CHAPTER VI

PORT REVENUES
IN return for the services detailed in the two previous
chapters, and in order to defray the considerable outlay
involved in maintaining an adequate establishment of
officials with clerical and labouring staffs, and all the
paraphernalia of appliances and gear required for the
various operations, as well as in meeting the interest and
overhead charges on their capital outlay, port authorities
have to rely on certain sources of revenue in the form of
rates, dues and charges, which in the majority of cases—
more particularly rates and dues—have statutory force.

A distinction may, in fact, be made in regard to charges,
as being more of the nature of ad valorem payment for
services rendered, rather than of proportionate levies, as
in the case of rates and dues.

RATES AND DUES

Rates and dues are charged in respect of the cost of
providing and maintaining (a) channel buoying and light-
ing ; (b) pilotage services ; (¢) harbourage accommodation,
and (d) quay berthage. In the first two cases, the levy is
on the vessel ; in the third and fourth, it is both on the
vessel and on the goods which it conveys.

Light Dues. The Channel Lighting charge is termed a
Light Due, and is levied by the lighthouse authority,
which may or may not be the port authority. The scale
of payment is specified in the schedule at the end of the
Merchant Shipping (Mercantile Marine Fund) Act of 1898,
but dues for local lights may be fixed by Order in Council
on the application of local authorities. Other Light Dues
are payable to the Collector of Customs at a port on behalf
of Trinity House, the chief lighting authority. Vessels

6— (6010)

73