HONOUR THE MEN OF THE MERCANTILE MARINE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 281, 1 June 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

HONOUR THE MEN OF THE MERCANTILE MARINE.

By L. COPE CORXFORD.

THE DEBT WE OWE TO THE SAILORMAX.

This celebrated naval writer pays a glowing tributo (in tho "Sunday Pictoral") to the men of the British Mercantile Marine, on .whose intrepid courage depends (the very existence of tho whole Empire.

r FHE true epic of England lies hurled x m many thousands of old ships' ogs, stained with sea-water, moulderng, forgotten. But England lias been so busy making ihe epic that she has never found time to write it. Sailing the seas, charting uid lighting them, fighting up and iown them, trading all tho world over grasping riches hard-fisted, England lever thought what sho was doing; tid she has not thought, to this day. Now sho is forced io stop and consider, tor a new thing has come upon and after a thousand years of seararing, the hardihood and "skill 0 f British r;eamen, learned in a. schooling so long ajid so bitter, are flowering Tn a bright red blossom, the wonder of the ivorld. Ere tho King's Navy had imposed Hie King's peace on all seas, the British seamen went armed, and the merchant captain fought his ship, a. s the law; bade (and still bids) him to fight. Always, soon or late, he proved himself fit to match and overmaster any craft tha swam he seas, from Algerino galley of the corsairs to the hundred-gun line-of-battlcship* of the Emg'.s enemies. Then, a.s the Navy held the seas secure, the merchantmen for generations sailed unarmed and scathless upon their lawful occasions. Suddenly, tho seas 'were haunted by invisible foes, appearing out of the deep, murderous like sharks, striking, slaying and' vanishing again. England ■was at war; no new thing; but never before had England fought a great n,it'on turned pirate. Piracy began more than two years ago: and in a moment, without warning, tho merchant seaman was in part deprived of the protection of the Navy. He was totally defenceless. Upon him, in the same moment, fell the inexorable duty of maintaining the supplies of his country. The Brtish seaman wa> utterly unprepared for the blow. For months after the declaration of war, people absolutely re-fused to believe that Germany would attack ■commerce with submarines. Tho present writer, who ventured to foretell the event, was roundly abused for h's pains. But, even in the interval, tho enemy was dropping mines along tho sea highways, and never a seaman left port with any certainty that he would return. But lie left port all the same, and groped along the unlighted coasts or sailed upon deep-sea voyages without word. Before Germany turned p'rate the ship of many a hapless crew stopped and reeled and settled down, while her l>eople, giddy with the stunning shock of the exploding mine, struggled 'nto their boats, and were drowned, or floated, ship gone, and with it all their possessions. Sometimes, after the slow svgony of hunger, thirst and cold, they were picked up; somet'mes not.

Then began the submarine piracy; and the merchant.soaman, still unarmed and still unafraid, shut h's mouth and put to sea ?is heretofore. No man had stayed him for a thousand years; was it likely he would stop for a German pirate? He had his business to do, and iio did it. Ever in the back of his mind ho saw the little, deadly sign of the enemy; the small tiling cutting the. waves like a sea-bird's pinion; the I>eriscope winged with a wisp of foam; of the still more daunting fear of tho crash coming unheralded out of tho dark. The sequel he had heard in talk with his mates; the rising of the whalebacked vessel with Us little tower; tho shells striking and killing; tho rusk to the boats, the men shot to pieces a.s they 'tore at the falls: blood and splinters and the crash of the torpedo; and then utter desertion on tho waste of seas, and the last extremity. If you talk to the seaman, you may pluck from the deeps of his profound reticence that the submarine is no doubt a danger, but that tho sea is always dangerous—nothing more explicit. Seamen seldom talk of these th'ngs to a civilian. He is not of their world. He ha.K long ago understood that the people on shore know nothing and care nothing about the men of the sea : the men who bring them bread and wine, their clothes and gold, and the innum erable th'ngs of trade, out of whose exchange the rich make money. The seaman has no part nor lot in these matters. He ks the carrier, pa'd a carrier's wag«-. He signs on a, voyage, and works it out and home again, and is east adrift into the streets until the owners hannon to want him once more.

MKASURES Oi ; JUSTICE. Hard of hand, rough of tongue, often drunken, ho is called a "common sailor"; perceived to own no prospects m thi> life, and very few in the next, what bus tho country to do'with a common .sailor before the mast? As for Parliament, it could not take the trouble to prevent seamen being sent to s ea in coffin-ships until the gallant Plimsoll, raging at embattled stupidity, shamed it into actio". Nevertheless, for years before tho war, there were a few people who forosaw what might happen, cud who continualJy pressed upon the bite Government the necessity of arming merchantmen. Among seamen, Lord Berosford anticipated the war upon commerce and showed what should lie done. Tin' Government did nothing to guard against it, nothing whatsoever. Tho pr'co in be paid for that government i> nu'te incal'-ulable. Tint there i.s now rising throughout the country thai wave of better understanding which br'ngs right action. That the Merchant Servile must be recognised as a great Stale service: that the offieers and men must bo given tlio pa.v, pension and gratiiit'cs proper in a Sti'e servkc which, is partly military and partly commercial: tin; there shall be ii. common uniform: that .1 sufficient training .-lull l<o in.-d'tutcd, and -■ 'Curity of ( mployn.ont assured. These rue measure* of in ii ■•• u Irch hiive not onlv been rained b.\ ti;e mercantile marine, but upon who-o institution the welfare and pio-prt} ol the , ciintrv depend. . Let no one say : This ■„ all vrv r ■■< and proper, but it i* nt mv affa'.r: th« Government must airatr/.e tin ■• th'te'-j. I'or that is the frame of mind wh/ch |,ns ,-iy\ manv thousands of famil'es the live, of their son = . And ha/1 the nierr-.nf seaman. itn- .,,.„,,,,! ~.. |,o was, fa.ilod to stand bv bis eountrv bis countrv which had done little eno.vdi for h'm Fmtde.nd would ~,-e new have been ilefi it'.«l bv Gorm ,nv: and (woivel would ha.ve forf.-it- ,,! Ihe mastery of Hie seas. L. COPK OOKN'FOH!).