The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-08 00:00:00

BRITISH COLUMBIA.

(From the Correspondent of the Times.)
VICTORIA, VANCOUVER'S ISLAND,
JUNE 10.
I have been absent from Victoria for six months,

and I find the place in a state of stagnation on my

return. The progress of the town is checked.
Business is dull, the population would seem to have
decreased, and much gloom and dissatisfaction pre-

vail for the moment. These untoward effects are

said to be caused by the large exodus to the mines
of British Columbia, and if this be the true cause
the present stagnation is only temporary. The

exodus of miners is felt only because of the small-
ness of our population. The fact is that all classes
are disappointed at the meagreness of the immigra-
tion, and unless some scheme for the encourage-

ment of settlers from the mother country is set on

foot the colony must languish for want of a popu-
lation sufficient to make it prosperous.
The exciting news from the interior of British

Columbia of the discovery of new and very rich
diggings, extending over a large space of country,
carried away in the spring from Victoria all who

could go to seek their fortunes in the El Dorado of
New Caledonia. Labourers, carpenters, masons,
bricklayers, and nearly all the bone and sinew of the
place have left for a temporary sojourn in the sister
colony—most of them to a district known as Cerre-
bceuf (pronounced Cariboo) situate some 500 miles

mouth of Fraser River, where the richest

" strikes" are reported to have been made. The re-
sults, as far as known, are favourable, for consider-
able quantities of golddust are beginning to come

down.

There is yet another subject which retards the
material progress of this colony of Vancouver
Island in various ways, as well as that of the neigh-
bouring colony of British Columbia, to a very
serious degree. This is the unsatisfactory state of
our postal communications.

You are, no doubt, aware that our postal commu-

nications are conducted entirely through American

channels. Even the correspondence from England
comes nearly all by way of New York, because that
route is more expeditious than that via the West
Indies to Colon, while from Panama there is no

choice, as all the steamers plying to the north of
that port are American. We are thus placed at the
mercy of a foreign Power for the carrying of our
communications with the mother country and the
rest of the world. The inconvenient consequences
of such a state of dependence may be readily con-
ceived.

As the matter is of the utmost importance, not
only to these two colonies, but to the public service
also, and as the subject has been misunderstood and
overlooked or neglected at home, I must crave your
indulgence while I describe the pernicious working
of the present system, the injuries which it entails
upon us, and the helpless state in which we are
placed by not having an independent English
postal service.
I will first describe the voyage by which our
letters and passengers (for our means of personal
transit are as defective as are our means of postal
communication) are carried from San Francisco to

Victoria.
The steamers, being American vessels, in order to
prosecute their own coasting trade, touch on their
way up at several ports on the coasts of California
and Oregon,varying their calls from time to time to
suit the requirements of trade. They then cross
the bar at the mouth of the Columbia River, noted
for its danger, and run up room than 100 miles into
the interior of Oregon to Portland, on the Willa-
mette River, a tributary of the Columbia, where
they remain for days discharging and receiving
cargo on their way to Victoria. As the entrances
to all the wayports on the coasts of California and
Oregon are dangerous, some from bars and others
from sunken rocks, the steamers are frequently de-
layed at some or at all of them, while in rough
weather the bar of the Columbia detains them for

days waiting for a calm. _ The run, which could be

made from San Francisco direct to Victoria in three
;to three and a-half days, occupies by these delays
some eight to ten days, and sometimes more.
This delay to passengers, goods, and mails by
this circuitous route is not the only evil which this
system imposes upon us. To cover the risk of the
Columbia Bar 1 per cent. is charged on all mer-
chandise crossing it, in addition to the ordinary rate
of insurance to Victoria. These deviations of voyage
being repeated on the return from Victoria to San
Francisco, it is manifest that so tedious, expensive,
and dangerous a route must depreciate the value of
our gold, which is the principal export, while it also
enhances the cost of our imports, and increases un-
necessarily the risk of life. A melancholy proof of
the truth of the last conclusion is afforded by the
fate of one of these American steamers, which was
wrecked in 1860, by which 36 lives were lost, in-
cluding several persons (as I am informed) coming
from England to Victoria, and among them poor
Mr. Blomfield, the son of the late Bishop of
London, who intended to settle in this colony.
This system, in short, impedes and stultifies com-
mercial enterprise and discourages the exchange of
personal intercourse to a very serious degree, as I
will undertake to show in a few words.
The route formerly taken by the mining immi-
gration to British Columbia was by way of the
Fraser River, which is the natural inlet into the
mining country, touching first at Victoria, where
supplies were procured. But our neighbours of
Oregon, seeing so many passengers visiting Portland
en route, bethought them' of a means of diverting
them from continuing their voyage to Victoria,
and with this view offer to transport them up
the Columbia via the Dalles to British Columbia,
and so save.the voyage to Victoria. The American
route is, of course, represented as shorter and
cheaper, although it is, in fact, longer, more expen-
sive, and far less advantageous, for it merely carries
the miner to the confines of British Columbia, and
leaves him on the frontier, while the Fraser River
route takes him into the heart of the mining re-
gions, unless, indeed, he wishes to " try his luck" on
the river itself. The miner, ignorant of the advan-
tages of one route over the other, is " caught" the
more readily because, finding himself upwards of
100 miles out of his direct course, a distance which
he has also to retrace (by the run up and down the
Columbia and Williamette rivers between the Pa-
cific Ocean and Portland), and being irritated and
disappointed by the delay and expenditure of money
at Portland, he easily yields to the representations
held out to him that by proceeding onwards by the
Danes he will avoid the delay and expense of re-
tracing the distance of his unnecessary deviation.
He therefore abandons his intended voyage to Vic-
toria.

Now, as " trade" naturally follows " travel,"