcnt in establishing steam, communication with Australia it loudly complained of. Afresh memorial has const qnently been presented to Lord John Russell by the commit cc of the association formed in London to promote a speedy decision. In this document reference is made 10 the g'neral expressions of public opinion on the subject winch have been called forth during the past three years, as well as to the discussions in both Houses of Parliament, and to the frequent avowals on the part of the Government that the time bad arrived when the measure could be no longer postponed. The fact that notwithstanding all ihis the various tenders sent in a year apo for the performance of the service have met with no response is then pointed out, nnd the regret of the commitfe it strongly stated at their having learned that the postponement, which appears to be indefinite, is the retult of a difference upon a point, in no wav connected with Australia, between the Government j and the East India Company The committee, however, feel that his Lordship will regard it a« unjust | that such a circumstance should be permitted to f.>rrn any ground whatever for denying to the Australian people "a measure now conceded to every other possession of the Crown, and to the adoption of which the Executive long ago pie Iged themselves;" and they therefore solicit his intervention as head of the Minis- j try "for the removal of those delays which other de- < partments of the State are interposing to its accomplishment." ' It is probable that the question is at tin* time receiving the earnest attention of the Government, and that past delays may even be found to have led 10 the advantage that it will now be looked at in a broader lii?ht th.Bn would have been the case two years back. Should this anticipation prove incorrect, there is, at all events, a certainty that upon the reassembling o^ Parliament the subject will become a prominent one. The declared value of our exportations to the Australian group last year amounted to £2,080,364-, tbo.e to the West Indies being £1,821,146, yet the latter colonies have enjoyed the advantage of steam communication for nine years under a Government contract at ,£240,000 per annum, while, although it is believed it would be more than covered by the postage receipts, coupled with a contribution they are themselves willing to make, i?48,00O is denied to procure the same advantages for the former. This £48,000 it the amount proposed in the tender of the Pacific Steam-packet Company for a monthly mail via Panama,—a shorter route, it it alleged, than the Eastern one by 18 days to Australia, and by 22 days to New Zealand. It is true that the Government, until they were met by obstructions from the India House, hoped to establish the pasißge by way of Singapore free of all expente—that is to say, a reduction could have been c fleeted in thp cost of that portion of the India mail service at present performed by the steamers of the East India Company sufficient to defray the extra charge of putting on tteamers from Singapore to Sydney. But any saving that it may be posbibie to effect in the existing India route can have nothing intrinsically to do with the Australian "juestion. If the saving can btf made, it can just as well be regarded as a <<et-off against the cott of steamers from Panama to Sydney as Irom Singapore to Sydney. Under these circumstances any delay or temporary half measures on the score of waiting the expiry of tbe India Company,s charter, when the desired concessions can be enforced from that body, would appear wholly irrational. If the mercant le public were left to themselves, as regatds the payment for letters, to patronize the route wJich they found most expeditious ard economical there cau be no boubt that a line would be established from Panama forthwith, whi.e as regards the conveyance of the better class of regaids the conveyance of the better class of emigrants, and the consequent Hdvancement of the colonies, it would offer advantages that could scarcely be over-estimated. If, on the contrary, through the artificial m'erference of the Government, the longer and, as regards passengers, almost prohibitory route should be adopted, we may tee before many years, or months even, a lival American line running on the Pacific, anticipating our mniis, and eventually forcing our Minister! to grant a contract on that side iuch as is now applied for, and with the ad. ditional mortification of paying higher terms in consequence of the competition that will then have to be encountered.