The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 24. RULING THE WAVES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8067, 24 March 1906, Page 2

The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 24. RULING THE WAVES.

Britannia is popularly supposed to " rule the waves." In point of tonnage—both in the Royal Navy and in the Mercantile Marine of Britain —the nation certainly gives every other Power a big start, and wins easily. But if the Commonwealth I .Commission, now sitting in Sydney, is to be believed—and there is not the least reason why it should be doubted —Britannia does not rule the waves with Britons,* Tin old-fash-ioned idea that as the sailor has lived a dog's life in the past, he must go on living a dog's live in the future, is not held to-day by British sailors, consequently there are fewer British sailors every year, The breezy indepen-" dence of the tar, so famed in song and story,-is in the real Mercantile Marine, a crime,

* # * * NowuiiUE is discipline exacted and hard work insisted on so determinedly as on board ship. Nowhere is a man so looked upon as belonging body and soul to the company he works for, and, incidentally, to his chief on the " bounding main." And because the British sailor finds that a landsman's job lias fewer of the risks, fewer of the discomforts, and far greater health-giving properties than the average seafaring life, he has been taking to the landsman's job, and the stranger from afar has stepped into his shoes. Hundreds of skippers prefer foreigners on their boats, not because they are better sailors, nor because they could not get Britishers if they tried the right way, but because the foreigner knuckles down to the dog's life and the dog-kennel quarters, and is meek and long-suffering. Sometimes even the foreigner who is manning Britain's ships kicks at the dog's life and mutinies. We had uews a few days ago that the Chinese crew of a British ship had to be subdued by Italian carabineers. The vast probabilities are that a British crew would at least have had a try to subdue the earabjniers. But the British fighting spirit supposed to animate the AngloSaxon breast must only animate them at stated periods.

# .* * 9 Not long ago tho Marine Department at Homo had its attention called to tin I otorious fact that the great majority of pilots in Home waters were foreigners mostly Dutch, Swedes or Norwegians. It seems as if John Bull is really going out of the sea industry by-und-bye. Hundreds of British ships are manned partially by Hindoos or Lascars, who are fed on rice, cabined like pigs, and paid like convicts. They smile when an officer persuades them down the stokehold with a fire-bar-but never forget. The British seaman has often been persuaded by such gentle means, and he doesn't like it. We are very glad that he neither likes it nor outs up with it. The Mercantile Marine is badly paid. An officer who has spent his life on the sea, and who has the most responsible charge—the lives of passengers aud crew—is paid a most miserable wage for the best of services. If a captain make a mistake, he is usually examined, by landsmen >for the most part, and is frequently robbed of his very poor livelihood. If the average skipper put the amount of pluck, energy, knowledge, and endurance into a shore-going billet, then he would probably earn three times the amount he gets for a far more responsible position than most laud jobs, # # # *

To illustrate the price an experienced skipper is asked to sell his skill and experience for, the New Zealand Marine Department lately advertised for a harbourmaster aud pilot for a New Zealand port. His duties were set out, and the Department wanted "no slouch "of a skipper. Also, it insisted that this paragon must be a British subject. His salary was to be eighty pounds - make no mistake, £BO per annum. Do you wonder that British seamen are taking to jobs that thore is bread and butter iu ? Most of the Australian Unions interested in sailors and shipping are at the present time talking over the injustices done to the men who go down to the sea in ships, It is most ly in the colonies that these matters are ventilated. The inter-colonial sailor is, of course, in a position to see the far better conditions under which the shore-workers of his own rank exist, and he is naturally unable to see the justice of the treatment meted out to him. The leading spirits of Colonial Seamen's Unions and kindred organisations are usually not seamen, but have been such, and they aro especially fitted to tell the world the fact that fate, in the shape of wealthy shipping companies, is cruel.

There is no reason why the man who works on a ship'should have less air to breathe or worse food to eat than a passenger. There is no reason why the health of a ship's officer should be considered of more value than the health of a ship's "slushy," or the man who fills the lamps. There is no reason why the life of a man who has had the misfortune to take to the sea for a living, should be made so grey and dull and dreary that ho usually supplies the greater portion of the " drunks" at city Police Courts. The man who is in the habit of turning up his nose at the drunken,fighting fireman, should first tackle the job of firing or be a dock hand, with no soul to call his own, who may for any reason be put in irons, and who is always badly paid; who, moreover, is called upon to work any hour of the day or night, in any woa ther or during any holiday. The drunkenness in the merchant service lays at the door of the companies who insist on treating men like dogs. The man who remains clean-living, honest and sober under the conditions, is little short of a marvel. The seaman who drinks and the sailor who does not, is a marvel anyhow. Knowing what he does, he has a heart of gold to tackle the life. If he go astray, and becomes what is usually called a " blackguard," it is the fault of the system more than the fault of the victim. If British ships are to be manned by British men—and in the time of stress it may be found that it is an urgent necessity—there is no doubt that the merchant ser- ; vice will have to bo reformed front I the keel to the topmast. We can't I go on ruling the waves with Dutch- < men or Chinese or Lascars, and a ' crew of Hindoos are not much good ' on the Naval Reserve. And the cure for the existing state of affairs is to \ treat British seamen like men, not dogs. !