DEVELOPMENT OF A MERCHANT MARINE AND COMMERCE. 219 



railroad transportation system and is accompanied by ability on the part of land carriers 

 to increase greatly and almost instantly the normal vokime of traffic. Therefore, if the ter- 

 minal facilities at any port are well proportioned and arranged, with a capacity equal to the 

 normal requirements of the ocean carriers that ordinarily use that port, satisfactory results 

 from the standpoint of port operation should be secured. The allocation, however, of ves- 

 sels from one port to another can be changed practically overnight, and so, if a large addi- 

 tional number of vessels should be suddenly sent to a port, congestion of port facilities and 

 delays to traffic will immediately occur, due to the inherent fact that ports, like all other 

 temiinals, are not able to accommodate themselves to great fluctuations in the volume of 

 traffic as well as, and as quickly as, their connecting land and water transportation lines. 

 Under such circumstances, any port not provided with a liberal excess over normal require- 

 ments of berthing space alongside suitably equipped wharves or piers, and of tracks and rail- 

 road yards, together with other necessary facilities in proportion, will immediately become 

 the "neck of the bottle" under an increasing volume of traffic; and the particular transporta- 

 tion movement of which that port is a link will be slowed down, causing increased cost of 

 operation to all carriers connecting at that port, and delays to shippers — all of which would 

 be to the detriment of our merchant marine and our sea-borne commerce, including both 

 foreign and coastwise domestic commerce. Increasing port facilities cannot be accomplished 

 overnight and is an operation that requires time. The construction of permanent wharves, 

 piers and accessories for a project of even moderate size may require several years, and the 

 furnishing of even temporary wooden piers requires months. The tmdivided use of and 

 free access to the site of any new works during construction is always essential. 



Delays in port mean lessened revenues and increased expense to ocean carriers. The 

 increased cost due to unusual delays — which may in general vary from $1,000 to $5,000 

 per day per vessel — cannot be passed on to shippers, and has to be borne by the steamship 

 companies themselves. If such unusual delays at any port happen for a number of successive 

 voyages, and the steamship companies attempt to recoup themselves by increasing rates, it 

 usually happens that either the traffic diminishes so that the net returns are not increased, or 

 the traffic becomes diverted to other routes, to the detriment of the steamship companies 

 concerned. 



We recently had an example of how our p rincipal eastern ports, and the port facilities 

 thereat, functioned under the rising tide of wartime traffic, and no one connected with trans- 

 portation during that period will readily forget the far-reaching consequences of the con- 

 gestion at those ports, a condition that at times seemed liable to break down the greater 

 part of our transportation system east of the Mississippi River. It is to be hoped that such 

 an "accelerated" test of our ports will never come again. If it does, however, our ports and 

 port facilities must be found to be in a condition that will enable them better to stand the 

 strain. Such a test always accentuates defects, and if we take advantage of the opportunity 

 that is now offered to improve our port system and eliminate the defects that we are now 

 aware of, the lesson will have been well worth while. Aside from the matter of inadequate 

 capacity and equipment, our ports and port facilities proved imsatisfactory during the war in 

 methods and cost of operation, and in organization and control. Of course these defects 

 have always existed, but they had not been brought home to us quite so sharply, and we 

 perhaps had failed to realize how much they mean during peace in reducing our foreign 

 and coastwise domestic commerce and in retarding the establishment on a sound business 

 basis of our merchant marine; for practically every dollar of the cost of operating our port 

 facilities in connection with our sea-borne commerce is ultimately paid by the consumer. 



