REFORM IN THE MERCANTILE MARINE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3041, 27 December 1882, Page 3

REFORM IN THE MERCANTILE MARINE.

Among the innnmerah’e causes advanced to account for par loss of shipping, the condition of the sailor is seldom presented. It is, however, a cause nffc.ctiog the welfare of our shipping much more seriously than mauy others up >n which great stress is laid. To most people this may seem peculiar. Sailors are to be had in abundance, they think, and it cannot he from any lack of them that shipping h suffering. But ns our shipping i-i injured by a mu.iiplicity of causes rather than by one great cause, so the sailor must he regarded as doing iiis share of evil, how small soever it may appear. The trouble here does not so much lie in the scarcity of men. Men enough are to be hud to supply four times the number of vessels that are now called American. The evil will be found in the scarcity of good sailors and in the demoralised condition of those who are engaged as sailors. One great point made in the shipping question is that economical maintenance expenses are of greater imponance than the first cost of the ship. This point is well taken. The cheapest ship not managed economically will generally fail to be profitable. But this very fact serves to point out the great part that should bo played by the Bailors in the scheme of economy. The sailor, certainly occupies a prominent part in the maintenance expenses of the ship. His wages are one of the chief items of expense. His present condition, however, and the wholly unnecessary additional expenses entailed upon him and upon the ship by that condition, show most conclusively that the quality of the material bought for these wages is entirely overlooked. The care and shrewdness exercised in purchasing materials for ships and food for cabin and forecastle are lacking in securing men. A wage scale is fixed by parties who force themselves between the ship owner and the sailor, and the excellence of the man employed is left to the judgment of this third party. “New York Maritime Register,”