CARGO HANDLING AT PORTS 
its corresponding financial return. It is little wonder, then, 
that attention should be given to every possible means of 
speeding up cargo-handling operations. 
PORT EFFICIENCY. 
But there is not only the ship point of view, there is 
an equally strong case for expedition and despatch from 
the port point of view. Quayside accommodation is costly 
to provide, including as it does not merely the construction 
of substantial quay walls and transit sheds, but numerous 
ancillary works and services, such as railway tracks, roads, 
power, and lighting, dredging, and the general maintenance 
of the port. For this outlay there must be some remunera- 
tive return, if the port undertaking is to remain solvent. 
The quays and berths, therefore, should be worked to 
their fullest extent in order to obtain satisfactory financial 
returns. It obviously behoves port authorities and their 
officers to analyse the user of the berths, and to ascertain 
how far it may be possible to increase this user by making 
the berths increasingly efficient. 
Speaking on this particular phase of port management, 
Sir John Purser Griffith, sometime Chief Engineer to the 
Dublin Port and Docks Board, made the following remarks 
in a lecture delivered before the Institution of Civil 
Engineers :—* 
“In a detailed examination of the different portions of 
berthage, it will be found that some quays pay much bet- 
ter than others; that, in fact, some quays are much more 
efficiently worked than other portions. It will generally be 
found that berths appropriated to fixed and regular trades 
yield a higher return than the open berths devoted to the 
general trade of the port. This naturally follows because 
berthage is not appropriated to a particular trade unless 
that trade is regular and of sufficient volume to warrant 
an appropriation. This all points to the necessity of insis- 
ting on rapid discharge and clearance of ships at these 
* The James Forrest Lecture, 1916.