ob PORT ECONOMICS
individuals, or by proprietary companies formed for the
purpose. These are private business undertakings and
are now limited to the minor ports of the country. The
companies are under the necessity of earning dividends,
and the whole of the administration is carried through
on a strictly commercial basis. The most notable example
of management of this kind was at the port of London
before the formation of the Port of London Authority,
when the dock systems of the port were the private property
of three separate dock companies in rivalry with one
another and with the owners of the riverside wharves, a
condition of things which led to much under-cutting of
rates and keen competition, which was not found favourable
to the general advancement of the port and its working.
SUMMARY

Reviewing the foregoing systems very briefly, it may be
said that, while State administration affords a stable and
secure basis for the financial welfare of a port, it is not
altogether free from the evils of political intervention.
Public opinion, in Great Britain at any rate, is critical in
regard to State and bureaucratic administration, in that,
with certain exceptions, it exhibits a tendency to repress
enterprise and activity, and to become more or less subject
to official routine and conservatism. Railway manage-
ment is frankly undertaken in the interests of the railway
systems, and although this, in itself, is not a fundamental
objection, yet both in this case and in the case of municipal
management, there is certainly to be feared an outlook
which is restricted to the immediate advantage of the
railway, or the municipality concerned. Particularly is
this so in the case of the municipality, which may wish

1 The Manchester Ship Canal Company is an exceptional case.
In view of its statutory powers as the authority for the Port of
Manchester, it embodies certain features of autonomous manage-
ment ; in other respects, it is analogous to cases of railway manage-
ment, except that the undertaking is a canal and not a railway.
It does not, in the author’s view, come within the scope of the sec-
tion on Private or Company Management, as defined above.

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