more than cover the interest upon the capital expended. . . . . If the intended railway were connected with a line of steamers plying between Victoria (Puget Sound), Sydney, or New Zealand, mails, quick freight, passengers to and from our colonies in the southern hemisphere, would, for the most part, be secured for this route.
"Vancouver's Island is nearer to Sydney than Panama by nine hundred miles; and, with the exception of the proposed route by a Trans-American railway, the latter is the most expeditious that has been found.
"By this interoceanic communication, the time to New Zealand would be reduced to forty-two, and to Sydney to forty-seven days, being at least ten less than by steam from England via Panama."[1]
Lord Bury says:—
"Our trade [English] in the Pacific Ocean with China and with India must ultimately be carried through our North American possessions. At any rate, our political and commercial supremacy will have utterly departed from us, if we neglect that great and important consideration, and if we fail to carry out to its fullest extent the physical advantages which the country offers to us, and which we have only to stretch out our hands to take advantage of."[2]
Shanghai is rapidly becoming the great commercial emporium of China. It is situated at the mouth of the Yangtse-Kiang, the largest river of Asia, navigable for fifteen hundred miles. Hong-Kong, which has been the English centre in China, is nine hundred and sixty miles farther south.
With a line of railway across this continent, the position of England would be as follows:—
| To | Shanghai | via | Suez, | 60 | days. |
| " | " | " | Puget Sound, | 33 | " |
Mr. Maciff divides the time as follows by the Puget Sound route:—
| Southampton to Halifax, | 9 | days. |
| Halifax to Puget Sound, | 6 | " |
| Puget Sound to Hong-Kong, | 21 | " |
| — | ||
| 36 |
The voyage by Suez is made in the Peninsular and Oriental line of steamers. The passage is proverbially comfortless,—through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, across the Bay of Bengal, through the Straits of Malacca, and up the Chinese coast, under a tropical sun. Bayard Taylor thus describes the trip down the Red Sea:—
"We had a violent head-wind, or rather gale. Yet, in spite of this current of air, the thermometer stood at 85° on deck, and 90° in the cabin. For two or three days we had a temperature of 90° to 95°. This part of the Red Sea is considered to be the hottest portion of the earth's surface. In the summer the air is like that of a furnace, and the bare red mountains glow like heaps of live coals. The steamers at that time almost invariably lose some of their firemen and stewards. Cooking is quite given up."[3]
Bankok, Singapore, and Java can be reached more quickly from England by Puget Sound than by Suez.
Notwithstanding the discomforts of the passage down the Red Sea, the steamers are always overcrowded with passengers, and loaded to their utmost capacity with freight. The French line, the Messageries Imperials de France, has been established, and is fully employed. Both lines pay large dividends.
The growth of the English trade with China during the last sixteen years has been very rapid. Tea has increased 1300 per cent, and silk 950.[4]
The trade between the single port of Shanghai and England and America in the two great staples of export is seen from the following statement of the export of tea and silk from that port from July 1, 1859, to July 1, 1860:—
| Tea, lbs. | Silk, bales. | |
| Great Britain, | 31,621,000 | 19,084 |
| United States, | 18,299,000 | 1,554 |
| Canada, | 1,172,000 | |
| France, | 47,000 |
The total value of exports from England to China in 1860 was $26,590,000. Says Colonel Sykes:—
