PORT OPERATION. The term "port operation" includes the receiving of ships in harbour, putting them in position to discharge or load their cargoes, the handling of the cargo and its despatch to or reception from inland destinations. The primary aim of all modern dock operation is to give ships quick despatch, i.e., to keep down the time in port.
Before the cargo can be distributed it has to be landed, sorted to the various bills of lading, passed by the customs' officers, cus toms' and port charges paid, and the goods "released" by the shipowner to the merchant.
The shipper when despatching goods receives from the master of the ship a bill of lading, which is a negotiable document of title and which he sends to his consignee. While the goods are in the ship they are by law the property of the shipowner, and he has a prior lien on the goods for his freight. This lien is removed by the consignee taking the bill of lading to the shipowner and paying the freight, receiving in exchange a "release," which is the authority to the port authority or wharfinger to deliver the goods. But in order that the discharge of the ship shall not be delayed while the consignees are obtaining releases, the discharge of the goods is commenced at once into the transit sheds alongside. These transit sheds are, in the eye of the law, part of the ship. So long as the goods are in the transit shed the shipowner retains his lien for freight, and the port authority cannot allow the goods to leave the transit sheds until a release has been produced.
In the case of goods liable to customs' duty for which it is not desired to pay the duty at once, they are after being released passed under customs' guard into bonded warehouses. In the case of goods of high customs' value, such as wines and tobacco, the goods usually remain in bond until passed into consumption, the owner thus being relieved from the premature payment of heavy duty. Both transit sheds and bonded warehouses have, therefore, to be under double locks of the customs and wharfinger respectively, so that goods can only be handled in the presence of both parties.
To protect the customs, goods can by British law only be landed at duly authorized landihg places called legal quays and sufferance wharves, the only difference between these terms is that the first is a permanent licence issued by the Treasury, and the second a restricted licence issued by the commissioners of customs. The
services of the officers of the customs for watching goods in course of discharge in ordinary hours are paid for by the State, but all overtime is at the cost of the ship, and as customs' hours do not coincide with port hours, a ship working the ordinary hours has to pay at least one hour of customs' overtime, and more if she is herself working overtime.
"Rough cargoes" such as ores, timber, etc., which do not re quire shelter are landed at open quays, and the limitation of the shipowner's lien sometimes gives rise to difficult questions.
In the days before free trade, when nearly all goods were duti able, it was the British custom to constitute a customs' area of the whole dock estate and to secure it within high walls and massive gates. These will still be found in the older ports, but in modern times it has become the practice to localize the control at sheds and wharves, and transit beyond these limits is free.
Custom of the Port.—A shipowner by his contract of carriage undertakes to deliver to the consignee the goods according to the bill of lading, which implies that he has to separate one man's goods from other people's goods and deliver each in one parcel. But this general rule of law is materially affected by the local "custom of the port" which varies everywhere and is a cause of much dispute and litigation. In some ports the custom ordains that the ship shall put the goods on the quay indiscriminately, and the work of sorting and removal is at the charge of the merchant ; in some cases, goods are removed from the crane sling by one party, sometimes by the other, or again shared by the two parties. In some exceptional cases the cost of craning the goods from the hold is held to be on account of the merchant. For these reasons comparison of the working charges of different ports is always difficult.