ABSTRACT
It is, however, not sufficient to distinguish between the various trading goods and classes of passengers demanding (or being induced to demand) oceanic transport. Geography in its many manifestations tended to create divisions within what, at first sight, could have been regarded as a uniform and homogeneous freight market. The location of ANZ’s major ports, both within the region and in relation to the broader areas of the Indian Ocean, East Asian, and Pacific Ocean trade routes, as well as the size of their respective hinterlands helped to determine whether steam could be utilised at all, and how steam shipping services could be introduced and developed to some but not to others. While the particular site of some ports could be a factor of importance as well (for example, the unsuitability of the unimproved port of Fremantle for steamers), the intense rivalry between ports and colonies probably did more than anything else to determine the layout and quality of ANZ’s mail and, in consequence, steam communications with Britain until well into the 1880s.
