On Thursday in the House of Commons Mr. Lloyd-George introduced
his Port of London Bill under the Ten Minutes Rule. The Bill provides for the establishment of a new public authority, which will control the river from Teddington to a point fifty-one miles below London Bridge. The river above Teddington will be under a reconstituted Conservancy. The most important and interesting principle of the Bill is that the majority of the members of the new authority will be chosen by those whose trading interests are bound up in the welfare of the port. The Royal Commission on the Port of London recommended the establishment of a Board of forty members, but Mr. Lloyd-George proposes only twenty-five. The new body, though singular in many respects, will be most like the authority of the Port of Liverpool, which is notoriously practical and successful. Fourteen of the twenty-five members will be elected to represent the payers of dues, and there will be ten appointed members,—one each for the Admiralty, the Trinity House, and the City Corporation, two for the Board of Trade, and five for the County Council, of whom two are to be brought in from outside the Council. There will be no compulsory. purchase of docks; Mr. Lloyd-George has been treating privately with the companies, and was able to announce that the last had, come to terms with him on Thursday morning. The Bill was received with marked approval as a businesslike measure. The Port of London has relatively lost ground in recent years, largely owing to warring interests, and we hope that the substance of this measure will be put into effect without delay, and permanently preserve to London its position as the first port in the world.
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