Chapter VI: Part I: I (3)

The spirit of these mediaeval Shipping Acts was devoted as well to restrain the lawless doings of the seamen as to check the inhuman plunderings of the coast dwellers. The rights and duties of master and man were clearly defined: in the schedule of penalties, the master's forfeit was enhanced, as his was assumed to be the better intelligence. For barratry and major sea-crimes, the penalty was death and dismemberment. All pilots who wrecked their charges for benefit of the lords of the sea-coast were to be hung on a gibbet, and so exhibited to all men, near the spot where the vessels they had misdirected were come on shore. The lord of the foreshore who connived at their acts was to suffer a dire fate. He was to be burned on a stake at his own hearthstone, the walls of his mansion to be razed, and the standing turned to a market-place for barter of swine! Drastic punishment! Doubtless kingly Richard drew abhorrence for the wrecker from his own bitter experience on the inhospitable rocky coast of Istria!

Little detail has come down to us of the means adopted to enforce these just acts. Of the difficulties of their enforcement we may judge a little from the character of the seamen as presented by contemporary chronicles. . . .

"_Full many a draught of wyn had he drawe
From Burdeux-ward, whil that the chapman sleep.
Of nyce conscience took he no keep.
If that he foughte, and hadde the heigher hand,
By water he sent hem hoom to every land._"

. . . Thus Chaucer; but Chaucer was a Collector of Customs, and would possibly assess the stolen draught of Bordeaux as a greater crime than throwing prisoners overboard! From evidence of the date, Richard's shipping laws seem to have been but lightly regarded by the lords of the foreshore. In the reign of King John, wrecking had become a practice so common that prescriptive rights to the litter of the beaches was included in manorial charters, despite the Role that . . . "the pieces of the ship still to belong to the original owners, notwithstanding any custom to the contrary . . . and any participators of the said wrecks, whether they be bishops, prelates, or clerks, shall be deposed and deprived of their benefices, and if lay people they are to incur the penalties previously recited."

It was surely by more than mere chance the churchmen were thus specially indicted! Perhaps it was by a temporal as well as a spiritual measure that Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, strove to remove a reproach to the Church. He founded a Guild of sea-samaritans, a Corporation

"of godly disposed men, who, for the actual
suppression of evil disposed persons bringing
ships to destruction by the shewing forth of false
beacons, do bind themselves together in the Love
of our Lord Christ, in the name of the Masters and
Fellows of Trinity Guild to succour from the
dangers of the sea all who are beset upon the
coasts of England, to feed them when ahungered and
athirst, to bind up their wounds, and to build and
light proper beacons for the guidance of
mariners."

An earnest and compassionate Charter: a merciful and honourable Commission.

In this wise was formed our Alma Mater, the ancient guild of shipmen and mariners of England. Subsequent charters advanced their titles as they enlarged their duties and charges. In 1514, Henry VIII confirmed their foundation under style of . . . "Master, Wardens, and Accistants of the Guild or Fraternity of the Most Glorious and Undivided Trinity, and of St. Clement, in the Parish of Deptford Strond, in the County of Kent." Some years later, the 'accistants' were subdivided as Elder and Younger Brethren, the Foundation being familiarly referred to as the Corporation of Trinity House.

In early days, their efforts were directed in charity to stricken seafarers, in humane dispensation, in erection and maintenance of sea-marks, in training and provision of competent sea and coast pilots--a line of endeavour directed by the Godly Primate, in his Commission. Beacons were built on dangerous points of the coast, keepers appointed to serve them, watchers detailed to observe the vessels as they passed and restrain the activities of the wrecker. The magnitude of the task, the difficulties of their office, the powerful counter-influences arrayed against their beneficent role, may be judged by an incident that occurred as late as little over a hundred and twenty years ago. . . . "When Ramsgate Harbour, as a port of refuge from storm and stress, was intended, and the business was before Parliament, a petition from the Lord of the Manor tended to accelerate matters. He represented to the House, while the Bill was depending, that, _as the wrecks on the coast belonged to him and formed a considerable part of his property, he prayed that the Bill would not pass_!"

Established in charity for the guardianship of the coasts, the Brethren of Trinity passed to a supervision of the ships and the seamen. Although a closely guarded Corporation, qualifications for entry were simply those of sea-knowledge. The business of shipping, if more hazardous and difficult on the sea, was less complicated in its landward connections than is its modern conduct. The merchants were well content to be guided in their affairs by their sea-partners, the men who actually commanded and sailed the ships. The voyages, ship construction, refitment and victualling were matters that could only be advised by the skilled seamen. Jealous for professional advancement, the Brethren of Trinity held their ranks open only to skilled master seamen and to kindred sea-tradesmen--the shipwrights and rope-makers. While attracting leaders and statesmen to the higher and more ornamental offices, control was largely vested in the Elder and Younger Brethren--technical advisers, competent to understand sea-matters.

In no small measure, the rise and supremacy of our shipping is due to their wise direction and control. They were the sole machinery of the State for control of the ships and the seaman. Survey and inspection of sea-stores, planning and supervision of ship construction, registry and measurement of vessels, had their beginning in the orderly efforts of the Brethren. Examination of the competence of masters was part of their duties--as was their arbitration in crew disputes. They licensed and supplied seafarers of all classes to the 'King's Ships,' tested their ordnance and examined the ammunition. Their reading of the ancient charter of their foundation was wide and liberal in its scope--"_to build, and light proper beacons for the guidance of mariners_" was their understanding. In construction and equipment and maintenance of sea-marks, in licence and efficient service of their coastal pilots, they carried out to the letter the text of their covenant; in spirit, they understood a guidance that was less material if equally important. Their beacons were not alone standing structures of stone and lime, but world-marks in precept and ordinance, in study and research. They held bright cressets aloft to illuminate the difficult seaways in the paths of navigation and science of the seafarer. They placed facilities for the study of seamanship before the mariners and sought to advance the science of navigation in line with the efforts of our sea-competitors. The charts and maps of the day--most of them being rude Dutch draft sheets--were improved and corrected, and new surveys of the coastal waters were undertaken at charge and patronage of the Brethren. Captain Greenville Collins, Hydrographer to Charles II, bears witness to their high ideals in presenting to the Corporation the fruits of his seven years' labour in survey and charting of the coast. The preface to his work is made noteworthy by his reference to the practice of the day--the haphazard alterations on the charts that brought many a fine ship to grief.

". . . I then, as in Duty bound (being a Younger
Brother) did acquaint you with it, and most humbly
laid the Proposals before you; whereupon you were
pleased not only to approve of them, but did most
bountifully advance towards the charge of the work.
. . . I could heartily wish that it might be so
ordered by your Corporation, that all Masters of
Ships, both using Foreign and Home Voyages, might
be encouraged to bring you in their Journals, and a
Person appointed to inspect them; which would be a
great Improvement of Navigation, by imparting
their Observations and Discoveries of the true Form
and Prospect of the Sea Coast . . . and other
dangerous Places. . . . And that those Persons who
make and sell Sea Charts and Maps, were not allowed
to alter them upon the single Report of Mariners,
but with your approbation; by which means our Sea
Charts would be more correct and the common Scandal
of their Badness removed."

In all her enactments and activities, our Alma Mater ever preserved a worthy pride in her sons. Enthusiasm for a gallant profession, patronage for advancement in sea-skill and learning, a keen and studied interest in whatever tended to elevate and ennoble the calling of the sea, were her inspiring sentiment. Even in wise reproof and cautionary advice, her words were tempered by a brave note of pride--as though, under so many difficulties and serious dangers, she gloried in our work being worthily undertaken. In charge to the seaman, Captain Collins continues his kindly preface:

"It sometimes happens, and that too frequently,
that when Ships which have made long and dangerous
Voyages, and are come Home richly laden, have been
shipwrecked on their native Coast, whereby both
Merchants, Owners, and Mariners have been
impoverished. All our neighbours will acknowledge,
that no Nation abounds more with skilful and
experienced Seamen than our own; none meeting a
Danger with more Courage and Bravery . . . so a
Master of a ship has a very great Charge, and
ought to be a sober Man, as well as a skilful
Mariner: All Helps of Art, Care, and
Circumspection are to be used by him, that the
Lives of Mariners (the most useful of their
Majesties' Subjects at this juncture) and the
Fortunes of honest Merchants under his Care may be
preserved."

For over three hundred years, our Alma Mater flourished as the spring of our seafaring--a noble and venerable Corporation, concerned solely and alone with the sea and the ships and the seamen. The Brethren saw only one aim for their endeavours--the supremacy of the sea-trade, the business by which the nation stood or fell. Nor was theirs an inactive part in all the long sea-wars and crises that reacted on our commerce. Before a navy existed, the stout old master-seamen of Deptford Strond were charged with the sea-defences of the capital. The new naval forces came under their control at a later date, and we have the record of an efficiency in administration that showed prevision and thought well in advance of that of their landward contemporaries. Piracy, privateering, the restraints of rulers and princes, were dealt with in their day. At critical turns in the courses of our naval conduct, it was to the steersmen of Trinity that the Ministers of the State relied for prompt and seamanlike action. The 'sea to the seamen' was the rule. Adapting their resources to the needs of the day, the Brethren were held fast by no conventional restraint. They assisted peaceful developments in trade in the quieter years, but could as readily mobilize for war service under threat of invasion, or turn their skilled activities to removal of the sea-marks to prevent the sailing of a mutinous fleet. In the long and stormy history of Trinity House there were many precedents to guide the action of the Brethren on the outbreak of war. As guardians of the sea-channels and the approaches to our coasts, they manned these misty sea-trenches on the outbreak of war in 1914. Weaponless, by exercise of a skill in pilotage and a resolution worthy of great traditions, the Trinity men have held that menaced line intact. That little has been said about their great work is perhaps a tradition of their service.

We are parted now. The Merchants' Service is no longer a studied and valued interest of the ancient corporation. In an assured position as arbiters between the State and the shipping industry, the Trinity Brethren could combine a just regard for the merchants' interest with a generous and understanding appreciation of the seamen's trials and difficulties. If for no other reason than the record of past endeavours, they should still control the personnel of the Merchants' Service, in regulating the scheme of our education, the scope of our qualification for office, the grades of our service, the essence of our sea-conduct. But in the fickle doldrums of the period when steam superseded sail as our motive power, we drifted apart. Shipping interests have become complicated with land ventures, as widely different from them as the marine engine is from our former sail plan. In 1850 the Merchants' Service was placed under control of the Board of Trade; we were handed over to a Board that is no Board--a department of the State with little, if any, sea-sentiment, and that is sternly resolved to repress all our efforts to regain a voice in the control of our own affairs.

THE BOARD OF TRADE

IF we may claim the ancient Corporation of Trinity House as the Alma Mater of the Merchants' Service, we may liken our comparatively new directorate, the Board of Trade, to our Alma step-Mater--an austere, bureaucratic dame, hard-working and earnest, perhaps, but lacking the kindly spirit of a sea-tradition. She is utterly out of touch and sympathy with a sea-sense--her arms, overstrained perhaps by the tremendous burden of charge upon charge that comes to her for settlement, are never open to the seamen. Sullenly, we resent her dictation as that of a usurper--a lay impropriator of our professional heritage. Under her coldly formal direction, we may attend our affairs in diligence and prudence, but for us there is no motherly licence; she has no pride in our doings (if one counts not the vicious insistence of her statistics)--we are only the stepchildren of her adoption, odd men of the huge and hybrid family over whom she has been set to cast a suspicious, if guardian, eye. While Trinity House was concerned alone with the conduct of shipping and sea-affairs, our new controllers of the Board of Trade have interests in charge as widely apart as the feeding of draught-horses and the examination of a bankrupt cheesemonger. We are but a Department. The sea-service of the nation, the key industry of our island commerce, is governed by a subdivision in a Ministry that has long outgrown the limits of a central and answerable control. Instead of settlement by a contained and competent Ministry of Marine, our highly technical sea-conduct is ruled for us in queue with longshore affairs, sandwiched, perhaps, between horse-racing and the period of the dinner table.

"_The President of the Board of Trade has
intimated to the Stewards of the National Hunt
Committee that . . . it is not possible to sanction
a list of fixtures for the season._"

"Mr. Peto asked the President of the Board of
Trade whether his attention has been called to the
decision of Mr. Justice Rowlatt . . . in which
judgment was given for the plaintiff company,
owners of the steamship X----, sunk in collision,
due to steaming without lights."

"_The President of the Board of Trade announces
modifications of the Lighting Order during the
present week, one effect being that the
prohibition of the serving of meals in hotels
after 9.30 p.m. is temporarily suspended._"

Perhaps we were rather spoilt by the pride that was in us when our seafaring was ruled by the appreciative Brethren of Trinity, and it may be as a repressive measure of discipline the Board of Trade extends no particular favour to our sea-trade, and has indeed gone further in being at pains to belittle our sea-deeds, and disparage a recognition of our status. Our controllers are anxious that their ruling of award and reward should suffer no comparison. For gallantry at sea, the grades of their recognition may vary from the Silver Medal (delivered, perhaps, as in a recent case, with the morning's milk) to a sextant or a pair of binoculars.

In 1905 a very gallant rescue was effected by the men of the Liverpool steamer _Augustine_. The crew of a Greek vessel were taken from their foundering ship in mid-Atlantic under circumstances of great peril. Not only was boat service performed in tempestuous weather, but the officers of _Augustine_ themselves jumped overboard to try to save the Greek seamen, who were too far exhausted to hold on to the life-lines and buoys thrown to them. The King of Greece, in recognition of the gallantry and humanity displayed, signed a decree conferring on the British master and his officers the Gold Decoration of the Redeemer.

A general view would be that this was an award quite appropriate to the services rendered, an expression by the Greek Government that they wished to place the names of the gallant savers of their seamen on the Roll of their Honour. Our Board of Trade objected. Through the Foreign Office, they appear to have informed the Greek Government that such distinguished awards were unusual and might prove a source of dissatisfaction in future cases. Possibly they viewed the appearance of a ribbon on the breast of a merchant seaman as an encroachment on the rights of their own permanent officials. The awards were not made; silver medals were substituted, which Captain Forbes and his officers, learning of the Board's action, did not accept. On a later occasion the same unsympathetic influence was exercised; the Russian Order of St. Stanislaus was withdrawn and replaced by a gold watch and chain!

In supervision of our qualifications as masters and mates, the Board of Trade has followed the lines of least resistance. It is true that they have established certain standards in navigation and seamanship that we must attain in order to hold certificates, but the training to these standards has never been an interest of their Department. While our shipmate, the marine engineer, has opportunity in his apprenticeship on shore to complete his education, we are debarred from the same facility. Apprenticed to the sea at from fourteen to sixteen years of age, our youth bid good-bye to their school books and enter on a life of freedom from scholarly restraint--a 'kindergarten' in which their toys are hand-implements of the sea. There is no need to worry; there is no study required for four years; a week or two at the crammer's will suffice to satisfy the Board of Trade when apprenticeship days were over. And the fault does not lie with the 'crammer.' Scholarly and able and competent, as most of them are, to impart a better and more thorough instruction, the system of leaving all to the voyage's end offers to them no alternative but to present the candidate for examination as rapidly as possible. Sea-apprentices of late years did not often share in a scheme of instruction afloat. Rarely were they carried as complements to a full crew; for the most part they were workmen in a scant manning--'greenhorns'--drudges to the whim of any grown man. In a rough measure, the standard of such seamanship as they _gathered_ was good--else we had been in ill case to-day--but it was without method or apprehension--a smattering--the only saving grace of which lay in the ready resource that only seafaring engenders. The exactions of a busy working sea-life left little leisure for self-advancement in study; the short, and ever shortening, intervals of a stay in port provided small opportunity for exercise of a helping hand from the shore. By deceptive short cuts that gave small enlightenment, by rules--largely mnemonic--we passed our tests and obtained our certificates. On shore, the landward youth fared better. The spirit of the times provided a free and growing opportunity for the study of technics and advance of scientific craftsmanship. The Navy took full advantage of this tide. The Board of Admiralty saw the futility of the old system of sea-training, having regard to the complete alteration of the methods in seamanship and navigation. Naval education could no longer be compensated by a schedule of bugle-calls and the exactitude of a hammock-lashing. Concurrent with a sound sea-training, general education was insisted upon. Zealously Admiralty guided their youth on a path that led to a culture and appreciation of values, wide in scope, to serve their profession. If it was essential, in the national interest, that the general education and sea-training of naval officers should be so closely supervised, it was surely little less important that that of the merchants' officers should receive some measure of attention. But for the private efforts of some few shipowners, nothing on the lines of a considered scheme was done. No assistance or advice or grant in aid was made by the Board of Trade. While drawing to their coffers huge sums, accumulations of fines and forfeitures, deserters' wages, fees, the unclaimed earnings of deceased seamen, they could afford no assistance to guide the youthful seaman through a course of right instruction to a better sea-knowledge; they made no advances to place our education on a less haphazard basis. It may be cited as an evidence of _their_ indifference that a large proportion of unsuccessful candidates for the junior certificates fail in a test of _dictation_.

With our entry to the war at sea in 1914, the same indifference was manifest. There was no mobilization or registration of merchant seamen to aid a scheme of manning and to control the chaos that was very soon evident. Despite their intimate knowledge of the gap in our ranks made by the calling-up of the Naval Reserve--accentuated by the enlistment of merchant seamen in the Navy--the Board of Trade could see no menace to the sea-transport service in the military recruitment of our men. It was apparently no concern of theirs that we sailed on our difficult voyages short-handed, or with weak crews of inefficient landsmen, while so many of our skilled seamen and numbers of our sea-officers were marking time in the ranks of the infantry. Under pressure of events, it was not until November 1915 they took a somewhat hesitating step. This was their proclamation; it may be contrasted with Captain Greenville Collins's preface.

"MAINTENANCE OF BRITISH SHIPPING

"At the present time the efficient maintenance of
our Mercantile Marine is of vital national
interest, and captains, officers, engineers, and
their crews will be doing as good service for
their country by continuing to man British ships
as by joining the army.

"THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE."

"AT the present time"! Possibly our Board was writing in anticipation of the completion of the Channel tunnel, or of a date when our men-at-arms and their colossal equipment, the food and furnishings of the nation, the material aid to our Allies, could be transported by air. "As good service"! An equality! An option! Was it a matter of simple balance that a seaman on military service was using his hardily acquired sea-experience as wisely as in the conduct of his own skilled trade, as efficiently as in maintaining the lines of our oversea communications? Events at this date were proving that we had no need to go ashore for fighting service.

In the first violence of unrestricted submarine warfare, the Board advanced little, if any, assistance to the victims of German savagery. Their machinery existed only to repatriate torpedoed crews under warrant as "distressed British seamen"; they were content to leave destitution, hunger--the rags and tatters of a body covering--to be relieved and refitted by the charitable efforts of philanthropic Seamen's Societies. To them--to the kindly souls who met us at the tide-mark--we give all honour and gratitude, but it was surely a shirking of responsibility on part of our Board that placed the burden of our maintenance on the committee of a Seaman's Bethel. As a tentative measure, our controllers advanced a scheme of insurance of effects--a business proposition, of which many took advantage. Later, this was altered to a gratuitous compensation. Cases occurred in which distressed seamen had a claim under both schemes: their foresight was not accounted to them. Although proof might be forthcoming of the loss of an outfit that the small compensation could not cover, they could claim only on one or the other, the insurance or the gratuitous compensation. It was evident that the Board derived some measure of assistance from the examiners in bankruptcy on their staff.

In certain seaports--notably at Southampton--Sailors' Homes (built and endowed for the comfort and accommodation of the merchant seamen) were permitted, without protest, to be requisitioned by Admiralty for the sole use of their naval ratings. The merchantmen, on service of equal importance and equal danger, were turned out to the streets, and our Board took no action, registered no complaint.

To await popular clamour was evidently a guiding principle with our controllers. Their view was probably that we were private employees in trading ventures, that their concern was only to see the sea-law carried out. Sea-law, however, was not in question in the case of the master and officers of _Augustine_, and, if they could assume the right to interfere in that personal matter, they accepted a position as curators of the personnel of the Merchants' Service. They cannot complain if our understanding of their duties does not agree with theirs. Deliberately, they have asserted that our sea-conduct is within their province.

An extraordinary matter is the character and calibre of the Board's marine officials. Unquestionably able and personally sympathetic as they are, it remains the more incomprehensible that our governance is so stupidly controlled. Perhaps their submissions fail of acceptance in the councils of a higher control--that has also to decide on horse-racing and bankruptcy. Under a less heavily encumbered Ministry, our affairs should receive the consideration that is their due. It required but little experience of the new sea-warfare to establish our claim to be considered a national service with a mission and employment no less vital and combatant than that of the enlisted arms. Master and man, we have earned the right to no small voice in the control of our own affairs. Our sea-interests are large enough to require a separate Department of the State, a Ministry of Marine, in which we should have a part.

The Board of Trade has failed us, they have proved unworthy of our confidence. Quite lately they began to mobilize and register the mercantile seamen of the country. _Three years and nine months after the outbreak of war, they sounded the 'assembly' of the Merchants' Service._ Let that be their epitaph!

V

MANNING

SEA-LABOUR cannot be likened to employment on shore. Once signed and boarded and to sea, there can be no dismissal and replacement of the men such as may be seen any morning at the street gates of a workshop or shipyard. Good or bad, we are bound as shipmates for a voyage. Ordinary laws and regulations cannot reach us in our sailing; we are given the Merchant Shipping Act for our guidance, the longest and wordiest Act on the Statute Book, a measure that presupposes a discipline that no longer exists. Our ships, in size and power--our complement, in number and character--have altered greatly beyond the views of the Act. That statute, that in its day may have sufficed to set a standard of law and order to the moderate crews of our sailing ships, is utterly inadequate to control effectively the large ship's company of our modern steam vessels. The men, too, are changed--the sailormen, perhaps, not greatly--but, with the thundering evolution of steam-power, we have drawn grown men to the fires, ready-made men, uninfluenced by traditions of sea-service. We had no hand in their making--in the early years when discipline may be inculcated and character be formed. The drudgery and uninterest of their heavy work makes for a certain reaction that frequently finds its expression in violence and criminal disorder. The short voyage system and the grossly inadequate provisions of the Act afford no opportunity to guide the reaction in a less vicious direction. We hailed as a benefactor to the sea the inventor of single topsails; the statistics of our sea-fatalities give a definite date to their introduction. Daily we pray for an inventor to emancipate our stokehold gangs.

It would be idle to pretend that, as master-seamen, we were not disquieted by our manning problem, following upon the outbreak of war. While mobilization of the Army Reserve drew men from all industries in a proportion that did not affect seriously any one employment, the calling-up of the Royal Naval Reserve strained our resources in men to the utmost. Seamen, naval or mercantile, are of one great trade: the balance of our activities being thrown suddenly and violently to one side of our engagement could not fail in disorganizing the other. Added to the outgoing of the retained Reserve seamen, recruitment of a new Reserve to man Auxiliaries and Special Service vessels was almost instantly begun. There were many applicants; the choice naturally fell upon our best men remaining. In and after August 1914, we were short-handed in the Merchants' Service. We were, indeed more than short-handed, for the loss of our steadiest men had effect in removing a certain check upon indiscipline. We missed just that influence upon which, for want of adequate authoritative powers, we counted to preserve some measure of subordinance in our ranks.

Large vessels were most seriously affected. The service of troop transport suffered and was delayed. On occasion, there was the amazing instance of some 1500 trained and disciplined troops standing by to await the sobering-up and return to duty of a body of seamen and firemen. Drunkenness is not yet accounted a crime, but the holding up of vital reinforcements was no petty fault. Under the Act we were empowered to inflict a fine of exactly five shillings on each offender. The offence that held 1500 soldiers in check was met by a mulct of two half-crowns.

The Army and the Naval Authorities were startled, as at a situation they had not contemplated. Masters and officers, if not actually challenged, were deemed to be responsible for such a state of insubordination among their crews. While such an assumption was, to a degree, unjust, it is true that we were not wholly blameless. For the sake of a quiet commercial life, we had accepted the difficulties of our manning without protest. In this we erred. Had we been an independent and economically fearless body, we would, in the days before the war, have refused to proceed to sea with any less than the summary powers held by a magistrate on shore to enforce law and order in his district. It is true that no magisterial powers will prevent drunkenness, but that condition on the ships was due directly to the general indiscipline that we were unable wholly to control.

The state of affairs called for more than a merely temporary measure, but our controllers advanced no settlement--only they devised an expedient. The situation was met, not by a firm action that would affect all merchant ships and seamen alike, but by a Defence of the Realm regulation that operated only when ships were chartered directly by Government. The opportunity to make the merchantmen's forecastle a place for decent men to earn a living was passed by. While admitting, by their concern, that the matter called for redress, Government could only take action in cases where their bureaucratic interests were threatened. Vessels on purely commercial voyages, including carriage of the mails and millions in the nation's securities, were left without the regulation: we had to carry on as best we could. It entailed hardship on the better-disposed members of our ships' companies: in whatever fashion, the work had to be carried on: we taxed our steady men to the limit. The effect upon them may be judged when they realized that the delinquency of their shipmates, whose duty they had undertaken, was assessed at the price of a pound of 'Fair Maid' tobacco.

While the quality of our men was thus affected, we suffered in their diminished numbers. Without a protest from our governing body, the Board of Trade, the army took a toll of our seamen. Thus early, it was not realized that we merchantmen would have to fight for our ships and our lives at sea. The drums of field-war set up a note that was heard outside of six fathoms of blue water; large numbers of our seamen and many ships' officers joined up for military service. There was a certain measure of compensation afforded by the industrial situation ashore. As the magnitude of the world conflict was realized, nervous employers of labour reduced their staffs. All workmen suffered, the building trades being perhaps most affected. As needs must, we were open to recruit able-bodied men: we had to make seamen, and that quickly. Masons, brick-layers, tilers, slaters--they reached tide-mark in their quest for employment. We were glad enough to sign them on to make up our complements. At the first they were not of great value. Unused to the sea and ship-life, they had to be nursed through stormy weather: a source of anxiety to the watch-keeper when the seas were up. In time they became moderately efficient. As good tradesmen, they had a self-respect that could be encouraged: they were not difficult to control.

Of these, perhaps 50 per cent. made a second voyage, but not more than 10 per cent. remained at sea permanently. Their reasons for returning to the beach were always the same. Not the hard work or the seas appalled them, but the class of men with whom they had to live and work. Some of our recruits had other objects in view than a desire for a sea-life. At ports abroad, notably in the United States, they deserted. Strict as the Federal machinery is for regulating immigration into the United States, there appeared to be no keen desire on the part of the authorities to embarrass the improper entry of our men. It was not difficult to assign a cause for their laxity. Technically, the men were seamen. Our Uncle Sam was stirring towards true sea-power--the acquisition of large mercantile fleets. The native American could see no prosperous commercial career in the forecastle: only from abroad might labour be obtained for operation of the ships. We had done the same in our time. Desertions were not confined to the landsmen of our crews. A situation arose quickly, in which it became profitable for our men to desert abroad and re-sign on another ship at an enhanced pay. As though to facilitate their breach of agreement, it was not long before the United States Seamen's Act came into force. By some international process that we seamen are not yet able to understand, this Act became operative on every vessel entering an American port. It establishes, for all seamen, the 'right to quit.' Strangely, our men did not all abandon ship. Some stirring of the patriotism that, later, became pronounced among them must have had effect in restraining wholesale disembarkation. Short-handed by perhaps an eighth of a full crew, we made our return voyages. By shift and expedient, we kept a modest head of steam. The loss was almost wholly at the fires. Stewards were set to deck duties and the look-out, the released sailormen went below to the stokehold--on occasion, passengers were recruited on board to bear a hand. Perhaps the public grumbled at receiving their letters an hour or two behind time.

It is not easy to advance reasons for the new and better spirit that came to us coincident with the appearance of German savagery at sea. Restrictions of the supply of drink had effect in enabling us to commence a voyage under good conditions, without brawling and bloodshed in the forecastle. An atmosphere of determination was, perhaps, introduced by the tales of undying heroism in the trenches that reached us. The losses in ships served partially to supplement the numbers of men available: a choice could be made in engagement of a crew. Over all, there was the menace to our seafaring--the threat and challenge to our sea-pride, as compelling and remedial as the draught of a free breeze. In his action, the enemy made many miscalculations; not the least was when he roused a spirit of readiness to service in our merchantmen; he blew more than the acrid fumes into us with the shattering explosion of his torpedoes.

If we may claim a patriotic influence acting upon our white seamen as reason for good service in the war, how shall we assess the lascar's quiet employment in a conflict that, perhaps, only dimly he understood? Of its operation he could have no ignorance. _Schrecklichkeit_ was particularly to be employed against the native seaman. Shell and torpedo took toll of his numbers, but there was little hesitancy when he was invited to sign for further voyages. It was ever a point of prophecy with his detractors in the days of peace that he would be found wanting under stress. Not boldly or magnificently or in a spirit of vainglory, but in a manner that is not the less impressive because few have spoken of it, he has given them the lie.

The attitude of the naval authorities in regard to our manning is peculiar. They seem to be unable to think of ships' crews in any other terms than that of their own large complements. There is one part in the lectures of our instructional course that never fails to arouse rude merriment among the master-seamen attending--as it produces a shamefaced attitude on part of the naval lecturer (now intimate with our difficulties). In instructions for detailing our men to 'action stations' the phrases occur: "a party to be detached for attention to wounded," "a party to serve hoses at fire stations," "an ammunition supply party," "party to put the provisions and blankets in the boats." In practice, we are also working the guns, attending the navigation, spotting the fall of shot, keeping post at wheel and look-out. The average cargo vessel rarely carries more than eight men on deck: we cannot afford to have many wounded!