longer. The dock came to dominate Liverpool's far eastern trade, with over 90% of the city's silk imports from China coming through it and more generally half of all the far eastern trade income. Despite the great prosperity the dock afforded the city, within 20 years of its construction the Albert Dock was beginning to struggle. Designed and constructed to handle sailing ships of up to 1,000 tonnes, by the start of the 20th century only 7% of ships into the Port of Liverpool were sailing vessels. The development of steam ships in the later 19th century meant that soon the dock simply was not large enough, as its narrow entrances prevented larger vessels from entering it. Its lack of quayside was also becoming an issue. Generally steamships could be loaded and unloaded far quicker than sailing ships, and in a cruel twist of irony, the dockside warehouses that had once made the Albert Dock so attractive, were now hindering its future development. Nonetheless the Albert Dock remained an integral part of the dock system in Liverpool, and in 1878 the pump house was built as part of redevelopment that saw the majority of the cranes converted to hydraulic use. In 1899, part of the north stack was converted to allow for ice production and cold storage. By the 1920s, virtually all commercial shipping activity had ceased at the dock, although its warehouses did remain in use for the storage of goods transported by barge, road or rail. The onset of the Second World War, in 1939, saw the Albert Dock requisitioned by the Admiralty and used as base for the British Atlantic fleet. This included submarines, small warships, and landing craft docking. During the war, the dock was struck on several occasions by German bombs. This included one bombing raid in 1940 that damaged ships within the dock. More destructively, during the May Blitz of 1941, bombing caused extensive damage to the south west stack. By the end of the war, almost 15 per cent of the dock's floor space was unavailable due to bomb damage. Post War history and decline By the time the Second World War had finished the Albert Dock's future looked bleak. The owners of the dock, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (MDHB), were in financial crisis and chose not to repair any of the wartime bomb damage, adopting an attitude of "if it's