The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-01-12
NEW BRITISH PORT
 ONE OF MIRACLES
 OF THE GREAT WAR
Marlborough, Formerly a Swamp, Now a Region
 Teeming With Trans ...... port Energy
By PATRICK O,FLAHERTY.
 SneciaI fn The Ane- Herald

Sandwich, England, January 2.-The secrecy of war which has blanketed Eng land since August 4, 1914. has at last take stock of itself, to enumerate the poverties and the unexpected riches which the war has bestowed on it. The old England has come suddenly face to face with the new England
 No detail in the map of the new Eng land has so completely surprised the old England as the gigantic transit port of Richborough. The old England knew the vicinity as marsh, extending from Peg well to Sandwich, threaded by a little stream called the Stour, which an ath- letic man could leap across at low tide. and peopled only by sheep and coot and heron. The new England wakes from four years of war to find the vicinity shrieking with riveting hammers, air compressors, steam hammers, locomotive whistles, and the sirens of traiil ferries, tugs and motor boats. The little Stour, now dredged to a width of 300 feet at it's mouth, is bordered with huts hos pitals, a church, barge building yards, machine shops, foundries compressor houses, power stations, locomotive shops, wharVeS with travelling cranes, miles of railway sidings, great army salvage dump and-greatest wonder of ala train ferry across the Channel to France
 Twenty-two hundred acres is covered by the new port of Peterborough. With out the knowledge of anyone in the coun- try except the military authorities, it has sent ,545 tons of war material to Calais and Dunl<irz since December, 1916. while 166,9SO tons of salved war ma terials have been brought back. To trans port this vast tonnage, a fleet of some 50 tugs and 232 steel barges, so miles of railway siding and 20,000 officers and men have been necessary
 And two years ago the place was a swamp.
 Its story is one of the big construction stories of the war. It has it's lesson, too, for peace time as well as for war. Now that the armistice has been signed, it's personnel has been reduced from 20,000 to 14,600 but it's establishment on a peace basis is expected ultimately to swell the personnel to a higher figure than ever before. The signing of the armistice has reduced it to a transit point for the army of occupation alone, but it's final adjust ment to a peace basis is expected to make of it one of the busiest of England S channel ports It will then become one of wars permanent contributions to the nation.
 LESSON FOR PEACE TIME
 It's creation to fill a military need should bear lesson to those communi- ties whose needs are the more patient needs of peace time. I have in mind particularly a stretch of marsh land along the Hackensack and Passaic rivers back of New York city. For probably 40 years there has been talk of convert ing these marshes to docks and factory sites. For 40 years, nothing has been done but talk, with the exception of a few isolated factory sites
 Peterborough two years ago was exact ly the same sort of marsh. War showed the need of a transit depot there. Like most government undertakings, the project had to pass through a fire oi criticism. As a war measure, it has ! been tested and found good; as a post war measure, time will prove it's value.
 War achieved in two years on the marshes between Pegwell and Sandwich what peace has failed to achieve in 4t years on the marshes of the Hackensack and Passiac back of New York.
 The birth of the war port of Richbor, ough was made in report by Lord French in 1914 on the need for the organ Ization of inland water transport on the French and Belgian canals. AS a result of the report, the war office started Q scheme under two officers whose trans port consisted of tug and two barges As the British army grew, the need grew of alleviating the pressure on the rail ways back of the front So the inland