WHITE OR YELLOW?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 226, 6 January 1911, Page 8

WHITE OR YELLOW?

Following protests made by representative seamen against the employment of Lascar and other colored crews on intercolonial boats, a good deal of evidence in disfavor of the white ship's fireman is being circulated. Most people will grant that the average fireman is no angel and that his job is not of the kind to make him a saint. He is frequently a bard drinker, a hard swearer, and a hard worker. The cbief objection to him in the evidence now in circulation is that engineers have to go ashore and round him up in order that ships may leave port. The chief reason given to show that the Chinese fireman is a better man for the job is that he is docile, does not get drunk, does not use foul language, and has rather a disgust of the old-fash-ioned white person whose employment gets on his nerves and drives Jlim to the •usual fireman's sins. Most people who have never stoked ships' fires are ready to cast the rock of scorn at the man who is a "bad egg," but who stands by, whatever is happening on deck or overboard! The real test of the superiority of the yellow or black fireman over the white one will come when it is vitally necessary for firemen to risk their lives below in order to save passengers, officers and crew from death. Lascar and Chinese firemen may become heroes, but one would like to be given some examples before deciding on their ability in this direction. Everybody knows that the white fireman belongs to a "rough" class, and that University graduates and scions of the nobility do not as a general habit Work in the stokehold. The fact that King George once wielded a coal shovel for a few minutes has been chronicled with nauseating reiteration, but few people ever have time to chronicle the deeds of the blackened slaves who are the heart of the ship, and who, after soul-destroy-ing work, are overcome by a desire for any kind of "pastime" and indiscipline that offers a change from their awful existence. Up to now the British Navy has shown no disposition to fill the places of white stokers "with black or yellow ones. It would be interesting to know the real causes lying at the back of the mutinous conduct of white firemen, whether great shipping companies are as much to blame for the frequent delinquincies of their men, and whether an* tagonism to the growing disposition to employ aliens spurs them to disorder] To improve the morals of the white firej men would be to improve him out of Uw stokehold. If you .filled a stokehold with' angelic firemen, the angelic firemen woulj not fill the fire-boxes. If it is right tf put a crew of Chinese in any one Britigj ship it is right to clear out every Britifl fireman in every British ship and to put in aliens. If all British stokeholds »fi manned with aliens some of the wrecljs of the future and the position of tlje mercantile marine in time of war will Je interesting. If the drunkenness, tion or insubordination of a proportijin of white firemen is a good reason for substituting aliens, there is no known rcaspn why unsatisfactory workmen in a|>F branch of work, ashore or afloat, shofW not be superseded by aliens. The f»lk who wail for a black or yellow atokelibld ire under the impression that docility * s ibility and courage and virtue, Iney mve probably never seen a mob of cot'i*" jut of hand and guage the corrective ilien by the appearance of the inilivilual's placid countenance as he A zc9 )ver the ship's rail. The facts 'ift*' 1 " iion to coolie labor on ships are wwe'P e ' 'ore. The coolie cannot do as much |" is the white stokehold slave. He-* 8 a lnnger in time of trouble, but he is>Very ihcap, very docile, and he does not M" is much food as the man from W^ e ~ jhapel. The white stoker may P e a 'blackguard," but he has carriei tlie British flag into every port in the/ 01 *'") .ml he lias never shown the whif ' ca " her in time of stress. When he bf omes s docile and spineless as the co S| e ' pill be time for British ships to pands ip" to the nearest foreigner. |