The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-01-31
BY ALEXANDER GLAMOUR.

l GiasKow, Jan. s0--It seems to be taken Tor granted In London that the Clyde Trust will provide the greater dry docking accommodation called foI by the Increased dimensions of both war and mercantile ships. The ship building industry will suffer greatly if a Dreadnought dock Is not provided in the Immediate future. The provision of such a convenience at Govan or Renfrews would necessarily entail c further deepening and widening of the navigable channel, and a popular view locally appears to be that this expendi- ture Is much more than the shipbuiid- ing industry has q right to expect. Ex1orts do not look at the matter in that light. What they profess to see is that if Glasgow does not keep pace with the liner ports of the world--pro- vide docks, deep water, and all the other facilities of an up-to-to-dafe port-it will lose the more important of the shipping 1t already has.
 It is pointed out, for instance, that the Allan Line will shortly De com peting. against larger vessels. Up to a point theN company may be able to do ESQ profitably, but if White Star dimensions and Hamburg American dim mensions increase on the St. Lawrence route as They have on the New York
 
 much larger boat than it possesses at the moment If 1t does that, and the accommodation on the Clyde Is in- .adeuuate, its business is bound to concentfate at Liverpool Further, 1t may be that the Anchor Liae'si com paratisely slow development of the New York liners in. the direction of seize is due to limitations imposed by Glasgow Harbor. The fact that It t.o al tsoA mtt hrsa fo in fleet right up to the maximum of the rivers accomm odation. Is suggestive.
 It Is probably still true that the biggest Eiierman City liners and the biggest Holt boats cannot be com fortably worked at Glasgow. There fare scores of intermediate vessels at any rate of which this might be said ana heanumber inegeases every year. Instead Therefore of 1t being 8 case of providing docks and improving the navigable channel for the benefit of shdpbuilders It Is q shipping question of vital Importance to the port SoonSr -or later the local companies will have to fight the bigger, beamier, and the deeper ships based on otherports, and the Hyde Trust can hardly escape the obligation to back them up by spirited enterprise.
 As to where the new dock should DGs a8lt0Ateu tHcTe are several OPlttOISs the majority of which, however, ignore the fact that the ideal position of such a convenience would be as close as possible to the greatest ship repairing facilities. For instance a good place for . large graying dock on the Clyde would be-somewhere between Bowling and Newark Castle, but obviously the labor costs and the transport of mat teria1 costs would be much heavier for job there than they would be for a job done at either GoYan or Renfrew. That may look like a shipbuilding argument but 1t is not because the shdpowner who paid for the repair would be the gainer or loser. Bet ween Govan and Renfrew there is not much to choose, but what there is favoFs Govan. Greenock's claim seems to be hopeless, chiefly because the Tail of. the Bank Is beyond the erea of the Clyde Trusts authority. The Ad- miralty has nc money for a large dry dock at Ggeenock or anywhere on the Clyde A Dfeadnought dock on the river would be a convenience to it's ships. but it already has all the dfy docks it considers to be strateglcallyd necessary on the West Coast. The fact Is that the Clyde Is In greater need of this convenience than any body else, and if the Clyde does not provide 1t nobody win. ~
 There is a confident, though indeh- nite belief in industrial circles here that the heightened period of trade de- presslon is now nearing an end, and that as the year prcgresses there will