The Elimination of Delay at Docks, Railway Goods Yards and Warehouses.
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We have never ceased to urge a change of method in regard to the practices which have become almost hoary with age at the docks, railway goods yards and warehouses of this country's ports and manufacturing cities. Commercial _motors can obviously never be used to fall advantage until they are allowed preferential turn over the slower and less valuable horse transport. Our pages have been open, too, to the views of our readers in the commercial and shipping world. We may recall proposals foi " Booked Times " and alternatively for " A Traffic Clearing House " from the pens of well-known Lancashire authorities on the haulage conditions which obtain in Liverpool and Manchester.
Little if any improvement, unfortunately, can be recorded; but we at least discern a glimmering of hope. This has been brought on to the horizon by the impasse in which our railway companies and shipowners find themselves. Nobody can peruse the memorandum of the Chamber of Shipping, which memorandum, signed by 16 representative owners, was presented to the President of the. Board of Trade about a fortnight ago, without welcoming the trend of the recommendations which are included. This document, dated the 22nd ult., has been issued by the Hon. Noel M. Farrer, secretary to the Chamber of Shipping, and Sir Norman Hill, secretary to the Liverpool Shipowners Associat:tin. It is nothing more than an elaboration of the difficulties which arise from the continued acceptance in the transport industries of haphazard working. Little has hitherto been done, or even suggested, to the end. that the idleness and waste of "waiting turn shOuld be eliminated. Nothing has hitherto been done, furthermore, to get rid of the appalling losses which are inseparable from the arrival of anybody's cart, motor lorry, or railway truck in any chance order at a quay, only to fihd somebody else's delivery of goods available first.
The proposal which is particularly welcome to us is this: " That in Liverpool and in any other port in which it is .necessary, the carts and motor wagons shall be pooled, and a clearing house established, so that the first cart available at any quay will take the first cargo available at that quay." We look upon this as the first definite, step towards the replacement of chaos by order. Once the old disorder is broken down, we shall never revert to it. Pooling may not always be possible, but preferential turn, according to circumstances, and above all for the benefit of those who can adhere to a time-table, can seldom be legitimately excluded from any of the schemes of re-organization.