THE MERCHANT NAVY [To the Editor of THE SPECT,ANOR.] SIR,—I
am afraid that I must dispute the accuracy of Sir
Archibald Hurd's statement, in your last issue, with regard to the National Maritime Board. It emphatically does not reflect the opinion of Merchant Navy officers as a whole. I cannot speak as to the seamen. The officers represented by the Imperial Merchant Service Guild, and Mercantile Marine
Service Association, form but a fraction of the officers of the Merchant Service. The Officers' (Merchant Navy) Federation, with a membership of over 12,000 (I believe over four times the combined membership of these two other organizations), is denied representation on the National Maritime Board. Any of your readers interested in the details of this anomaly may satisfy themselves as to the accuracy of my statement by reading the report of the debate in the House of Lords, in December last (a copy of which will be forwarded upon application to this office), when some 12,000 officers (and 11,000 of the general public) presented a Petition, begging that a Committee might be appointed to inquire into their conditions of service, as controlled by the Merchant Shipping Acts, in order that the shipping industry might be obliged to accept, in some degree, the legal obligations imposed by modern ideas of humanity on employers of labour ashore. .
In view of the Board of Trade's statement in the House of Commons that no signs of discontent had reached their ears, one can only assume that the acoustic properties of the Houses of Parliament are even worse than we are taught to believe, and that the means of communication between Government Departments need overhauling.
If Sir Archibald Hurd will reconsider his letter in the light of this additional information I think he will not be satisfied that the National Maritime Board is the right body to deal with this crisis. Officers of our Merchant Navy have real grievances which they are enduring patiently, and loyally, with the pathetic hope that their countrymen will at long last insist on their complaints being heard.
I affirm, and am prepared to prove, that there is grave discontent amonst officers afloat, even though they may be fortunate in escaping for the moment the plight of their brother officers struggling against unemployment, and even starvation, ashore. The great majority cannot look forward to any pension. _Their pay is too small to enable them to save enough to retire in decent comfort in their old age, and there- fore they strive to continue serving when no longer fit to under- take the responsibilities inseparable from their profession. Foreign officers are allowed to serve in British ships while hundreds of our own blood are unemployed and are not even eligible for the "dole." Officers have no legal claim to leave," or to any time off while in harbour, and often they are employed, week in, week out, with scarcely a break.
This country has in her Merchant Navy a personnel of Which she should be proud, but their conditions of service, as controlled by the Merchant Shipping Acts, are a disgrace to a civilized nation, and are unknown to the general public. If enlightened, they would cry : " Can such things be ?
am, Sir, &c., PHILIP NELSON-WARD, Admiral.
President of The Officers' (Merchant Navy) Federation. 23 Leadenhall Street, E.C. 3.
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