FUTURE ORGANISATION OF TRANSPORT SERVICES AND SHIPPING Memorandum by the Minister of War Transport.

6. Cheap and modernised port and dock facilities are vital to our international and coastal trade and my proposals will, therefore, ultimately extend in some appropriate form to the public dock systems of the country. Whether this necessarily involves acquisition of ownership by the State or transfer, as to ownership and control, to a national authority needs further consideration. Are we prepared to leave bodies like the Port of London Authority, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board or the Avonmouth system, which is owned by the Corporation of Bristol, with the existing ownerships undisturbed, subject to some grouping with the smaller adjacent ports? I should prefer not to have to commit myself too categorically on these difficult points at this stage.