MERCHANT SEAMEN.* Tars book, which is a plea for better
conditions in the Mercantile Marine, is written with a passion of conviction.
Although several reforms have been introduced by law in a hUndred years, Fleet-Surgeon W. E. Home feels it necessary to speak now as strongly as men like Plimsoll and Dana (the American reformer) spoke in their day. It is an astonishing and humiliating fact that an island nation which lives upon its sea-borne trade has for generations allowed seamen to be treated as though they could have no sensitive feelings about the conditions of their work. In the Navy it has long been the custom to attend to what is called the habitability of a ship, because it is, of course, a scientifically ascertained fact that efficiency of the seaman depends upon decent surroundings
and good health. When Rear-Admiral Boyle Somerville took over a merchant ship for use in the War he was horrified by the living quarters which had been allotted to the deck hands and firemen of the ship's original crew. He described his experiences in Blackwood's Magazine for February, 1920, and
we called attention to it at the time :-
" So, when we stepped jauntily on that first bright ' Sunday Rounds ' into our men's quarters, for inspection thereof, the amazement, and gradually, the horror, at sight of what we then encountered are sentiments that remain fresh at the end of five years of experience sufficiently overwhelming to blot out most other things. We were conducted into the very eyes ' of the ship—to the forecastle, and the narrow depths beneath it, to the part which in the great Atlantic liners dips, shuddering, into the monstrous head seas ; bears on its front the first and worst of the furious impact, and carries on its dripping shoulders the chief of the strain and motion of the labouring ship. No place this, at any time, for men ; but, especially, not for men tired out in long watches below, among the boilers, or on deck, in the fierce wind, and rain, and cold spray. Yet this was the region allotted to the crew, squeezed away here into the least possible area by the greedy owners of the ship, so as to permit of more space for cabins in the comfortable parts, farther aft, for those who paid for their accommodation. 'The word Bolshevik' had not, at this period of the war, been invented ; but that is what we felt like as we entered, and regarded these quarters."
If people knew of such treatment they would feel, let us hope, strongly about it ; but the seaman's life is hidden away ; his sufferings are below the horizon. " The simple sailormen " have no aptitude for organizing themselves ; they habitually sign on for a single voyage, no doubt thinking that if they
do not like the ship they can soon leave it ; and they are an easy prey to the boarding-master who encourages desertion and robs his victim under the guise of patronage or friendship. Less would have been done for merchant seamen than actually has been done had it not been for the untiring labours of that good patriot and energetic Labour leader, Mr. Havelock Wilson.
We admit the difficulty of treating the Merchant Service as though it were comparable with a land industry. Still, much remains to be done, and it must be done. Shipowners—the backward ones, we mean, for there are, of course, some zealous and considerate—ought to take up the subject of industrial welfare at sea. Above all they ought to encourage continuous service with particular companies. If a seaman did not sign on merely for a single voyage the company could afford to keep track of him and to give him a certain amount of leave on full pay or partial pay every year. It ought to be possible for every decent merchant seaman to be able to marry on his prospects instead of roving about the world as a detached unit, belonging to nobody in either a domestic or an industrial sense.
Previous page
