The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-05-28

The arrival of the steamers WongG Wongo and
City Of Melbourne mark a new era in the annals of
our commerce Without much trumpeting the peo-
pie of New South Wales and New Zealand have
opened a route from Sydney, via Auckland, to this
port, and the initial trips of the steamers named
certainly give promise of success. If a market can
be opened for the sale of our sugars and molasses,
which will release us from the thraldOm of the San
Francisco refneries, it will be a subject matter of
congratulatiOn throughout the Kingdom. In view of
the fact that steam communication with the British
Colonies, making this place either a terminus or way
port, must work largely to our advantage, and that
the more lines established the more abundant will be
our harvest, it is to be regretted that His Majesty's
Government should allow their organ to become the
partisan of any steamship company to the detriment
of others now established, or to be established. The
tenor of the leading article in this weeks Gazette is
certainly most Mandatory of the line to which the
steamers named belong, against which no objection
can be made so long as facts are adhered to. Grave
objections, however, can be urged against articles
which are so thoroughly partisan that no allusion
can be made to other enterprises except to g damn
them with faint praise - so apparent in the following
paragraphs:
The arrival of the Idaho in San Francisco, with the passen-
gers of the WOnga WOnga, seems TO have taken the inhabi-
tants of that bustGng city with surprise, for although they had
been apprized by telegraph, that the first steamer of the Aus
tTdItn Lle Hdu st4TIeu TOT cyuneS, N WOu connect at
Honolulu with the April steamer of the North Pacific Trans
portation Company, they seemed not to have believed the fact.
and Eastern steamboat magnates were talking over the route,
and besieging Congress for subsidies, and their papers were
discussing the size, style and quality of the boats that must be
used, in order to assure permanent success, that there was a
spirit OF enterprise in the Colonies, which was equal to opening
up the route at once, and has done it, while others have busted
The journals Of San Francisco all harp upon the same
string, deprecating that such steamers have already been placed
great things would have been done by their magnates, that the
route would have been opened by companies with immense
capital with large steamers, and with such q regard Tor the
comfort of passengers that money would become a secondary
What will be the effect on their public of the arrival of the
second lot of passengers from Australia, and whether the news
papers viii come TO the sensible conclusion, that two or three
steamers in actual service, are of more account than a dozen
time, Of the air-casues do not evaporrt tie in the mean time)
will come to our hearing upon the return of The Ajar. Runors
from there indicate that the public favor will accept the line
already established, that the actual will take the advance of
the possible.
The proper province of a ministerial organ must
necessarily be somewhat circumscribed it should
know steamship companies, merchants or traders
only as parties striving in honorable competition for
results which are governed by laws which have
existed and will exist so long as commerce exists no
vantage ground should be yielded to either to the
damage of another, excepting only, perhaps, where
one is Hawaiian and another a foreign enterprise.
1t must be patent to the readers of the GGzeite that
the agents of the steamers which now centre here
have the ears of the Government to an extent not
enjoyed by others. Facts might be stated to prove
that facilities are granted them which tend to throw
business in their way, to which all our merchants
have an equal claim.
The Government, in showing themselves the par
tisans of the steamship lines now in existence, will
work a positive injury to our port. There are those
who believe that the large, swift and commodious
steamers of the Webb line, which 1t is designed will
make the through trip to Sydney from San Francisco,
offer inducements which the present lines do not.
Punctuality will be one point gained, and so far as
the trip from this port to Sydney is concerned much
is to be gained in the way of table fare, cleanliness
and comfort. Nothing is to be gained by advertising
the British steamers now employed as of 200 and
1850 tons when 1t is well known that they are nc
over half that tonnage. Loss must eventually accrue
to q company which makes representations tending
to deceive. Allowance should be made on behalf Of
the Colonies because of the haste which became a
necessity in order to first occupy the route, and they
such small vessels and replace them with larger.
All that can be asked, and which should be exacted,
of this Government is a fair field and no favor.
FAIR PLAY.