The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-03-07

head line TO make river street Of two hun
dred and fifty feet In width on the North River
and two hundred feet on the East River,
to Thirty-drst street. Convenient piers were
to be constructed at such intervals as would
afford the greatest accommodation to ship
ping. In the first year large amount of use
full work was completed; piers and bulkheads
were rebuilt and repaired; corporation slips
were dredged and Instructions removed from
wharves, piers and bulkheads. A system Of
supervision was instituted under competent
officers, the benefit of which soon became APP
parent in the generally improved condition of
the docks all over the city. Cheap Jack jour-
nails, seeking to sell their goods by the noise
of their cries and the impudence Of their as
sertions, assailed the department as extrava-
giant and corrupt but it is well known that
the expenditures were economically and hon
estly made and the work efficiently per-
formed. All these realized and promised adj
vantages the charter Of the Seventy proposes
to cast away, by abolishing a non-political
and capable Board and placing the manage
ment and control of the docks in another de-
partment Of the city government which can
not be kept out of the hands of the politicians
The proposition is simply suicidal. It places
quarter of century's blockade on the prog
ress Of the metropolis. We have only to
develop speedily the great resources of our
port to make New York the commercial centre
Of the world within the next twenty years.
The great port of Liverpool has superb
system Of enclosed wet docks, with entrance
gates which cost in the neighborhood of
seventy-fve million dollars in gold, including
the Birkenhead docks. Yet these stupendous
works give only twenty miles length of quay
frontage, and for nearly one-third of the year
vessels drawing more than eighteen feet of
water cannot enter. The rise and fall of the
tide in the Mersey is from eighteen to thirty
three feet. The river wall on the banks is
but five miles in length, and the tide renders
it impracticable to load and unload vessels
advantageously abreast of ordinary quays and
piers. Yet Liverpool has been hitherto the
wonder of the commercial world. When we
consider the superior natural advantages of
New York we can imagine what our future
must be under a wise and liberal administra-
great arms of the sea, stretched forth to hold
us in a friendly embrace, we have nearly
thirty miles Of natural water front, capable of
being made, at comparatively moderate
cost, an unbroken line of docks as secure
against weather, fire and thieves as are the
English enclosed docks. The rise and fall Of
the tide is but little over four feet, insuring
at all seasons Of the year suficency of water
for vessels Of the heaviest tonnage. A per-
manent river wall and projecting piers from
end to end of the island will neither diminish
in an appreciable degree the amount of the
tidal wave nor the securing effect of the re-
turning ebb. These are the advantages
bestowed upon us by Nature, and it is for our
legislators to say whether they shall be
neglected or wisely developed.
The commerce of the port is the life's blood
of the future of the metropolis and of the ma.
tion-a future wonderful to contemplate 1t
should no longer be suffered to languish, or
given over as spoils to political Adventures.
Let our governments, national and State,
sweep away the cobwebs that have been
drawn over our progress, and that hold us as
flies entangled in their meshes. Let us set
our shipping interests free from their present
letters; let our iron men rise above the worn
out paralyzing folly of protection; let our
shippers buy iron vessels wherever they can
find the best market; obtain American regis
try without restriction, and bring back to us
our lost commerce in American lines of ocean
steamers running to every port in the
world let US keep our vast dock interests in
the trust of the men of wealth, character and
intelligence who at present control them, and
our bays and rivers, before many years shall
have passed, will become forests of masts,
bringing employment and wealth to quad
rupled population. As commencement, let
the State Senate, if it decide to pass the
Seventy's charter, cut from it the Department
of Docks, leaving that branch Of the govern
ment in its present keeping, and protecting
those important interests at least from the
clutches of any new Tammany "Ring'-whe-
ther cheap Jack, German, Irish or native
American.