The Royal Albert and the Victoria Docks come within the confines of those great new districts, West Ham and East Ham, which have during the last thirty or forty years sprung up, mushroom-like, from the dreary flats of East London. Here are such well-known commercial districts as Silvertown and Canning Town. The former will doubtless be remembered through many years for the tremendous explosion which occurred there during the War—an explosion which resulted in serious loss of life and very great damage to property. It is also famous for several great factories, notably Messrs. Knight’s soap-works, Messrs. Henley’s cable and general electrical works, and Messrs. Lyle’s (and Tate’s) sugar refineries. These places, which employ thousands of hands, are of national importance.
Canning Town has to some extent lost its prestige, for it was in time past the shipbuilding area. Here were situated the great Thames Ironworks, carrying on a more or less futile endeavour to compete with the Clyde and other shipbuilding districts.
This district is, to a large extent, the coal-importing area. Coal is the largest individual import of the Port of London, as much as eight million tons entering in the course of a year. The chief articles of commerce with which the Royal Albert and Victoria Docks are concerned are: Tobacco, frozen meat, and Japanese productions.
Vast, indeed, have been the revenues drawn from the various docks. You see, goods are not entered or dispatched except on payment of various dues and tolls, and these amount up tremendously. So that the Dock Companies get so much money from the thirty miles of dockside quays and riverside wharves that they scarcely know what to do with it, for the amount they can pay away in dividends to their shareholders is strictly limited by Act of Parliament. In one year, for instance, so large a profit was made by the owners of the East and West India Docks that they used up an enormous sum of money in roofing their warehouses with sheet copper.
In concluding our rapid tour through dockland, it is impossible to omit a reference to the Customs Officers—those cheery young men who work in such an atmosphere of unsuspected romance. To spend a morning on the River with one of them, as he goes his round of inspection of the various vessels berthed out in the stream, is a revelation. To visit first this ship and then the other; to see the amazing variety of the cargoes, the number of different nationalities represented, both in ships and men; to come into close touch with that strange and little-understood section of the community, the lightermen, whose work is the loading of the barges that cluster so thickly round the great hulls—is to move in a world of dreams. But to go back to the Customs Offices and see the huge piles of documents relating to each single ship that enters the port, and to be informed that on an average two hundred ocean-going ships enter each week, is to experience a rude awakening from dreams, and a sharp return to the very real matters of commercial life.
Home From the Indies. A Giant Liner warping into the George Vth. Dock.
Nor must we forget the River Police, who patrol the River from Dartford Creek up as far as Teddington. As we see them in their launches, passing up and down the stream, we may regard their work as easy; but it is anything but that—especially at night-time. Then it is that the river-thieves get to work at their nefarious task of plundering the valuable cargoes of improperly attended lighters. The River Police must be ever on the alert, moving about constantly and silently, lurking in the shadows ready to dash out on the unscrupulous and dangerous marauders. The headquarters of the River Police are at Wapping, but there are other stations at Erith, Blackwall, Waterloo, and Barnes.
In 1903 the question of establishing one supreme authority to deal with all the difficulties of dockland and take control of practically the whole of the Port of London was discussed in Parliament, and a Bill was introduced, but owing to great opposition was not proceeded with. However, the question recurred from time to time, and in 1908 the Port of London Act was at length passed.