Career Lecture Series No. 14. Shipping in India 28th March 1939

Lord Wellesley, the Governor-General of India, wrote in 1800 as follows regarding Indian ships in the Port of Calcutta ;- The Port of Calcutta contains about 10,000 tons of ships built in India of a description calculated for the conveyance of cargoes From the quantity of private tonnage now at command in the Port of Calcutta and from the state of perfection which the art of ship- building has alr [...] It is owing to a recognition of this vital importance of strength and efficiency of a mercantile marine as the complementary agent to a Navy and as a means of national defence that the development of shipping has become an instrument of national policy in every important maritime country of the world since the war. [...] With every shipping orga- nisation again there is the ancillary business of ship broking and of stevedoring, the former of which is connected with canvassing and securing of cargo for ships and the latter with the actual loading and discharging of cargo at the port. [...] The administration of the port of Catcutta is vested in the Commissioners for the Port of Calcutta established in 1870. [...] The administrative heads are the Chairman and Deputy Chairman who are whole-time officers appointed by the Government with a number of departments under them such as administration, traffic, engineering, audit and accounts, stores as well as the depart-23 ment under a Deputy Surveyor which controls and attends to the movements of the ships and to the survey of the Hooghly River.