maintain his house in a high state of efficiency, and to keep a large staff of servants to wait upon anybody who may take a fancy to anything in it, without so much as feeing the porters. In dealing with this question you will observe that I have carefully abstained from any arguments as such, preferring to leave the facts to speak for themselves. I might have told you that before the docks were in existence it was the practice at the wharves to charge half-wharfage rates on goods passing over them; and I might have argued that if this were recognised as right in a free river, surely the Dock Companies should not be refused some equivalent return for the use of the dock waters—a private property which has cost many millions. From this argument and many kindred arguments I have abstained; but in closing my lecture I must be permitted to anticipate just one objection. It may be said, why did not the Dock Companies move in this matter when their monopolies expired? My answer will be appreciated by all practical men. When the dock monopolies expired, the business of the port was not one-fourth of its present magnitude, to say nothing of the fact that the lighterage to the docks was so insignificant that it entailed no practical inconvenience. The force of this will be seen when it is borne in mind that the tonnage of inward shipping, British and foreign (exclusive of the coasting trade), which entered the port in 1827—the date of the expiration of the monopolies—was only 990,170 tons; and as by far the greater portion of the cargoes brought by vessels which entered the docks was left in them for warehousing, the lighterage was, necessarily, of very limited extent, and remained so, until the repeal of the monopolies began to take practical effect in the diversion of goods from the docks. But, side by side with the gigantic increase in the commerce of the port, there has been a corresponding increase in this gratuitous lighterage business. Its magnitude is seen at a glance when I say that in the year 1874 the tonnage of British and foreign inward shipping (exclusive of the coasting trade) had reached the enormous total of 4,671,676 tons. Of this vast tonnage nearly 3,500,000 tons discharged in the docks, and of this 3,500,000 tons of register tonnage, probably representing 4,000,000 tons gross of goods, more than half was removed from the docks. Thus, it will be seen that to argue that because the Dock Companies, _when their monopolies expired_, did not regard the free use of their waters as a grievance grave enough to call for the interference of Parliament, ought not to complain and have no right to such interference _now_, is to ignore the fact, patent to everybody, that circumstances have so entirely changed the relations which formerly existed between docks and wharves that no analogy exists to warrant such a conclusion. It was utterly impossible for the Dock Companies, fifty years ago, to foresee