STEAM COMMUNICATION WITH AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 83, 7 August 1852, Page 8

STEAM COMMUNICATION WITH AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND.

Steam is progressing apace. Our readers are already aware that the Government have entered into a contract for the conveyance of mails, via the Cape to Australia, every two months. We now learn that a New Company is being formed under the auspices of the Royal West India Mail Company, with every assurance of success, for the conveyance of mails, &c. to Sydney, via. Panama, Tahiti, and New Zealand. The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company received official intimation on the 6th March, of the acceptance on the part of the Lords of the Admiralty of their proposals for establishing a continuation of the mail service, from Singapore to Sydney and back, calling both ways at Batavia, Swan River, or King George's Sound, Adelaide, and Port Phillip. The service is to be performed every alternate month to that contracted for the Australian Royal Mail Steam Navigation Company, via the Cape ; thus giving a monthly steam communication between England and Australia. The contract stipulates that the mails are to be conveyed at the rate of not less than ten knots an hour on the average of each voyage, excepting on the Singapore and Sydney line, on which the average is to be not less than eight and half knots. The veseels are to be of not less than 1,100 tons burdens on the main lines, and of not less than 600 tons for the branch from Singapore to Sydney. To guard in some measure against disappointments as to speed, the Admiralty further stipulated that the vessels intended to perform the trunk lines should be capable of attaining a speed under the most favourable circumstances, (i c. in smooth water), with coals on board, and loaded so as to float down to the load line of the hull, of twelve knots an hour, and of ten and a half knots an hour for the branches. The Australian mail service from Singapore to Sydney, included in this contract, is to be performed each way once every two months. The object of the Admiralty in promoting this extension of the chain of postal communication from India to Australia is, in a great measure, to accommodate the Indian presidences, between which and the Australian ports a great and valuable trade is springing up. To the mother country the Singapore route to Australia can never offer any advantages but those of a mere postal and very expensive passenger com-

munication, with facilities for the conveyance of small quantities of light and very valuable merchandise, and possibly of bullion, but the most important benefits will be derived by India and Australia, which will hereby possess to their mutual advantage the desideratum of an efficient but rather un frequent packet service. It should be mentioned that, previous to their retirement, the former Admiralty and Chancellor of the Exchequer placed on record their recommendation that the tender of the Peninsular and Oriental Company should be accepted. The duration of the contract is to be for seven years from the expiration of the old one, which terminates in 1853. The contractors have the right of employing iron steamers upon any of the routes inducted in the contract.