Page 47 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 47
Assistance to Ships and Cargo Handling in the Early Modern Port of Genoa
With regard to the efficiency of the overall services offered by the
Genoese port’s workforce, from pilotage to cargo handling both within
harbour waters and on shore, the strong guild system of port labour or-
ganization, while ensuring high quality standards, would often lead to
artificial increases in transport costs that had to be borne by the carri-
ers operating in the port of Genoa. Service prices were not the result of
free bargaining, nor did they follow the laws of supply and demand. They
were set by the guilds themselves, enjoying consolidated monopoly po-
sitions, and approved by the relevant city authorities: Padri del Comune
and Conservatori del Mare. This arrangement became a real problem in
the nineteenth century, when the, albeit slow, economic growth began
to clash with the traditional port labour system stifled by the stiff guild
organization and bound by ancient customs. Porterage services, in par-
ticular, were a source of concern for the Savoy government. They knew
too well that excessively high transport costs demanded by these work-
ers could discourage shippers from using the Genoese port, which served
as the sea outlet for the Savoy kingdom. The most evident consequence
of such a situation was, over time, some loss of competitiveness of the
Ligurian port in favour of other Mediterranean ports, where accessory
costs to the transport of goods by sea were, in certain periods, cheap-
er. However, its excessively high labour costs were certainly not the only
problem facing the port of Genoa, which was also beset by low draft,
chronic dearth of mooring areas, and lack of spaces for the storage of
goods on shore.
Only around the mid-nineteenth century, under the strong liberal-
ist drive launched by the Savoy government, did the Genoese Chamber
of Commerce – the body then in charge of the Free Port and responsible
for several other port matters – begin to challenge the system and to de-
finitively liberalize port services, thus getting rid of what still remained
of the, by then, obsolete guilds. Its organization and infrastructure had
clearly been exhausted by the exponential increase in traffic due to the
acquisition of the hinterland Liguria had always lacked, the development
of a railway network, and industrialization slowly rolling in. New invest-
ments and, above all, new operational specializations were necessary. A
crystallized situation is evident in an 1851 report (ASG, CC, 10, Note) on
the state of port labour: nothing had yet been done to adjust the sys-
tem to changed port needs, and the guilds of boatmen, caulkers, ship-
wrights, and porters could still impose their rules, with all subsequent
47
With regard to the efficiency of the overall services offered by the
Genoese port’s workforce, from pilotage to cargo handling both within
harbour waters and on shore, the strong guild system of port labour or-
ganization, while ensuring high quality standards, would often lead to
artificial increases in transport costs that had to be borne by the carri-
ers operating in the port of Genoa. Service prices were not the result of
free bargaining, nor did they follow the laws of supply and demand. They
were set by the guilds themselves, enjoying consolidated monopoly po-
sitions, and approved by the relevant city authorities: Padri del Comune
and Conservatori del Mare. This arrangement became a real problem in
the nineteenth century, when the, albeit slow, economic growth began
to clash with the traditional port labour system stifled by the stiff guild
organization and bound by ancient customs. Porterage services, in par-
ticular, were a source of concern for the Savoy government. They knew
too well that excessively high transport costs demanded by these work-
ers could discourage shippers from using the Genoese port, which served
as the sea outlet for the Savoy kingdom. The most evident consequence
of such a situation was, over time, some loss of competitiveness of the
Ligurian port in favour of other Mediterranean ports, where accessory
costs to the transport of goods by sea were, in certain periods, cheap-
er. However, its excessively high labour costs were certainly not the only
problem facing the port of Genoa, which was also beset by low draft,
chronic dearth of mooring areas, and lack of spaces for the storage of
goods on shore.
Only around the mid-nineteenth century, under the strong liberal-
ist drive launched by the Savoy government, did the Genoese Chamber
of Commerce – the body then in charge of the Free Port and responsible
for several other port matters – begin to challenge the system and to de-
finitively liberalize port services, thus getting rid of what still remained
of the, by then, obsolete guilds. Its organization and infrastructure had
clearly been exhausted by the exponential increase in traffic due to the
acquisition of the hinterland Liguria had always lacked, the development
of a railway network, and industrialization slowly rolling in. New invest-
ments and, above all, new operational specializations were necessary. A
crystallized situation is evident in an 1851 report (ASG, CC, 10, Note) on
the state of port labour: nothing had yet been done to adjust the sys-
tem to changed port needs, and the guilds of boatmen, caulkers, ship-
wrights, and porters could still impose their rules, with all subsequent
47
