STEAM COMMUNICATION WITH AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 680, 7 February 1852, Page 4

STEAM COMMUNICATION WITH AUSTRALIA.

(From the Times. Sept. 15.)

Three months ago a Committee of the ’ House of Commons reported in favour of steam communication with the Australian colonies by the Cape of Good Hope. So thoroughly convinced were the Committee of the necessity of immediately establishing this line, and thus putting an end to the agitation of a question with which successive Governments have professed to be occupied for nearly ten years, that they divided their report into two parts, and with commendable diligence dealt first with the Australian part of the subject, inorder that the larger inquiry entrusted to them with reference to the Indian service might be no cause of delay. Alas! they little knew the people with whom they had to deal. If they were in a hurry, the Government were not, feeling most probably that a question which ought to have been settled five years ago, but which had been allowed to stand over for want of Parliamentary force to push it through, might well wait till after the legislatorial scramble of July, and the grouse shooting relaxations of August. Had it not been for the discovery of gold in New South Wales —the news of which was received, by the by, by way of India, and confirmed by a West India steamer —there is every reason to suppose that the report ol the Committee would have been allowed to sleep in the same limbo of things forgotten, with the contracts, ! negotiations, and squabbles which have illus--1 trated the perplexing history of this unhappy 1 subject.

As it was, however, something must be done, and that something was embodied in a notice from the Admit ally inviting tenders for a bi-montbly communication with the Australian colonies by way of the Cape of Good Hope, at the rate of eight and a half miles an hour. We have no complaint to make against the course selected, for .although the opening of the Nicaragua route, and. the forward state of the works on the Panama railway, strengthen the case for the route by Central America and the Pacific, the recom-

mendation of a Parliamentary Committee has given the line by the Cape of Good Hope a just claim to at least an experimental preference. But what we feel bound to protest against is, the notion that the wants of Australia can be supplied by a steam communication every two months, or that it is necessary to limit that communication to the slowest rate which steam vessels attain. Of all the achievements of this country in peaceful and industrial progress, there is none of which she has greater reason to be proud than the thriving and industrious communities which she has raised up on the shores of the unpeopled and remote continent of Australia. To them we look for the staple commodity of one of our most important manufactures. They have entirely dtiven the Spaniard, and are rapidly driving the German, out of our wool market. Their consumption of British manufactures is 1 enormous, their capacity as a field of emigra-

tion unbounded; the shipping which employ is monthly on the increase, j; J where else we have shown ourselves elive to the advantages of steam comm tion between the parts of a large and sc ed empire. Tbe eastern and westerns] 6tof South America, from Panama to vT' 3 raiso, and from Pernambuco toßi o . from Madeira to the Cape of Good Asia, from the Isthmus of Suez to the Is?*’ of Hong Kong, are coasted by our The continent of Australia and the Island*' New Zealand are the only portions world entirely excluded from this great m * * iof communication. Nay, even within th | week, the Admiralty has advertised f monthly steam communication from England' I those graves for Europeans which we occun the pestilential shores of Central Africa- not °k the hope of carrying passengers or letters, but a measure ancillary to the suppression of th* slave trade. Having thus proclaimed th* they think it necessary to have a njonihh steam communication with every other civi lized or uncivilized, healthy or pestilential* country on tbe globe, the Admiralty make*' single exception to that rule, and that exce * tion is our splendid colonial empire in Aus tralia. What will be saved by this extraordi' nary measure we do not know, but ihj monthly communication could be obtained fa something like sixty thousand pounds a-yea r the economy even on the highest cotnputatiot can hardly be worth the disgrace to our Go vernment and the slight to our colonies. One considerable object in steam comma j nicauon, of inestimable value in mercantil

transactions, is certainty as to the means ani I period within which information can be trars-1 | milted and obtained. In this the projected bi-monthly communication will entirely fai|J since in the long period between the two packets it will be quite possible for infer, mation by way of India, of Panama, or evea of Cape Horn, to be transmitted. Suti packets wouid not be the only, nor perbap the principal means of transporting letters be. tween the two countries. They would at.

doubtedly carry a considerable number of pas.l sengers, but this benefit the itif.eqneticy ,|| tiiCl. ouu ..i'-. cuwc . uS Sixt Srl- as ’pvSSiuir,*i| The principal effect of the Admiralty scbentl will be to deter private enterprise for as lorgl a period as possible from supplying the wastil it will not supply itself. The existence of i| company possessing a Government contract] for four years, will operate very strongly tl deter private enterprise from embarking ini career which appears to be already pre-ottv-pied. Not only does the Admiralty (onsidti that six steamers a-year are sufficient to keen up our communication with Australia, bulk anticipates that this will he the case for th next four years, and by the tenders it invito virtually pledges the Government to take m further steps in the matter for thut period. Influenced by these considerations, wean led to consider that the proposed measured the Government is a positive injury to th Australian colonies, and has a direct tendency to prevent that regular rapid communicition with the mother-country which it professes to carry out. It is impossible for lu course to be more unfair or more injurioust

these rising communities, than that which tltl Government has adopted in this matter. Hd| it declared five years ago, that it was nolitil intention to expend any public money in the] matter, but that it would leave the carrying! of the letters between the countries to privaie j competition, individual enterprise would lotfl ago have supplied a thoroughly suto tl | communication by India, by Panama, or llf| Cape of Good Hope. But by announcingi'J| intention to do something, and always fiadhjj some pretext for delay, Govsxujdcdl “ v ‘i only been inactive itself, but the cause o*l inaction in others; and now in the fulnessci time, when the report of the Commits cthe House of Commons, and the discovery ■ of another California in New South Walt’i I absolutely compel it to act, it has contrivedto act in such a manner as to give to the

nies the minimum of advantage from pubWl sources, while it effectually discourage s P”' vate enterprise, and shows an indifference t-. wards important independencies utterly aSt0 ‘ nishing to those acquainted with their rea value and growing importance. The effect* the course pursued by the Government 1 131 been to deprive these colonies of any 5168(1 communication for five years, and will p to bably be to prevent steam communication 1 four more, and all this under the sembl alltl of promoting it.