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Report by the Harbour Master on the Private Bills enabling Mr. Bulkeley Johnson and Mr. Chater respectively, to construct Piers and Wharves.
Presented to the Legislative Council by command of His Excellency the Governor.
The private Bills recently introduced for the consideration of the Legislative Council to legalize the construction of Piers and Wharves on the Western side of the City of Victoria, and on the West side of the Kowloon Peninsula, will, in my opinion, be of great advantage to the trade of the Colony. The facilities, which Piers alongside which ships can lie, offer, can only be properly appreciated by studying the present cumbersome system of employing lighters. At present a vessel enters the port with at times as much as 3,000 tons of cargo on board, all of which has to be transferred to lighters, taken to the shore, and stored in godowns ; the goods not being consumed here, the same process of transfer has to be gone through on re-shipment for the Coast of China and Japan. When the Piers are constructed, Vessels will come in from sea and at once go alongside them and discharge the cargoes into railway trucks, communicating directly with the godowns. The time saved, the safety from depredations of cargo-boatmen, and the freedom from wear and tear all tend to shew the immense advantage of the proposed system over the present one; and I venture to think that under such circumstances, it is the true policy of the Government to encourage the contemplated reforms, for I think the bills as presented to the Council may be looked on as such.
The intended Piers cannot obstruct the Navigation of so large a Harbour as this; on the contrary, they will facilitate the trade.
I do not see that any private or public interests are interfered with, and such being the case, I do not think that any one here is likely to object to such great improvements as the promoters of the schemes before the Council intend to introduce.
It might perhaps be advanced, and with good reason, that the Pier and Godown Company authorised by Ordinance 11 of 1871 was a failure. The site at Wántsai was badly chosen; as soon after the Pier was built, the silting up was so great that steamers of large draft were unable to go alongside. Then again the principal store-houses and the large Chinese quarter are situated to the West of the City Hall; and for the public to go to Wántsai for their goods seemed an irksome method, creating great loss of time. However, the silting up did more to render that enterprise a failure than any thing else; and this is the only difficulty that the promoters of the Bills in question will have to guard against.
H. G. THOMSETT, R.N., Harbour Master, &c.
30th April, 1884.