310 



ULTIMATE IMPORTANCE, 



that great chain of islands, stretching from the east 

 end of New Guinea to New Caledonia, shall be brought 

 within the region of civilization and commerce; 

 when the veil that rests upon New Guinea itself 

 shall be raised, and when the Moluccas shall be 

 freed from the trammels in which they have hitherto 

 been bound. Torres Strait will then be the chan- 

 nel of the commerce between these regions, as well 

 as between the more remote and mighty ones which 

 lie beyond them. It will resemble the Straits of 

 Malacca in this respect, and another Singapore may 

 be expected to rise on its borders, just where the 

 converging streams of commerce are compressed into 

 the narrowest and closest channel. This must be 

 somewhere about Cape York, or the entrance of 

 Endeavour Strait. It is here, indeed, if any where, 

 that the true analogy is to be sought for, between 

 Singapore and any point of Australia ; the narrow- 

 strait, where, from physical necessity, the wide 

 spread commerce of neighbouring seas must inevita- 

 bly converge - y the pass, through which one of the 

 great highways of the world must necessarily run.* 



* The present necessity for a port in Torres Strait is so ob- 

 vious, as to have struck every one acquainted with it. See Mr. 

 M'Kenzie on steam from Singapore to Sidney, in the Nautical 

 Magazine for February, 1847- 



