PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 433 
at Glasgow was only 15 inches deep, and till 1818 no seagoing vessels came 
up to Glasgow. In 1895 the depth at low water was from 17 to 20 feet, and 
steamers with a maximum draught of 255 feet could go up to Glasgow. This 
was the result of dredging, deepening and widening the river, and increasing 
the tidal flow. The record of the Tyne has been similar. The effect of 
dredging the Tyne was that in 1895—I quote Mr. Harcourt again—‘ Between 
Shields and Newcastle, where formerly steamers of only 3 to 4 feet draught 
used to ground for hours, there is now a depth of 20 feet throughout at the 
lowest tides.’ It is because engineers have artificially improved Nature’s work 
on the Clyde and the Tyne that these rivers have become homes of shipbuilding 
for the whole world. Building training walls on the Seine placed Rouen, 
seventy-eight miles up the river, high among the seaports of France. The Elbe 
and the Rhine, the giant rivers Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and many other 
rivers, have, as we all know, been wonderfully transformed by the hand of the 
engineer. 
But land in turn, in this matter of transport, has encroached upon sea. In 
old days, when roads were few and bad, when there were no railways, and 
when ships were small, it was all-important to bring goods by water at all 
parts as far inland as possible. In England there were numerous flourishing 
little ports in all the estuaries and up the rivers, which, under modern condi- 
tions, have decayed. No one now thinks of Canterbury and Winchester in 
connection with seaborne traffic; but Mr. Belloc, in ‘The Old Road,’ a description 
of the historical Pilgrims’ Way from Winchester to Canterbury, points out 
how these two old-world cathedral cities took their origin and derived their 
importance from the fact that each of them, Canterbury in particular, was 
within easy reach of the coast, where a crossing from France would be made; 
each on a river—in the case of Canterbury on the Stour just above the end 
of the tideway. In the days when the Island of Thanet was really an island, 
separated from the rest of Kent by an arm of the sea, and when the present 
insignificant river Stour was, in the words of the historian J. R. Green, ‘a wide 
and navigable estuary,’ Canterbury was a focus to which the merchandise of six 
Kentish seaports was brought, to pass on inland; it was in effect practically a 
seaport. Now merchandise, except purely local traffic, comes to a few large 
ports only, and is carried direct by rail to great distant inland centres. Reclus 
wrote that bays are constantly losing in comparative importance as the inland 
ways of rapid communication increase; that, in all countries intersected with 
railways, indentations in the coast-line have become rather an obstacle than an 
advantage; and that maritime commerce tends more and more to take for its 
starting-place ports situated at the end of a peninsula. He argues, in short, 
that traffic goes on land as far out to sea as possible instead of being brought by 
water as far inland as possible. He clearly overstated the case, but my con- 
tention is that, for human purposes, the coast-line, though the same on the map, 
has practically been altered by human agency. By the aid of science ports have 
been brought to men as much as men to ports. We see before our eyes the 
process going on of bridging India to Ceylon so as to carry goods and passengers 
as far by land as possible, and in Ceylon we see the great natural harbour of 
Trincomalee practically deserted and a wonderful artificial harbour created at 
the centre of population, Colombo. 
But Jet us carry the argument a little further. Great Britain is an island. 
Unless there is some great convulsion of Nature, to all time the Straits of Dover 
will separate it from the continent of Europe. Yet we have at this moment 
a renewal of the scheme for a Channel tunnel, and at this moment men are 
flying from England to France and France to England. Suppose the Channel 
tunnel to be made; suppose flying to be improved—and it is improving every 
day—what will become of the island? What will become of the sea? They 
will be there and will be shown on the map, but to all human intents and 
purposes the geography will be changed. The sea will no longer be a barrier, 
it will no longer be the only high-road from England to France. There will be 
going to and fro on or in dry land, and going to and fro neither on land nor on 
sea. Suppose this science of aviation to make great strides, and heavy loads 
to be carried in the air, what will become of the ports, and what will become 
of sea-going peoples? The ports will be there, appearing as now on the map, 
but Birmingham goods will be shipped at Birmingham for foreign parts, and 
1914. FF 
