LONDON PORT IMPROVEMENT.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15489, 17 January 1916, Page 5

LONDON PORT IMPROVEMENT.

NEW COLD STORAGE AND • - SORTING SHED.

(fbom our own correspondent.) LONDON. December 7. The effect of the war on import and export trade at the Port of London Authority's docks is shown by official statistics for the six months ended September 30th" last. During that period although the tonnage of merchant shipping using the • port showed a substantial decline, largely owing to the requisitioning or vessels on Government account, and the withdrawal of enemy shipping from the high seas, the import goods handled in the Authority's warehouses totalled 1,472,060 tons, against 3,11* ,683 tons in the corresponding months of 1914, irrespective of the larger quantity of goods delivered direct by shipowners to wharves and other destinations.

I It will be gathered from these returns that the vessels now reaching the Port of London are in nearly every case full J ships. To some extent, no doubt, the : increased arrivals of goods are due to the closure of. such ports as Hamburg and Antwerp, and to the • consequent discontinuance of the system whereby e considerable quantity of shipping, toni nage formerly reached London with part cargoes. It may b© noted that of the increased imports dealt with by the Port of London Authority a verv large ; quantity represents additional arrivals of wool, meat, and other New Zealand and Australian produce. The stocks of goods in the warehouses' of the Port Authority on September 20th last totalled 608,624 tons, an increase compared with the same date of 1914 of 28,504 tons. The greater activity now characterising the export trad© of the United Kingdom is shown by a growth of 55,923 tons in the quantity of export goods handled in the Port Authority's sheds during the half-year under review. The total was 424,727 'tons.

1 A tender for the refrigerating machinery for the new cold store and sorting sjied erected by the Port of London Authority at the Royal Albert Dock has recently been accepted. There is the promise, therefore, of an early addition to the Authority's cold storage accommodation to the extent, including the sorting shed, of half a million carcases of mutton. This will carry tho total storage capacity up to approximately a pillion and a half carcases. I Bv means of covered mechanical conveyers. meat will bp transferred rapidly and practically without handling from the refrigerated holds of ships into the upper storey of the big meat building at" the water's edge. Here, in a temperature of lodee. Fahrenheit, the process of sorting will take place, the meat being subsequently taken by convpvers to the top storey of the huge cold sto r e erected in the immediate rear. To this cold store there is accpss from the I top storey only, the meat being -distri- ■ buted bv lifts among the twentv separate cooked chambers and keot there in the same temperature as that of the : sorting shed until it is brought up for I delivery. A special building is to accommodate the refrigerating plant.