ROTTERDAM’S PLIGHT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18871, 25 May 1923, Page 4

ROTTERDAM’S PLIGHT

PORT RENDERED I£)LE. RESULT OF RUHR TROUBLE “STRICKEN INTO PARALYSIS.” Rotterdam, once the busiest city in Hol« land and one of the foremost ports of the world, is in the grip of a paralytic stroke,' the sequel to the French occupation of the Ruhr, writes the Rotterdam correspondent of a London paper. ■ Its 20 miles of quays are packed by lighters and its docks are filled with tramp steamers and liners. Silence broods over warehouses w'here a few weeks ago the air rang with prosperous activity. Business men look from their office windows over sleeping wharves. Stagnation is in the air. I have spent many hours interviewing the leaders of the city’s commerce and industry, including the president of the Chamber of Commerce, the _ directors of the Netherlands Rhine Shipping Company and the Transport Company of Rotterdam, representatives of a line of 14 6000-ton steamers, and the chairmen of coal and other traders’ associations. Their verdict is unanimous:— “Seventy percent, of Rotterdam’s trade represented by her vast interests in Rhine navigation has vanished. “Within the last few weeks 30,000 men have lost their employment in the lighter industry. Their wages, at a low estimate, were £IOO,OOO a week. “Each week sees the tide of unemployment rising and the spending capacity of the citizens falling.” It v is impossible to calculate how many million pounds capital and how many hundred thousand tons of seagoing and river shipping are involved, but the experience of one concern, the great Netherlands Rhine Shipping Company's, is some indication. IDLE CAPITAL,. Of this company's 400,000 tons of Rhine craft, 200,000 tons are laid up. Of their 100 Rhine tugs, developing 50,009 horsepower, 55 are idle. Their £6,000,CC0 capital is producing nothing. "The remainder of our lighters ajtd tugs are out on the Rhine,” said one of the directors to me, “but when they return, in the course of a few days, they also will be laid up. We are in a spring trap.” Other companies are in just the same plight. Everywhere one goes' in Rotterdam one sees line after line of lighters and barges berthed beam to beam in the canals and waterways. In the Leuvo Haven, a stretch of water covering less than 400 yards, I counted 105 lighters. The Dutchmen and Dutchwomen who make the lighters their homes, pursue only domestic duties. Lines of newly-washed clothes hang-over the decks and culinary smoke arises from the stove funnels. That is all. Rotterdam before the occupation was the heart of a vast intricate inland water traffic, nie beating of this heart propelled river craft to Germany, to Belgium, to France, to Switzerland, and to Italy. It was an immense mart into which the hinterland.to Europe poured its produce for shipment to Great Britain, the Americas, and Africa. It was the first entrepot of imports for a thousand towns on the European net of waterways. Metals, ores, grains, ooal, oils, seeds, tallow, sugar, rice, tobacco, hides, , and indigo poured into Rotterdam lighters from steamers from every port in the world. “In 1922,” said the harbourmaster of Rotterdam, “we imported for Germany 6,000,000 tons of ore. This was transhipped to our Igihters and carried up the river. We built the Maas Waal, and Rhine deepwater depks,' capble of berthing the largest ships afloat. We devised simultaneous port and starboard unloading. ‘ We often discharged a 10,000 tbhs grain .cargo in a day. In the space of a fortnight we handled. 30,000 to 50,000 tons of grain.” “A WITHERING HAND.” Then the withering hand of the. French occupation reaches' forth. Rotterdam is stricken into paralysis. “In three weeks,” said the harbourmaster, “we have unladen only 5000 tons of grain. “Sixteen ships of the Hclland-America line and eight of the Rotterdamsche Lloyd have lain idle for weeks. Their burthen is from 6000 to 10,000 tons each. Forty-two tramp steamers rust at the quays. Their toal burthen is more than 200,000 tons. This is the. picture of Rotterdam to-day. Now hear what her leading citizens say—one of her men of commerce, the scion of an ancient house, whose fathers. financed sea enterprises contemporaneous with, the adventures chronicled by Hakluyt, now controls the greatest Rhine craft organisation in Holland. “We work as neutrals,” he said. “Wa are neither for the French nor the Germans. The French, we think, should have their money from the Germans, but why should thev seek to punish us for German sins?” ... “GO TO BERLIN!” “A few days ago we sent a cargo of British coal into thq Rhineland—looo tons, and British, mark you. The coal was seized by the French at Ludwigshaven. The lighter was discharged, and the captain was given a receipt. When he protested the French replied, ‘Here is your hill. Go to Berlin and collect your money.’ , “Where, then, is the Free Rhine? Wa claim the right to free navigation of the Rhine, as it was decreed under the treaty of 1868. “By what right do the French seize cargoes which h ave merely to pass through the occupied zone, and which are bound from neutral to neutral States? We stand by the treaty of 1868, and we ask England, Italy, and Belgium, who were signatories to that treaty, to guarantee our under articles six, eight, and nine.