Furthermore, New York labours under another, and a very serious, handicap. It has grown to be one of the world’s great manufacturing centres. It abounds in factories. The wholesale houses, the stores, and other places of business handle huge stocks of goods, and the railroad facilities are limited. Every port should have a “belt line” railroad, that is, a railroad circling it about, crossing all the lines that come to it from any direction. With such a railroad, freight could be brought into the city by any line, turned over to the Belt Line, and switched to almost any of the industrial sections or quays. But New York has no such railroad. To begin with, New York proper is on the Island of Manhattan, and only one freight line comes into the city. The others all have their terminals in New Jersey, save for one on the north shore of Long Island Sound and one in Brooklyn. Therefore, it is necessary to transfer the freight intended for New York by means of “car ferries.” Furthermore, all the freight landed on New York piers must be transported by trucks, or reëmbarked on canal boats and barges. Except on the New Jersey side of the Bay and the Hudson River, on Staten Island and at the Bush Terminals, there are few places in the entire port where railroads can run their cars to warehouses conveniently placed for the reception of cargoes. Busy as are the piers on Manhattan Island they are devoted almost exclusively, so far as freight is concerned, to the shipments intended for the business houses located in Manhattan. The congestion always noticeable along West Street is due to the unfortunate location of the principal borough of New York City on an island, and little of this busy district is given over to the handling of foreign commerce. [Illustration: A TUG BOAT _The bows of these boats are often protected by pads to which much wear often gives an appearance of a tangled beard._] Were the facilities for handling freight more highly developed, a large percentage of the cost of shipment would be eliminated. While the port of New York is fortunate in many respects, its plan is such that it is difficult to see how a highly efficient system of freight transfer could be installed without disproportionate expense. Lacking this system, there is a great deal of freight handled in the most expensive possible way—by hand—which could be handled more cheaply were it practicable to instal the most highly developed mechanical assistance. This manual labour necessitates higher rates for the shipment of freight. How great these costs are is apparent when one realizes that once aboard ship, a cargo of coal could be carried from New York to Rio de Janeiro for what it would cost, to move by hand, a pile of coal the same size as the cargo, a distance of sixty feet. Such a statement gives one a little grasp on the huge costs of unnecessary freight handling.