with two reporters: David Fairhall, BBC Television; John Peereboom, Dutch Television

For centuries London was the greatest port in the world: today Rotterdam leads while London lags - sadly behind. Yet both are now in peril-a peril which may be inevitable for those who must catch the tide to fortune. What happens on the Thames is vital to this country because so much of her wealth and tradition is derived from ships and the sea; and we cannot afford to ignore Rotterdam which seems to be setting the style for other ports In the 1970s.

This film is a co-production between the BBC and the Dutch Television station NCRV. Two reporters - David Fairhall, Defence and Shipping Correspondent of The Guardian, and John Peereboom, London Correspondent of NCRV - approach the subject from their individual viewpoints. Each, conscious of the crisis facing his own country, looks at the problem of his neighbour and competitor on the other side of the North Sea.

In London the problem is essentially one of stagnation. For the last 10 years the tonnage handled has been static at around 60 million tons. We are in danger of being left behind by the tide of economic expansion.

In Rotterdam the tonnage has climbed to three times that of London; but the danger for the Dutch is that they will be swept away by that tide, that they will be engulfed by the explosive industrial expansion that is an integral part of the new port.