A SAILOR'S LOT'S A HAPPIER ONE.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 210, 21 September 1937, Page 6

A SAILOR'S LOT'S A HAPPIER ONE.

British sailors are to have a new charter. Regulations have been prepared by the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee, and are being printed by the Board of Trade, establishing what appears to be a vastly improved standard _ of comiort for accommodation in all new British merchant ships. The regulations even go as far as providing for deck games for sailors. Although the new orders are being hailed in Britain as revoiutionary, perhaps their most striking significance lies in the fqct that, paradoxically enough, they are not "revoiutionary" at all. Quietly, but steadily, the improvement in conditions of work for sailors has been pushed forward in recent years The regulations set the official seal on a standard that has already been established voluntarily in a large part of the British merchant fleet. Equally interesting is the news that the establishment of this standard has been the result of co-operative efforts betv/een shipowners and the National LJnion of Seamen. At a time of loud industrial disputes it comes as a pleasant surpric;e to find an industry where practice in working conditions is actually in advance of government orders that reguiate it.