SHIPOWNERS AND THEIR SAILORS. T HE unfortunate labour dispute at the
Carron Wharf should not be allowed to divert attention from the very remarkable effort of the Shipping Federation, sup- ported by what appears so far to be the combined action of its men, to effect something more than a temporary bond of union between employers and employed. A wide and liberal scheme of insurance for seamen is now announced by the executive of the Federation, and the various districts into which the organisation is divided have without exception, after meeting and discussion, for- warded resolutions expressing their approval of the offer. Much naturally depends upon the composition of the meetings which accepted these proposals. It is stated on the best authority that they were representative, alike in numbers as of feeling, of both officers and seamen in- terested; and if so, their resolution may be said to mark a new departure, not only in the attitude of Labour to Capital, but in that of English employs towards the whole question of insurance. For the proposals of the Federa- tion are in the nature of a complete scale of insurance, not only in case of accident—a principle which the English workmen has accepted in the form of Benefit Clubs—but against total disablement and death, the last contingencies being precisely those against which the English workman— who looks upon provision for his own decent burial as the close of his duties in this world—has steadily refused to provide. The terms offered by the Federation are calcu- lated on a liberal scale. On death or total disablement, the payment in case of a master is £100; in that of other officers, from .,75 to £40; and in that of seamen, .R25. In case of accident, the master will receive £2 a week, officers from 30s. to 16s. a week, and seamen from 14s. to 10s. Or arrangements may be made so that half the amount is paid in either case, giving some guarantee in case of either death or accident. Proper precautions are taken that on the death of the insured, the money shall find its way into the right hands, and not to the " crimps " who are too often the residuary legatees of sailors. The premium for these benefits is to be covered by the shilling paid for the "Federation ticket," the Federation itself supplying the £20,000 annually which is the estimated balance 'likely to be required. The notion that the Federation is moved to action by motives of philanthropy is repudiated with a straightforward clearness which will not damage its cause in the eyes of thoughtful working men. "The members of the Federation," it is said, "expect to secure in return a better class of men, and also to have a greater guarantee for faithful service than at present, to strengthen the cause of free-labour, to establish greater harmony between masters and men, at the same time giving substantial advantages to employers and employed." The scheme naturally recalls the cases of the South Metropolitan Gas Company, and of at least one great Railway Company, in which similar proposals on the part of the employer were made a basis, not of friendship, but of instant hostility by the employed. The cases are, however, by no means parallel. The Gas Company's relation to their men differed in no degree from that of other employers, except perhaps that they were un- usually well provided with funds for facing labour troubles. In the case of the Shipping Federation, employers and em- ployed are bound by a common interest in the maintenance of "free-labour," and subjected to a joint pressure from outside which so far has done more to consolidate than to pulverise that body. It is stated that the present dispute at the wharves has arisen more in consequence of this latent antagonism between free-labourers and I unionists than from any deep-lying cause of quarr4 between masters and men, a condition of things which in- directly favours the closer union of the Federation employers and their seamen, of which the acceptance of the insurance scheme would be a visible sign. The Sailors' and Firemen's Union, which met for the annual Conference in a fairly con- ciliatory temper, and heartily welcomed Mr. Plimsoll's advice to give its aid to the present Government in return for Lord George.Hamilton's efforts in the interests of merchant seamen during recent years, has declared its hostility to the insurance proposal as a further menace to Unionism, which is a not unnatural reading of the Federation's hopes "to strengthen the cause of free-labour." The arguments of the Union officers are logical enough,—too logical when we consider how averse the average English mind, and especially the workman-mind, is to action based on strict conformity to a principle. Unionism, so they argue, is opposed not only to any scheme of deferred pay or insurance which binds the worker to permanent employ- ment by one firm or one amalgamation of employers, but to any scheme which may debar him, even temporarily, for a few weeks or days from being in a position to assert his freedom by obeying the decisions of the Union. Any pro- posal for insurance must come from below, not from above; all others are justly objects for suspicion, to be rejected without consideration or appeal. These, at least, were in substance the arguments ab extra which were supposed on their merits to have induced the well-paid servants of the South Metropolitan Gas Company to try the appeal to battle between themselves and the Company ; and these are, again, considered to be formally sufficient to justify the demand of the Union that the Shipping Federation scheme shall be rejected by such unionists as also hold the Federa- tion ticket.
It may be that the Union seamen may obey, just as the ousworkers obeyed, without being consciously influenced by any other consideration than the arguments so formu- lated. We say "consciously," because, entrenched behind all these misgivings and reluctance, there lies the ancient and inbred instinct of the English working class which makes them view with the utmost dislike and mistrust any form of insurance for old age whatever. It may be courage, or callousness, or the result of three centuries under a Poor-Law, which protects them against the extremity of want in old age. But the English working man never forgets that he dare spend his last shilling, while his employer dare not, and that so far he is the freer man. He will insure against sickness or to pay for his coffin, he will invest savings in Building Societies, or even in co-operative manufacture in some of the Northern towns ; but he will not insure a pension for himself, or provision for his family after death. This indifference of the English workman to any scheme of insurance for old age, separates him and his class by a gulf that so far has shown no sign of closing from his fellow-workmen on the Continent, who are beset and dominated by a controlling and ever-present fear .of destitute age. In France and Germany, the working ma.n shows a feverish eagerness for State-directed and com- pulsory insurance. In Germany, the principle has already been passed into law. The workman may suspect that the theoretical division of the cost between the State, the employer, and himself, is less evenly distributed than it appears ; he knows that the cost of administration is ex- travagant, and that he pays twopence now to save three- halfpence for the future. But at least his mind is at rest from the haunting spectre of old age and poverty. Nor are the effects limited by the peace of mind so gained by the workman. For a time at least, he is reconciled to the Government, and the German Emperor has gained immense popularity by a measure which was regarded as a hazardous experiment by many of the clearest heads in the Empire. The workman sees in the Imperial Eagle which marks the stamps affixed weekly in every State to the papers which accumulate to the credit of his order, a visible symbol of the Kaiser's care ; and though employers murmur, the power of the head of the State in controlling the labour movements of the day is sensibly increased. In France, the same fear of the future, which has reduced the life of the French peasant to one of incessant grinding toil and pinching parsimony, has recently proposed a substitute in a gigantic labour fund, to be in time available, not only for insurance, but also as a growing capital for co-operative manufacture by the workers themselves, and a counterweight to modern private capital. The scope and dimensions of the French proposal were unwieldy and absurd. But no foreign scheme of State Socialism, and indeed no logical idea of State Socialism, is complete without some such provision. In our own country, they have found little favour, owing probably to the national bias against insurance to which we have referred. A scheme of private co-operation between employers and employed, such as that inaugurated by the Shipping Federation, • might perhaps supply the want without any violent shock to a national prejudice, and its further history will be watched with interest and good hope for the future.
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