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.