Shipping.

The configuration of the colony, and the difficulty of traversing a country with few roads, early caused a considerable costal traffic to be developed.

In December, 1884, there were 583 vessels on the New Zealand register, having an aggregate tonnage of 92,696 tons.

Regular and frequent steam traffic exists between all the principal ports of the North and South Islands, and also between the colony and the Australian ports of Melbourne and Sydney. The ever-increasing requirements of the coastal and intercolonial traffic have been fully met, chiefly through the exertions and energetic enterprise of a local establishment, the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand. Almost daily communication is now maintained between the large centres of population in the South Island and the capital; and, by means of new and very powerful steamers belonging to the company, the passage between Wellington and Lyttelton, the connecting link, so to speak, between the railway systems of the two Islands, is practically reduced to a matter of some twelve or thirteen hours. This is a less time, by about four hours, than would be occupied by proceeding overland, supposing the present Canterbury line of railway continued to Picton, and a quick ferry established across Cook Strait between that port and Wellington.

There is also monthly communication with San Francisco by a subsidized line of mail steamers under the management of the Union Company.