The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATES The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1922. THE PORT OF LONDON.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 248, 19 October 1922, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATES The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1922. THE PORT OF LONDON.

For the canee that lacks assistdnee. For the wrong that needs rfsistanct, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The opening by the Prime Minister of the new offices of the Port of London Authority is an event in the history of London that re-directs attention to the enormous volume and infinite variety of the business done on the Thamee and its banks, the importance of th« port in history and at present, and the vitality of the vast city that is still the contre of the world of commerce and finance. The ftory of London is very old. London wae a seaport certainly 1300 years ago, says the writer of a recent article in one of the "Time?" Supplements; the venerable Bede descrifoed it in the war 604 as "a mart of

many nafyons resorting to it by sea and land,' , and some historians think it was a port 700 years before that. London was the chief port of Britain, and it grew in importance ac Britain and the Empire developed. Control of the port passed from the nande of monarch? and Minieters to those of a municipality of tradere. This control was extinguished by the initiation of the dock system under the ownership of joint stock companies. "The party spirit became us rampant in the port as it did in State politics,' , says another writer. "Doclfl company fought dock company; wharfingers fought one another: and at intervale docks combined to fight the wharfingers ac a class.' . It naturally followed that docks and wharves were impoverished and service became Inefficient. Mr. Lloyd George, as President of the Board of Trade—most people have forgotten that he wae a very enterprising President—induced Parliament to create a body that would put an end to this squabbling and develop the port on comprehensive and progressive lines, and the Port of London Authority was established in 1909. It was fitting that Mr. Lloyd George ehould open the new home of Authority.

The Authority's jurisdiction extends over an area sixty-eight miles long. Besides performing the usual duties of a harbour authority, it earriee out on behalf of merchants many expert commercial operations that are indiepeneable to the conduct of trade. Despite the interruption of the war, eleven millions have been spirit in improving the port since the Authority was set up. We hear a good deal at this end about faulty handling of" New Zealand produce in London, but if this handling is not satisfactory ifc would not seem to be due to abeenc« of modern appliances. A glance through the Special Supplement of the "Times" devoted to the trade of the Thames shows that a great dwal of up-to-date equipment, including many labour-saving devices, is in use. A shed for frozen produce opened five years ago ie said to be "fitted with every known device for securing the most careful handling of the delicate frown products." Mechanical conveyors take frozen produce and other goods from the hold to the shed, and wheat pours from elevators through tubes into holds of barges for local transportation. And what an infinite variety of goods is handled on those miles and miles of docks and wharves! For sheer variety of craft and cargo, for the cosmopolitan character of the crews, no port in the world can eurpaes London. Goods from all over the world are received there and sent out again by firms whoee experience of the wants of the distant consumer ie unequalled ip any other country.

Of the £1,088,000,000 worj/h of imports into th« United Kingdom last year, London received £415,000,000. The proportion way mean an unhealthy congestion, and the Dominions are interested in the efforts being made to attract more import trade to other ports. But in spite of the active and determined opposition of Continental as well as United Kingdom ports, London is still the most powerful magnet of the world's produce, and the Port of London Authority seems to be fully alive to its responsibility of extending doek-3 and wharves and keeping equipment up-to-date. Behind the waterfront is all the vast complexity of the London world of commerce and finance—ware-

housemen, exporters and importers, brokers, bankers and others, who by uheir combination of command of capital, experience, skill, hard work, and

integrity, have ma<le London the most important spot, in the whole of the world of business. It was thought by some that a* a result of the w«r the centre of

the financial world would move to New i York, but these things are hot governed !by mere possession of wealth. London remains London for many reasons — imponderable as well ac material.