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Dock Management Progress Section How Successful Dock Operators Have Met Problems of Giving Best Service to Ships Municipal Piers No. 388 and No. 40 South, Department of Wharves, Docks and Ferries, City of Philadelphia argo Handled Economically at Philadelphia Piers HE progress of the city in a business sense is _ reflected strongly in the trade of the port of Philadelphia which is continually increasing in value. That the legis- lative and administrative officials of the city are keen to do their part in keeping step with this quickened in- dustrial enterprise was shown with- in the past month when, in furtherance of the plan to extend the shipping facilities of the port a contract was awarded for the construction of a pier at the foot of Jackson street, on the Delaware river. This action is in line with the general policy of up- building and developing the water front of the city. In the past twenty years approximately $30,000,000 have been spent by the municipality alone in extending the pier system, acknowl- edged to be the best maintained at any port in the United States. This, too, aside from huge amounts spent by the government in pier construction and in channel deepening; by the city and state of Pennsylvania, jointly, in a The author is statistician of the Department of Wharves, Docks and Ferries, Philadelphia, BY ELMER SCHLICHTER $28,000,000 bridge project and by cor- porate and private enterprise in im- provements designed to increase the Trade Increases With Port Development Anyone familiar with the port of Philadelphia knows that the city is pursuing an active policy of terminal development. The wisdom of such a course is dem- onstrated in the growing value of both domestic and foreign trade. As the seaboard terminus of one of the richest industrial sections in the country its growth and prosperity can only be checked through inadequate outlet by water to markets at home and abroad. With the existing great modern piers and additional proj- ects underway Philadelphia’s nat- ural expansion as a seaport is as- sured. industrial importance of the port of Philadelphia. In 1925 Philadelphia continued its reputation as the world’s workshop 27 through the expansion of the output of the large variety of manufacturing plants within the metropolitan dis- trict of the city, a territory which em- braces eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware. Estimates place the number of wage earners in this district at more than 926,000, with a yearly payroll in excess of $1,- 057,000,000, paid out by more than 24,000 manufacturing plants. These industries purchase materials to the extent of $3,021,000,000 each year and the annual value of their products totals $5,875,000,000, representing nine per cent of the total output of all manufacturing plants in the United States. In the heart of this vast industrial wokshop lies the port of Philadelphia in and out of which there is annually shipped to and from foreign and do- mestic ports cargoes valued at hun- dreds of millions of dollars. In the foreign trade alone the value of the cargoes totaled $333,950,146. These figures actually indicate that the im- portance of Philadelphia in the mer- chant marine field is steadily increas-