RIVAL PORTS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18463, 18 August 1925, Page 14

RIVAL PORTS.

BRISTOL OR NEWPORT ? FACING FACTS. (FHOl£ otte own correspondent.) LONDON, Juno !50. An announcement in tlie Bristol Times and Mirror'' that the steamer Kent would load her Bristol Channel cargo for New Zealand at Newport is the text for a statement by that journal on the subject of facing facts. "The announcement," says the "Times and Mirror," "is on the face of it, a small matter, but there is a great deal behind it. It is purely a question of facing facts, and the diversion of the Dorset and Kent to Newport is regarded in certain quarters as the direct outcomo of a movement in South Wales to ship outward cargo as near as possible to the source of origin. This movement has been in operation for many months, and has been known to the principal shipping interests in Bristol, who have been more or less expecting important developments. And the visits of the Dorset and Kent to Newport, to the exclusion of Bristol form one phase o£ these developments. "It is generally known that much of Bristol's export trade has t'een drawn from South Wales and Monmouthshire, and since, under tlio grouping system, the Great Western Railway Company took over the docks undertakings, on the other side of the Channel, certain interests have made strenuous efforts to secure the shipment of such cargo at one or other of the South "Wales ports nearest to the source of origin of the goods. Not Surprising. Capital has also been made of certain privileges which, it is claimed, Bristol has enjoyed, and requests have been made to the interests concerned that certain ports on the other side of the Channel should be placed j in the position of being favoured with at, least equal advantages. These requests have been received sympathetically, much consideration has accordingly been given them. In the circumstances it is not surprising, therefore, that the Dorset and Kent have been sent to Newport, where the comparatively small quantity of export cargo offering at Bristol is also shipped for transport. . , . "All that the dock authorities can do to keep" the berth trades is being done, as is evidenced in the development schemes now in progress. What is needed is unfailing lovaltv to tlio port by those who are in a position to influence shipments outwara or homeward. Such loyalty on the. other side of the Channel has resulted in the visits of ?he Dorset and Kent to the exclusion of RrUtol Let Bristol despatch what goods fhe has for export through her own docks and insist upon inward goods being bought and shipped, with the stipulation via Bristol.' "