VIII. THE PASSAGE POLL-TAX.
After the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company had provided the excellent Packet-boats already mentioned, the one thing lacking was better harbour accommodation. The International Communication Company's proposal had included bigger boats and an efficient water station ; the bigger boats had been provided, but the latter part of the scheme was postponed because it was no one's direct duty and interest to take up the work. The accommodation at the Admiralty Pier landing-stages, which had been used for nearly forty years, had been provided at the cost of the Government, and the amount paid for the user was small compared with the initial expenditure. To build a Continental Water Station would cost about half a million pounds, and the question was asked, " Who would provide the money?" In the olden time, when the men of Dover had a monopoly of the Passage and the Corporation took a share of the profits, it was the duty and interest of the Corporation and the ship-owners to keep the accommodation efficient ; but, under present circumstances, the interest in the Passage has ceased to be purely local. The Railway Companies, who run the mail and passenger services, are most directly interested, but they had no control o\er the Harbour. The Harbour Board itself deri\'ed so little profit from the steamers that they could not pledge their estate to provide the expensive accommodation. The pecuniary interest of the Corporation is nil, and that of the people of Dover generally is not sufficient to warrant any financial venture to promote the efficiency and comfort of the Passage service. The main interest in the efficiency of the Passage is distributed amongst the many thousands of people from all over the world who cross the Straits of Dover; and, ultimately, the difficulty was solved by Parliament allowing a Passenger Toll to be levied, so that those who enjoyed the improved accommodation of the Passage should pay for it.
The Dover Harbour Board turned their attention to Passage accommodation in i8qo. After taking time to mature their policy and plans, in 1891 they obtained an Act of ParUament for constructing a commercial harbour, outside the limits of the old works, affording a deep water area of seventy-one acres. This was intended for the threefold purpose of giving increased accommodation to general trade, providing deep water berths for Atlantic liners, but principally to construct in the central part of the new area a Marine Station, where the cross-Channel packets could land and embark passengers alongside the railway trains in close proximity to waiting and refreshment rooms. This Act was obtained, and the work of building the new harbour commenced before the Government decided to enclose the whole of Dover Bay for the purpose of a great Admiralty Harbour. That larger project necessitated the modification of the works in progress for the local accommodation. As the building of the Admiralty Harbour proceeded, there were further modifications, and eventually the eastern side of the Prince of Wales Pier of the local Harbour, completed in 1902, had to be given up to the Admiralty; and, in return, the Government handed over to the Harbour Board the old Admiralty Pier (which they had previou.sly leased) with a view to its being widened, to build upon it a Continental Marine Station. These changes, due to the construction of the Admiralty Harbour, greatly delayed the provision of the better accommodation for the Dover Passage.
While the construction of the Marine Station was being delayed, another great improvement was made in the steamships of the Passage. The two Railway Companies entered into a working union, as a result of which the Port of Dover became the depot of all the steamers used on the passage to Calais, Boulogne and Ostend. The assemblage of vessels occupying the docks exhibiting samples of the cross-Channel craft of the recent past and the present. The well-known steamers, which were famous when the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company took over the service in 1863, and which were contemptuously referred to as "cockleshells" in 1900— the "Petrel," "Foam," "France," "Prince," " Samphire," " Maid of Kent," " Wave " and " Breeze "— are all gone. Even the big steamers built to revolutionise the service in the " Eighties," have disappeared. The " Invicta " was first to go; following her those three ships built at the Fairfield Works— the "Victoria," "Empress" and "Calais-Douvres" (secundus) which were regarded as very near perfection, have gone too, and by a very rapid and costly movement the day of turbines has dawned.
The turbine, to which the present swift and graceful ships owe their propulsion, was discussed as the coming motive power by the Hon. Charles Parsons, its inventor, at the British Association meeting at Dover in 1899; and the late Sir WilHam H. White, then President of the Mechanical Section, referred to the invention as one likely to work a great change in the propulsion of steamships ; but, probably, no one present on that occasion, excepting perhaps the enthusiastic inventor himself, anticipated that within three years a vessel would be built for the cross-Channel service in accordance with his invention, and that in 1907 the whole of the services — Dover and Calais, Folkestone and Boulogne, and Dover and Ostend — would be furnished with the graceful and swift turbine vessels, which are more than answering the expectations raised by the inventor at Dover in the Autumn of 1899.
The first of the cross-Channel turbines was " The Queen," which took her place on the Dover Passage in 1903. In 1905 " The Onward " was placed on the Folkestone and Boulogne route; and, at the same time, the 'Tnvicta," of the same class, came as a "stand-by" to ensure that there should be always one turbine on each route. In 1907 were added two more turbines, " The Empress " and " The Victoria," making sufficient to carry all the passengers to Calais and Boulogne; while in the same year another turbine, "The Princess Elisabeth " was put on the Dover and Ostend route. In 191 1, the " Riviera " and the " Engadine " were added to the Dover and Folkestone turbine fleet, aflfording travellers between these ports and the Continent such an absence of vibration and smoothness of passage that it hardly seemed possible for human ingenuity to go much further in that direction.
After the two English Railway Companies and the Belgian Government had done their share in placing an improved fleet of passenger steamers on the Channel Passage, and the Government had done theirs in granting the Poll-Tax, the delay in providing a site for the Channel Passage Station at Dover Harbour was extraordinary. Pending that delay, the Passenger Tax money had been regularly collected for more than twelve years, during which period much of it has been spent on works of no benefit lo cross-Channel voyagers. The extraordinary delay was due to want of foresight and co-operation between the Harbour Board and the Admiralty. The first scheme — a very good one — to build the site for the Station in the centre of the Commercial Harbour, was abandoned, and Parliamentary powers obtained for placing the Station on the western side of the Prince of Wales Pier, but owing to the northern side of that Pier being needed for the Admiralty Harbour, it was finally decided to widen the original Admiralty Pier, at a cost of £400,000. After years of delay, that widening has been completed, and a Channel Passage Station has been erected by the two Railway Companies.
The cross-Channel traffic through Dover is very great, and is rapidly increasing, as the following returns of the numbers carried in the years mentioned against them show : —
Dover and Calais
1850 ... ... 54,036
1860 ... ... 76,318
1870 ... ... 108,008
1880 ... ... 197,247
1890 ... ... 262,364
1900 ... ... 316,156
1910 ... ... 369,069
1913 ... ... 396,100
Dover and Ostend
1878 ... ... 26,270
1886 ... ... 31,745
1887 ... ... 42,283
1888 ... ... 56,535
1890 ... ... 75,158
1900 ... ... 114,516
1910 ... ... 222,375
1913 ... ... 256,474
It will be observed that the total number of passengers who passed through Dover on the two routes in the year 1913 was considerably more than half a million, and the figures indicate a certainty of continual increase, the same remark applying equally to each route. The figures for the Calais route are only given for the decadal years, so as to exhibit a long retrospect without using a mass of statistics. On the Ostend route the earlier figures were not available in the same way, and the decadal years are only taken from 1890. It will be seen that the number of passengers between Dover and Calais has doubled nearly eight times since 1850. The Dover and Ostend totals, though rather smaller, have increased in a much greater ratio, having multiplied nearly ten times since 1878. By the two routes from and to Dover, the passengers now are double the number travelling in 1890. These figures afford the fullest justification for all that can be done to increase the comfort and the convenience of the Dover Passage.