The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-12-03 00:00:00

We think not. The strong manifestation of opinion
to which the plans of Mr. Gage, defective in detail as
we consider them, have led, cannot, or ought not, to
be thus met. The feeling amongst the mercantile

community that the principle of construction contend-
ed for by Mr. Gage is correct, and that adopted by the
Dock Committee faulty, is too prevailing to be slight-
ed; and we do trust that that committee will pause
before they place it beyond their power to retract.
We are ourselves inclined to doubt whether their own
plans are entirely approved by Mr. Hartley himself,
although upon that gentleman's head is visited the
discredit which attaches to them ; and we contend,
therefore, that if any plans are submitted to the judg-
ment of the eminent engineering experience proposed
to be called in, an unfettered design from Mr. Hartley
himself, and not one only which may have been pre-
pared more in reference to the advancement of a pet
scheme of a portion of the Dock Committee than for
its general advantages to the port, ought in justice to
the public, and to his own professional character as
well, to be amongst them. Mr. Hartley may not pos-
sess the " comprehensive mind" and brilliant concep-
tion of his competitor on this occasion; but he pos-
sesses what is, in the estimation of many, quite as valu-
able—viz., long experience, intimate local knowledge,
perfect acquaintance with details of a practical nature,
and considerable reputation acquired by the substan-
tial construction of so many enduring works around
us ; and it would certainly be equally unjust that his
reputation should suffer by the construction of an ill-
advised work, for whose defects he is not morally re-
sponsible, or that, on the other hand, such a work
should be borne up against public disapproval by the
outward sanction of his name, if it is not, in sincerity,

given to it

Since the preceding remarks were in type, the report
of Mr. Gage to the Dock Committee, and the proceed-
ings of that Committee at its sitting yesterday, have
come before us; and to these we appeal with confi-
dence, as confirming most completely the opinions
which we have expressed. The evidence of the Har-
bour Masters is, we think, quite conclusive with re-
spect to the impracticability of Mr. Gage's projects ;
and we can only now repeat our hope that the whole
question, as to the appropriation of the valuable quay
space to which they refer, will be adjudicated upon,
before the Committee proceed to act upon their present
design, even although approved, in preference to those
of Mr. Gage, by any engineering authority which may
be called in.

Our contemporary of the Liverpool limes, when he
penned an article which appears in his last publication,
must really have imagined that the community amongst
which he flourishes are enveloped in worse than Cim-
merian darkness, or afflicted with a lamentable forget-
fulness of facts and dates. "The editor of the STAND-
ARD," asserts this veracious scribe, " is about to do
what the Mail, the Times, and nearly all the other Li-
verpool papers did several months ago ; that is, to show
that this port possesses many great advantages as a
point of departure for the West Indian Mails." In
reply to this pitiful and paltry effusion of spleen, we
can briefly say, that it is not true that we ever allowed
the editor of the Liverpool Times or of any other
journal thus far to outstrip us in the advocacy of any
measure of local usefulness ; and a reference to our
file will prove that on this very measure we were as
early and as earnest in our advocacy as our contempo-
raries, and were favoured by being made the vehicle of
conveying several most important communications to
the public, in addition to our own efforts in its be-
half.

Our contemporary observes, in conclusion, that our
stirring it now " must be taken as an apology for our
neglect of a subject of great importance which has
already been fully discussed and explained by all our
contemporaries." Indeed ! But has this important
subject as yet been decided upon by the legislature,
most excellent philosopher ? Is it too late even yet for
the voice of this great town to be raised for the pur-
pose of asserting its claim to the legislative considera-
tion in the decision of this matter ? Not at all we
think, and so thinks the world, and so think and fear,
at the same time, the opponents of the claims of Liver-
pool to suck consideration, notwithstanding the disco-
very of our contemporary that we are to sit down

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to the interests of the port, upon the principle icinr
tended for by Mr. Gage, than as proposed in the par-
liamentary plan; and we are eqUally convinced that
the projects of that gentleman, in detail, can never pro-
duce what the public want, along with an increase of
I lineal quay space,—a dock or docks capable of being
.y efficiently worked. The defects in f

eir propose(
construction, as pointed out in the report of the dock
surveyor, are, in our judgment, established even more
fully by an examination of the plans themselves than
by the evidence of Mr. Hartley ; and we know that
the same opinion with respect to them is entertained
by other parties equally capable with hies of forming a
judgmetile with regard to the practicability of their
being worked with advantage and convenience.
We do not at all under estimate the importance of
the object sought to be secured by Mr. Gage, and so
urgently prayed for by, the various associations—viz.,
an increase of available quay space in the centre of the
port. On the contrary, we admit it fully. But the
principles by which it is to be gained are, we submit,
in Mr. Gage's plans, carried to an extreme. If other
docks, already existing, are wider than is requisite,
those proposed by him are as much too narrow; and
would be found to be so in working. The landing
spaces of 120 feet in width are equally too narrow;
and when it is borne in mind that they are to be used
on both sides, and have but one communication with. the
quay and the town, we can only come to the conclusion
that constant obstructions would he the result of their
adoption. And if upon both sides of these narrow
slips, and fronting to the interior water space, the pro-
posed warehouses are to be erected, of any useful
width, we cannot really imagine how cartage to and
from them can go on at all in the dark alleys which
they will then form.
With respect to the plan of a dock with a concave
face to the river, covered with warehouses, we are
satisfied that, on reflection, few even of the most san-
guine supporters of Mr. Gage's projects will be found
to insist upon its adoption. Without taking into con-
sideration the difficulty of mooring vessels safely
against the convex quay within, which must strike
any impartial man who examines the position in which
they are laid down in Mr. Gage's own plan,—with their
bows and stern off, and only touching the wall amid-
ships,—the danger in case of a gale from the westward,
to those placed in the circular basin outside—which,
when the proposed warehouses five or six stories high
are erected upon it, must be operated upon with terri-
fic effect, and become a perfect Maelstroom—will, we
are convinced, be perfectly obvious.
But, it may be said, the parties most interested in
procuring an increase in the dock accommodation of
the port, and best able to judge what the nature of
that increase should be, have declared their support of
the plans—one or other of them—laid before them by
Mr. Gage ; and their disapproval of that of Mr. Hart-
ley, the dock surveyor. With submission we really
think that this is scarcely the fact. They have ap-
proved the general principle, and some of the general
views put forward by that gentleman; and which are
no new discovery even as applied, we believe, to the
very space of ground in question. The declaration of
Mr. Hartley that he has supplied designs for, and
strongly advocated the adoption of the same principle
for several of the recent new docks ; and the fact that
it is at the present hour in practice as applied to the
North Dock, must be satisfactory upon this point at
least. But it can scarcely be said that the mercantile
bodies are very generally prepared to fall into the de-
tails of Mr. Gage; and upon this very point we are
afraid lest justice should not be done to the real inte-
rests of the town from the course proposed to be
adopted by the Dock Committee. The plan of Mr.
Hartley and those of Mr. Gage are to be submitted to
the examination of the first engineering experience;
and what may be the result of such an examination ?
Why this. The crude.and ad captandum plans of Mr.
Gage may be rejected as impracticable, and that of
Mr. Hartley pronounced the practicable working plan;
and yet can it be for a moment urged that such a
judgment, so arrived at, should be decisive upon the
question as to the hest mode of disposing of the land
before us ?