Chapter XXX: The A.b. (his Position)

From all of the foregoing it will doubtless be rightly assumed that the A.B. is in a most anomalous position at the present time. He may be a skilled mechanic, a man of energy, resource, and great abilities, or he may be just an unskilled labourer, with precisely the same pay and treatment as the best seaman afloat of the same grade. This is a bad state of things, but it is to be hoped that the system of continuous discharges now being introduced will make some alteration for the better. The maritime nations of Europe have long ago recognized the importance of having some definite record of a seaman's service, some means whereby it could be told at a glance whether he was a sailor or not. So that each French, or German, or Italian sailor has a little book wherein is entered what manner of man he is in appearance, and the date of every shipping and discharge he has experienced during his seafaring career. His behaviour also is there set down, and _viséd_ by consul or shipping-officer, as the case may be. Without this book he can in nowise get a ship of his own country's flag, but he can, and does, ship in British vessels where the rules are lax; where a discharge may be bought from a brother seaman outward bound, and used with impunity; where a man may be a worthless loafer, and yet suffer no penalties for taking a job for which he has no qualifications whatever. Let us hope that the system of continuous discharges will be all to the good.

But the prime cause of the lowering of the A.B. and of the anomalies in his position is undoubtedly the advent of the steamship. Blink the fact how we may, it remains true that what is wanted in a steamer is only a burly labourer who is able to steer--that is, as long as all goes well; and the percentages of disaster year by year are so small that no steamship owners need fear to take the risk of sending their ships to sea without a sailor, properly so called, except the officers on board. As I have said, matters are very different in the sailing ship. There the _sailor_ must be had, but the supply of British seamen dwindles so fast, that the foreigner from Scandinavia, from Germany, from Italy, comes in ever-increasing numbers for the sake of the higher pay and the easier life. And if the influx of foreign seamen was only confined to the sailing fleet the situation would not be so perilous. In one sense, of course, it will always be a danger, as long as sailing ships are considered, and rightly so, the only real training places for seamen. Because it means that we are not raising any more seamen to fill the places left vacant by death, and by men leaving the sea for shore-life. But, unfortunately, foreign seamen flow into the steamships as well, also in ever-increasing numbers. This is not at all easy to understand in the face of the facts that so little technical ability is required of the A.B. in steamers, and the number of unemployed men there are about our streets.

It may be that what is frequently said by our critics at home and abroad is true: that Britons are getting more and more loth to work at all; that when they get a job their first care is not to see how they can best satisfy their employer, but how little they can do for their money. If this be so, it is a fatal mistake on their part. It would be bad enough for themselves personally, if they had the monopoly of the world's labour markets; but, confronted with the down-trodden millions of Europe, who will work till they sink from exhaustion, without a complaint, who learn our language easily, and swarm into every opening that presents itself, such behaviour on the part of our workers is surely suicidal. This is especially true of seamen, where no restrictions are placed upon the number of foreigners employed, and when they can always be obtained. If a shipmaster happens to have had much trouble with a crew of his own countrymen on a voyage, he is almost sure to look out that he has foreigners next time. They are fully qualified--it is the rarest possible thing to find a foreign sailor who cannot do his work--and they will obey orders without grumbling.

Personally, I feel absolutely sure that the British seaman, properly so called--I do not mean a ship-navvy, who couldn't make a short splice, or seize a ratline on properly to save his life--is the finest in the world. For endurance, for skill, for reliability in time of danger, for resource in time of difficulty, he has no better. But, alas for the truth, he is departing; and I fear it will be no long time before his place in the Merchant Service will know him no more. What British seamen are capable of may be seen in the Navy, whose splendid handy-men are the envy of the world. Is it too much to hope that by some better method of training and treatment we might get just as fine a body of men in the Merchant Service? Perhaps it is, and yet--and yet there are those among us who do dream such a dream as this. We think that by means of a properly fostered and trained Naval Reserve we might build up a magnificent body of Merchant seamen with characters to lose; men who would take a pride in their position, and be a real bulwark to the country.

But such a Reserve would require the whole-hearted support of the Admiralty, not hardly-veiled enmity. Every seafaring man, with the best interest of his country at heart, knows full well how pitifully the grand opportunity afforded by the institution of the Royal Naval Reserve has been allowed to go to waste. Perhaps some day, before it is too late, the history of the Royal Naval Reserve will be written with inside knowledge of all the facts, and an amazing document it would make, though not more amazing than many similar documents dealing with the non-understandable ways of the great departments who spend the country's money.

Theoretically the Royal Naval Reserve should be a success. As far as the obtaining of officers is considered there is little doubt that it _is_ a success, even though Merchant officers who seek to pass into the Navy _viâ_ the Royal Naval Reserve are known by the invidious sobriquet of "the hungry half-hundred." Great shipping companies make it known that they wish their officers to belong to the Reserve, and straightway the thing is done. There is no compulsion, the suggestion is sufficient, and the retaining fee, being quite a nice little sum per annum, is also an inducement. But the numbers of the seamen in the Royal Naval Reserve do not increase. Why? There is a retaining fee of £6 per annum; there is also a guinea a week pay during drill, of which every member is supposed to put in six weeks a year. Seeing what sailors are, one would have thought that such a bait would have allured them in large numbers. And yet there is only about one-quarter of the number there should be. It is to be hoped most devoutly that, in the present agitation about the Navy and its various shortcomings, this will not be forgotten, and that it will be fully recognized that the only possible source of supply for the Navy in case of war is the Mercantile Marine.

To secure such a supply, it is imperative that the A.B. shall be looked after, made to feel that he is a man of some importance to the state, and that the good men shall not be handicapped by the wastrel; that a man shall earn the title of A.B. before he is permitted to take it, and that every man shipping as an A.B. who has no qualifications for that honourable post shall suffer for his misdeeds, his fraudulent burdening of his shipmates with work that he is unable to perform. Then I believe that we should get in the Merchant Service a good class of seamen, men who would not say that the sea was a life fit only for dogs. Under proper conditions, such as may even now be found, that statement is a libel. Speaking for myself, I can say with perfect candour that I have been as happy in ships before the mast as any workman could hope to be ashore. Where there is a good crew of men who know their work and will do it, decent food of good quality, and experienced officers, a sailor before the mast may, and does, have a very good time--infinitely better than any journeyman ashore, with all the worries attendant upon loss of employment, rent, strikes, etc. Only get the sailor to see that his business is a business that requires a trained man to make any hand at it, that the door into it is closed against the dock-walloper and the loafer, and that the same consideration that is meted out to mechanics ashore is accorded to him, and I am sure there would be a steady increase in the number of British seamen in British Merchant ships: aided, of course, by the institution of such a feeder as the non-premium apprenticeship I have already spoken about would be.

I am quite sure that British seamen are to be got and kept, if the powers that be will only go the right way to work, remembering that what is wanted is not so much fresh legislation as a little more use of the legislation already existing. Ship-owners are not anxious to carry foreign seamen, except, perhaps, in eastern trades, where lascars and Chinese come in handy. And even in those ships there will usually be found a stiffening of most excellent white seamen, who are usually British. No; the only question for the average ship-owner is, "How, in the face of the fierce and unscrupulous competition against which I have to fight, can I get my ships efficiently manned?" He wants men to earn their pay, pay which is higher than that of any other country, except America and Australia, and he does not at all concern himself about the nationality of those men. He leaves them, very properly, to those who will have to command them; but if masters of ships are made to believe that, no matter how good the pay and provisions given, they can never rely upon getting, in the first place, sailor-men of their own race at all, and, in the second, men of their own nationality who will work cheerfully for their pay without a constant succession of worrying rows, it must not be wondered at if they prefer the foreigner, who comes already broken in, trained in seamanship, polite, and hard-working, no matter where he hails from.

In bidding farewell to the A.B., I again earnestly express my full sympathy for and with him, and trust that ere long I shall have the joy of seeing A.B.'s of my own race again increasing in the British Merchant Service.