THE ANGLO-AUSTRALIAN STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY.

The New Zealand Times gives the following interesting particulars concerning projected steam communication with Victoria and probably this Colony :—: — There is at last a very excellent prospect of a long-cherished project being successfully carried out — that of uniting England and Victoria by steamships of large size and great power, travelling by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and making the Tun in from forty to forty-five days. The distance of Melbourne from Southampton, by the Red Sea and Straits of Gibraltar route, is 11,875 miles, and by way of the Cape, in the track usually followed by sailing vessels and steamshipa which do not call at Table Bay, it is as nearly as possible the same, and would be shortened by full-powered steamers which, in place of crossing the Equator between 18deg. and 28deg. west, wo aid follow the old route of the East India Company's liners, which made the best way they could across the Gulf of Guinea, calling at Ascension, St. Helena, and Cape Town. The difficulty, until very lately, was the non-existence of steamships capable of carrying coal for the voyage, with a sufficient amount of cargo, and accommodation for passengers extensive enough to make the business pay. When the first expei'iment was made by placing the Great Britain in the trade, on the breaking out of the rush from England to the Victorian goldfields, she carried but little canvas, and trusting to steam alone, she was unable to make headway against the south-east trades, and was forced back, when within a few days' steaming of Table Bay, to St. Helena, to replenish her stock of coal. On her next voyage, she I was transformed into a full and powerfully, rigged ship, carrying an enormous spread of canvas ; she followed, from that time, the | course which was most likely to give her favourable winds, altogether avoiding places of call ; and it was then for the first time the public of England became familiar with the announcement, placarded all over England,

" Steam from Liverpool to Melbourne in GO days." But in those times, the compound engine had not long been invented. Ships fitted with Messrs Randolph and Elder's engines on that principle had been at work for some time in the Pacific, on the coasts of Chili and Peru, and the enormous saving they were effecting in the consumption of coal, added to the additional profit derivable from" the extra passenger and cargo accommodation, was beginning to attract attention on the Clyde. The Great Britain's consumption of fuel was never less than between five and Bix hundred tons of coal per voyage, to secure even in calm weather the moderate rate of nine knots per hour ; and she never sailed from the Mersey with leBS than from seven to eight hundred tons of the beat Welsh coal on board, and she now ships the same quantity of New South Wales coal for the return passage. The space she can give up for cargo, large as the ship is, is so small, comparatively, that her voyages have only paid moderately, and sometimes not at all, when her cabins have not been fully occupied. The Great Britain on various occasions, by the help of "the brave westerly winds " in running down her easting, accomplished the passage from Liverpool to Hobson's Bay in fifty-five "or fifty-six days, and on one voyage succeeded in making the passage in about fifty-three days, beating her much more modern rival, the Northumberland, by half an hour, Now the fastest runs the London and Melbourne steamers make is from fifty to fifty-one days ; and it is only in the season when easterly winds prevail along the south coast of Australia, that these vessels attempt the western passage homewards, so that communication with the Cape of Good Hope trom Australia is intermittent, and the regular mails from New Zealand and Australia for the Cape have to be sent' to England and transhipped there. It was the opinion of the late Captain Gray, however, that with a ship large enough, and powerful enough to be independent of the winds, there was no reason whatever why the duration of the voyage should not be reduced to forty-five days j and the correctness of that opinion has now been proved. He had himself repeatedly made the run from the meridian of the Cape to Melbourne in from nineteen to twenty days ; and the Cape steamers now regularlymake the voyage from a channel port to Cape Town in twenty-five days, and have accomplished it more than once under twenty two days. The Mongol, on her voyage to New Zealand, was in the parallel of Melbourne on the forty fifth or forty-sixth day out. Measra Gibbs, Bright, and Co. , the Liverpool agents of the Company by whom the Great Britafn is owned, became so convinced of the possibility of accomplishing the trip within forty-five days, that during the last five or six years they have made repeated efforts to float a company whose ships should so shorten the time of the Australian voyage, These efforts failed, because the Great Bri« tain, from her great consumption of coal and comparative want of speed under steam-— though otherwise a favourite and fortunate ship — had become somewhat of a White Elephant on their hand> Her purchase was always a condition in the proposed arrange* merits, and on Itiat account the new sememes successively broke down. Another company, however, has now been formed under the auspices of Messrs Gibbs. Bright, and Co., in which that obstacle no longer exists. The object of the Anglo- Australian Steam Navigation Company, now formed in England, ia to build or purchase ships which shall reduce the voyage to one of forty or forty five days. They are backed by the Great Western Railway Company, who are anxious to utilise the fine harbour of Milford Haven, which is now not only connected wirh London and Bristol by the Great Western and South Wales lines, but has been brought into immediate communication with the Midland counties, and the whole north, east, and west of England and Scotland by the North-western and Midland Counties' lines, which have been carried through the centre of South Wales. The Company appear to be a powerful one, and they have begun their work in a very practical way. Before asking assistance in the shape of a subsidy from any of the Colonial Governments — and Victoria has been pledged for some years to give substantial aid to such an enterprise — they have determined to make a series of quick passages, to accomplish which no expense will be spared. Thoy have purchased, as their pioneer ship, the Iberia, a vessel justlaunched on the Clyde, and which on her trial trip logged over sixteen knots per hour. The Iberia is a vessel considerably exceeding four hundred feet in length, and measuring between four and five thousand tons. Her engines are on the compound principle, and she will carry her own fuel for the homeward as well as the outward voyage, thus effecting a considerable saving in the cost of her fuel. The Iberia will probably reach Melbourne within a month from this date, and as an average speed of fourteen knots would reduce the time of the voyage to thirty-six days, four days may be allowed for calls and stoppages by the way, and yet the run would be accomplished in forty days. The Livonia, a sister ship to the Iberia, has, also been purchased by the Anglo-Australian Company, and arrangements are reported to have been made for the purchase or building of other ships to complete the fleet necessary to maintain communication at short intervals. The voyage of the Iberia, successfully accomplished within the time specified, the question will be whether an effort cannot be made to induce the Company to extend the trip of their ships to a New Zealand port. There would be difficulty at first, no doubt, as the direct trade of New Zealand with

Britain is still comparatively in its infancy. It is, however, a sturdy child, and is growing not only fast, but healthily. By-and-bye its importance will be better understood, and as we can promise a considerable number of emigrants as passengers, and as the Anglo-Australian Company are not likely to limit themselves to a Melbourne trade if a profitable business can be done by lengthening the voyage of their ships by 1200 miles, or saying three and a half days' steaming, they may be found not indisposed to include New Zealand in their plans.