SHIPS AND THE SEATHE BOY QUESTION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 83, 8 April 1911, Page 12

SHIPS AND THE SEATHE BOY QUESTION.

Sir Walter Runciman, in his address j as, president of the London Chamber of ! Shipping, dwelt rather forcibly recently on the desirability of increasing the supply of boys in the mercantile marine, and went so far as to suggest that steamship owners should be )coinpeDsd, in the interest of the nation, to cawy a number of boys in proportion to their tonnage. "But where are the boys?" a-ska an English paper. "It is very easy to say that a steamer of a, certain size shall not go to eea unless she has, say, four boys on board ; but, if four boys are ] not forthcoming, what then? The Shipping Federation will find ships for as many boys as are anxious to go to the sea, and will •endeavour to place them. It has already done some good work in that direction, but the hard faget is that the better grade of boys can get more agreeable occupation on shore than at sea, while the lower grade, even when passed out of luxurious trammg-ehips, either do not go to aea at all or cut it after a voyage or two. That, at any rate, has been the experience on the Thames; from which it seems to follow that, if there is to be compulsion, it is to the boys, and the right sort of boys, that it must m the first place be applied. It appears that the shipowners don't want the boys, and the boys don't want the shipowners. So there you are." COLONIAL SHIPPING LAWS CRITICISED. Discussing the agenda paper of the coming conference of Imperial Premiers, j'Look-out. Man" in Fairplay states: — ''His Majesty's Government propose to introduce for discussion the position of British Indians, which they, have done their best to complicate, and arrangements with regard to undesirable aliens, which ax* certainly needed. But why consume time m talkee-talkee over Labour Exchangee for the Empire, and uniformity of postage stamp designs, which nobody cares a dump about except the philatelist of posterity, and we needn't wokyour souls about him? Both New Zealand and Australia propose for discussion the merchant shipping and navigation laws of the Empire, and this is well, inasmuch as these Dominions have raised about as much trouble as they well could m connection with' merchant shipping, without the provision of which by Great Britain they wuld have been nowhere. 1 have often wondered if our Antipodean relatives ever realise what British shipping means to them. The only item in the agenda even dimly suggestive of Imperialism in trade, is the proposal to, discuss 'commercial co operation for the encouragement of British manufactures and shipping,' which may mean anything, and probably wul mean nothing." OIL VERSUS COAL-EUEL. The ,Uirited States owns just on 5,000,000 tons of steam shipping, and yet apparently only 391,b21 torn* are iitted for burning oil fuel, which does not indicate unbounded faith in oil fuel by American owners. It should, be borne An mind that in San. Francisco coal is dear and oil is comparatively cheap, the Standard Oil Company fixing the price of their oil by the Belting price of coal. Only where their steamers are sure of securing a continuous supply of oil have owners adapted their steamers for 'burning it, and even oil-carrying steamers generally bum coal. One owner, for instance, has some steamers running on the coast from San Francisco fitted for using liquid fuel, but those of liis vessels which trade from the Pacific coast to the East are not so fitted, for reasons which are obvious. Undoubtedly .tiwre a-re a very large number of advantages and ■economies to be secured by burning oil fuel, but if steamers generally were to "use oil fuel the demand would be so great that th*> price might become prohibitive, and this question of a continuous supply at a fair price will have to bo decided before shipowner will, on any large scale, think of altering their steamers to burn liquid fuel. A San Francisco paper states that the 391,521 tons of oil fuel steamers burn about 25,000,000 barrels of oil per annum. Lloyd's Register contains particulars of over 22,000 steamers', of which lees than 200 . are fitted for burning oil, which gives one an ictea. of the extra quantity of oil fuel which would be required, to supply steamers with oil, and justifies the contention that oil as a steam raiser has not,' by a long way, taken the place of • coal.