THE CUBA REVIEW 



21 



THE NEW HAVANA DOCKS 



The completion of two of the new docks 

 of the port of Havana is announced by Con- 

 sul General James L. Rodgers, of Havana. 

 In his description of the works, which wnll 

 greath' increase the dock facilities of the 

 chief port of Cuba, about 75 per cent of 

 Cuba's imports entering the island through 

 Havana, the consul writes: 



To provide proper dock facilities for the 

 great port of Cuba, a concession for con- 

 structing docks, which after fifty years 

 would become the property of the govern- 

 ment, was given to the late Sylvester Scovel 

 and his associates by decree of President 

 Tomas Estrada Palma in 1905, and after 

 nine years the second of the docks is now 

 about completed. 



The Port of Havana Docks Company, 

 present owners of the Scovel concession, "s 

 an American corporation, having, however, 

 many stockholders in England. Belgium and 

 Cuba. The original concession provided 

 for construction in front of the Havana 

 custom houses of a great pier and ware- 

 house to unload mechanically ships and 

 store their cargoes. The concession con- 

 templated establishment of the custom 

 house offices in this edifice and permitted 

 the company to charge certain fixed tariffs 

 for receiving and handling merchandise and 

 other cargoes and a "fixed tariff for storing 

 all classes of goods. 



Work on this project was begun under 

 the Palma administration, but was discon- 

 tinued shortly thereafter by reason of op- 

 position to the plans of the company ad- 

 vanced by the custom house officials, who 

 contended that the plans provided for an 

 tmheard of rapidit}- of discharge of cargo 

 and decided that the company would so far 

 fail to realize their anticipated results that 

 the pier would prove unsatisfactory, and 

 that as the government was eventually to 

 become the owner of the works, it was 

 their duty to have the project carried out 

 upon lines that would be most advan- 

 tageous to the public. After several years 

 the company then owning the concession 

 Avaived their legal rights under the con- 

 cession in so far as the original design wa!< 

 concerned and consented in the spring of 

 1010 to construct the piers and warehouses 

 upon the general design demand^'' by the 

 government. The present, plans then 

 adopted were for the construction of an 

 equivalent amount of pier and of ware- 

 house area, but divided up into four piers 

 instead of one very broad pier. Otherwise 

 there has been retained all the original 

 features, including the custom house offices. 

 Shortly after this was accomplished the 

 Port of Havana Docks Company was or- 

 ganized and a construction contract was 

 let for the first two piers to MacArthur, 

 Perks & Co., Ltd., of Canada, who worked 



under the plans of Barclay, Parsons & 

 Klapp, engineers, of New York. 



Piers No. 1, at the San Francisco Plaza, 

 and No. 2, at the site of the old passenger 

 pier, are now completed at a cost of about 

 $?., 000,000. These piers are respectively 213 

 meters (69S.8 feet) and 195 meters (63S.7 

 feet) in length, and each 50 meters (164 

 feet) in width. Nos. 3 and 4, proposed but 

 not begun, will be placed on the south and 

 north sides, respectively, of the completed 

 piers, and will be of the same width and 

 186 meters (G10.2 feet) and 133 meters 

 (436.3 feet) in length. It will be seen that 

 the piers are long enough to berth the 

 largest vessels likely to use them for many 

 years to come and spacious enough to ac- 

 commodate great cargo. The slips are SO 

 meters (286.4 feet) in width between piers 

 1, 2 and 3. and 66 meters (216.5 feet) be- 

 tween 1 and 4. This width, as is proved 

 daily at the existing piers, enables lighters 

 to lie on the off side of two steamers and 

 yet allow passage for other lighters. 



Each pier is covered with a two-story 

 building for receiving and storing merchan- 

 dise, and is connected by a three-story 

 l)uilding 20 meters wide along the marginal 

 way — San Pedro Street — which has been 

 widened under the head house so as to 

 make a wide and commodious zone of 

 communication for carts and wagons. A 

 connection may in the future be made for 

 freight cars of the various railroads by a 

 viaduct to the second floor, which v.-ill pre- 

 vent congestion of traffic that would ensue 

 if connection were made on the surface of 

 the street. 



CUBA S TRADE IMPORTANCE 



Russia, China and British India together 

 contain about 850,000,000 inhabitants — con- 

 siderably more than half the total popula- 

 tion of the world. Cuba is a little island, 

 with something less than 2.500,000 human 

 beings within her borders. Yet in the year 

 1913, the trade between Cuba and the 

 United States was almost exactly the same 

 as the commerce of this countrj- with 

 those three gigantic empires, says the Chi- 

 cago Journal. 



The exact figures are : 



Trade between Cuba and 



United States $108,332,574 



Trade between three empires 



and United States 190,033,805 



On Alarch T^th last the local chief of 

 sanitation at Guantanamo ordered all the 

 bread made on that day thrown away owing 

 to the bad condition of the flour used in 

 the bakeries. This order was strictly car- 

 ried out and the city accordingly had no 

 bread for that dav. 



