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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1906)
THE SUNDAY OEEGONIAX. PORTLAND. OCTOBER -21, " 1906. T17 Neck and Neck Race Between Antwerp and Hamburg for Supremacy of Continental Europe. Object Lessons for Portland Which Will Surpass Either Be fore Attaining One-fourth of Their Age. -t ivT.-rs?! ..1 1 4 5 1 ' I -K-fc-'-k '.iiwy V- B It,-,- :;, 141 f 4 -8: "V?' it -1 ifjZ?11 15 4 Anijh Bfl nail. Sunday 4 Ypyrishted by Uoxter Mars Sjiei'ial L.VnTC'-'pf 'lulencp of 'J'ho tiresjoniitti. HAMEl'RG. Urrinany. CVt. 4. Running a net-k-aiul-iu-ck r;a ffr isuprcniiicy in worM rnmmcrr'C, tl'.o iuin:, u'lricnt Bcl pi:in city of Antwerp and the only slightly younpor out much lo.-.s iiUHint Cacrm city of llanihur?. now ililni fourth place in the list of the world say but there a .coal-tip at Antwerp that will pick up a loaded coal car. carry It to the chute and incline it .so that the contents will sdlde into the hcrtd of the steamer a. quickly as a ton of coal can be transferred from truck to cellar in any Ameilcun city. There are several such coal tipw at Hamburg:, and at both , -.. . i ports tljore are shears and cranes capa 11 i Me of HftinK 120 torn, with ease. One ; of these could lift on of our e-rpat Amnr" twelve great p-rts. Tlie claim is probably j lean locomotives off the tracks and set inrrect; in tin' la c.1-! lift to which I I it bodily Into the hold of a ship. It could have access nt this nio;uont, Hongkong-. ' th1 same thing with two of the toy. ; engines wnicn r.aui the English railway trams about. Now. cranes run by ateamr electricity and water, and as powerful as any here. are common enough in the United States. I You will rind them in the shipyards, the i great manufacturing plants aud -in many , other places, but nowhere a-re'they so ex tensively used on Anisrtfan wharves as here and nowhere more effectively. There are more than a thousand of them on the wharves and piers of the two old ports, the exact number in Hamburg being 519. Standing in long rows as they do at Antwerp, constantly lightening tne labors 1 of men. their creator, they suggest irre sistibly the fabled giant Aiuigno. Accord ! ing to the old legend, he used to lay a 1 iTrsr I I x 3 IA 1 H 8 im i. ifi' t'httTa-, ltacs the;n both. 'ami ts entitled to second place, 1-.:hKh only, beins ahead of the Chir!evf port. The Cicrman ar.d Height n cities, thet e-fore.- are clearly entitled to the commer cial .feat hcr.i. which t hey ;.iiok in their caps. . Tlioy" have won thronI' u co:n biriaUoii of tio ci iimcnt assistance h ml true. .Ariioi!can hustle: hiii-iile which has included the adoption of the mort modern methods in every possible ' d ircction. No other two port.s in the world canal these two old Kuropean ' ports, either in the ar rangement of t ho: r di cks ami wharves or the taeility with which the loading and inloai!n;j;. of .-uii ere carried on. New York, esp? .'hf.lv, jnuy well liide ilf , cimimercial heail vi;h .-harae wiiorever its ( aniitpiated, i.l.ra-ccv-crvative port nietli- ; ods are compared wit thc.se of Antwerp ' and Hamburg. Fome o;' the bi- laVe pons handle oi ,-s, i-oal. rtrucuiral ytteel , and other cargoc-s la an' up-to-dato way, but there h no ptrt, either on salt water or fre.h,, in A raericwi which remotely an- pioache'i thee Km-;peaii port,-; in rapidity , or economy of cargo handling. (rancs Ity the? IIuiKlrc;!. In, the first phice. ' licit lier I ianfeers; nor j Antwerp wyies a pi'enn:::c or a centim-? oil unnecessary tracking. Hi-fi lo-'il from j n nd discharge their cargoes diret tly into : the t arf when i-o-nes to t le.n (r .i.s 1 taken away iy rail -t'arfocs roeived or i to Iw taken - awsy by river hoars are hanttled direct. Ls-v fghterw are tcl1om ! employed, even wh': a car?o is to be : slilfted from one ship to another, it being more ecoiHH-.fcal-as a rule to do the. trails- f erring by rail. It; fallows tr.; -?:o wh'.rf ia either p.irt ' ! .wli heat . its -mUvcfld lr-v ivr. i,i .tJuere j r pier for ee;i -h or hc.tvy river ship- t meiits with-nu -:rs -fuH copiplerpcnt of j "cranes, operated; .:o: hv t'-e noisy, diriy j Meani engine. h- hy e'."ctii? .r l-.ydaniie ; power Th former rred;i:r.iaa;r-i ia Ham- i burg, t he irt'ter i;i Antwerp. K'Mh porrs j firmpr!y n.d steam.- Init it;-', day upon thft jders hi,i y-'d away. 1 Lepite x Ih1 t.i:"'ci en i- ii: piwer. :he ' working of -tile t rare? nmch arike in i tlie' two por:s. ?i and watch Them in either and you will he f,ic!n:ited iy tfu1 j apparent o:ipe ar.J q;:letne.-s i'h which j the work i.s done, You a-e sure to im- J pressed also by" the iippavently resistless j power displayed. There is little creaking ' of chains a nd little shot: I ins. Y'u look ; in vain f-r t!ie army of rushing. .;weiti:i. i profane lonpshorercen. working strenu I heavy tax on every boat entering the port, t ''bassiris, the largest of which is the .rnnV.lVT H? l,t off aiul threw into e. river the I Kattendyck dock, next come the Amer- ' UatUU f t,U 'rk I every boatmajt who re- ican and Lefill)vre; the nrst given Up to Tiom. ( fused to pav the tax But the four-leeeed I first saw ,fce crnn.- floin, .heir silent one-arroeThrSmulfe "Vants o? Antwerp trade the Western Continent and the vi-ork in the M.ir d.i iiiai. wl.icli extends i arP benevnlent. not nmliRiiant creature? I second-mainly to the ships which' ply be bIouk the irtwii fi nt i-f the river SVheirie. 1 n jt;, wav not less intejestlne than the ' tween Antwerp and Aricn. For the port tn which the city it iu::uJ. at Antwerp": i naf tiiiiutfiind cranes of Antwerp is the heine Belgian It hits the bulk of the trade The freipiit cms arc rim alongside the 1 hydraulic s:a:ion. where great steam en- wiln the Congo Free State.Which Js ruled steamers on tracks ' of lite standard j j.jnes strain constantly in the operation of , b" the Kin" of he Belgians. American catipe The. crane- stand j-isantic pur-tps. and from which the . Some of ,he smaller piers were built astride the cais on trucks resting on j water to' operate the cranes is distributed i during: the French occupation by. the First tracks with a p;u;.- 12 or 3i feet, the at hjg, pressure through railee of pipes. "ro:eon. who. by his decree of July 20. track fr the cars beinpe laid in the mid- ; ncre in Hamburg therq is an electric ' proclaimed Antwerp the first harbor die of the wit'r vne. -:ach crane is sur powerhouse which supplies thp necessary I or men-of-war on the coasts of the'Xorth mounted hy a little hoi:se or cabin. In : current to the dock cranes. j of France. One of them is " about 12t0 it sits .th. oierator. Suppose a careo " I feet long, while another is rather more of steel rails has to he taken from fiat j Antwerp's locks and I'liins. i than 500. Napoleon spent 13.00n.(XX) francs cars and loadci'huo a sii.. At a signal Thc Mur'du'Quai. which is leased by' a"d, 12 years on'hefe docks.- Altogether from t'lt man in i-nci-pi-. the cranes ci- , 7 . ! Antwerp now boasts 10. or 12 miles of gantic arm swings over the car. the d- . f'' "''"",' in.i..r.-,u-, docks and 'i'.. Jf .; .. .. . .. 'W.aSvv. ' v. t y,i - &3t, Hr photographs which illustrate this -letter. In operation they remind you of the al most human crane work done in some Pittsburg steel mills. The oost of the free port was S10.000.000. of which Hamburg paid $30.000, 'H and the German empire $10,000,000. 20.000 people were expelled from their homes that the "Frcihafen" might be built, and its con struction, which occupied live 'years,-kept several thousand men busy during that time. It would be impossible to collect ac curate figures as to the aggregate -cost of Hamburjs harbor works today, but it must have been more than $100,000,0..0. Always Essentially .Commercial. From the nature. of their respective lo cations, Antwerp - belnj? at the - head of navigation for ocean-going vessels on the River Sehelde, sixty miles from the" sea. and- Hamburg, ninety mile's up 'the river Elbe, the two cities have- practically al ways been essentially' commercial. Tije origin of the present Antwerp may be traced back to the sixUi century, when a Saxon colony took possession of some ruined Roman fortifications and settled thereon; They named the settlement "An t Werp," which means literally, "On the Pier.'" By '.the seventh century ships from tl4s port were visiting most of the German Ocejin or North Sea ports, including those of . England. America's discovery gave Antwerp a great impetus; but 156S, -under Charles V., it had 125.000 inhabitants and was the most flourishing city in Christen dom, surpassing even Venice. From that time until .1S30 its hiftory was a succes sion of ups and downs. . It suffered from religious disturbances; It was overrun by the Spaniards, by Antwerp's. Charlemagne is supposed ' to have founded Hamburg; certainly he sent a bishop there to preach the Gospel. By the year S34 the town was well estab lished, and in the following century it en gaged in many contests with it. neigh bors. ' It was long in the jurisdiction of the Counts of Holstein. wild obtained for it many privilege?. Its connection with the Hanseatic League came afterward. The league's dissolution was followed by the discovery of America, . and tnts helped Hamburg as much as U did Ant werp. Still, the present era of prosperity did not begin until much later. Hamburg escaped the Spanish fury altogether, but in 110 it was annexed to the French Empire. In 1M3 the people tried a little rebellion of their own. but failed, During the Fremiti domination the damage to the city's commerce amounted to nearly "$.). '010.000, a . niucli larger sum" then. "than it would be today. "" In 1S42 -there was ftn enormous--fire, which pet the town back. Still, Ham burg's prosperity has never flagged, as Antwerp's has, and from the- close, of the Franco-Pruspian War wh'ich brought the city into the German Empire 'the commerce of Hamburg has been constant ly incrensing, especially since it entered the Imperial Zollverein and set apart a large portion of its harbor us a "Frei hafen." The carrying on of the free port fur nishes an essential picturesque ele ment. The "Freihafen." which- lies en tirely on the northern or right bank of the Elbe, is separated from the customs harbor by a barrier which looks more like a great picket fence set in the water than anything else. Its necessary openings are guarded both by men and swift harbor craft, whose functions are precisely Uie I IIPv - 1 Jp ' "J.J I CTri - 1 - lr n 1 jml quays. nlrjf liners to-mii5t cf the ports on the: The immense new bas'n now pending chains mt an while being low ered. Men working on the ground pass ; borders of the Seven Seas, .was built by i course of construction and to be finished them around as .manv raijs as it is do- I the City of Antwerp at a cost, including in the next two or three years will give sired to raise. Another i;naL is .giveji. I the Belvedere or elevated ..ornamental Antwerp about 13 miles of shift room, but the rails are 'hooted the arm swings i promenade which surmounts a part of it. ! even this will "soon be inadequate, and them" over the ship. and. they are swiftly j of SlUCvo.OOO. in 1S77. Six hundred houses! harbor extensions on a scale "elsewhere lowered into th; ho-d". the only noise j were demolished to make room for it. It ; unknown are planned which will probably being the clankirK of the rails. Cargoes j is nearly two miles lor.g and. 300 feet wide, i become an accomplished fact inside the composed of packages, are handled sol It is covered with Iron shed?, -built for. next 15 or 20 years. Then, if the docks ':iMiy and noifrel.'ssl that you Are hardly beauty ,s well as utility, and its stone aware, as you watrh. that anything soe- I work is riclTly sculptured in many pluces. iial is being dov.o. yet they load ships I But while the wharves of the Mux du nt hot; 'Hamburg and Antwerp in only a Quai alone would" furnish more than anw fraction of the- time re-mired at New i pie shipping room for some of our ports.' York. it iuftieies for only" a fractiol of the Ant- Most of tho cranes are made to lift I werp' shipping. There are now in use be only moderate' weights of a few tons, i sides eieht large and two small bajiinw nr and quays of Antwerp were stretched in a straight line, they would ieach 6 miles. The plans include a complete -change of the ScheJde's course foi some miles, the destruction of three or -four villages and the creation of an island ta be surrounded by the old and new channels. :. The evDense of all this, above 50,000.000, is to be borne by the city ultimately, though the Belgian government is ad vancing the money for the " basins now being built. Most of the wharves and quays are leafed to the b4g steamship companies. Bustling Port ot Hamburg. - I made the rounds of the Antwerp har bor works in a cab most prosaically. A few days later I visited the "Freihafen" or free port of Hamburg, which comprises by far the larger part of the harbor here, in a steam launch most picturesquely. To my American eye Hamburg appears much the busier, and consequently much more like home. Certainly the waters of the port here are as thoroughly churned as those of any in the world. i -At '.he present time Hamburg has under; aba -it 12V. miles of docks and ciuays. And despite Antwerp's aspirations the shipping and business men of Ham burg nave no fear of being left in the race. They possess that splendid con fidence in tne future which is shown by the business men of the most" pro gressive and hustling American cities, and are looking- forward to the con tinued and almost unlimited growth of their port. The free port is so termed because goods and materials brought into it and exported, either in the same con dition as- imported or after being: man ufactured into some other article of trade, are obliged to pay no duty. The VlViwAi fvrw 4v i v? vilify cvey wz zacyr vsas avjsyx&zr jckzz free harbor was created in" 1SSS"; until that year Hamburg was not a member of . the Imperial--German ' Customs "Zoll verein." Many Hamburgers then believed that the change would' ruin the trade of the port. This afternoon a framed newspaper page, published in 1S88,' bearing a cartoon prophetic of the supposedly evil days to come, was pointed out to me by a German friend whose faith In the port's future was- typical at the time. His faith has been abundantly justified. Since then the port's commerce has grown "by leaps and bound?," and today Ham burg stands twenty-second among the cities of the world.. Like the hydraulic cranes of Antwerp, the electric -cranes of Hamburg are. of several type. Those in use on the Kaiser Wilhelmhafen quays end the others of the new harbor, completed four year ago at an expense of many millions, are even more impressive in appearance, collective ly, than those in Antwerp. A 'long per spective of them ib shown In one of ths the French and by the Austrians. It was fought over during the wars waged by and against the Prince of Orange. In 1648 the Scheide was completely closed by the decrees following the peace of West phalia. In 1799 Antwerp had a population of only 40.000. There wag then a brief Increase of pros perity. By 1S30 the population had grown to 7S.O0O. the city having been annexed to the Netherlands In 1S14 and her trade with the Dutch colonies being considerable. In 18B3, wben the right to levy navigation due3 on the Scheide was commuted, an era of new growth net in for Antwerp. The average annual tonnage for the port In the decade from 1860 to 1870 was less than 909,000; l has increased tenfold since then. Meanwhile the population has grown fourfold. The greatest Impetus ever received by Antwerp's commerce came soon after the Franco-Prussian war. the growth of the port Just after 1870. and since then, being even more rapid than in the sixties. - Hamburg's origin is more obscure than same aj thoe fnllilled - hy" out- own revenue cuuere. ' The 1:cks in the free port include a "hefen," devotfd to peirolf-um. in which Standard Oil .ships are always to be seen; an "Ihdiahafen." an "Afrikahafen." A' SOKelschiffhafen." etc. The last named of these is sacred to sailing veswis,- a its name indicates, and, as there are. practically no schooners In European waters, the shipping in that "hafen" pre sents the finest example-of the ojd time "forest of masts" to be found anywhere. Hamburg being well to the . north, its port often J'rcfzes in Winter, and it there fore maintains four heavy ice-breaker boats, built on the model of the famous Russian ice breaker Yerniak, which, -tn turn, was modeled upon the ice breaker that keepr open the straits, between lake Michigan and Iake Huron late-every Kail and opens them early every Spring. ; Aside from the fact that these ports ar In close competition for supremacy in (Concluded on Page