10. Specialized a-nd bulk freight.—America leads in devices for the handling of bulk freight and of special products. The belt conveyors, which load and unload sacks of wheat, coffee, or sugar; the com bination, vertical and horizontal, conveyors such as are used for the unloading of bananas in New Orleans with a capacity of more than 2,600 bunches per hour are marvels of efficiency.
In the European ports where trans-shipment of grain takes place on a large scale, floating grain ele vators are common.
One of the leading grain elevators in this country is at present the municipal elevator of New Orleans. This elevator has by far the greatest shipping capa city of any similar elevator on the Atlantic Coast. It has four shipping conveyors with a combined capa city of 100,000 bushels per hour.
11. Port vessel making use of a port is expected to bear its share of the expenses of the services rendered. The tendency thruout the world is towards a reduction in these charges. The princi ple seems to be making headway that the port is a public service and that its services should be rendered free, or, at any rate, at cost, so as not to curb the de velopment of trade.
Port charges may be divided into: (a) charges on vessels, (b) charges on cargo, and (c) incidentals. The heaviest item charged on vessels is usually for towage or dockage; the other charges such as the ton nage taxes and pilotage must also be added. The United States Government collects a tonnage tax of two cents per ton for each entry, not to exceed ten cents per ton annually.
Some examples of port charges may be interesting. The charges made for pilotage, bunkerage and dock age and the dock charges for the port of Charleston are shown in the following table: No dockage charge is made where vessels deliver or receive cargoes. The Southern Railway assesses dockage of $11 per vessel on coastwise vessels des tined to Atlantic and Gulf ports and $30 per vessel to foreign and Pacific Coast ports, when taking on bunker coal.
Professor Emory R. Johnson makes a comparison between the various expenses incurred by a tramp steamer of 1200 tons net register, with a cargo of 800 tons of agricultural implements, at the following ports : New York $548.84 Antwerp 443.62 (during summer) 484.48 (during winter) Rotterdam 396.76 Hamburg 600.11 Havre 741.52 Liverpool 1175.43 This high figure of Liverpool is due to the high cost of docking and of discharging cargo.
12. Effect of tonnage on port charges.—Most of the port charges which are levied on the vessel are levied on the basis of net tonnage. This introduces an interesting situation. As was explained in the preceding chapter, the net tonnage is obtained by deducting from the gross tonnage the space not avail able for cargo or passengers. The large ocean liners with their disproportionate requirements for engine room, coal bunkers and stores room render therefore a very low net tonnage.
Sir Douglas Owen makes an interesting compari son between the net tonnage of the Lusitania and of a tramp of the same size : It is clear, therefore, that a 30,000 ton vessel which requires very extensive port facilities, long wharves, deep channels, thereby increasing tremendously the expenses of the port, would pay no more than a tramp steamer of approximately 13,000 tons (13,000 gross less one third or 8667 net) .
By act of Parliament the maximum deduction to be allowed for non-available space has, therefore, been set at 55 per cent of the space remaining after the quarters for crew and of the navigation space have been deducted. In this way the large ocean liner is made to bear a more equitable share in the port expenses. Such special treatment may well become a factor in limiting the size of the transatlantic liners.