The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-07-02 00:00:00

STEAM NAVIGATION.

We remarked in our last number, in a short article on
steam navigation, the systematic arrival of steam vessels
from various parts of the continent. Since then we see
the. following announcements in the London papers:—
"The General Steam-navigation Company's mail-packet the
Attwood,, from Rotterdam, arrived off the CuNtoin-house, at nine
o'clock, a. m., yesterday, (Thursday, 27th June), after a very
good passage. The eat! of Liverpool, from Ostend, arrived at
seven o'clock last night, after a passage of only fourteen hours."
" The General Steam-navigation Company's mail-packet the
Tourist,.from Hamburgh, arrived off the Custom-house at ten
o'clock, p.m., (Friday, the 28th June.) The Lord Melville,
from Calaisi.also arrived at seven o'clock p.m."

ThuS, in thirty-four hours, bringing us the most recent
intelligence from four principal parts ofEurope, embracing
France, Belgium, Holland, and all the north of Germany,
extending to Russia.
At a period when the tide of emigration appears to be
setting strongly, but steadily, towards our Australian
settlements, it cannot be otherwise than useful to Many,.
and interesting to all who turn their attention in ever so
slight a degree to the concerns of that quarter of the
world, to mark the rapid increase of commercial operations
. .

in those yet infant colonies.
When we consider the immense distance of the port of
Sydney from Great Britain, the last year's trade, which
we have this day abstracted from an official account pub-
lished in the Sydney Gazette of January, must appear not
a little extraordinary. It is a striking proof of the per-
severing industry and application of the inhabitants of
these islands, that a town whose original establishment
was as a place of deportation for offenders should in a few
years have become the nucleus of what may one day prove
an extended empire; and that, with all its disadvantages of
distanee, it should even now take from this country d►rect
an amount of our manufactures and produce equal to two-
thirds of all that the 32,000,000 of our French neigh-
bours consume of the same articles ; whilst the aggre-
gate trade of the place exceeds considerably the whole
amount of our exports to.Flance, whether of British ma-
nufactures and productions or of foreign and colonial pro-
duce of all descriptions. There is internal evidence in
the list of articles imported into New South %Vales
from this country of a growing desire for those luxuries
which mark a rapid advance in the arts and an established
state of society. It must be remembered, too, that Syd-
ney with its dependent territory is only one of three set-
tlements in that quarter of the world. Van Diemen's
Land to the southward, with its capital, Hobart Town, has
already reached a high degree of prosperity, and is ra-
pidly advancing; and the new settlement upon the Swan
River, on the western side of New Holland, promises a
corresponding advance in a short space of time. The
title of continent would better become New Holland than

that of island, considering that it extends over 40 degrees
of longitude and 25 degrees of latitude, in the midst of
some of the most fertile islands of the world, which
stretch away for '2O degrees north and south of the line,
to the coast of China on the north, and to our East Indian
territory on the north-west ; whilst to the east and north-
east it possesses, especially from Sydney and Van Die-
men's Land, opportunities for extensive future enterprise
to the numerous islands of the Pacific Ocean and the
western shores of North and South America. The salu-
brity of the climate of all the settlements, which are in
about the same parallel of latitude as the Cape of Good
Hope and Buenos Ayres, affords every chance of their
being able at no distant date, to raise a sufficient supply
of all those products of the earth, which are of difficult
growth within the tropics, and with which they may sup-
ply not only the eastern empire of this country, but a
great number of the valuable spice and other islands of
the vicinity ; and, in return, take those tropical products,
which can never be 'advantageously conveyed to them
from our western colonies.

In every point of view we regard the Australian settle-
menls as of great importance to this country; and with
that attention to their good government which we have
no doubt will be paid by wise rulers at home, we shall
doubtless see them rise rapidly in population, wealth, and
commercial enterprise.