SEAMEN OF THE FUTURE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1614, 4 December 1912, Page 7

SEAMEN OF THE FUTURE.

GIFT FOR A TRAINING SCHOOL. ' By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyrteht London, December 2. The late Lord Furaess, the well-known shipowner and shipbuilder, has bequeathed .£30,000 for training boys for the mercantile marine.

NEGLECT OF A GREAT DUTY. Sir Walter Runciman, Bart., president of the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom, in the course of an address some time ago, made reference to British seamen and the decadence of that pride of race which, in other days, used to ba the charm and strength of our nautical supremacy. Apathy and prejudice had, he 6aid, eaten like a canker into this vital part of our national organism. The advent of steam brought with it a now order of things. The necessity of continuing to train seamen in steamers, as had been the custom in sailing vessels, was considered by some misguided, though estimable, people to bo a complete fallacy. Of course, it was nothing of the sort, but that truth did not readily seize the modern imagination.. It was ludicrous to imagine that seamen could not be trained on steamers to do the specifio work of steamers, and those who had had long years of successful experience of this mode of creating modern seamen would vigorously advocate it as the best and wisest method of keeping up the supply of men imbued with robust efficiency. The flippant and altogether unsound reason given by some owners who were opposed to carrying apprentices was that they had trouble with them in various ways, and the answer to that was, "Do not be too easily troubled." Was it not worth much trouble to know that they were using the means at their disposal for the purpose of rearing a race of healthy, well-disciplined, competent men for their own service? Compulsion was always distasteful, but they must depend upon it if they did not as a whole bestir themselves, by tackling this matter voluntarily, the Legislature would some day see in it a national danger, and find some plan that might be disagreeable to them of enforcing a recruiting and training system in their own wav, and not that of the shipowners. The Shipping Federation was doing its best to popularise the system of apprenticeship, and disinterested gentlemen were giving unstinted their money and time to encourage the making of sailors. They wero on the verge of a possible shortage of men; indeed; this contingency was inevitable if they continued to pursue a policy of insane defiance of an v perative duty to the State and to t' mercantile marine, by refusing to train men for their own service, whether by sail or steam. In his opinion, in order to keep pace with tho normal demand, every British ship, sail or steam, should carry, a full complement of boys,say, feuv in each steamer from 2000 to 5000 tons dead-weiglit, and in anything above that five or six.