THE APPRENTICE (SUGGESTIONS).
I may as well admit at the outset of this chapter that I approach
it with a heavy sense of responsibility. For many reasons. I am
exceedingly anxious about the future of our Merchant Service; and
the decay of the apprentice system at sea is full of menace for that
future. Again, I know that many dear friends throughout the length
and breadth of this land of ours are looking with pathetic eagerness
for some guidance upon this subject. They want to gratify their sons'
inbred craving for a sea-life; but what are the prospects? How will it
affect their boys, supposing they find, after a short acquaintance with
the sea, that they are not fit for it at all?
In short, there are so many middle-class folks ready to apprentice
their boys in the Merchant Service, if that service is worth their
attention as a probable life occupation, and they are so pathetically
eager and earnest to obtain reliable information and enlightenment on
their utter ignorance of all the details of a nautical life, that it
behoves all who have that information, to give it carefully, without
bias, and intelligibly. That is therefore no reason why they should
withhold it altogether, from craven fear of being upbraided for
after-consequences of following the advice they had given.
With this in my mind, I would say at the outset that I believe the
system of apprenticeship might be revived, with great advantage to
the country and to individuals, but it needs revision. As it exists
at present its only effect is to flood the Merchant Service with an
enormous number of certificated men, who cannot get ships as officers,
and who find the fo'c'sle society disgusting, having trained themselves
to expect something better. Worse still, it will be found to have
unsettled many lads for any steady land occupation, while completely
disenchanting them as to the fine life they expected at sea. It
has just aroused in these well-brought-up, home-keeping youths the
nomad instinct that is latent in every human breast, and the love of
wandering once established, nothing short of main force will make that
man a settled citizen again until he reaches middle age.
Apprenticeship is often spoken of as a means to the laudable end of
replenishing the British Merchant Service with British seamen. But in
its present form such a suggestion about apprenticeship is utterly
absurd. Respectable people who have spent money upon their sons'
education do not pay a heavy premium, and apprentice him to a ship,
with the object of his becoming an able seaman. They expect him to be
an officer as soon as possible, and that is the goal to which the lad
looks forward. Now, it must be said at once, plainly and frankly, that
the supply of officers far exceeds the demand. The fact that there are
many foreign officers in our Merchant Service does not affect this
statement at all. All that it means is, that as the pay of officers is
a matter of individual bargaining, and not a fairly fixed quantity like
that of the seamen, there is always an opportunity for underselling.
Let me give an instance. Before my last voyage I had been prowling
about the docks, looking for a ship, until I was in very low water
indeed, and glad of almost anything. Yet, as I was married and had one
child, there was a minimum wage below which I could not go without the
prospect of my dear ones starving. Receiving information that there was
a brig in the St. Katherine dock wanting a mate, I hastened down to
her, finding the master a pleasant, genial man, and English. I told him
my errand, showed my credentials, and was asked what wages I wanted. I
suggested £6 10_s._ per month, feeling as I did so that I might as well
ask for the moon while I was about it. We finally agreed upon £5 15_s._
a month, which made my wife's income while I was at sea about 14_s._ a
week. But I went home light-hearted enough in the feeling that I was no
longer a dock-slouching mendicant, and that _something_ was sure for at
least twelve months.
The next morning, when I came on board to work, the skipper told me
that he had received an offer from a German, fully certificated, to
come as mate for £3 a month, and one from an Englishman, who said that,
as he had money of his own, and only wanted to get his time in for
master, he would come for _nothing_. "I didn't take the German," said
Captain W----, "entirely because I had given you my word, but because
I hold that it is a national crime to permit foreign officers to have
charge of our ships, apart altogether from the shame of having them
cut the already too scanty wages. And I didn't take the other fellow,
because I wanted a man to earn his wages, and I knew that he was likely
to earn what he offered to go for--nothing." So I kept the berth, but,
as the skipper truly remarked, had the owner known that he was paying
much more for my services than there was any necessity for him to do,
he would have been very angry.
My contention is that the apprentice should be classified. If there
were two grades established, one with a view to making foremast hands,
and another for training officers, I think much good might be done.
For instance, the poor lads who go in such charitable training ships
as the _Warspite_ and _Chichester_, the _Exmouth_, _Shaftesbury_, and
_Cornwall_, should not be sent adrift as they are now, shipped as boys
in whatever ship will take them, and discharged with the rest of the
crew on their return to the home port. It is true that the authorities
ruling the training ships are always ready to befriend these young
sea-boys when they return, to a certain extent; but it should be
remembered that there are always many fresh lads to be disposed of,
boys who have finished their training-time, and are waiting for a
ship in which to begin their sea-life. It is not always an easy task
to provide ships for them either, and therefore it is hardly fair to
expect the training-ship people to handicap them by looking after
the shipment of old boys as well. But if those lads were apprenticed
without premium, at a small wage, increasing each year, and with the
definite object of making good foremast hands of them, I am sure much
good might be done. They would certainly be no worse off than any lad
ashore who serves his time as a mason, a carpenter, or a plumber. In
the vast majority of cases the horizon of such apprentices is bounded
by the prospect of becoming a _good_ journeyman, for which the demand
is always greater than the supply. If they develop habits of thrift, a
faculty of organization, and power of command, the way is open for them
to become master, and in like manner there would be nothing to prevent
the non-premium apprentice from rising higher than a mere "journeyman"
sailor, if I may thus use the expression, in the fact that he had been
apprenticed on a lower grade than those intended for officers from the
beginning.
The treatment of such apprentices would be no different to that in
force now on board ship for "boys" so called. They would probably live
in the forecastle among the men, or with the petty officers. I know
that some people will raise an outcry against the idea of boys being
sent to live in the forecastle with the men, but from experience I am
sure that this would not be detrimental to the boys at all. When a
boy has spent two or three years on board a training ship (I do not
mean a training college like the _Worcester_ or _Conway_, although I
don't suppose all the boys there are unfledged angels), he has nothing
to learn in the way of evil in a ship's fo'c'sle. Please, my good
friends the officers in charge of these ships, don't imagine that I am
casting _any_ reflections upon you. You do your best, but it is simply
impossible for you to keep such a crowd of young rascals as you have
to deal with like an ideal Sunday school. I have been shipmate with
a great number of these boys--good, bad, and indifferent; but in one
respect their education was never wanting: the knowledge of such evil
as we do not write about, only hint at in conversation.
I have heard--of course I do not assert it--that even our great public
schools are not above suspicion in these matters. But there they are
all sons of gentle parents; they have led a guarded life from their
childhood, the foul innuendo and salacious gabble of the streets have
never reached their ears. So that if they in the carefully-guarded
precincts of these homes of education acquire a knowledge of the
grosser forms of evil, we need not be surprised at the poor street boy
who joins the _Arethusa_ or the _Cornwall_ being wiser even than they
are. I have often seen a boy checked in a ship's fo'c'sle for using an
expression that was not, well, fit for ears polite, although the man
who checked him was constantly in the habit of talking in that strain.
It is perfectly true that one occasionally finds a low-minded beast of
man's age, who will deliberately encourage a boy to swagger in foulness
for his private ear, but it is always in private; such a practice
would never be tolerated in the midst of the watch. And such loathsome
company will always be open to the boy, whoever he lives with on board.
No; it is not nearly as dangerous for boys to live with the men in the
open fo'c'sle as it is for them to live with one or two petty officers,
or, worse still, by themselves. The latter should never be allowed
at all--it is as bad as it can be. Living with the men they hear foul
language continually, but they have always heard it; most of them have
long been proficient in its use, and none of its shades of meaning
are lost on them. But they must not use it themselves, now. They will
not be ill-used, that is, beaten, because of that growing tenderness
for the young which is such a fine feature of our day, and one that
has been just as fully developed on board ship as it has ashore. They
must be civil and obliging, and if willing to learn, will always find
some one willing to teach. The fact of their being bound to serve for
a period of four years would operate powerfully against that tendency,
so fatal to the replenishment of our Merchant Service with young
British seamen, to quit the sea after the first voyage or two, and
get some job, requiring no skill, ashore. At present, when first the
training-ship boys go to sea, they are sure to find some fellow who
will lay before them a lurid picture of the hopelessness of ever doing
any good at sea. He will din into the young ears continually the advice
to sweep a crossing, become a dung-puncher, anything rather than lead
such a dog's life as he says the common seaman always endures. With
what results let the Registrar-General of Shipping and Seamen's Reports
tell. According to them, there is a constant drain of young men out of
the Merchant Service, lads who had served one, two, or three years,
and, consequently, the supply is cut off at its source.
Now, this sad thing is distinctly traceable, in my mind, to three
great causes. The first is the want of provision made for keeping
these lads a reasonable time at sea by some binding agreement like
apprenticeship indentures. The second is the utter carelessness
manifested in the majority of cases about food and accommodation. And
the third is undermanning. These last two do not in any way apply
to the highest class of liners, which is above reproach in these
matters. But it does apply to most of the ships we own in Britain; and
until the European standard of what is due to a workman's needs more
closely approximates to our own, either by our sinking to their level
or them rising to ours, it will continue to operate in the direction
of displacing British subjects by aliens. I do not believe that the
question of wages enters into it at all. Wages do not affect the
officers, who, as I have before said, make their individual bargains,
but if a crew of Scandinavians or a crew of Britons are shipped before
the mast, the wages paid will be the same in both cases. And when you
come to think of it, foremast hands are not at all badly paid. When the
A.B. was a skilled mechanic and received £2 10_s._ a month, while a
carpenter, a joiner, or a mason was getting 35_s._ a week ashore, the
former had some ground of complaint; but when, as is the case now, the
majority of seamen before the mast, in steamers at any rate, are really
little more skilled than labourers, £3 10_s._ to £4 10_s._ per month,
with board and lodging, is better pay than any of their fellows ashore
are getting. Sailing-ship A.B.'s deserve more, but they get less than
steamboat men, for some strange reason that has always puzzled me.
It must not be supposed that I am advocating anything revolutionary.
What I propose with regard to this second grade of apprentices is
already in operation, owing to the far-sightedness and liberality of a
north-country firm, Messrs. Walter Runciman and Co. of Newcastle. Of
course they are steamship owners--tramp owners, if you will; but, as I
have before hinted, tramps hailing from the north-east coast of England
have good reputations. The canny Geordie has made a speciality of
tramp-owning, and, backed as he is by a long course of most successful
experiences in all matters pertaining to the sea, he is going
remarkably strong. The men of the "Coaly Tyne" have the well-deserved
reputation of being the pioneers in several of our most notable reforms
in shipping matters. To quote only two: Board of Trade certificates
and Lifeboats will give an idea of what our hard-headed north-country
folk are capable. Mr. Walter Runciman says that his system of carrying
non-premium apprentices is most successful, and I am sure that his word
may be relied upon.
Then there is the premium-paying grade. A great many alterations might
be made on their behalf, to the end that a parent who is put to the
expense of outfit, premium, etc., may have something definite for his
money. It need hardly be said that if a boy is a born duffer, one
can hardly expect any skipper or officer to make him anything else;
but there is a medium in all things, and every sailor knows that
there is no trade in the world where the first duty to an apprentice
is so much neglected as it is at sea. I can honestly assert that I
was never on board of but one ship in my life where any attempt at
all was made to teach the apprentices their trade. That ship was the
_Harbinger_, before she was taken over by Lord Brassey's committee, and
made a special sea-training ship for cadets. In my day she was just
a fine merchant ship, belonging to Messrs. Anderson, Anderson, and
Co., and commanded by Lieutenant Henry Y. Slader, R.N. he formulated
stringent rules that every apprentice on board should have a share in
all sailorizing that was going on; that, as far as lay in their power,
these young gentlemen should work the sails on the mizen, the smallest
mast of the three; that one apprentice should always be on duty on
the poop, so that he might be in touch with the officer of the watch,
who was supposed to lose no opportunity of imparting to him practical
instruction in handling sails, trimming yards, etc. In addition to all
this, Captain Slader was himself in the habit of taking these young men
through a practical examination in navigation at stated intervals, and
inviting them to dine at the saloon table in rotation on Sundays.
Now, this treatment had its due effect in the building up of those
apprentices into first-class seamen and officers, as indeed it might
have been expected to do. Yet it was only on a par with common-sense
workshop treatment, and it was certainly no more than any parent who
had paid a premium of £70 to £80 had a right to expect. But even on
board that fine ship the lads were left entirely to themselves in
their watch below. They all lived together in the fore part of a
small afterhouse, and unless the senior apprentice happened to be a
young man of fine, forceful character, the tone of their "diggings"
could not help being bad. Be it noted that among that splendid set
of youngsters, the midshipmen of the Royal Navy, there is always to
be found a sub-lieutenant who is responsible for the behaviour of
the gun-room--who rules it, in fact, in despotic fashion. And the
conditions there are very different to what they are in the Merchant
Service. The lads don't sleep in the gun-room. They are not herded
together in one small apartment which serves as bed-room, bath-room,
dining-room, and sitting-room.
In the United States, the two great cities of Philadelphia and New York
maintain out of their public funds a fine vessel each, the _Saratoga_
and the _St. Mary's_. These are sea-going ships, especially set apart
for the training of men and officers for the Mercantile Marine. The
idea is distinctly a good and public-spirited one, and might, one would
think, be advantageously copied over here. But I fear that such a thing
is too much to hope for. At least not until our shore-folks are aroused
to the enormous importance of our Mercantile Marine.
If only we could get one-tenth as much interest manifested in the
gigantic business by means of which we are all fed, as is shown in one
great horse-race or a dozen first-class cricket matches, I should feel
hopeful. But I am afraid that is far too great a blessing to expect.