Discussion

Mr D. C. Coode (Partner, Coode and Partners, Consulting Engineers, London) said that he wished first to make a few observations on Sir Eric Millbourn's Paper concerning the place of the engineer today in port development. The General Reporter had suggested that they should take Sir Eric to task in saying that consulting engineers and engineers in general were not fulfilling their job. Frankly, Mr Coode would very much like to do that, but he felt that there would be many others who would do it, and he had various other points to raise.

In general he agreed with the Author's remarks as to the responsibilities which rested on the shoulders of the engineer, but he honestly felt that many of the Author's remarks would be better addressed to administrations than to engineers. Sir Eric had suggested that an engineer should have advice from an economist when preparing a report on port works. But Mr Coode trusted that Sir Eric would agree with him that it was not strictly speaking an economist that was required, but a port manager with economic experience. As Sir Eric would remember, they had together been concerned in a report on possible development at Port of Trinidad. They had given a report, and at the time of the report Trinidad had been proposing to dispense with its railway system. Consequently, in the major port layout plan they had omitted railway lines. The local economists had said, "Just because railways are omitted in Trinidad, they still require them in the port which extends for a length of only J mile".