THE PORT OF LONDON

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2102, 10 June 1907, Page 1

THE PORT OF LONDON

AVhilc the ports of Liverpool, Southampton and Bristol are «,t present the subjects of keen discussion (said the Tribune recently), no great shipping company seems t,j trouble about London. Yet tlieie can be little doubt that the majority of the first-class passengers which the AVhitc Star line and the Canard Company bring to England from iyew York come ultimately to London. “One reason is,” said a member of Parliament who has thoroughly studied the subject, “that there is nob sufficient depth of water in the Thames for these Mersey leviathans. They could not possibly get to the Tower Bridge. In fact, they could not get into Tilbury Dock, even at high water. The other docks which are known as the London docks are altogether out of the (question.” Although the port of London cannot accommodate the great passenger liners, it is a busier port even than Liverpool. The number of vessels that entered the port of Loudon with cargoes and in ballast in 1904 was 27,098 and the tonnage 17,073,853. At Liverpool the number was 20,526 and the tonnage 11,083,856. * During the same year the tonnage at Bristol was under two millions, and at Southampton it was 3,021,000. A good deal tiiat is ’’ij.izzliiig may be explained by the fact that the* Mersey -Docks and Harbor Board spent in fifteen years up to 1905 £8,500,000 in providing additional dock accommodation, whilst London spent only £2,500,000 on its dock accommodation.

Mr. Lloyd-George has been studying the problem of the improvement of the port of London with a view to legislation on the subject. At a meeting of London shipowners held in January, the Chairman, Sir John Glover, said the need for better dock accommodation was becoming more urgent. Liverpool and Glasgow had found it necessary to develop their docks, and they had solved the problem by constituting port trusts. No one could blame the dock companies that nothing had been clone in London. The companies had not the money, and it was not, he thought, possible for them to raise it. The dock shareholders, apart from the directors and officials, were objects for compassion. The docks on tlio north side of the Thames were impoverished in trying to keep pace with the improvements demanded, and if shipowners had any wise opinion on tlio subject, they would bo disposed to say that the companies ought to ho helped. At Hamburg, Kotterdam, and elsewhere subsidies for ships had been* granted, and great facilities given by the local authorities out of local revenue towards improvements. Were the London people to sit down and say that what had been done abroad and in Liverpool and Glasgow was impossible here? The dock owners were going to try and help themselves, and were promoting a Bill in Parliament this year. The Chairman of the London and India Docks Company explained that the Bill provided for the levying of dues on goods imported from beyond the seas, which had been a recommendation of the Royal Commission on the subject. In liis com£pany’s clocks they had to accommodate annually an increase of 1,000,000 tons of shipping. The. docks of London were being worked up to their full capacity.