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Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 110, 15 June 1914, Page 6

Hull, as a trading port, has of late been, receiving its full share of worldwide advertisement. • To-day Hull is the third port in the United Kingdom. It has developed amazingly of reeent years, and the intensity of this development will be fully appreciated when it is remarked that, since 1908, the value of Hull imports and exports has increased •by £19,000,000. ; But, as a writer in the "Daily Telegraph" makes clear* in an interesting comparative review,if Hull had gone ahead so markedly, Sydney, too, has made wonderful progress. In the last ten years Sydney's. trade has doubled—to-day it is worth £30,000,000 more than in 1903. The' figures ' and -faets- v cited by the "Telegraph "s " contributor * are _ unusually' explicit and impressive. Syd-' ney's trade, he points out, is greater than all but that of three ports in the British Isles': * The thiee are London, Liverpool," and' ' Hull, and it is i not .at', all improbable that the x New South Wales capital will in the not distant: future overhaul her nearest rival. Sydney already exports as much as Hull—the " latter 'excels in her imports. To give a further idea of the extent of the trade of Sydney—large centres Ake Manchester, Melbourne, Southampton, and Glasgow are iall below- her in the aggregate. One Important factor. in this splendid development is the harbour, which is capable- of- accommodating the biggest liners ' afloat. Another factor —apparently overlooked, by the writer of the article—is that all" the railway lines lead. to Sydney, even as all roads one time led to Rome. , This intense centralisation policy, while it has inflated the capital, has starved: two other, ports at least. And this strangling of promising seaports is not the only evil. In the prime of the, seasons, produce has to be dragged from all over the. .country to Sydney, wh'ile a harbour like Twofold Bky—-thelogi'eal outlet for a vast extent of productive country in S.E. New South Wales, ie ' not encouraged to "grow up.'' If Mr Holinan, instead of talking rubbish about'things that do not concern-him in the slightest, would only setingoing' order 'the promised decentralisation' railway policy, he would confer a 'benefit ' On the whole State, though, it would probably lose him many votes in Sydney^