The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-03-14 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

Tax SOUTHPORT RAILWAY.—We have received the letter
d " Beta," and regret that we cannot find room for its
insertion until to-morrow.

WILL POSITIVELY CLOSE TO-MORROW,

LAST DAY BUT ONE.

FIRST EXHIBITION of the FRENCH
SCHOOL of the FINE ARTS in Liverpool, including

MAD'LLE ROSA BONHEIIR'S

GREAT PICTURE OP
"THE HORSE FAIR,"

Is NOW OPEN at the Liverpool Academy Rooms Old Post-office-
place, Cluirch4treet. Admission Is. Catalogues. fid. Gentle-
s►en's Season Tickets, ss.
_Ladles' Ditto, 3s 6d.—Open from Ten
till Five o'clock.
The Exhibition is now oven In the Evening, from Seven
to Nine o'clock. Admission, 6d.
B. FRODSHAM, Secretary.

Fit Jilartion 6trueo

FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1856

Tag Liverpool and Australian Steam Navigation
Company's prospectus was no sooner published
than the London Times put forward Dover ! of all
places in the world, as the best Australian packet
station in the kingdom—the narrow, shallow, dirty.
mouthed Queen of the ancient Cinque Ports !
This ought to be sufficient to show the traders of
the manufacturing districts, and the merchants
and shipowners of Liverpool, that we
have nothing to expect in the North but
competition. The Mersey must take care of itself
as a packet station, and be prepared not only to
compete with commercial capital, but ' With
government grants and post-office favouritism.
The Londoners care nothing about the race we
have to run with the United States in the Aus-
tralian trade. All they seek is to keep Liverpool
from becoming the packet station; and to do this
they resort to all sorts of falsehoods, and even
assert that they have just discovered the shortest
route which has yet been found to the Antipodes !
Nay, they have done more. They have just found
out that the average speed of ocean steamers is
ten knots an hour through the year. This is
something-worth proving, as it would add fully 25
per- cent. to the value of our steam tonnage.
Perhaps the London Times will inform us which of
the Southampton Companies ocean boats average
ten knots an hour the year through, as it is likely
that some of our enterprising Lancashire ship-
owners might like to buy a Whole fleet of such
eclipsers. We have been pretty suecesaftA with
our .North American steamer flotilla—that great
flational ornament which excites the admiration
and envy of the world--and we will not admit
that wa are beaten by the ocean steamers of any
other port in the world, until the London Times
pan prove what it hats asserted to be true.

Plat journal does not, however, rely on the
knowledge of its writers in its anxiety to monopo-
lise early intelligence from Australia. It
draws cn the Hydrographer Royal as
to distances, the Australian Association of
London to supply commercial statistics, and the
Parliamentary Steam Committee, to furnish the
necessary figures, " calculated on the run" from
Dover to Melbourne ! It may appear very presump-
tive to dispute the accuracy of anything that has
been put forward on such high authority, but our
readers are aware that we do not take all that
comes from London, but more particularly from
Printing-house Square, as true beyond a certain
point. They will not, therefore, be surprised to
find us declaring that all the figures, calculations,
and " facts" paraded by the London Tinier, and its
authorities, begin with the stranga, rise to the
marvellous, reach the sublime, and then drop down
suddenly to the ridiculous. The Hydrographer
Royal starts away on the map of the world from
rover, and going along, as the crow flies,—
" O'er hill, and over mountain,
" O'er wood, and over break,"
he reaches Marseilles. From thence he proceeds
in a straight line across the Mediterranean, regard-
less of its many awkward peninsulas and large
families of islands, until he comes to Suez. Here
he starts right away to Aden, crosses the woods
and rocky mountains of the Mauritius, and tumb-
ling on the Great Chagos or Diogo Gracia
Island, he crosses it ; then makes his way, as fast
as ruler and pencil can go, in a direct line, until he
comes to King George's Sound, passing over the
island of Ceylon as a matter of no importance.
But why go to George's Sound, with its paltry
number of inhabitants, at all? Why lose twelve hours
in stopping at such a wretched spot, or twelve hours
in getting to it ? Can a notion be entertained of
giving the mail contract to those who did not give
the public satisfaction when they had it before? .

Those who had the conveyance of the Australian
mails formerly, thought a great deal more about
their China and Indian business than they did