COMMUNICATIONS
223
East. The growing demands of local industry for raw materials and the need to despatch its finished products throughout the world were well served by the many lines using the Port. Dutch Lines opened another service this year, bringing the number of companies providing regular sailings to Europe to twenty. P&O Orient Lines Pacific Service was established in its present form in July, with a planned increase of services in the future. Many tourists take ad- vantage of the fact that Hong Kong is a meeting point for ships of this service to make a shortened tour of the Orient from Australia. Twenty other lines run to the North American continent and there are regular sailings to Australia and New Zealand, Africa, South America and all Asian ports.
Vessels with draughts of up to 36 feet may berth at one of the 52 Government buoys whatever the state of the tide. Marine De- partment staff these moorings, of which twenty five are situated to provide safe moorings for ships during typhoon conditions. Com- mercial wharves can accommodate vessels 750 feet in length with draughts up to 32 feet. Preparations were made this year to extend one of the wharves of the Hong Kong & Kowloon Godown Com- pany, which will allow the larger ships now using the Port to be berthed more easily. Considerable anchorage space is available with good holding ground.
A completely mechanized five storey godown was completed in July, bringing the permanent storage space of the principal wharf company up to 760,000 tons, and the Colony total is now well over one million tons; further space will be added next year on the completion of another new godown for the same company. Addi- tional temporary storage space was made available this year while the future use of the Kowloon Naval Yard purchased by Govern- ment was being planned. There is storage space in the Port for all types of refrigerated, dangerous and ordinary goods and the experienced stevedoring companies handle all these commodities, heavy lifts, and goods requiring special stowage, at a rate com- parable to any in the world.
Most cargo handled in Hong Kong is at one stage transported by lighter, and there are now about 1,800 lighters and junks used for this purpose, of which one hundred are mechanically propelled. The mechanized fleet is expected to grow larger in the next few years as this form of transport is particularly suited to the rapid