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execute a master plan under which the best possible use will be made of all the existing developments still capable of useful and economical service, and of all the potentialities as yet unrealised. The proposals outlined below should in time achieve administrative economies and improved efficiency of operation, and they will abolish most of the administrative anomalies and archaisms which have been inherited from the early days. But it is not on that account that we commend our proposals to the opponents of unification, but because it is no longer feasible or safe to leave a single problem to be handled separately by different bodies, each with an outlook restricted to the duties owed to a limited area, and all more or less affected by the memories of past controversy and competition. Moreover, there is the ever-present risk of expansions or new developments in the estuary which must be related to the master plan and controlled in the general interest of the post as a whole, and that cannot be done unless there is a single authority with the wider responsibilities for orderly development. The important naval base project, which would deeply affect the development of the lower reaches, itself renders the establishment of a single authority very desirable. Finally, we view with considerable misgivings the prospect of leaving matters indefinitely as they stand from the point of view of the ultimate fate of the smaller undertakings, and the future prospects of the areas in which they are situated; for it seems to us that their chances of realising such developments as are economically justifiable will be much more favourable if they are absorbed in a large unit than if they pursue an independent existence.
Taking all these factors into consideration we recommend immediate unifica- tion on the lines indicated below. (Paras. [129] to [155]).
WORLD PRACTICE ÎN PORT ADMINISTRATION.
(122) Before formulating our detailed proposals we digress in order to take note of recent tendencies in port and harbour administration in other centres of trade.
Considering that the same type of service is rendered in much the same way for the same international community of shippers and traders in all the major seaports of the world, it is surprising that dock and harbour adminis- tration still exhibits so wide a diversity of pattern after more than a century's experience of large-scale foreign trade.
Of the 330 commercial ports, large and small, in the United Kingdom, the administration is entrusted to the following bodies:-
(a) Local commissions or trusts, not working for profit, established under statutory authority for the manage- ment of particular ports
(b) Municipal authorities
(c) Railway companies
-
(d) Harbour companies or individuals
110
!
70
50
100
330
Each of the first three categories includes seaports of the largest size— London, Liverpool and Glasgow being in group (a), Bristol and Avonmouth in group (b), and Hull and Southampton in group (c).
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(123) An even wider diversity of administrative pattern is found abroad. In Canada, the National Harbours Act, 1936, brought the large ports of the Dominion under the centralised control of three permanent commissioners at Ottawa. In Australia, the Maritime Services Act, 1936, subjected Sydney and certain other ports to the control of the Maritime Services Board of New South Wales. In the Union of South Africa railways and harbours are under a single state control. In pre-war France and Italy the general rule was state control, with a measure of local autonomy at such major ports as Havre, Bordeaux, Genoa and Venice. In pre-war Belgium, Holland, and Scandinavia, municipal administration predominated, though it must be remembered that municipal administration in these countries differed materially from muncipal administration as known in this country. In the United States, an over- riding federal control by the War Department is combined with different measures of state, municipal and private administration of port facilities.
(124) Without pursuing the matter into greater detail, we regard it as plain that the provision of port facilities has been found to be compatible with many different kinds of administrative structure, and that the choice of the pattern has evidently been determined in each case by local or national traditions and interests. In 1929 the Committee on Industry and Trade reported that the Port Trust had, generally speaking, proved its superiority to the Municipality, owing partly to the direct representation of shipping and trading interests using the port, and partly to the fact that municipal boundaries rarely coincided with the area served. In 1931 the Royal Com- mission on Transport paid a tribute to the efficiency of many of the Port Trusts and also to certain of the municipal and railway undertakings.
We may add that in Great Britain the trust ports are self-supporting under- takings, and that in general British ports normally receive no financial aid from the Government, whereas on the Continent most of the large inter- national ports are (or were) subsidised in one form or another from govern- ment or municipal funds.
(125) The conclusion which would seem to follow from this brief survey of the position is that the structure of port administration is a matter of indifference. We do not take this view. Whatever the constitution of the administrative body, success will necessarily depend to a considerable extent upon the personalities of a few leading members and of the permanent staff. If the requisite skill and enterprise is in fact available at any port, they will achieve results which will mask the deficiencies of the authority's con- stitution; and if they are not in fact available, the theoretical excellence of the authority's constitution will provide no effective substitute. In this sense
it is true to say of port administration that whate'er is best administered is best. But it is impossible to study the details of the administrative structure adopted at the major ports of the world without being satisfied that some are better adapted than others to provide an efficient governing body and to produce the desired enterprise, foresight and skill; that some represent historic balances and compromises of local interests which have long ceased to possess significance; and that in some it must only be by chance and not by design that those best qualified to serve the community as port adminis trators are given the opportunity of so doing.
(126) In comparing the port authorities which have been formed or re- modelled in recent years with the older type of local trust exemplified at so many United Kingdom ports, it is possible to detect two tendencies in opera- tion (a) a tendency to reduce the governing body to moderate size, and
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