GERMANT: BREMEN.
59
BREMEN.
(From United States Consul Diederich, Bremen, Germany.)
FREE PORT OF BREMEN.
The Free State of Bremen has two large free ports on the right
bank of the river Weser—that is, a territory outside of the customs
union border—where merchandise of all kinds may be stored and
whence, after payment of duty, it may enter Germany or pass in bond
through German territory to foreign countries. These territories
exempt from duty are situated on both sides of the harbors at Bremerhaven
and Bremen, and are commonly called the Freihafen—that is,
free harbor.
As the free harbor at Bremen is the larger of the two, and as the
means employed in shipping and storing merchandise are similar, I
furnish only such information as I could gather about the warehouses
at Bremen.
WAREHOUSE BUILDINGS AND MANAGEMENT.
Of the three large basins which comprise the free harbor of Bremen,
basin No. 1 measures 2,000 meters (6,561.6 feet) in length and 120
meters (393.7 feet) in width, and has a depth of 8 meters (26.2 feet).
The warehouses on both sides of this basin are owned by the State of
Bremen and let to the Bremer Lagerhaus Gesellschaft under a contract,
according to which the State of Bremen has 75 per cent of the
net profits and the Bremer Lagerhaus Gesellschaft the remainder. In
this district of the free harbor the above-named company occupies at
present ten warehouses of an average size of 170 meters (577.7 feet)
in length and 30 meters (98.4 feet) in depth, each being six or seven
stories high. Each of these floors is divided into compartments.
Tlie cost of building one of these warehouses was about $266,250.
The warehouses are for rent, either as a whole or in parts.
On both sides of the harbor, separated from the quay only by a
railway track and the movable hydraulic cranes of 4,000 kilograms
(8,818.5 pounds) lifting capacity, are strongly built sheds used for
storing transit goods. One of these sheds is two stories high and can
be heated so as to serve for the storing of fruit. The business in all the
Warehouses, sheds, etc., is conducted by the Bremer Lagerhaus Gesellschaft
in a manner specified by the aforementioned contract between
the State and the company, under which contract also the fees are
prescribed for all services rendered by the company.
CHARGES.
Each vessel loading or unloading has to pay 10 pfennigs (2.38
cents) per 1,000 kilograms (2204.6 pounds) on all freight handled at
the quay, with the exception of bunker coal and the materials and
equipments of vessels. In the tariff of charges for loading and unloading
merchandise, the latter is divided into four classes, which pay
different rates, as follows: (1) General merchandise, not named in one
of the following groups, is charged 8£ pfennigs (2.Ó23 cents) per 100
kilograms for unloading and putting in warehouse or shed, and vice
