The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-12-03
For the Good of
 the Community

A T last the Port of Birmingham corpo- 4 ration is an active, organized body. After many weeks of more or less active soliciting the necessary 25 per cent of the authorized capital stock of the corpora tion has been subscribed and the formali- ties of the law having been complied with, the promoters are now able to do some thing more than talk.
 Construction work on the terminals, switches and buildings at Short Creek IS now under way Within six weeks, per haps in less time, Birmingham shippers will be utilizing this great addition to their transportation facilities and they will then wonder why they were so long seeing the advantages and the possibili- ties held out to them by the Warrior river.
 This is but one step in the movement towards developing Birmingham com merce and industry The next step IS for eign trade.
 The Alabama Manufacturers associa- tion organized in the summer of 1918 as awar emergency body, but which is about to enter upon an enlarged sphere of activ- ities, 1t is announced, will devote a great deal of it's energies to the development and fostering of export business for Bir- mingham and Alabama manufacturers and producers.
 When Mr. Sevier takes active charge of the presidency of that organization on January l, 1t is understood, he will make determined, and that means a success full, campaign to interest all Alabama manufacturers or producers of commod- ities that may have markets in foreign countries in this trade.
 In the meantime the Chamber of Com merce, with the assistance of Garrard Harris, trade commissioner of the United States department of commerce. is oct ting in touch with the nam 4aetE7reEs in Birmingham and immediate gicIal6y who make such articles as a2a in demand in Central and South AreE1o,.s. countries with the view ro org anlzing an export cor poration in Birmingham.
 In this connection it is stated tkat Mo- bile interests are now taking prepfratory steps toward the organization of an ex- port corporation, making connections with leading concerns of that kind in the east. It is announced as the intention of the Mobile people to handle the products of the territory tributary to that city and to the Warrior and Alabama rivers and other sections traversed by railroads ter minating or centering in Mobile, acting as sales and purchasing agents for the man. ufacturers and merchants of this terri tory, and financing their foreign trade wherever it may be necessary.
 The Mobile project will be great fac tor in developing foreign trade through out the central gulf states, but such cor poration in Birmingham would have much wider scope and could control greater amount of trade than could one at Mobile.
 Birmingham is the greatest manufac-. turing district in the south; her tonnage exceeds the combined tonnage of the sev- eral states adjoining or nearby, and her manufactured and mineral products will constitute the greater part of all exporta- tions through gulf ports.
 With the Port of Birmingham terminals in op- eration craft the Warrior river arriving and departing daily, bringing in goods for dstribu- tion in and through Birmingham and carrying out products of the factories and shops and fields and mines of all North Alabama and parts of Georgia. Tennessee and Mississippi Birmingham easily >