MERCHANT CAPTAINS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1634, 7 November 1916, Page 4

MERCHANT CAPTAINS.

It was recently suggested by Admiral Close that merchant captains should be given a commission of. the Royal Naval Reserve, and should be permitted to wear its uniform. In his opinion, if Captain Fryatt had appeared before the German court-martial with a commission and in the uniform of the R.N.R., the enemy could not have shot him, ‘‘The suggestion is an interesting one, but it may lie doubted,” says the Naval and Military Record, “whether its adoption would have saved Captain Fryatt's life. The Germans might not have shot him as a franc-tieruer, but they would probably have invented some other excuse. But, however that may be, it is certainly desirable to protect masters in the merchant service by every possible means, and it may be that now that the King has referred to the merchant marine as ‘His Majesty’s Merchant Navy” the time has come when all the senior officers should be definitely incorporated in the Royal Naval Reserves. The advent of the submarine and the claims put forward by Germany ought not to be ignored by the authorities. The country should give merchant officers every possible means of protection against the enemy. He will not respect non-combatant rights, and therefore there is little or no advantage in considering them in connection with suggestions for safeguarding the lives of these men

by giving them a new status.”