LOCAL STEAM NAVIGATION.

New Zealander, Volume 10, Issue 881, 23 September 1854, Page 2

LOCAL STEAM NAVIGATION.

When the existence of gold in Australia first became palpable to the delighted colonists : —When diggers were indulging in day dreams transcending, in their magnificence of assurance, all that had ever been accomplished by the wonderful lamp of Aladdin :—When all classes were puzzling their imaginations with the effects to bo produced by that astounding colonial embarrasde richesses —the Press had its eye instantly and steadily fixed upon the greatest and most beneficial of all the moral social, and political benefits it was destined to’ achieve ; —that inappreciable benefit being the establishment of Steam Communication, and the consequent practical union of the Colonies with their Fatherland.

The opening of Steam Communication between England and Australia was slower in its operations than the sanguine had fondly hoped ; but it came at last, and in such a full ilood of etliciency, that not only are there, at this moment, communicating lines with Europe in full and profitable play, but almost every port and bay on the coasts of Australia and Tasmania can boast its steamer, or steamers, all carrying their full freightage of goods and passengers, driving a most advantageous trade for their owners, and raising localities of previous insignificance into places of importance, colonization, and resort. In this respect, Steam has been the veritable Aladdin’s lamp to light the colonists on the path of progress and prosperity. Contrast Port Jackson, but a short half dozen years since, when the Rose, Tliis(le, Shamrock, Phoenix, Maitland, Tamar, and William the Fourth, constituted the sum total of her coasting steam squadron ;—contract these pigmies with the numerousmajesticand powerful ships—the finest that British capital and skill can produce—that now hourly plough her waters ; consider the magnitude of the trade, traffic, and enterprise of which these noble ships have been the agents, and it must, we imagine, be evident that there can be no coloniser more sure or more successful than the Steam-ship. Long after Australia had been revelling in all the advantages and enjoyments derivable from a perfect cincture of Steam, wo, in New Zealand, were left in our primal estate of antipodean isolation,—longing for the first introduction of the lever which wo nil felt to be wanting to lift New Zealand to the corresponding scale to which the surrounding Colonies had been elevated. The arrival of the William Denny among us—the enthusiasm with which that arrival was hailed—the sleam-Hkc celerity with which a moiety of her was rendered Auckland property—.are all conclusive evidences of a deep seated conviction that steamers were wanting, and that steamers must l>e had. And it is more than satisfactory to add that, in despite of the general impression that the steam-ship must at first be sailed at a loss to her proprietary—the first trip of the William Denny lias not only been more than equal to meet her expenses hut to leave a profit upon the voyage. With such a result at the very moment of her initiation, and at one of the most inclement periods of our New Zealand season, what may we not hope for when the ship is in full operation and the Summer and the Shipping season more matured!

Bat we are reminded by the practical instruction of Australia that sea-going steamers, to be thoroughly successful, must be adequately fed by moans of coasting and inland steamers, that can, with certainty and dispatch, be made their efficient purveyors. If Local Steam Navigation were a matter to be desired by the people of Auck'and previous to the establishment of the William Denny in the Australian trade, how incomparably more so must it not be now. A sufficiency of shares in the Local Steam Company has been taken to enable the Provisional Committee to call a Public Meeting of the Shareholders. That meeting is to bo held at the Exchange Hotel on the 2Gth instant, at noon, for the purpose of electing Directors and transacting other business; and as we are of opinion that the benefits derivable from the employment of steam-ships, and the success that is likely to attend that employment are questions that cannot be too frequently discussed, we have been induced to collate a few tacts for the consideration of our fellow colonists. The Commercial advantage to be derived from the placing of small steamers upon our coasts and rivers is one of those self-evident propositions that require little or no demonstration. Among the more obvious advantages maybe stated the greater dispatch in loading vessels with produce, and the shipment of that produce (especially if it bo of a perishable kind) in a much better condition. Add to this that Producers would be led to take more care In preparing their produce for shipment, at the same time that they would find themselves compelled to ship with regularity and dispatch. Local steamers would quickly become the means of reducing, in various ways, the expense of shipment. For instance, they would be made the instruments of opening up numbers of our small rivers, creeks, and estuaries, and of converting their yet waste hanks into flourishing fields of beneficial industry. A steam tug, for example, would readily low a vessel capable of carrying 180 tons weight of freight on 10 feet of water, in a couple of hours, two miles above Panmure, where she could load, and where no wind would prevent her carrying on the work. The same thing could be done with equal facility at Mahurangi, and, we believe, also in the Wairoa, and other places. Steamers once in action, the erection of wharves and stores, in the most suitable situations for shipment, would follow as a matter of course. Thus, all the appliances of a secure and expanding Commerce would be rapidly carried out. But there is another and a more imperative argument in favour of the immediate establishment of Local Steam Navigation, and that is because of the immediate and greater prospective deficiency of coastingtonnuge, notwithstanding the very largo amount of our Coasting Flotilla. Even at this, the very dullest season of the year, all our boats and small craft are fully employed at high and increasing rates. To add to any extent to that flotilla is at present next to an impossibility, in consequence of the almost universal demand for timber, the extraordinary difficulty in procuring it, and the paralysing scarcity of labour. Small craft cannot, therefore, be built unless at an enormous outlay, so that when the busy season sets in, and the crops arc ripe for lifting, without due provision now made, a serious expence and injurious delay must necessarily be incurred. If the Potato Crop turn out at all equal to an aierage (and there is every reason to hope it will do more than that) there will be between 0000 and 9000 tons for shipment. If4ooo tons of this are got read y wit hin the first quarter of the ensuing year, unless there he a large addition to our boats and small craft the expence and detention of this produce will eat sadly into the profits of the shippers. Surely then, this consideration should of itself prove a powerful incentive to the immediate organization of Local Steam Navigation, which cannot fail to prove a profitable investment to the Shareholders, a mater*

ial gain to shippers, and the medium of imparting a great additional value to every property that can be embraced within its operations. Looking to Auckland itself, the citizens would derive many and immediate advantages. Their possessions would become much more valuable; better and ampler supplies would be brought to market with regularity and dispatch ; numerous articles would become cheaper; fresh meat would he slaughtered in the out settlements and transmitted to town ; and poultry, eggs, fish, fruit, butter, cheese vegetables, and the like, would in a short time render the building at the foot of Shortland-street a Market House in reality, and not in name. To the industrial settlers of the surrounding settlements Local Steam Navigation would prove an incalculable blessing. It would enable the dwellers upon every water channel, at a small cost and in little time, to visit Auckland, dispose of their wares, and learn the state and prospects of the Market. To the towns folks, on the other hand, it would afford the facility of agreeable, beautiful, and profitable recreation. It would bring them into closer contact with their country neighbours ; and the more they tmingled the more the colonists would learn to know and to appreciate each other. Isolation has hitherto been the rule, and, it is fair to add, the compulsory rule amongst us; —We have had no means of loco-motion at command; so that at this day there are many a ten years resident of Auckland who has never travelled ten miles beyond the precincts of the City, and who, therefore, knows as little of the intrinsic capabilities and surpassing beauty of the Colony of which he is a denizen, as the Cockney who has never passed out of hearing of Bow bells. The travelling which Local Steam Navigation would create both on account ot business and of pleasure, it would be difficult td calculate. It would raise up the Hot Springs of the Thames and Mahurangi into thriving, fashionable and health giving Bathing Places, that would speedily become the resort not only of our own colonists, but of valetudinarians attracted to make trial of their well known restorative properties from various quarters of Australia and India. Steam would readily do this for Auckland. It would lead to a larger degree of family sociability; and tend to remove that sense of solitariness and isolation of which almost every stranger who visits Auckland complains ; andas there is no place which possesses so many or such varied settlements for pleasurable Excursions, and commercial voyages, the success of Local Steam Navigation can by no means be regarded as longer problematical. When the Colonists of Van Diemen’s Land embarked their capital in steam ships, nothing but loss and failure was predicted. But has such been the case ? Far, very fur, from it! Hobart'Town and Launceston have both their steam fleets, both fully and profitably employed. They have, their ships, their hulks, and their coal depots well stored ; and, in the second year of their Steam enterprise they have declared a dividend ofeightper cent on their capital, with a large fund for carrying on further operations. Steam has introduced capital and labour into that colony ; and mixed farms of agricultural and grazing land have, we are assured, been enhanced in price iu the far interior, from 40s. to 81. and 10/. per acre—lands, too, vastly inferior in soil and climate to those around Auckland, and possessing none of the facilities of water carriage so universal here. Surely this is a strong incentive for the immediate establishment of Steam Navigation here ? That it must ami will pay, if started, at moderate rates, we have only to look at the immense extent of navigable water within a radius of 30 miles of Auckland, open to a steamer drawing five feet of water to feel certain. There cannot, within that radius, be less than 300 miles of water frontage to be profitably visited ; and ns steam affords facility to and is the parent of its own traffic, surely if ever there were a time for its judicious employment, that time is now, and Auckland is the field.

It is the firm persuasion of many of our practical colonists that unless Auckland commence at once a trade with coasting steamers, it will be difficult for her long to maintain her preeminent position at the head of all the New Zealand Settlements. The trade once introduced, she will augment her own prosperity in a manner altogether unprecedented, and set all New Zealand colonial competition at defiance. This is no mere flighty theory. We have seen the wonders that steam has accomplished for Europe :w T e hear of these wonders already re-produced, and extending, throughout Australia and Tasmania. Can we then, with such a country, pierced and penetrated, as this is, with so many bays estuaries and rivers, for a moment doubt that steam will exercise a less marvellous agency over our fortunes ?