STEAM COMMUNICATION (VIA PANAMA) WITH AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 570, 18 January 1851, Page 3

STEAM COMMUNICATION (VIA PANAMA) WITH AUSTRALIA.

[From the Times, September 9.] No announcement that has recently been made has excited such universal regret among the mercantile world as that relating to the obstructions which, it is understood, have been placed by the East India Company in the way of the establishment of steam communication with Australia. The delay of this long promised and most important measure cannot fail to have a prejudicial effect upon the prospects of our vast colonies in the South Seas, and must, in addition, seriously interfere with the extensive and increasing commercial intercourse between Europe and the South Pacific. We have recently seen that her Majesty’s Government has entered into arrangements for reorganising the West India mail service, by which the Isthmus of Panama will provisionally be reached in 24 days, and ultimately in 18 days from England : that a plan of steam communication with Brazil will come into operation early in 1851 : and that tenders for a monthly mail to the Cape of Good Hope, to be conveyed by steamers, have just been accepted by the Admiralty. The time has, therefore, arrived when any further delay in providing for a rapid and regular communication with Australia cannot be submitted to without enormous detriment to the many political and commercial interests involved, without retarding the progress of the Australian colonies, to the inhabitants of which a blow alike unexpected and serious will be given by the difficulties now thrown in the way, and which seem to be fatal to the immediate realization of the project. As it appears that for two years at least it will be impossible to reopen the negotiations with the East India Company, and that at the expiration of that period the same difficulties as those which have proved fatal in the present instance may then perhaps exist, it will be useful to inquire whether it is absolutely impracticable to arrange and bring into operation, as a substitute for the proposed line of steamers from Signapore to Sydney, in connexion with the Indian line of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, a similarly regular and possibly more speedy communication with Australia and New Zealand.

These remarks are necessarv, because it seems to be an impression that an attempt will at a future date be made to induce the Government to provide a screw mail service via the Cepe with Australia. If such be ever attempted, it would probably only lead to many disappointments, and in anticipation of such endeavours, it is hard that the action of Government in respect to a really practical scheme should be delayed for two or three years till the problematical merits of an hitherto untried and expensive plan have been tested.

If, therefore, steam communication with Australia is to be immediately aud effectively carried out, it must be by the western plan. The advantages of this route are evident and tangible, and the prompt execution of this scheme presents no insuperable or inherent difficulties. Contractors are ready who would undertake to perfect the communication in from 12 to 15 months. From all parts of England representations in favor of an immediate commencement of the scheme are being received ; it is found impossible, for two years to come, even to reopen the negotiations of the Eastern plan, presuming that to be the best for adoption ; and the Cape of Good Hope route has on the face of it objections that would be sufficient to ensure its rejection in respect to the mail service, which must necessarily be a regular one. We therefore gather that no hesitation ought any longer to be felt by the Government about determining its course of action ; and that a measure imperatively demanded, both for the political and-commercial supremacy of England, and for the interests of our magnificent and yet undeveloped colonies in Australia, should forthwith be placed in a train for consummation.