THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, MAY 27, 1892.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8889, 27 May 1892, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, MAY 27, 1892.

[ What the telegraph is able to do for us was shown in our columns the other morning, by the list of events which had just occurred in the different parts of the world—deluge of rain in America —vast tracts of half-a-dozen of the central United States inundated, the rivers, and especially the mighty Missouri and Mississippi overflowing their banks, half the big city of St. Louis under water, widespread loss of life and misery, and of course business paralysed in Chicago, the port of that immense region. At the opposite side of the world, a hurricane over the Indian Ocean, destroying half the crops of the Mauritius, blowing down twenty-four churches, wrecking twenty - nine steamers along the coast, and, as already computed, killing 1500 persons. And in keeping with the above news,

fresh announcements about tho a wts m various European cities ° h " . telligencewhich now occasional ln " to us in a single morning lycot »p? of such a fact, if one of „„ r f „. "*« could re-visit this world he »? [ I,lf ' r * believe it to be conn,,'* ' ™' g „ ht we » at last. If it were not ( ■'» end graph we might still be gp 'J e IWeabove announcements, wide", J" 8 " in time as the sites of those oc,.„ r !T are in space. And it is but on, of"?' marvels that within the* memor, " e many of us-or to speak e S7, 0f ing the reign of the Sovereism if r birthday wo have just again-have produced sweephJ trasts between the present a .° P COn preceding ones. The cotno-,- fL'.'j people at one side of the globe ,„ , ' to and become acquainted with ,I.l' the other side; but the elecu ! ' at enables us, without stirring Rb ,' J ,re talk to each other, and siinulUneouiv from the opposite ends of thp eir K ' The steam engine is not an invent; of our times, for a Greek thousand h years ago tore the roof oil' his | lOu 7 some such contrivance, and notM ' V better then came of it. We also k n§ that in the sixteenth century Blase" 0 * Garay built and propelled by «ea£ a little vessel in the harbour v Barcelona, and in the presence of I" ' Philip and his high officials. But ti"f was a bad age for bold experiment and anything uncommon-particul ~''' if, as in this case, there was a suspicion of brimstone about it—was sure to U looked at askance, and so the puili * sputtering dragon of steam had to *<j to sleep again, until roused up i n th* more practical 19th century. The tip.* steamship crossed the Atlantic in ls]y - but it was not until IS4O that a regular steam line was laid on, with a speed of eight miles an hour. Some of the newvessels now make 22 miles an hour, and a still further increase of speed is leaked for. On land, express trains can 1* habitually run at 60 miles an hour, and authorities on the subject assert'that this may be yet even 90.

Electric communication and swift steam transport are more indispensable to England than to any other nation because of the geographical peculiarities of her Empire, which differs from other colossal Empires — from the contemporary Russian as well as from the ancient Roman—in the fact of being ocean-divided, with huge component parts ill every quarter of the globe And the telegraph and the steamship are far more necessary to England now than they would have been a hundred years ago (if at that time in use), for then she was the only great maritime nation ; whereas all the principal nations are now becoming, or have already become, naval and mercantile. And such aids to communication and transport are all the more necessary tc her because of the rapid, ever-continu-ing expansion ©f her great groups of colonies and foreign dependencies. Such constant enlargement is like a law of their existence, is inevitable. In one way this was illustrated in India by the annexation, not long since, of the great Burmese State. It was not desirable or desired, because the area of British India was already immense; and, again, because China was looked for as an ally against Russia, and the Chinese Emperor was liege lord over Burmah as well as over the other States in what is called India beyond the Ganges, or IndoChina. And, as that monarch had war with . Franco about her seizure of other States in Indo-China, and is at feud with Russia about what were once Chinese provinces in Central Asia, this Burmese annexation placed England also in adverse relations to the Court of Pekin. But it could not be helped. French statesmen had in a few years run up a wide dominion in India beyond the Ganges, and unmistakeably contemplated including Burmah, and the British Government considered that it forced their handremembering the old balance of power in India and the quarrels it caused in the middle of the last century.

As for the colonies, successful colonisation cannot stand still, and in North America and Australia it has pushed its way even into the frigid and torrid zones. And what a prospect for the expansion of Britain's power over sea is afforded by the Dark Continent, now explored and unmasked ! With our settlements in the far south and in the Livingstone interior as basis, with all the navigable waterways, grand rivets, and grand lakes—and the degenerate Portuguese no longer keeping useless the Zambesi, or somnolent Mussultnen careless of the commercial service to be had from the mighty Nile, how rapidly Africa will be metamorphosed, with the help of these modern aids to progress, the steam engine and the electric wire.