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VOL. 38. CLEVELAND, NOVEMBER 19, 1908. NEW YORK No. 21 NOT ENOUGH DOCKS AT NEW YORK. The grave question of inadequate docking facilities at the port of New York, and especially on Manhattan Is- land, is again receiving the attention of mercantile interests. Although the de- partment of docks contends that its hands are tied, in that there is no more space on the waterfront avail- able for wharf room, the merchants di- rectly interested are of the opinion that something drastic will have to be done by the municipal authorities to relieve the situation at once. There are at present only two pub- lic docks along the Manhattan water- front. These are at piers, No. 11 and No, 33, East River. The former is a covered wharf and the latter an open one. This means. that these two wharves are the only ones along the many miles of waterfront at which ves- sels arriving at irregular intervals and whose agents do not rent or own a pier can dock. As it. sometimes is necessary to give 48 hours' notice to obtain the docking privilege, not only are the steamship agents but also the importers put to unnecessary expense and inconvenience. In speaking of the situation on Sat- urday a member of the dock depart- ment said the commissioner was un- able to do anything at present to re- lieve the situation. "As long as the city uses valuable space along the waterfront for parks, we cannot enlarge the docking space. We have applications here every day for docking space which we are unable to grant. About the only land avail- able on Manhattan is along Riverside drive and as that section is under the control of the park department we are not able to put up any docks there. A considerable line of docks is being built at Thirty-sixtn street, South Brooklyn, and these, when they are completed about a year from now, may relieve the congestion to some extent. In the meantime the department's hands are tied." For the last six months the vessels of William H. Tweddell & Co., which ply between New York and China, © Japan and the Straits Settlements, have been obliged to unload their val- uable cargoes of spices and other East India goods on Staten Island in- stead of in Manhattan or Brooklyn, as was formerly the case. In view of the heavy hauling expenses from Staten Island to Manhattan, the expense to importers and brokers is considerable, as there is not much profit to ihe: mer. chants handling far eastern merchan- dise, this profit sometimes not amount- - ing to more than 1 per cent, while sel- dom reaching more than 2% per cent. That some definite action on the part of the importers, receivers and buyers of Straits produce will be taken in re- gard to the landing of merchandise on Staten Island is made evident by the flood of protests which are being re- ceived daily, even from interior points. The American Spice Trade Associa- tion of No. 126 Front street particu- larly is interested in the situation and has appointed John Clarke of John Clarke & Co. to investigate the matter and see what can be done. The firms of Farrington & Whitney, spice grind- ers of 376 Greenwich street, and J. Wasserman & Co., the latter large im- porters from China, Japan and the East, are also being incommoded and put to extra expense by the existing order of things in the dock department and are joining in the movement which has been inaugurated for obtaining im- proved facilities. Capt. John Hutton, 'master of the wooden steamer W. H. Wolff, has pur- chased the tug D. N. Runnels from the Great Lakes Towing Co. The Runnels has been laid up at Duluth for the past two years, FRENCH GOVERNMENT AND _ SUBSIDES. The French government has just re- cently laid a bill before the Chamber of Deputies for its ratification in which is embodied an agreement with the Messageries Maritime, the principal and for a long time the most prosper- ous French steam navigation company. Its dividends, which once ranged from 50 frances to 60 francs per share of 500 francs, gradually dwindled down to 20 francs in 1901, and in the following year tO Zero, The company was then reorganized by writing off one-half the share cap- ital of 60 million francs and the creation of preference shares for a sym of 15,- 000,000. The adverse situation of the company was.due to competition, high wages, dear coal and the unremuner- ative rates to which the subventions for mail services were reduced. A kind of association between the state and the company is proposed by the bill, The services of the company will be divided into two groups, one for the subsidized postal lines on the Mediterranean, to the Far East, Mada- gascar, Australia and the Atlantic; the other, the free commercial line, not re- ceiving a subvention. The subsidies for the former group will not be at a fixed rate for the whole of the new period of 25 years, but may be revised according to the results that may be produced. After payment of a divi- dend for the mail lines the govern- ment will take a share of the profits. It will also excercise a control- over the operations of the company. On the other hand, the government will guarantee new capital that will be raised to build steamers of modern types, to be employed in the mail ser- vices, by which greater speed may be obtained as the new ships areadded to the fleet or substituted for obsolete Under certain conditions, the vessels. which will only be known nature of