The Sailors’ Champion.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 171, 20 October 1880, Page 2

The Sailors’ Champion.

Mr. Plimsoll, when he consented to stand as the Liberal candidate for Liverpool, issued the following address, in which he said: —“I am not ashamed to say that I am here as a candidate because Mrs. Plimsoll wishes it, for it is a hard thing for a man to do (who can choose) to leave his wife so weak that she has to be lifted in and out of bed, and when her only chance of life is in the immediate adoption of an almost desperate risk. Many men, however, have to perform a harder task than mine. How many brave, patient, and hard-working men are compelled every day to leave our ports, leaving their wives in some cases on a dying bed, in others in trembling anticipation of the dark hour of a woman’s agony, compelled to go, I say, by the

stern necessity of providing for their families the shelter and food they cannot do without, knowing that if they come not back the dear ones they have left at home will be cast upon the cold charity of the world, and also knowing that their ships are in some cases so deeply loaded, in others in such bad condition, in others that their own number is so insufficient for safety, that in the event of a storm they will be in deadly peril of their lives ! People of Liverpool, you know that this is true of some at least of the ships which leave our ports. I only seek that the hard and reckless shipowner (of whom there are some) shall be made to take the same care of the lives of his men as is now taken by every respectable shipowner.”