The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-06-20 00:00:00

THURSDAY

On THURSDAY next, the 2(th instant, and following days, at the
Brokers' Saleroom, 10, North John-street,
100 Bales East India,
100 Do. fine Entre Rios aed Port Philip,
300 Do. Oporto, Lisbon, Donskol, Sfax, and Barbary,
SO Do. Sundries, IWOOL.
100 Sheets Laid Cheviot.

850 Bales.
About 2000 fine Entre Rios and Peruvian SHEEP SKINg
Apply to ABRAM GARTSIDE & CO., Wool Brokers

RJ. NODDER,
1%,./ • HATTER,
81, CHURCH-STREET,

Begs respectfully to inform the Nobility and Gentry of Liver-
tool that his NEW STYLES for the Season are NOW READY
for Inspection.

THE SHAREHOLDERS of the LONDON and
NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY, MERCHANTS,
and others concerned, are respectfully invited to ATTEND a
PUBLIC MEETING of the CLERKS and MEN To MORROW
MortNlNs (Saturday), at Eleven o'clock, in the HOPE HALL, to
rece ie Explanations of the present movement.—By order of the
Committee, GEO. WHARRIE, Chairman.

E4e kortlitru finn

FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1856

WE published on Wednesday some rather sin-
gular extracts from Mr. JAMES LAMING'S pamphlet
on the subject of steam communication with Aus-
tralia. The author of this brochure lays claim to,
being a practical man. Who, in fact, has not
heard of Mr. JAMES LAMING in connection with
steamship enterprise ? He was one of the prin-
cipal originators of the General Screw Steamship
Company. He is, therefore, entitled to much
attention when he addresses the commercial
public on matters to which he has given so many
years labour. And what does Mr. LAMING say of
his proposed double route, via the Red Sea, and by
way of the Mauritius and the Cape? Outwards
from England to Melbourne with mails direct, in
vessels of 3,000 tons, he asks fifty days ; and for
the Mauritius and Cape mail, via Marseilles
and Aden, thirty:five days. Homewards from
Melbourne to England, by the Mauritius
Aden route, forty-five days, and for
what lie calls his " main, or from Melbourne to
England by direct over-sea, route," he requires
sixty-four days. Mr. Lkislitte's object in introducing
the Cape into his Australian line, is obviously to
divert the increasing passenger traffic of that pros-
perous Colony into the Red Sea route. But we
can have nothing whatever to say to the Cape or
any other country's interests in establishing a
postal communication by steam with Australia.
The Cape, Ceylon, and Mauritius belong more
immediately to our East Indian steamship enter-
prise; and we do not despair of seeing all their

despatch wants supplied ere long.
Minor interests must not, however, be suffered
to interfere with the proposed communication with
Australiasia. The quickest and safest route for
letters, gold, and passengers, must be selected, and
the'Liverpool and Panama line is quicker than any
Mr. LAMING has laid down after so many years expe-
rience. He says that with ships of 3,000 tons the
outward passage can be madn
in fifty days, and the
homeward, by the Red Sea, forty-five days, while

for his over•sea route, via the Cape, he wants sixty-
four days. But mark what he says of the Aden
and Mauritius project :—" For this arrangement—
" combining the most rapid steam postal service at
" all points, with the least expensi);e, most conve-
" nient, and quickest conveyance of those prepon-

" derating classes of passengers, that, frequently
" accompanied by their families, cannot afford the

" enormous cost inseparable from the Red Sea route—

" every possible advantage may be fairly claimed"
—by the Cape, or sixty-four days' line. When
speaking of the more comprehensive and intelligi-
ble advantages of his double line, he adds :—" It

" leaves a choice of homeward conveyance to
" passengers from the Mauritius ; and outward
" and homeward it presents the most appropriate
" means for freightage of whatever kind, without
" transhipment—to Australia ' for British and
" European exports, and from Australia, for gold
" and other colonial productions. Whilst the
" ships employed in the main line may be docked
" and refitted on their return, and thus add the
" assurance of greater certainty and regu-
" larity in the performance of their duty."
Where Mr. LAMING would dock and refit his ships
does not appear—whether at Liverpool, Southamp-
ton, or Dover.

To mercantile men such matters are of little
import, so long as the commercial interests of the
Mother country and our bullion Colonies do not
suffer by abandoning a direct line of postal com-
munication, which is all we ask, for a circuitous
route and a wide field of speculation. We simply

want fortnightly steam packets from and to Mel-
bourne by the quickest, safest, and we may add,
cheapest route. And ;we deny in to-to that Mr.
LAMING has discovered what we require. He tells
us that " the preponderating classes of passengers
" cannot afford to pay the enormous cost inseper-
" able from the Red Sea Route," and these with the
goods, gold, and other products passing between
England and Australia he consigns to a sixty-four
days' passage ! Now it must be remembered that
Mr. LAMING is a high authority on Oriental steam
navigation, and general transit business, and that
this is all he can venture to say in favour of the
Red Sea and Cape lines. The discussion as to

the relative merits of the Overland, over-sea
direct, and Panama lines, is therefore narrowing

itself down: so that the public can really under-
stand the validity of Liverpool's pretensions. Mr.
LAMING, it will be freely admitted, knows something
more of the subject than the Editor of the Loudon
Times, and with the help of certain Parliamentary
returns and reports we shall perhaps be able to
correct the one and keep the other to facts.
Beginning with Mr. LAMING, we beg to ask him
if he has forgotten the objections raised by the
Admiralty, and endorsed by the India and
Australia Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in
1847, to the Aden and Mauritius line, and that
this company rejected that line for these reasons :
" The time occupied between England and
" Mauritius will be 39 1-6 days, namely, 25 1-6 to
" Aden, and 14 days thence to Mauritius. From
" Mauritius to Sydney would occupy 31 days,
" making 70 1-6 days in all ; whereas by Singapore
" and Port Essington they estimated the voyage
"at 64 1-3 days. It was further calculated that
during the south west monsoon, which lasts four
"or five months, eight or nine days must be added
" for the voyage between Aden and Mauritius.
As a further objection, it is stated that from
Mauritius to Albany (Western Australia)
" there is 19 days' steaming, at 180 miles a
" day, against strong westerly winds, and no inter-
" mediate coaling station ; the distance, therefore,
" of 3,400 miles could not be performed under
" steam. There are also strong and adverse winds
" between Swan River and Adelaide. It is not
" probable that the voyage from Aden to Adelaide
" could be calculated on at less than 55 or 60 days,
" which would give 85 to 90 days from England to
" Sydney ; the tempestuous weather in this route,
" would require steamers of great power, and there
" is no traffic on the line to warrant a heavy ex-
" penditure." These are the answers the blue
books give to the rodomontade's contained in Mr.
LAMING'S pamphlet, and the perversion of facts put
forth by the London Times.
The Aden and Mauritius route, together with
that by the Cape, was rejected by the Committees
of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, in
1846, 1848, and again in 1850, in favour of the
Singapore line, and how Mr. LAMING proposes to
accomplish the entire distance from Melbourne
to England, via Mauritius and Aden, in forty five
days, when the general average transit of mails
between Mauritius and England, by the Overland
Route, is 1121 days, and the shortest transit re-
corded is sixty-five days, we are at a loss to under-

stand. And his proposal to make the over-sea
direct passage in sixty-four days, appears to be
equally incomprehensible. Experience has not
shown that it can be done, rand we have not ships
afloat yet which can run the whole distance with-

out a stoppage ; and, if we had, there would still
be the Panama route to compete with• The
distance Overland to Aden, and from thence to
Melbourne, by the only known practical line, is
12,162 nautical miles ; and from Liverpool, via

Panama to Melbourne, is 12,550 ; and are the
mails, passengers, and gold, passing between the
two countries, to be be forced to incur the
" enormous cost inseparable from the Red Sea
" Route," and to loose some twenty days in the
transit, to save 388 miles? We have no monsoons,
or dangerous and unknown navigation to contend
with. And if the public interest be studied, in the
selection of a packet-station, and the best line of
steam communication with the Colonies, Liverpool
and the Western Route cannot be passed over by
the Government.