ENGLAND'S COMMUNICATION WITH AUSTRALIA.

Otago Witness, Issue 317, 26 December 1857, Page 3

ENGLAND'S COMMUNICATION WITH AUSTRALIA.

(From Mitchell's Maritime Register.)

Attempt after attempt has been made to secure some degree of regularity, as well as speed, in our communication with our thriving settlements, but *as yet with little success. Companies have been projected from time to time, most of which had broken down in their early efforts. Public meetings have been held \ here and in the colonies, at which all kinds of plans and routes have been proposed. The Peninsular and Oriental Company, the Gene- ; ral Screw Steam Company, the Australian Mail Company, and others, have all essayed to carry through the work, and all have given it up. The English and Australian Steam Company, which recently took the contract for the transport of the Australian mails via Suez, have been scarcely more successful than their predecessors, and, after incurring heavy penalties, are now driven to amalgamation with the Royal Mail Steam Company, who propose testing the Pacific route. We arc not sorry for this, because the Panama route has had no fair trial, notwithstanding it offers many special advantages, and more prospect of speed and regularity ; although having, perhaps, less. chance of remunerative return at the outset. _

. It is now somewhere about twelve yearsvtgty that the first proposal was made by the Royal Mail Company to establish this route. The Sydney colonists have always contended for "it, and have at last taken the bold step of assuming the whole responsibility and entire cost of the contract. The distance on the .Pacific side from Panama to Sydney, via New Zealand, is about 8000 miles. The rapidity with which the passage can be made in the smooth waters of the Pacific is evidenced by the repeatedly late intelligence we have received from Sydney by this route, brought by sailing vessels to Chili or Peru.'

The peculiar advantages of the Panama route for an ocean line of mail steamers has been so often discussed that it is not necessary to reiterate them. It should be borne in mind that it provides not only for our southern settlements in Australia and New Zealand, but also for Oregon, California, and Vancouver's, for Peru, Chili, and the whole western, coast of America." It puts us in communication with our Pacific fleet, and would provide a line of posts, in case of any interruption from political causes, through Suez. The greater cheapness of passage by this route, and the facilities afforded by the Panama Railway for the transfer of luggage, will attract a much larger number of passengers than now use the Suez and Melbourne route.