prospects, it appears that our exports are increasing rapidly. India and Australia are buying our harvester machinery, barbed wire, automobiles, phonographs, and other goods innumerable. As payment for our exports it is only natural that we should receive the raw materials which each country can best produce. The extent to which products of the more newly developed countries will come to New York rather than to England as a place of resale will likely depend very largely on the volume of our more highly manufactured products which we can sell in those countries. It is much better for us to export automobiles worth fifty cents or one dollar a pound than for us to ship steel rails worth a cent and a half a pound. If we can work our natural resources up into a highly developed form with a large value per pound and make a better or less costly product than any other nation, the raw materials of the world will come to New York for distribution simply as payment for the goods exported.

THE NEED OF BETTER METHODS

New York, on the whole, has every reason to look confidently to the future. In those things which man could not alter (location, size of harbor, etc.) Nature has been generous. The only things that could retard or prevent a great destiny are things that man can alter, such as methods of handling traffic and the like. In these things, unfortunately, New York has much to learn. But, equally fortunately, Americans have a way of learning what they need to know. To facilitate this process of reform it may be well to call attention to some of the defects of New York's harbor methods and to discuss some of the possible remedies.

Consider, for example, the amount of time consumed in loading and unloading a ship of miscellaneous package cargo. This time definitely depends on the speed with which the packages are handled in a small space on the pier opposite the hatchway of the ship. In loading the ship the goods must be assembled in sling loads, and if the assembling is done at the side of the ship a large investment in ship, pier, and cargo stands idle longer than really nec

essary. In unloading a ship the work is reversed, but the delays are similar in nature. Freight steamers are normally worth from $500 a day upward, with charter rates much increased since the war began. It is surprising that methods have not been more generally adopted in New York Harbor for saving every possible minute while steamers are in port.

Many of these things which cause delay and additional expense in handling general freight in New York are due to red tape and lack of coöperation rather than to the need for elaborate cranes or other complex freight-handling machinery. Probably the worst delay of all is caused by the United States Government. Hamburg is a free port where the customs officers have no authority over the goods until such times as they pass outside of the free port area. port area. England is a free trade country, and accordingly goods can be handled from the ship directly to the railroad car without having to be weighed by the customs officers. But in New York, because of the methods of the United States Customs, practically all dutiable cargo. must be laid down on the pier and delayed until such time as the customs officers have obtained weights and samples. It is perfectly feasible from an engineering standpoint to unload miscellaneous package freight of the average cargo by having the drafts of goods lowered over the side of the ship on to small electric storage battery trucks so that the goods can be taken away as fast as the men on the inside of the ship can put the material into slings. Once on the wheels of the electric trucks, the cargo could be weighed on platform scales so as to obtain both customs weight and an independent weight if desired by the owner of the goods. Samples for customs grading can ordinarily be taken without undue delay. In this way the storage battery truck loads of materials could often be taken directly to warehouses or loaded at once into freight cars with a procedure as rapid as that found in even the most modern English ports Similar gains are possible in loading ships and also in transferring freight between piers and lighters. piers and lighters. But in New York Harbor at present it is not unusual to find

that four separate organizations have in turn handled the same freight by human labor within a total distance of not exceeding one thousand feet between ship and warehouse, ship and lighter, or ship and railroad car. By having more of the operations under one organization, or in closer coöperation, not only can the direct cost per ton be reduced but the augmented speed of movement will tremendously increase the capacity of existing piers and lessen the delays to ships and cargoes. It is much cheaper to handle more freight over existing piers than to build new piers.

WHERE ENGLAND EXCELS

Here is where New York could learn much from Europe. The ports of Europe, with their centralized control and management, have been able to give more complete service than is found in any of the ports of America. At Manchester, all the work of unloading a ship, handling the goods to freight cars or warehouses, as well as loading the outbound cargo, is done by the Manchester Ship Canal Company and billed for in accordance with the published rates. Somewhat the same conditions prevail at Liverpool, but private enterprise enters more largely there than at Manchester. A properly managed central organization can give better service than several unrelated organizations handling different parts of the work. The large private terminal companies of New York are giving more complete service than is found in other American seaports, but even these terminal companies do not handle as many phases of the work as the central organization of a modern European harbor.

Docks in London and Liverpool are owned and operated by special corporations authorized by Parliament. These organizations have the power to issue their own bonds. As they have managed the dock properties with sufficient skill to make them pay the interest on the investment, there is practically no difficulty in obtaining capital by the issue of more bonds when additional harbor construction is necessary.

The New York City Dock Department is not treated as a separate organization

distinct from the general city government. Whenever capital for waterfront improvement is desired the chances for obtaining it depend very largely on how pressing are the requirements of other departments in the city management. A few years ago some of the dock property was shown to be self-supporting, and because of this the borrowing capacity of the city was increased about ninety million dollars. This amount of money judiciously used as a working capital for waterfront improvement would have made New York's position in foreign trade almost unassailable. Most of the ninety million dollars was, however, used for the construction of new subways. Now there is danger that the Dock Department may have to get along on a hand-to-mouth policy for some years to come. Every strap-hanger who has a vote appreciates the difference which rapid transit makes in his own daily life. The pressure on city officials is thus much greater for improving rapid transit facilities than for developing the waterfront. Probably not one citizen in ten thousand realizes that, though new subways affect the comfort of the citizens, the very future of the city itself depends on the proper development and enlightened management of its harbor.

The ordinary corporation would develop waterfront property by taking a lease for a pier and building the pier afterward. So long as each unit of construction were self-supporting there would be no difficulty for the corporation to obtain capital as needed to proceed with new development. Many plans for improving New York Harbor would be self-supporting from the beginning, and it would seem only reasonable under these circumstances that capital for the development should be obtained as needed. A state or a municipality can borrow money more cheaply than any corporation. Probably the most desirable plan for developing the port of New York would involve a partnership of public capital for waterfront ownership and pier construction with centralized private corporation management of the waterfront facilities. If one or two large corporations could operate all the waterfront facilities in New York Harbor, under proper

supervision of a public service commission to protect the interest of the public, there could be very great economy in operation with much improved service to shippers. England obtained the American carrying trade largely because England was building steel ships when we persisted in building wooden ships and because England adopted the screw propeller while American shipyards insisted upon retaining the paddle wheel. Likewise, unless New York Harbor is developed to keep pace with and even surpass the development of European harbors, this nation's wonderful opportunity for foreign trade cannot be utilized to the utmost.

One of the greatest obstacles to the development of the port of New York is the state line which bisects the harbor. On the New Jersey side there are more than forty municipalities facing the waterfront, of which only two are likely to be large enough to undertake any comprehensive plan of waterfront ownership and improvement. There are three square miles of mud flats between Bayonne and Jersey City which are potentially the best commercial waterfront New York Harbor will ever have. Almost unlimited areas of meadow land are waiting to be filled and made available for deep-water factory sites. In the meantime dirt from New York subway construction and thousands of barge loads of ashes are hauled far out to sea and dumped. From an economic standpoint the material should be utilized for filling waterfront lowlands. It is to be hoped that the average resident of the City of New York will come to a realization that the development of the New Jersey side of the harbor cannot but aid the prosperity of Manhattan and every one of the other four boroughs. Each new pier or factory built in Jersey means a larger volume of business of every kind and more customers for the merchants and manufacturers established on the New York side of the Hudson.

It seems likely that a solution of the problems regarding New York's commerce will ultimately involve freight tunnels across the Hudson River so that the New Jersey railroads may all have access to a marginal railroad on the west side of

Manhattan Island. A bridge across the Hudson at Fifty-seventh Street is feasible from an engineering standpoint, but the uptown location required by the need of high land for approaches would result in the bridge being used chiefly by pleasure vehicles, for which the huge investment of forty-two million dollars does not seem justifiable at the present time. Team tunnels across the Hudson downtown are not only feasible, but if tolls equal to ferry tolls were charged they would become practically self-supporting at once. A westbound and an eastbound team tunnel, each having a width sufficient for double lines of vehicles, can be built across the Hudson opposite Canal Street at a total cost of about eleven million dollars. The effect of these tunnels to increase the business of New York through the development of the New Jersey waterfront and factory districts can hardly be over-estimated.

Since there are so many municipalities on the Jersey side and no likelihood of their being concentrated into one great city, the chief hope for a broad scheme of Jersey waterfront improvement is for the State of New Jersey to provide the funds just as the State of Massachusetts made appropriations for the improvement of the port of Boston. To secure money for a proper development it will be necessary to obtain the approval of the voters of New Jersey. The waterfront improvement would unquestionably be a benefit to New Jersey as a whole, and it would seem that the obtaining of the consent of the voters should not be impossible.

The New York side and the New Jersey side of New York Harbor should be developed harmoniously. "Service" should be the watchword of the port of New Yorkservice to the seller and to the buyer alike, service to the inland factory as well as to the tide-water manufacturer. Increasingly numerous steamships sailing from New York to all corners of the earth provide facilities to the average exporter or importer that he cannot obtain in any other port of America. If the present opportunities are utilized to the utmost, New York can become the acknowledged market-place of the world and give real service to all the nations of the earth.

A

MERICA'S purchases of coloring materials for textiles, inks, leather, and other manufactures were the direct cause of a great deal of Germany's success in the first year of the war. The connection is simple: all these things are nowadays colored with coal-tar dyes; Germany controls the coal-tar dye industry of the world; the United States is the largest customer of this industry; benzol and toluol, the basic materials of these dyes, are also the basic materials of the famous "high explosives" which wrecked the forts of Liège and Namur and so made possible the "rush to Paris" that came so near to deciding the fate of Europe in the first month of the war.

But the German control of the dye industry has come even nearer home to this country. Though the outcome of the European war will most profoundly affect the future of the United States, the immediate effects of the stoppage of German dyes are more acutely felt at this time. They are felt most noticeably in the great textile industry. In that industry, thousands of operatives are out of employment, thousands more are working on half time. or quarter time, millions of dollars' worth of plant and machinery stand idle-all because women (and men, too, for that matter) will not buy clothing that is not brightened by color. And should American enterprise not make good the loss of foreign dyestuffs-as, fortunately, it seems in a fair way to do-we should look forward to a drab future indeed.

Just how much color does mean to modern man may be gathered from con

sidering the uses to which he puts coal-tar dyes. First, practically everything that men and women wear except white goods is colored with these dyes-suits of clothes, fine silks, neckties, hose, shirts, hats, linens,

all apparel, in short. Nearly every article of leather is dyed-gloves, shoes, saddles, harness, book bindings, upholstery, and so on. Almost all inks are colored with dyes-writing inks and printing inks, including those that make gay the covers of magazines and books and the wall papers that hide our naked walls. House paints, furniture stains, and varnishes owe their charm to the same coal-tar product. Imagine what a dull world we should live in without them-a world of people clad in uncolored garments moving about in dingy houses among furnishings of lifeless grays and browns.

True enough, before ever coal-tar dyes were discovered-and they are only about sixty years old-the world was fairly colorful. But for every tint that was available then, a dozen tints may be had now that were then undreamt of—and every one of the dozen a fresher, more brilliant, and more lasting color. And these modern colors are cheap, reliable, easily accessible staples of an industrial system that could not long tolerate the uncertain and more difficult supply of the older coloring matters. In the United States, that industrial system includes all the great textile mills of New England and the Atlantic South, all the silk mills of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, all the shoe and leather manufactories centering in Boston and New York, which, with other industries affected, involve hundreds of millions of dollars of