New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, January 18, 1851.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 570, 18 January 1851, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, January 18, 1851.

Wk understand that, -in consequence of the representations made by Sir George

Grey to the Home Government, there is every probability of the speedy introduction of local steam communication between the different settlements of New Zealand, and that, possibly, the next post from England may bring the welcome intelligence that the steamer which is to be at the disposal of the Local Government, and which will replace the Government Brig, is on her way out to the colony. It is impossible to overrate the advantages which the introduction of steam, as the regular and established means of communication between the different New Zealand settlements, will confer on the colony, in the stimulus it will give to colonization, in the additional facilities to commerce and business of all kinds, from the certainty, as well as speed and regularity of communication, and in its agency in promoting civilization among the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. A recent entertaining writer describes steam to be the great civilizer of the age. “ The paddlewheel,” says he, “is the great conqueror. Wherever the captain cries, ‘ Stop her 1’ civilization stops, and lands in the ship’s boat, and makes a permanent acquaintance with the savages on shore.” And if this remark maybe made with reference to some of the less highly civilized nations of Europe, the observation applies with still greater force to a country like New Zealand. This may be considered as the last and crowning effort of his Excellency’s policy in improving the condition of the natives. After having more intimately connected them with the Europeans by opening up the country districts by means of roads, after Having taught them the use and value of European implements by employing them in the construction of these roads, after having inured them to habits of continuous labour, and given them a taste for articles of European manufacture, the introduction of local steam communication perpetuates these benefits by enlarging the field of

labour, and by supplying fresh incentives Iprl 11 cfriT f I 'll q nrl rrm- 4-zx 4-La iv iuuui.-n j, xiiv uriv; LVIW and oovious, ana nave so often been enlarged upon by us, that we shall merely now direct attention to the effect of steam communication in increasing the revenue and reducing the expense of Government, while at the same time it increases its efficiency, and converts what is at present the weakness of New Zealand, the number of scattered settlements unconnected with each other, —into its greatest strength by uniting these settlements into one prosperous colony. The extracts from rhe 1 imes in our present number shew that an earnest and resolute effort is being made in England to connect, by means of steam, the Australian colonies with the mothercountry, and it appears by no means improbable that before the end of the present year this project may be matured and the communication be established by steamers by way of Panama. This route, by far the most direct to the Australian colonies, would be attended with peculiar advantages to New Zealand, which would be the first colony in the track of these vessels. The practical question of the greatest interest to be decided would then be whether these vessels would touch at Auckland or at Wellington. The central position of Wellington would almost seem to decide this question in its favour, but it is impossible to doubt that the considerations most likely to turn the scale, are the superior facilities offered by either settlement for forming a coal depot. Our fellow settlers at the North seem to be exerting themselves with laudable industry in ascertaining the quality of the coal in their neighbourhood, and similar efforts should be made in this Province in testing the properties of the coal in the Southern Island, so that we may be prepared with the necessary information whenever the wished for opportunity occurs.