THE WORLD'S SEAPORTS.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXX, Issue 1786, 19 February 1904, Page 7

THE WORLD'S SEAPORTS.

The American Bureau of Statistics has issued a table showing the oversea traffic tliat enters and leaves the principal ports of the world. It takes no account of coastal trade, which is especially heavy in»Great Britain and the United States. London maintains its position as the leading port of the world, the oversea tonnage that moved in and out, of the Thames in 1902 being 17,564,108. The growth of Hamburg, Antwerp, and Kotterdam has crippled it somewhat, but the trade of the Mother Country has gone on expanding. Now York is not far behind London, and is growing fast. In 1902, vessels aggregating 17,398,058 tons entered and left the American port, and probably if the coastal figures were added New York would be at the head of the list. Antwerp supplanted Hamburg in the yi<ar reviewed as the third port in tonnage rank, the industrial depression which passed over Germany having temporarily reduced the 'trade of her great port. The tonnage for Antwerp was 16,721,011, and that of Hamburg 15,853,489. The Belgian' port handles a great deal of German trade, especially'that of the coal and iron districts. Hongkong has now moved up, and Liverpool takes the place below it, the great forwarding and distributing centre of Eastern Asia ranking as fifth and Liverpool as sixth among the ports. The tonnage of Hongkong

was 14,724,269, ami o£ Liverpool 13,157,714. Cardiff, backed by coal fields; the greatest of the coal shippers and an industrial town, is seventh om the list, with a tonnage of 12,556,694. Cardiff has the advantage over the Tyne ports that the excellence of the smokeless coal supplied by the eastern part of the South Wales coal field, as fuel for steam engines, enables it to outstrip Newcastle in coal exports. The improvements that have been made in the navigation of the Maas have given Rotterdam the eighth place in the list with, a tonnage of 11,684,208. Singapore is ninth, with 10,913,031 tons, and Marseilles is tenth, with 9,463,872 tons. After Marseilles come the Tyne ports, with a movement of 8,369,347 tons, nearly double that of any American port, with the exception of New Yiork. For the purposes of comparison, it may be stated that the tonnage entered and cleared at Sydney, foreign-going and coastal, during 1902 was about 6,000,000.