LONDON AS A PORT

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 12 November 1927, Page 11

LONDON AS A PORT

LONDON stands out unique among- the ports of the world in its antiquity, in ' its unbroken chain of history, and in the magnitude of its trade.

Almost 50,000,000 tons of shipping entered and cleared the Port of London last year. Most people know that London is the greatest port in the world, with New York, Antwerp, Hongkong and Hamburg, somewhere in the rear. But few realise how easily it leads the other ports of Britain. It does about twice as much business as Liverpool, five times as much as Hull, two and a half times as much as Southampton, more than three times as much as Cardiff or Newcastle, and about six times as much as Glasgow. More than 60,000 men are registered as transport workers in the Port of London, and the Port Authority’s staff numbers 12,000.

What a part the river Thames at Loudon has played in the history of the Empire. The earliest man who discovered that the Thames could he forded at this spot; the Celt who built the first rude hut near the ford; the small British community who constructed the nucleus of a trading centre; the Romans who mingled their blood with the British inhabitants, and united the qualities that made for law and order with the Celtic imagination, and'enlarged London and its trade; the Saxons who grafted themselves on the Romano-British stock, and expanded the possibilities of the town; the subsequent Danes, Norwegians, and Normans who linked themselves with the earlier races and raised up a great nation and Empire; all these, in turn, played a part in the building up of the Port of London. Now night and day, the heavily laden ships of trade come and go. One thousi:id ships of all sizes pass Gravesend every -enty-four hours, and one thousand entries in •;> made bv a look-out man in a tower at

Tilbury. The dock line starts at Tilbury, and may be said to end at Molesey, near Hampton Court, where the Dutch motor schooners now unload their brick cargoes direct from Rotterdam. London’s great network of docks, its quays, and wharves, and warehouses, are spread over 50 miles of river bank. The fleet of ocean giants is ever increasing. The biggest vessel that has ever entered the Thames is the Red Star liner Belgenland, with her 27,133 tons, but 20,000 ton Cunarders, having jilted Liverpool, have recently made London their home. Four and five thousand tonners will soon be able to unload within a few yards of London Bridge itself. Hitherto, ships only a quarter of their size have berthed there.

The next step-in the development of London’s waterway is the possibility of Tilbury becoming a serious rival to Southampton and Liverpool as an Atlantic passenger port. The £4,000000 scheme for port improvements includes a sum of £2,275,000 for the construction of a new dock at Tilbury to accommodate the largest liners afloat, a landing stage similar to that at Liverpool, but shorter, and a riverside station for through trains to other ports and industrial centres. Ships like the Majestic and the Leviathan. after disembarking passengers at the

THE WORLD’S GREATEST

ROMANCE OF THE THAMES

landing stage, will berth and “turn round” in the new dock. Its construction will provide work for 1000 men for four or five years. These great docks represent only one phase of the Port of London Authority’s work. Hidden from the ordinary traveller or dweller in London are the great town warehouses, as they are called. There are two of these warehouses, almost in the heart of the city of London, for the warehousing of some of the valuable commodities imported. The more extensive of these is the Cutler-street warehouse, approached either through Houndsditch or Bishopsgatestreet. It formerly belonged to the East India Company, and covers a ground area of five acres, having a floor space of 982,137 feet, a considerable portion of -which is devoted to tea from Ceylon and India. Oriental rugs, too, are shown in tliis warehouse, the best coming from Persia, and there is an important depot for Chinese and Japanese porcelain and other wares —the Satsuma. and the Cloisonne; carved ivory figures, bronzes, lacquer cabinets, silk and satin screen beautifully embroidered, vases and bowls of beaten brass, Egyptian and Persian coffee pots and holders, Japanese pictures, ancient manuscripts from Persia and Mexico. The visitor will also note raw and waste silk, Japan, and Bengal, the value of silk piece goods and silk and cotton piece goods, from China, alone sometimes reaching £7OO, 000 There are also ostrich feathers from Africa, for which -public sales are held about, six times a year. This warehouse is, too, the great depot for cigars, the finer sorts coming from Havana, the Phil lipping Islands, Madras, and Burma. In the drug department all the great drug staples of the world are to be found. Australia heads the list with the importation of wool, and great warehouses are provided for its storage. London is not, as we know, the manufacturing centre of the woollen industry. Yet, 1,881,858 bales were imported last year. The market is here, and more buyers are said to be present at the London wool sales than at any other wool market in the world.

The meat trade of London is a trade unto itself. Home-produced meat furnishes a little more than half of the total quantity available for consumption in Britain, and about 70 per cent, of the total imports of meat into Great Britain is absorbed by the London market. While the frozen meat trade has been maintained at a constant level during the past fifteen years, the quantity of chilled meat passed over the Port Authority’s dock quays has increased threefold. Altogether the cold storage premises now owned by the Port Authority will hold 1,035,000 carcases of meat.

' The Port of London, with its great London and St. Katherine docks, the West India, East and Milwall docks, the Surrey Commercial docks, the Royal Victoria, Royal Albert, and King George V. docks, and the Tilbury Docks, is no new port established in recent times to serve some modern need. It dates back to a period long before recorded history. For its beginnihgs one must penetrate the mists of more than twenty centuries.