ADMIRALTY AND PORT AUTHORITIES.

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 107, 6 May 1916, Page 10

ADMIRALTY AND PORT AUTHORITIES.

Parliamentary pressure is being brought (says the Shipping World), upon the Admiralty to take up a more generous attitude to port and harbour dues. Our information is to the effect that the outcome of the negotiations and representations may not be announced for somo timo yet. An Act of ,1847 exempted the Admiralty from tho payment of dues in respect to His Majesty's vessels, but between exempting warships and exempting the multitude of craft which the war has brought into tho servico of tho Crown therel is a wide difference. Tho Admiralty has indeed offered as a matter of grace to pay 75 per cent, of tho regular payment in respect of transports and other mercantile vessels in its service, but even that is pressing the matter hardly on harbour and port authorities. Those bodies havo their own obligations to fulfil. They must have adequate inconio if these are to be carried out- satisfactorily. Thus, if they received full payment on account of that part of the Admiralty- ships represented by merchant vessels, they %vcuid be only receiving justice. Wo have heard reports that the Admiralty -is inclined to take another step in the direction of meeting the port authorities in regard to this dispute, _ and it is to bo hoped that the negotiations will lead to a speed and satisfactory conclusion.