PACIFIC COAST PORTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 231, 30 September 1929, Page 8

PACIFIC COAST PORTS.

GREAT DEVELOPMENT. -' SEATTLE'S AMAZING GROWTH. JsEW ZEALANDER'S IMPRESSIONS. Many interesting impressions of felie harbours and sea-ports of the Pacific Coast of North America and Eastern Canada arc given by Mr. M. Cohen an a letter to the Wellington Harbour Board, ,of which he was. for many yeans a member, and two years chairman. He represented the board at a harbours conference at Tacoma in July. Mr. Cohen describes Paget Sound as "that marvellous waterway, which,, with its many ramifications, arms of the sea and natural harbours, affords limitless potentialities, and with the astounding increases of productive units, solves any problems which may arise as to adequate export facilities to all parts of■ the world." Situate upon the Columbia' River, Portland, Oregon, is equipped with all modern appliances, and lumber 'being its principal industry it centralises that important commodity and dispatches huge quantities of Oregon pine to. the East, particularly . Japan. Its general manager and chief engineer/ Mr. Polllicimis, has earned a great reputation a<s a dredge designer, and has just completed a dredge' for the port of 3500 horse-power. "One cannot close reference to the beautiful city of Portland without tllc glorious Columbia River nipivvuy, one of the finest scenic drives S taken. Its interest to visitors the wi m& 2 nd lt isto b e hoped that the local ■ equivalent, or the mirinp se Tβ r a° U Hk o WelllnStol i 4Xu? svm Mends " Purpose for our oversea Puget Souna Ports. , Tacoma at the head of Puget Sbiinfl has a water frontage accommodatS: largest ships. Its principal export £* lumber pulp, and iron/ Of i^ tzrS'3oTooot itins Wk - Tunis out duu.ooo .tons, annually Inei £ iS5 e i?r ey of tliese * feature of the l^:^,^ ll^ and fn e-ply Avoodboard, tufas out daily MOO doors completed at-i^imfactore^

cost of 1 dollar 75 cents (equals 7/), and 150,000 square feet of three and fiveply boarding. The mechanical organisation is marvellous beyond description. At the end of another arm of Puget Sound is Olympia, the capital city of the State of Washington. Speaking at a reception there, ae the delegate who had travelled the greatest distance, Mr; Cohen referred incidentally to , "at least one common tie, and that was that the waters, which meant so much to the development of the country, the happiness and prosperity of its people, 'had been discovered and charted by the same agencies, to which we also were indebted for similar 'blessings, in the persons of Captains Cook and Vancouver, who had conferred upon humanity in general a great boon in their operations so widely apart as the northern and southern ends of the habitable glo'be." Seattle has 400,000 People. Mr. Cohen considers that no city in the world Oias shown such a growth of remarkable rapidity as Seattle. From a fishing.village of half a century ago or less, it lias, a population of 400,000 inhabitants, modern in all its phases, of great physical beauty, indeed, the Indian word "Seattle" means "charm." Immediately outside the harbour and approached therefrom by a lock, is a freshwater lake, of 20 square miles, around the 'borders of w ; hich flourish all kinds of industries. Their ice storage has a capacity of 5000 tons of perishable food, as against summer requirements, and this space is at the disposal of retail vendors on the warehousing principle in vogue at the Port of London Authority. They export 35,000 barrels of mild-cured salmon, 4,000,000 ! boxes of apples. During the year seven and a half million pounds of frozen fis'h is handled, as well as eighteen thousand carcases of reindeer, commodity just in process of development. Their output of ice for domestic purposes in the port's freezing chambers is fifty tons per day, and their total capacity for storage of goods of all kinds on the warehousing principle is eighteen thousand-tons. Canadian Trade Possibilities. Vancouver, so well known in New Zealand, has become the principal port on the western coast - of the Dominion of panada. Its wheat shipments alone now ally ■•.'* b(mt 100,000,000 bushels asumis"tte U li We i V 0 mil(!R from Vancouver Fra aer ? g of Sew Wcetir/iieter, on the ihereAviii-xr 1 " , J\ accent, development Cohen thinks, bad to its ' »tan ce; : :ilicre has ibecn

erected a cold storage plant of one and a 'half million square feet capacity. The port has abrogated many terminal charges, and, as the largest ships can come up to well-equipped wharves and docks, it cannot escape consideration. "Indeed, flic head af 'the Foreign Trade Department, discussing with me their project designed to attract trade with Imperial Dominions, was anxious to know what chance there was' of promoting trade with New Zealand, more particularly with regard to lamb, frozen mutton, etc. I placed 'him in possession of the names of the principal export unite in New Zealand, and no doubt suitable correspondence will ensue," writes Mr. Cohen. '