The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-08-17

L
England, the London Times declared a
| dozen years ago, ''totters at the apex of her
greatness !" and however that may be there
is no doubt that We on this side OF the
water have so immensely the advantage OF
every European State, in natural and unde-
veloped wealth, in cheap lands, in security
from foreign wars and complications, IN
nearness to the Central and South American
and the Chinese and Japanese markets,
that if we do not fall prey to the Ignorance
and ambition of our political class we can
scarcely fail with the return of new era oil
"good times" to gain much greater hold
ON the commerce of the world than we have
ever had.
But it is not necessary to the growth OF
| New York that London and Liverpool
should decay. Our proper share OF the IN
| creased commerce of the world-that which
will fall to us naturally if we only prepare
for it and seize twill make our port one
of the great centres of exchange, and so
vastly increase its wealth and population
that even the most sanguine present antici-
pations of its inhabitants will be exceeded.
But to achieve that we need to do and to
undo certain things, and it is to some of
these that we propose to call public atten-
ton.
In the first place. if we compare London
and New York, considered as commercial
ports, we shall see that New York is for the
present mainly way station on the way to
Europe 1t is hardly commercial or ship
ping centre at all. London is very differ
ent place there are found not merely the
products of Great Britain stored for ship
ment to other countries, but the products
of other countries entered for consumption
in Great Britain: so far New York is on
level with London; but that great and
real commercial port goes far beyond this
In the miles on miles of warehouses,
with the conveniently arranged docks
which constitute the port of London,
are stored for safe keeping immense
quantities of foreign products from all the
countries on the globe, waiting not for the
mere home demand, but for reshipment to
any country where they are needed. There
is no day IN the year when a ship cannot
find in London an assorted cargo, suited to
the demand OF any people in the world-a
cargo consisting not of British goods alone,
but of the goods and products of all the
principal nations. 1t is in this that Lon
don has SO great and incalculable advantages
over New York it is because in her ware
houses are stored the products Of all the
world that ships and merchants and capt.
tai and enterprise are drawn to her, rather
than to New York.
In our port a merchant or adventurer
may gather, with some pains, a cargo of
some kind in London he is certain always
of collecting with ease, cheaply and quickly,
cargo Of any kind he needs. The port of
London is the gathering place for the prod
ucts of all chimes and countries it is their
depot and distributing centre they ship
there, not to market but for market;
they store their products there because
there they can get advances; there is the
chief because the widest market; because
ocean commerce needs such central
depot, and London has arranged cheap and
safe storage for the whole world. Com
pared with the port of London the port OF
yet it has many natural advantages for the
establishment Of worldwide wholesale
business. New York will not begin to be
rival of London until merchant or a
trader in any part OF the world may send
his ship here, confident that whatever he
NAV want, and no matter how varied his
wants, they will be filed from our ware
houses, in quantities and qualities to meet
his wishes.
That is the ideal of really great seaport,
and we are still far enough from 1t. When
we have begun to attain it we shall be able
to force the ships and the capital of all ma
tons to come to us, as they are now forced
to go to London. But we are fortunate
over our European rivals in the fact that
we shall never need such solid and costly
docks as London, Liverpool, Havre and
other European seaports require Our
water front needs no great outlay to fit it TO
receive great fleets. What we are still with
out is an extensive and we'll arranged sys-
TEN OF warehouses adequate to the wants of
great seaport.
But what we need in reality is the permis-
sion of the government to build such store
houses. There is q little section in the Re
vised Statutes, section 1911, which ought
TO be entitled, can act to prevent the
growth of the port of New York and force it
to remain perpetually fourth rate sea-
port" This act, slipped through Congress
in 1862, in the midst of the war, by men
who knew perfectly well what it meant, de-
clares that ''any goods remaining in public
store or bonded warehouse beyond three
years shall be regarded as abandoned to the
government and sold under such regula-
tions as the Secretary of the Treasury may
provide"