Cape Town — It is with no ordinary satisfaction that we record the completion and opening of the Alfred Basin, a work of considerable magnitude and lasting utility to this port. The ceremony was attended by a numerous assemblage of merchants, shipmasters, officials, and townsmen, all of whom appeared to recognise in the undertaking a material advance in the accommodation and standing of Cape Town as a harbour of increasing consequence.
The aspect of the newly opened works must have impressed every observer. Where lately there existed an exposed and inconvenient foreshore, there now stands a basin of substantial design, protected by solid masonry and fitted to receive vessels in security. The quays are of a robust character, and the arrangement of the basin bespeaks careful forethought, not merely for present convenience, but for the probable increase of shipping which the progress of trade must inevitably bring.
From the outset it was evident that the object of the undertaking has been to provide safer and more expeditious accommodation for vessels frequenting Table Bay. The open roadstead, however serviceable in former years, has long proved inadequate to the requirements of a commerce steadily enlarging in both volume and complexity. The new basin promises relief from the delays occasioned by weather, swell, and the uncertain labour of transhipment, and will, it is confidently hoped, render the operations of loading and discharge more regular and economical.
In conversation with several persons present, the same opinion was repeated in various forms: that the basin will prove especially serviceable to steamers and larger sailing vessels, which now demand more secure berthing and better facilities than the old arrangements could readily afford. One merchant remarked that the improvement would lessen both loss and expense in the movement of goods, while a master mariner observed that a sheltered berth is no small matter in a port where weather has often made difficult what ought to be a simple operation.
The engineering merits of the work were also freely acknowledged. The heavy masonry, the exactness of the lines, and the evident solidity of the whole structure testify to the diligence and skill employed in its execution. Such a work cannot be achieved without perseverance, and those who have laboured upon it deserve credit for bringing it to so advanced a state. It is not often that the public is permitted to witness an improvement so plainly adapted to the needs of commerce and so likely to yield enduring benefit.
There was moreover a perceptible feeling among the assembly that the opening of the Alfred Basin marks something more than the inauguration of a single harbour work. It is a sign of Cape Town’s continued growth, of the increasing importance of its trade, and of the necessity that public works should keep pace with the march of enterprise. If the colony is to thrive, its port must be equal to the demands of the age; and in this respect the new basin represents a most encouraging beginning.
We shall doubtless hear much more in due course of the commercial advantages to be derived from this improvement. For the present it is enough to say that the opening of the Alfred Basin has been witnessed with general approval, and that few present could have departed without a stronger sense of the port’s future promise.