Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/206

 Mr. Douglas Lapraik, head of the shipping company of that name. The Whampoa establishment was extended by the construction of a large dock for the repair of the mail steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental and Messageries Maritimes Companies; and, in the year following the opening of the Suez Canal, the capital was raised to $1,000,000, to enable the Company to acquire the Union Docks Company's property. In about 1875 the Whampoa property as then existing was made over to the Chinese Government for the sum of $80,000 upon condition that only upon ships under the Chinese flag should repairs be executed. The Company was at that time passing through a critical period, owing in part to mismanagement, and largely to the competition offered by two ships owned by Captain Sands, and by the Cosmopolitan Dock Company. Mr. Gillies, who had left the Company's service for two or three years, was asked to return and undertake the secretarial management of the concern. The Sands' ships and the Cosmopolitan Dock were absorbed, and then Mr. Gillies initiated the vast development of new docks and workshops upon which the more recent prosperity of the Company has been based. The size of steamships on the Far Eastern runs, and of the men-of-war on the China station, steadily increased, and even larger vessels were contemplated. To meet the growing requirements a new dock, the No. 1, or Admiralty Dock, was built at Kowloon. It cost over $1,000,000, towards which the British Government granted £25,000, in consideration of the right of priority of entrance for a period of twenty years — a privilege which expires in 1908. Not only did this fine dock establish practically for all time the supremacy of the Company's docks in Chinese waters, but, indirectly, its existence has benefited the Colony by making possible the employment on Eastern trade routes of vessels of the large capacity with which we are familiar at the present day.

Mr. Gillies retired in 1901, after twenty-six years' service with the Company, and was succeeded by Mr. W. Dixon, a man of considerable ability. The present chief manager is Mr. R. Mitchell, who has been with the Company for many years. He possesses a thorough practical knowledge of the work, and has had the advantage of a scientific training. As manager of the Kowloon establishment he proved so valuable that in 1907 he was given the position which he now fills.

Reference having been made to the growth of the Company, a survey of the properties controlled by it may now be given. There are first the following docks and slipways:— Length on Keel Breadth Depth over sni at Rise of Tide. Name of Dock or Slip. of Ordinary Blocks. Entrance. tIS Springs Neaps. KOWLOON. feet. ft. in. (■86 0, ft. in. ft. in. feet. No. I Dock, Kowloon top 1 of bottom '  No. 2 Dock, Kowhxm 6  No, 3 Dock, Kowltxtn 3  . — Patent Slip, No. 1, Kowloon , — Patent Slip, No. 2, Kowloon  — TAI-KOK-TSUI. Cosmopolitan Dock...  6 — ABERDEEN. Hope Dock Lamont Dock —

The docks are of granite, and are fitted with every appliance in the way of caissons, powerful centrifugal pumps, &c., which enable them to be pumped out in three hours. The extensive workshops at the Kowloon, Cosmopolitan, and Aberdeen Docks are fitted with every facility and appliance necessary for the repair of ships and steam machinery. The engineers' shops are supplied with a large plant of the latest types of tools in the way of planing, milling, and screwing machines, lathes, electric cranes, &c., and are capable of executing the largest class of work with despatch. Attached lo the shipwrights' department is a steam saw-mill, with circular band, and vertical saws, while a complete plant of machinery of the most modern and improved type enables all classes of woodwork to be underlaken. The blacksmiths' shops are furnished with powerful steam hammers, cranes, and other appliances requisite to the forging of stern posts and crank and straight shafting of the largest size. At two of the establishments are powerful lifting shears, with steam purchase, built on solid granite sea-walls, alongside which vessels of 24 feet draught can lie. The shears at Kowloon are capable of lifting 70 tons. The Company is prepared to tender for the construction of new vessels, the shipyard being fully equipped with modern plant, including hydraulic flanging and bending machines, electrically-driven rolls, punching, shearing, angle-bevelling, joggling, and planing machines, capable of dealing with the heaviest class of work. Special facilities are provided in the boiler-makers' department, including powerful punching, shearing, hydraulic riveting, and other machines; whilst in the foundry are cupolas capable of casting up to 100 tons. An extensive galvanizing plant has been installed at the Kowloon establishment. In addition, the Company carries a heavy stock of well-selected material and fittings required in shipbuilding, engine-room outfits, furnishings, and ships' stores — altogether of the value of about $2,000,000. The business of the Company is carried on by a board of directors and a chief manager and secretary, with part of the clerical stiiff, in the head office. Queen's Buildings. At the Kowloon, Cosmopolitan, and Aberdeen establishments there is a European staff of eighty, comprising yard managers, draughtsmen, clerks, engineers, shipbuilders, boiler-makers, blacksmiths, carpenters, coppersmiths, and founders, the majority of whom are selected by the Company's agents in England.

The number of Chinese varies considerably during the summer and winter months of the year, from an average of 2,500 to as many as 4,500 men in the busy season from October to March.

MR. JAMES W. GRAHAM, a member of the Institute of Naval Architects, is the acting manager of the Kowloon Dock, owned by the Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company. His experience has been considerable, as he was for eleven years superintendent, and had previously held several important positions in the leading yards of the North of England. While he has been engaged with the Company they have built some very large ships, such as the s.s. Looii/i Woo, now at Shanghai, and the Kiiichan, a fine steamer, owned by the Hongkong, Canton and Macao Steamship Company, which is at present running be- tween Hongkong and Canton.

MR. THOMAS NEAVE, who for the last three years has held the position of superintendent engineer of the Hongkong and Whampoa Docks at Kowloon, has been with the Company for over eight years. A native of Dundee, Scotland, he served his apprenticeship as an engineer with Messrs. John Smith, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, an old-established firm of general engineers and millwrights. Afterwards he was engaged with Messrs. Palmer & Co., engineers and shipbuilders at Jarrow-on-Tyne, England, for about ten years as assistant foreman in their outside engineering department. He was mostly employed on the construction of battleships, cruisers, and torpedo destroyers for the British Government. He had a large experience with the 30-knot class of destroyers in their fitting-out trials, and was connected with all the experimental trials of Mr. Heed's patent water-tube boiler, which was so successful in these vessels. But, although he has had this long and varied training, Mr. Neave finds that the experience to be obtained by working at the Whampoa Dock with its varied shipping is quite exceptional.

MR. JAMES GUY, who is in charge of the machine and erecting shops of the Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company, at Kowloon, is an engineer with over twenty-seven years' experience afloat and ashore. He has been in the service of the present Company for the last eight years, during which time he has been connected with the building of several large ships, including the Long Woo, which was constiucted on the Yarrow Shlick Tweedle principle, and is a great success. She is at present trading on the Yangtsze.

THE HONGKONG AND KOWLOON WHARF AND GODOWN COMPANY, LTD.

Twenty-three years have passed since the value of Kowloon as a site for storage godowns became evident to Sir Paul Chafer and Mr. Kerfoot Hughes, the founders of the Hongkong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company, Ltd., and the wisdom of their choice, already amply vindicated, will be still more fully demonstrated when the Kowloon-Canton Railway, to which the Company will have a special siding, is completed. Hut it was not the advantages offered by Kowloon for the establishment of a depot of this class which, in the first instance, gave promise of success to the Wharf Company, but rather the intolerable exactions of the Chinese