88
to man our 13,000,000 tons of merchant ship. ping! How far we can depend on foreigners has not yet been satisfactorily settled, but in any case it will never do to take them into the calculation, for every affort would be made to deprive us of their services. Now no other na tion could deprive us of our own gallaut true blues if we had enough of them and the word went forth that they were wanted by their country, proper treatment being insured to them and a pension. That is the situation in
• nutshell, unincumbered by ponderous statis. tics. The few figures I have given can be under stood by all of you without any great mental effort, and I venture to think you will all admit that they present a very serious problem for solution. To show how we stand as to our Naval Reserve I will ask you to listen to the following statement taken from the Navy Estimates for 1899-1900;- Qualified seamen, 1st class (old system) 11,700 Seamen class, 2nd class (old system) 11,300 Boys
250 3,500
Fireman
Pensioners.
Seamen
Royal Marines
Total
A
8,959 2,949
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
!
[July 29, 1899.
expensive Board of Trade advice, or even special line of steamers will tell you that it is not legislation. The petition of the Shipping Fede his duty to train boys into seamen to join the ration, Limited, a body representing 75 per Naval Reserve, boys cost as much to feed as cent. of our 13,000,000 tons of shipping, to: The men, and do less work." His business is "to House of Commons sets forth that British earn dividends for his shareholders and com- shipowners only "Humbly pray your Honour mission for himself." No doubt, he is right in able House to take such measures as will ensure his contention, but it has been shown that it is complete equality of Trade in British waters. of national importance, that shipowners should also to order the publication of returus stating carry boys in their ships, so as to increase the the numbers and nationality of foreign-boru supply of British seamen, and should employ seamen who are resident, or settled, in this British seamen, instead of foreigners and country and who are available for sea service in Lascars, so that we may have an ample supply the same way as are British subjects." Equality in reserve to meet our requirements in time of of opportunity and conditions with foreign war. Now if shipowners will do this, they do tonnage in British waters represent the maxi- it not because they are under any legal obliga- mum demand made on behalf of British ship, tion to do so for the carrying on of the busi ping from the British Governmen, as is statedness, but for reasons of state, and therefore in the Shipping World of May 10th.
the nation should make them reasonable com- pensation for the service rendered.
Mr. Ritchie stated that he had been in some difficulty, as he hardly knew, when the deputation first approached him, whether it was intended to make representation from a naval or a mercantile marine point of view." Now, the Navy League had been 18 months corresponding with the Board or Trade about & scheme to enroll and train boy seamen and had furnished Mr. Ritobie with a printed resume of their views previous to his receiving the deputation, so that we see his attitude was simply intended to blaf the deputation. It would be an insult to his intelligence to say that he had not studied this question and mastered every detail of it, but of course he had to give way to party considerations, and this with all respect to Mr. Ritchie, who perhaps has done more to put matters right than any of his redecessors in office. Let us glance at what the Navy League and their supporters con- sider the principal points requiring attention so as to put the mercantile marine on a better footing.
of
{
1. The entry, employment, and care boy seamen.
Royal Naval Reserve men in preference to 2-Inducement to shipowners to employ foreigners and others, and to man their ships exclusively with Britishers.
3.-Old age pensions.
Since 1853 the sea service has fallen into disr-pute with the labouring classes, as there is a stigma attaching to lads from the reforma- tory ships, and unless a lad commits a crime and gets sent to a reformatory ship there is very little chance of his getting into the m-r chant service as a seaman. Again, with a School Board education young men can do better on shore than by going to sea before the mast, and in these days, of universal knowledge they will not put up with indifferent food and dog's
holes to live in, in addition to all the other dis.
comforts of a sailor's life in the modern tramp. A good seaman of standing and experience does not care to serve alongside of inexperi- enced tramps and loafers with hardly a word of English at their command. The scarcity of
6+
British seamen is not due to the absence of im- provements in their wages corresponding to the rise in wages for trades on shore; for the wages of an able seaman have risen from about 45/. per month in 1850 to about 60/- and to 80/- per month at the present times." If there are no means for enabling lads to train and qualify as will be kept up? The official returns are in- seamen, how can it be expected that the supply structive on this point. At the present time there are under 7,000 lads under training, where us in 1850 there were something like 36,000 ap- prentices uuder training. A large proportion of the 7,000 have paid considerable sums as pre- inium to enable them to qualify as officers. I think I have said enough to show you that the blame for the scarcity of British seamen is not altogether due to the British shipowner.
LIGHT DUES.
38,658. Now I hardly think that any one in this colony will argue that such a reserve is sufficient for a Navy such as ours! And the measure of our requirements is not the requirements of the Chancelor of the Exchequer, but the scale of preparation of other maritime Powers. It is now admitted that for our Naval Reserve we must rely on the mercantile marine, and, owing to the employment of apprentices being discontinued, we find that British seamen are not being produced to replace those who die out, with the result that British seamen get scarcer year by year and from 1893 to 1897 they decreased by about 10,000. In 1851 there were about 6.000 foreigners and Lascars employed in British ships, in 897 there were over 65,000 of them employed. The Navy League after about eighteen months' correspon dence with the Government departments con- cerned, and many of the County Councils, pro-
It has been suggested that the increased duced a scheme for the enrollment and training employment of foreigners is fine to the follow of Boy Seamen, and the views of the League
ing causes: Because shipowners prefer for. with regard to the scheme may be found fully eiguers as they are content with lower rates of set forth in the Nineteenth Century for Jan- pay. Because foreigners are more amenable to wary of this year. The proposal put before Mr. dicipline, and are satisfied with inferior food Ritchie was of an educational character. It was
and accomodation. Enquiry has not confirmed suggested that training ships, the equivalent of those statements. British shipowners and ship- local techuical schools, should be planted around
masters would be only too glad to get British
Unfortunately the Government have at our coasts, where British boys could be taught seamen if they were available, for the food. tempted to mix up the question of apprentices with that of the light dues. The fact is that seamanship and the rudiments of his buiness, quarters, and pay, are the same, irrespective of and so become qualified to take their place in nationality, but the British seaman is not there. they have nothing to do with each other. The our merchant ships as real British seamen, and People talk vaguely, and say the foreigners light dues were originally granted to defray supplant the inferior class of landsmen, the scum,
are more amenable and sober, that is so, they the expenses of the erection and maintenance and refuse, of our cities and slums, that crimps
are more amenable, and more sober, than the of the lights on the coasts of the United King. and others put forward for service in the tramps, trash who are to be found round shipping offi. dom. Now shipowners during the last 45 years who un obliged to take what they can get or
ces calling themselves seamen but who are only have paid as light dues about two million pounds?
sterling, over and above the amount required to go out. It was intimated that County landsmen, and failures at that, and not for a Councils and other bodies would encourage the
moment to be compared with our old time sea-light the coasts, or about 104 per cent. in excess. movement with financial aid, and it was pro-
men, a race that has built up our Empire and The Royal Navy and yachts have paid nothing. posed that the boys should pass from these has been the mainstay in all our great naval This looks like class legislation with a venge- ance, Seamen have also paid to Government school ships to regular employment, and that battles.
under the Act 7. and 8 Wm. III. Cap. 121 during the actual training on board merchaut Now as to the reasons for the dearth of British something like £410,000 sterling in the shape ships the Government should make payment to seamen. The principal cause is due to the de-of six pence per month, deducted from their the shipowners in respect of apprentices trained eline in the entry of boy sailors since the pass-pay, for certain benefits which they never re- and victualled by them. This is the proposal ing of au Act in 1853, removing all restrictions which the President of the Board of Trade de- as regards the number, nationality, and rating clined to submit to the consideration of the House of the hands to be employed in British ships, of Commons. Mr. Ritchie told the Navy League so that now even the masters of these ships, deputation, to whom he had granted audience, and the pilots, in British waters, may be foreig that the deputation was not of a very representa-ners! Up to the year 1853, if a lad wanted to tive character, either from the point of view of the adopt a seafaring life be had no difficulty in Navy or the mercantile marine, and altoge- doing so, as every ship was bound to carry a ther gave them the rough side of his tongue, certain number of apprentices; and it was worth getting somewhat roughly handled himself in the owner's while to look after his youngsters return. Full reports of the interview are to and have them taught their business: and ap- be found in the home papers. Be it noted that prentices in their third year were generally the Government intimated to the League that best men in the crew for the owner's interests. they need not enter into the question of cost. Shipowners used to argue. that to be able to Now the Navy League never put forward their compete with the world, the labour market of the scheme as the acme of perfection and were world had to be open to them," and in peace time quite prepared to have it criticized and amend this is in a sense true, but in war time the labour ed, and the case as put forward by them was market of the world is not open to them, so that entitled to serious consideration seeing that we have to fall back on our kith and kin, and it was the result of some eighteen months' the sentiment of patriotism is not yet dead in correspondence:
os between themselves and the us.. Government and that they had no other object in tries than the good of the Empire. The shipowners had not asked for doles or subsidies,
:
Nowadays, steam has supplanted sail, and the carrying of apprentices is no longer com- pulsory The managing owner of a joint stock
ceived, and not one penny of this has ever been returned to seamen Again, the Government derive considerable revenue from seamen, col- lected at the various ports under various heads, which appears in the estimates as miscellaneous receipts, which money should in justice be used for the benefit of the sea service, but is not, so that all things considered, shipowners and sea- men have a very good claim to liberal treatment at the hands of the Government.
Time and again, committees of the House of Commons have recommended that in future all expenses of lighthouses on the coasts of the United Kingdom should be defrayed out of the pblic revenue, as is the practice in the United States, (fermany, and some other · European', countries; but no, Government persists in hold- ing on to this unjust source of revenue against the most expert evidence and it was simply sheer compulsion which gave us the Merchant Shipping Act of 1898, which is disfigured by an attempt to bribe the ship-owners to carry ap- prentices by granting a percentage based on the amount paid for light dues to such vessels
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