From Ch. 1: The object of this study is to consider the utilisation of East London Harbour and its relative importance in the South African import and export trade to 1975. The principal harbours of the Republic of South Africa are Table Bay (Cape TOwn), Algoa Bay (Port Elizabeth), Buffalo Harbour (East London) and Durban, and Walvis Bay in South West Africa. Small harbours suitable only for coastal shipping are Mossel Bay, Simonstown, Lamberts Bay, St. Helena Bay and Port Nolloth in the Republic and LUderitz in South West Africa. Two harbours, Saldanha Bay and Richards Bay are at present being built. The ports of the Republic of South Africa and South West Africa are owned by the Government, are constructed, controlled and operated by the South African Railways and Harbours Administration, under the direction of the Minister of Transport, and are managed by the General Manager, whose headquarters are in Johannesburg.

The flourishing city of East London has received but scant attention from historians. Its importance has been overshadowed by that of Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth, each with a foundation bordering on the romantic. The introduction to this thesis indicates traces of the existence of primitive man in these parts. The historical survey will commence with notices taken of the region by nautical and land expeditions in search of either shipwrecked sailors, or news of native races. The first serious notice of East London taken by the white people came in the time of Sir Benjamin D'Urban who sought a seaport for his new province of Queen Adelaide. Our port was opened in 1836 under the appellation of Port Rex, but faded into temporary insignificance, almost oblivion, with the reversal of Sir. B. D'Urban's frontier policy by Lord Glenelg and the abandonment of the new province in 1837. It was not destined to remain forgotten, for Sir Harry Smith at the end of 1847, saw in the mouth of the Buffalo River the same possibilities as had struck the advisers of Sir B. D'Urban. To him it was the future London of the East, and the connecting link between British Kaffraria and the world outside. From that time East London has grown steadily, and of recent years very rapidly. It is not proposed to carry this survey much beyond 1866 in which year British Kaffraria was annexed to the Cape Colony.

Transport undoubtedly occupies a most important place in the economic and commercial life of all countries. In this respect South Africa is no exception, and very briefly, the principal economic functions of transport are enumerated below. 1. Transport establishes communication between consumers and the producers of goods or services. 2. Transport facilitates the movement of persons between the place where they live and the place where they work - usually this is a daily procedure, but in South Africa it also entails the movement of large numbers of Natives from the Native Reserves to work for some months at a time either in the gold mines or in the several urban areas of the Union. 3. Transport makes geographical specialization possible, for agricultural or mineral resources will only be exploited, or specialized industries established, in a particular area, if the commodities produced can be transported to other parts of a country, or the world; and other capital and consumer goods brought to the producers living in the area of specialized production. 4. Transport faciitates industrial production because, of raw materials which come from many sources. Furthermore, transport enables the finished products of industry to be distributed to the markets in which they are sold. In all these cases, the efficiency of transport has to be measured not only in terms of its cost, but also in terms of its efficiency, which includes, inter alia, the time taken, the frequency of services, the safety of goods and passengers while in transit and the provision of various special services, such as the provision by railway undertakings of private siding facilities. This thesis will be divided into five parts, the first dealing with the technical and commercial development of the Buffalo Harbour. It has been decided to deal with the Harbour first because, not only has it been the focal point of the transport system of the Border Region since the latter part of the nineteenth century, but it has dominated the economic and commercial development of East London, as well as that of the Border Region as a whole. The second part deals with the evolution of the railway system from the 166 mile long East London and Queenstown Railway, to the present 1,110 miles of the Cape Eastern System. This historical chapter is followed by an analysis of the traffic of the Cape Eastern System. Part Three deals with the theory, practice, and economic consequences, of railway rating policy. Part Four is a detailed analysis of the goods traffic forwarded from, and received at East London in the period from 1st April, 1953 to 31st March, 1956. Part Five deals with roads and road transport. Finally, certain conclusions are offered, based on the significant points revealed by the investigation on which this thesis is based. In this thesis the theory of transport will not be dealt with in detail for it is essentially a factual account of the development of the transport system of the Border Region and an analysis of the present situation. It has unfortunately not been possible to make in this thesis a study of railway finance or railway economics with regard to the Cape Eastern System, for the data upon which to base such an investigation are not available for the Cape Eastern System in isolation. No attempt will be made to assess either the technical or the operating efficiency of the railway system for not only would this require more data than are available, but also a technical knowledge not possessed by the writer.