The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1908-01-15
LONDONS' AS A PORT
THE GREAT BULK AND VA
RlETY OF IT'S SHIPPING.
Few Londoners Know Their London,
Such Is the City's vastness-Few
Know Importance of It's Trade.

II is one of the penalties of its vast
ness that no Londoner can know Ion
don. That is why comparatively few
people in the metropolis have any idea
of the size and Importance of it's mari
time industry, says the London Tele-
graph. Going over London Bridge the
Lcndoner may casually observe that
steamers are unloading fruit, and that
strings of heavily laden lighters are
being towed up or down the river with
marvellous dexterity. His glance, too,
may AXE in a few steam fish-carriers,
which are unloading their hard-earned
freight in the neighborhood of Billings
gate. But the crowded Upper Pool,
with the Tower Bridge as a back
ground. is more suggestive of a port
of tenth-rate consequence than of the
greatest commercial haven in the
world. What Lcndoner, forming his
estimate from London Bridge or the
Temple pier, would suspect that the
Thames is London's great front door,
and that all the wealth brought into it
by other avenues is as nothing COM
pored with that which reaches it from
the sea?
Into the Thames there come one-
third of the imports of the United
Kingdom. Out of 1t go one-fourth Of
the exports of the country. One-ffth
of the total shipping of theA United
Kingdom enters the port of London,
and its trade is estimated as being
worth something like $500, 900, 900 a year.
1t seems impossible hat an industry
of such vast magnitude can be over
looked, yet there are Londoners who
probably know less about the Thames
and its shipping than they do about
Esperanto. They are aware, in a gen.
eral way, that there Is a port Of Lon
don ~"problem;" that there are docks
and dock companies, a Thames Conser-
yancy, a County Council and a Board
of Trade, all of whom at sundry times
have tried their hands at settling the
question. But where the docks are,
where the ships come from, what they
bring, how they pour into London the
produce of every country under the
sun-these things are sealed volumes.
Nor is it altogether astonishing. The
great river, 1t is true, runs down be-
tween the dock estates, but few pleas
ure r~estorts lie handy to them. They
are merely incidents of a river trip
impressive in themselves, perhaps, but
lacking in detail and instruction.
Some day the liberal education of a Lon
doner may comprise a month spent in the
examination of its docks and shipping. AT
present these are practically unknown.
save to those who have business with
them, and to these the IA of It ali
has become a negligible quantity. Yet
there is romance in these crowded docks.
even In an age of steam. The sailing
ship, by the aid OF which alone our fore
fathers founded an empire, is not yet eX-
tinct, ana those four slender poles over
topping yonder warehouse can tell of
many a battle with mighty seas in the
task of bringing home the rich produce
of the far Antipodes. They say that the
modern sailor is nc longer a seaman. and
that his work on the tramp steamer is
merely equivalent to that of a laborer.
But those lofty spars tell another tale.
Scaled they must be- in all weathers, and
nerve and skill are still in demand wher-
ever canvas is concerned. Some of these
sailing ships in the docks Of London have
for years past been roaming the globe
in fair weather and in foul, testing the
pluck and endurance of the British sea-
man., going into port and coming out
again, and constantly putting one coun-
try under obligation to another. 1t is said
that the men Of the sea and the men OF
the land have ever been apart, and ever
Will be. Yet even the landsmen, accus-
TONED TO dull routine, and little given to
lights of Imagination, must feel his pulses
beat the quicker as he views some cIipper
SHIP, herself a thing of beauty. and her
history u continuing record of trfumDh
FEEE ~ AhA III 49,
There Is. perhaps, little or no romance
about The trump steamer, which may be
neither pretty TO look upon nor comfort
able to live In. But it is too often for
gotten that the port of London offers
some OF the finest examples of the mod
ern ocean liner, These Swift shuttles Of
an empires loom come aud go from the
most distant parts of the globe with All
the regularity Of clockwork. No glamour
IS thrown over their voyages. such as
hat which surrounds the fast Atlantic
express boat, with Its course almost as
clearly marked out rs that over which
the Derby is run. Yet a visit to Tilbury
docks, and another paid to the Royal
Albert and Victoria docks is of itself n
revelation as TO the sdperlatlve character
OF much Of the liner tonnage which
comes to London from India. China, Japan,
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa
and the River p~late-these are but few
Of the far-distant portions of the earth
from which the liners come and go. II Is
at Tilbnry that the bigger boats are
largely 10 be found. Here among other
vessels. are berthed the steamers OF the
Atlantic Transport Line. the biggest that
come in the port Of London. They run
mp to between 1900 and 1900 tons.
These docks were conceived sar ahead
OF requirements, and II Is TO that fortu-
nate circumstance that they owe not &