We feel perfectly assured that we never shall have an effective postal communication with Australia, until we cease to regard that important colony as a mere calling-station for our East Indian mails. Its increasing commerce with the mother country demands that it should have a mail service distinctly its own, conducted with no other view than to promote the convenience of that commerce, and of the people of the colony. How then is this to be provided most economically, and, at the same time, most effectively? The latter is the main question. We ought scarcely to think about cost in the effort to improve the postal facilities of a possession which, we have seen, took from us last year upwards of fourteen millions sterling of British produce and manufactures. Past experience has, we think, shown sufficiently that the object in view can never be obtained by steaming round the Cape of Good Hope. The shortest passages as yet attained by that route were performed by the “Golden Age” in 61 days, and by the “Argo” in 64 days. The noble steam-ship “Great Britain,” in the last trip made the distance to Melbourne in 65 days. The Australian Steam Navigation Company, which promised so largely, failed most unequivocally. The first of their ships, the “Australian,” took 44 days to reach the Cape; the “Sydney” took 54 days; the “Melbourne” took 75 days; and the “Adelaide” took 77 days. Of the two last vessels’ voyages the Melbourne Argus remarked at the time:—
“The preposterous length of the voyage is a minor evil in comparison with the anxiety which haunted this community for weeks in the case of the last two steamers. We were almost on the point of giving up the ‘Adelaide’ for lost, when the lumbering old hulk was reported at last to have rolled into Adelaide.... The mischiefs inflicted upon the mercantile community here, by the detention of the ‘Adelaide,’ and the fears for her safety, have been intolerable. Mails have been postponed—goods have arrived before the advices or bills of lading had come to hand—correspondence has been confused, and business transactions have been utterly deranged. It is most provoking to think that a steamer holding the Government mail contract, and for which the mails have been kept back for several weeks, should leave London on the 11th of December, and arrive in Port Philip on the 11th of May following—a period of five months precisely!”
Undoubtedly the Company must have mismanaged its business, and its vessels been unfit for the service. But it is the opinion of all nautical men, that mails, conveyed in even the most superior steamers by way of the Cape of Good Hope, can never be depended upon either for speed or regularity. The most efficient mode which we have seen proposed for performing the service, is that of the Australian Direct Steam Navigation Company via Panama. It is intended that this Company’s vessels, which are to be powerful paddle-wheel steamers of 3000 tons, shall proceed at stated periods from Milford Haven to Aspinwall (Navy Bay), on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus; from whence passengers and cargo will be conveyed by railway to Panama, on the Pacific side, and there re-embarked for Australia, accomplishing the whole distance, to or from, in about fifty-five days. That the power of fulfilling this promise is within the reach of an energetic Company, has recently been proved by the experiment made by the United States steamer, “Golden Age.” America, by the by, is still our pioneer in steam enterprise.
“The ‘Golden Age’—(we quote from an ably-conducted Liverpool paper, the Journal)—steaming only slowly, and under unfavourable circumstances, made the run from Sydney to Tahiti in 13½ days, and from Tahiti to Panama in 18 days 12 hours. A more powerful vessel would have performed the distances in about 11 and 15 days respectively, and surmounted effectually the only difficulty to be experienced in crossing the Pacific, namely, carrying coals sufficient for the voyage from station to station. The detention, which in this case was nearly 15 days between Sydney and Southampton, might be shortened to about 4 days, by proper arrangements being made for prompt despatch; and the voyage would thus be performed in from 50 to 53 days.”
A portion of the journey across the Isthmus, we may remark, was performed on mules, only thirty-one miles of the railway being as yet completed. The whole line, however, is expected to be opened in the course of the present year.
Many circumstances concur to render the Panama route infinitely preferable to any other. In the first place, the shortest distance has to be traversed. From Milford Haven to Sydney by this route is only 12,440 miles, the whole of which, with the exception of 45 miles, is by sea. By the present Peninsular and Oriental Company’s route, via Swan River and Cape Leeuwin, from Southampton the distance is 12,855 miles, of which 238 have to be performed between Alexandria and Suez by canal, by the Nile, and across the desert. By the same Company’s route via Torres Straits, the distance is 13,095 miles, with the same overland journey to make from Alexandria to Suez. We can only get our mails from Australia by either of these routes in sixty days, by the very costly express from Marseilles. The General Screw Company’s route, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, Madras, and Point de Galle, is enormously circuitous; and the same Company’s new route, without touching at the Cape, is 12,837 miles. There is another serious disadvantage connected with the eastward voyage. From the Cape to Australia the weather is generally boisterous, with variable winds; and in passing the equinoctial line, ships have to encounter calms, and can derive no aid from carrying canvass. The loss of that aid is a serious matter to screw steamers, in a voyage where economy in the article of fuel is so desirable. From Great Britain to Navy Bay, on the other hand, is usually a run in which canvass can be advantageously used, whilst the run from Panama to Australia is through pleasant weather for the entire distance, the Pacific fully justifying the propriety of its appellation.
Of course, a company working the Panama route effectively, with superior vessels, and carrying regular mails, must be subsidised by the British Government. Our colonists themselves would gladly lend their aid by grants out of their own public revenue. In fact, the province of New South Wales has recently advertised its willingness to give a bonus of £6000 sterling to any company which will bring the postal distance between England and Melbourne to sixty days each way. The Australian Direct Company, however, anticipate a good profit on their undertaking, irrespective of remuneration in the form of a subsidy for carrying the mails, as will be perceived from the following extract from their prospectus, published last year:—
“It is thought unnecessary to dwell on the great extension of general traffic wherever proper facilities of intercourse by steam have been afforded: it may, however, be briefly stated, that the produce of gold during the year 1852, in the colony of Victoria alone, amounted to over £18,000,000, with every prospect of a continuous increase, exclusive of the produce of New South Wales, which forms a large addition to this vast amount; that, during the months January, February, March, and April last, the specie transmitted across the Isthmus—from Peru and Chili, from the western coast of Mexico, and from California—amounted to 20,410,796 dollars, exceeding £4,000,000 sterling,—and that the passenger traffic, by the same route and for the same period, amounted to 10,568 persons, irrespective of those conveyed by the San Juan de Nicaragua line. It may be, moreover, observed that this extent of traffic, however great, affords no adequate idea of the vast trade which will arise to feed this line, when in full operation,—with all the important advantages of a completed railway, and of a systematic conduct of business.
“Large additions to this vast traffic must necessarily flow from the increasing intercourse between North America and the Australian colonies, facilitated as such intercourse is by the powerful lines of steamers already established between the United States and the Isthmus of Panama in the North Atlantic, and between California and Panama in the North Pacific. The augmented line of steamers, also, employed by the Pacific Steam Navigation Company between Valparaiso and Panama, must considerably swell the stream. These great results stand in perfect independence of a line projected, which will in all probability, at no distant period, connect California and China; and likewise of traffic, the natural result of conveyance of passengers and valuable merchandise diverted from old and circuitous routes.
“The Directors derive great encouragement from the knowledge that the objects of this Company are favoured with the high approval of British merchants in general. Many of the most eminent London houses have strongly expressed their approbation; and the following document fully attests the spirit in which the enterprise is regarded by several influential and distinguished Manchester firms: