conduct of business, these docks will no doubt soon secure a larger proportion of the trade of London than now falls to their lot.[1]
Charges levied by the Dock Companies. Although the dues vary in the several establishments, except where there is combination, the leading rules and regulations by which their business is conducted are similar. They are all vast stores, where goods and produce subject to duty can be deposited either for home consumption or re-exportation, as well as wet-docks where ships can, at all times, lie afloat, alike free from the risks to which they were formerly subjected on the river by the dangers of its navigation, and the plunder of the combined rogues by whom the Thames was so long infested.
Docks in provincial ports,
and bonded warehouses.
Besides the old Commercial Dock on the south
side of the Thames, and the Grand Surrey Canal,
both devoted almost exclusively to the reception
of ships with cargoes not subject to duty, such
as deals and timber, there are now wet-docks in
most of the important ports of the kingdom, varying
in size according to the trade of the place or district,
but, with the exceptions we have named, they
are all the creation of the present century. Bristol,
Southampton, Hull, Great Grimsby, Cardiff, Newport,
Newcastle, Glasgow, Leith, Sunderland, Dundee,
Cork, and the Tyne have each their wet-docks, of
greater or less capacity, with warehouses where
goods subject to duty can be bonded. Besides
these there are now forty-eight towns or ports in
England, nineteen in Scotland, and eighteen in
Ireland, where the privileges of bonding are allowed,
- ↑ Papers supplied by the Secretary to the Company.
