INTER-COLONIAL STEAM COMMUNICATION. [From the New Zealander, Feb. 16.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 483, 20 March 1850, Page 4

INTER-COLONIAL STEAM COMMUNICATION. [From the New Zealander, Feb. 16.]

The proposal for the introduction and maintenance of ste&m communication between the several settlements of the colony, is a subject which, while its importance would seem to demand from us a lengthened consideration and comment, is really — as the case at present stands before us — one upon which it is difficult to say much, without either tritely repeating what has been said a thousaud times before, and what, indeed, from its indisputable obviousness, scarcely needed to be urged at all, or indulging in anticipations as to the future, which — unacquainted as we are with the conditions and details of the scheme now in contemplation — might be only baseless spe-< ' culations destined to' be swept away' at an early day by the development of the facts of the case. The political, commercial, and social advantages likely, if not certain, to result from the establishment of such a communication, require no formal exhibition, as they must' suggest themselves with self-evidencing conclusiveness to even the least, reflective ■ mind. It would be a waste of time and words to set about proving that' facilities of intercommunication have not only always tended, bat have been essential, to the practical evolution of a country's capabilities, and that steam has been found beneficial wherever it has been applied for this purpose, in full proportion to its unparalleled power of augmenting such facilities ; that the geographical

position of- pur settlements a relatively, renders it more than ordinarily necessary to introduce such facilities Bere, if we would Bave die connexion Vetween our provinces and principal towns actual and ;bperativ'e,^ rather than (as, in some points of view, it now ii) nominal and occasionally embarrassing — as, 'for example, when the English mail for Auckland is sent to Otago or Nelson, whence it may not reach us until after a longer period than that in which a London merchant could write to his agent in Calcutta and receive a reply, oj could correspond twice over with' the United States of America ; that our happily expanding commerce, and the brightening prospect which the Caiifor'nian market opens to our productive industry and mercantile enterprise, invests the matter with increased force and urgency of requirement — and that frequent intercourse between the settlements woald, probably more powerfully than anything else, help to subdue any feelings of jealousy or mistrust that may have existed between them, and to link them more closely than they have hitherto been united in the bonds of common interest and mutual confidence and kindness. These and similar, benefits, which both reason and the experience of other countries warrants us in anticipating, commend themselves so immediately and almost intuitively to every man's understanding, that, we say, they need no explanation or enforcement from us. The present object must, however, be tested by its own details, which we are not yet in possession of. We admit that its proceeding from the New Zealand Company casts a shade of suspicion on it, sufficient to induce thoughtful men to suspend their judgment. The magnates of that Company bave only themselves to blanie if a settler who has bad an opportunity of comparing their promises with their performances, and who therefore knows their corporation to be what their own Edward Gibbon Wakefield (unkindest cut of all i) calls ** a delusion," and a u great sham," is disposed to say of their specious offers, Timeo Danaos el donaferentes. But while we may suspend our judgment, we must avoid the injustice of pre-judging the case against them. We now find them tendering a great boon, and we are bound to receive it cordially and gratefully so far as it goes. When the plan is beibre us, we shall freely examine it, especially in its bearings upon the interests of our own settlement. We hays heard it said that on the ground of their right to do what they like with their own, we are not at liberty to object to a plan tor which they — not we — are to pay ; so doubt we, in this settlement, have not the same right to speak respecting it with the Nelson colonists, whose money is to contritribute so largely to its accomplishment ; but still it is a question in which we have a clear right to be heard. We shall be intimately ■concerned ia its working whether we like it or not ; and if the scheme should not be conducive to our welfare, it will affect us, amongst other ways, by pre-occupying the ground as regards steam comiijunication, and possibly preventing our obtaining something better which might have been secured from the Government and our own resources. We do not make these observations, however, with any view of opposing a hindrance to a scheme which wears so smiling and auspicious an aspect. We would only guard against committing ourselves hastily to entire approbation of a large plan, of Which we now only see the bare outline. It is also to be borne in mind that whatever the main features of the plan may be, they have been already determined on, and our own suggestions for tbeir alteration would come too late to prevent their being adopted at least in the initial operations. For instance, we may think with others, and we do think, that vessels of 300 or 400 tons will be too large for our present necessities, and that smaller vessels, especially if there were moire of them, might for some time suit the purpose better. But the 4th of October was fixed for receiving the tenders : if the' project has been acted out most probably the vessel is on her way here ; objection, therefore, would just now be useless. * The announcement, let us remark in conclusion, gives' indication of a new vitality in the Company, which contraditits the opinion that, as Mr. E. G. Wakefield confidently asserted, the' Company was' already' virtually defunct, and would ceastf* to exist in form' as well as in fact, in' May, 1850. If its extinction 'were so near, it would scarcely commence such r an undertaking as this. Is it so' that Dow-.tiing-street and Broad-street Buildings have .entered into a new alliance, and that this scheme is one of its firs); productions— the forerunner, not improbably, of.a series ? We muiCwait for s solution of this natural and verj*tstiggestive question.