CHIEF SEA HOSTESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHIEF SEA HOSTESS.

BRITAIN'S PORT EXPANSIONS. ACTIVITY AT SOUTHAMPTON. Britain, so long the mistress of the seas, is now busily at work strengthening her claim to be the supreme hostess of the seas. Liverpool, at a cost of many millions of pounds sterling, has her fine .new Gladstone Dock, while Bristol and the Tyne, among others, have recently added to and improved their port facilities, says a writer in the "London Daily Cjhronicle." It 'is at Southampton and Tilbury, however, where enterprise is taking its strongest stranglehold of difficulties. At both places engineers are altering the map, so fashioning useless mudlands and marshes that the great game of competing for the ocean liner traffic can be carried on the better. Southampton's plans — which are primarily those of the Southern Railway, owner of the docks for nearly 40 years—are cited as particularly striking. Although a comparatively small seaport, Southampton is the premier passenger port of Britain. It has only four miles of quay, compared with 30 miles in London and 37 miles in Liverpool. That position it is determined to strengthen, and the ultimate effect of the Southern Railway scheme, which, if carried out in its entirety, would cost about £13.000,000, will be that 20 vessels of the size of the Aqnitania can be accommodated at one time at 6600 feet of additional berth space. At present the scheme is divided into three stages. Looking ahead, Southampton has determined that whatever bulk and corpulence the Atlantic greyhound of the future develops there shall be ample room for her. In the Southampton of 1939 the 407 acres of mudland in the bay of the River Test, two miles long and extending from the Royal Pier to Milbrook Point., will have been reclaimed. Already under the first section of the scheme, which is making good progress, 18 acres have been secured, and an expanse over which pleasure craft sailed a little over a year ago is now a contractor's yard. When the scheme is completed the face of the reclaimed land will, for the greater part, be a deep water quay wall 7400 feet long. Cargo sheds, rail tracks and vehicular roads will appear and on a threat portion of what was once mudland it is confidently expected that new industries will rise. In about two years' time. 3500 feet of quay, with a dredged depth of 45 feet at low tide, will be available. This will come as a welcome relief in Southampton's "rush hours," for pressure on the resources of the port is increasing fast.