The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-04-29 00:00:00

STEAM NAVIGATION.

(From the Observer.)
The Scotch party, we find, have triumphed over the Irish,
in the struggle respecting steam naviation, by throwing out
the Dublin Steam Company's bill. Weave no feeling respect-
ing the precise object sought for, but we have a strong one on
the iinpolicy of any measure which, by its operation, cripples
the rising energies of Ireland, and tends to check the applica-
tion of its own capital in Fromoting the interests of its own
people. This feeling becomes the more powerful, when we find
the success of the rival Scotch partly based on, false, principles,
and effected under the false pretence of the public good. NVe
have read with great satisfaction the statement of the chairman
of the board of public works in Ireland, on the importance of
aiding the development of those inland resources in that country,
and of the large part which the Dublin Steam Company, over
whom the Scotch triumph has been celebrated, have acted in
developing those resourses. The government can not be ig-
norant of the mischief which must follow the check or suppres-
sion of those salutary and all-efficient impulses which trade and
industry receive from increased means of internal intercourse.
In Ireland, attention to these matters is doubly important.—
They are worth a million of tithe or constabulary bills. Ireland
wants employment—home employment. Government are,
therefore, imperatively called upon, and we trust will not
merely encourage, but provide means for giving effect to those
exertions which the capitalists of Ireland would make in favour
of their own navigation and railroads. The efforts of the Scotch
party were directed to the preventing the Dublin Company
from extending its means and usefulness. We have ever
thought those efforts to put an extinguisher on the exertions of
the Irish Company, by denying them the necessary capital, was
not only unjust but ungenerous. Scotland complains of the in-
flux of Irish paupers. Their object, therefore, should be to in-
crease the means of employing Irishmen at home. Government'
will not, we trust, be indiffernt to this important question. if
there be a disputed point on the subject of encouragement to
capitalists—if there be an uncertainty in.legislation on this head,
and as it was clearly stated by the president of the board of
trade, in the discussion on the Dublin Steam Company's bill,
by which capitalists are discouraged in one pursuit while they
are encouraged in another—let that uncertainty be removed—
let uniformity be established. The present state of things is
mischievous and anomalous. Capital embarked in improving
land intercourse is fostered, while that which is directed to
water intercourse is treated with a left-handed policy. The case
of the Dublin Company's, bill, which was rejected on the third
reading, was peculiar. Parliament had, by two former acts,
encouraged that Company to embark capital in the hitherto
untried field of Irish steam navigation. £heir exertions had
been attended by the most beneficial and even extraordinary
increase of intercourse, yet, at the very moment of their exhi-
biting the fruits of their success, at the moment when they most
wanted additional means, and when the value of their opera-
tions in Ireland was apparent and unquestionable, parliament
interposed to stop their progress, and this at the instance of
their successful competitors from the Clyde, who are frightened
at the competition from the Irish coast. The, suspension of
these operations in Ireland, which will follow this denial of par-
liamentary protection, will be destructive of all future efforts.
Capital may be found in abundance for promoting and improv-
ing intercourse in England, where an excess of trade gives an
excess of capital, but in Leland, where the former is wanting,
the latter must manifestly be equally so.