THE MEN OF THE MERCHANT SERVICE.*

Mn. BIILLEN, as most people know, is an able writer whose boyhood and early manhood were spent at sea, first as a fore- mast hand, then as a ship's officer. Much of his work has been reviewed in this paper, and with good right, as litera- ture; but the book before us plainly should be considered

only as a statement of facts and opinions put together with a definite object,—or rather with two objects. It affords, first of all, to any one who thinks of going to sea, or of sending a boy to sea, a clear account of the life, the work, the prospects, the qualifications needed, the conditions necessary to success, in the merchant service, reviewing every phase of the career, and working through the whole ship's company from master down to ship's boy. Considered in this light alone the book is of great value, and of great interest to all the innumerable people who are curious about the most romantic and separate of lives. But it is of importance, secondly and chiefly, as Mr.

Bullen's appeal to the political sense of his country. Put as briefly as possible, it comes to this. The control of the sea is vital to England ; and the English, though they continue to be a great ship-owning people, are less and less a seafaring people. English ships are increasingly manned by foreigners and officered

by foreigners. The fact is familiar enough, but it is unquestion- ably serious, and Mr. Bullen assists us to see it in all its bear- ings. Why has such a state of things come to pass? And how far is it preventible ? As regards the officers the cause is simple.

Where an Englishman stands out for:six pounds a month as mate, a German will come at four, or even three. This cause must continue to operate until the standard of living among foreigners rises to ours, or till ours falls to theirs ; the only alternative is legislation to the effect that British vessels must be officered by British subjects. But it does not appear, at least from Mr. Bullen's pages, that foreigners are shipped as officers by preference to Englishmen. About foremast hands that is unhappily the case. They are not onlyless insistent as to pay, but they are also as a rule better worth their money. It is very rare, says Mr. Bullen, to find a foreign seaman who does not know his business ; it is very common among English ones. And, more important still, insubordination is far less common among foreigners. That is the most serious point in Mr.

Bullen's very serious book,—the deterioration in quality of the English seaman ; and he traces it without hesitation to its cause in the relaxation of discipline :—

"In the ships of every other nation but the English-speaking ones the merchant seaman is not only a native of the country to which his ship belongs, but he is never free from the environ- ment of naval law ; the same law, that is, which obtains on board of a warship." [And on an American ship discipline is enforced with the heavy hand, even with brutality; while the officer, if attacked, does not hesitate to shoot, and the law bears him out.] " In a British ship, on the other hand, a master may unwittingly ship a crew of scoundrels, who have made up their minds to do as little as they can as badly as possible, to refuse the most ordinary forms of respect to their officers, and to either desert or go to gaol at the first port, not because their ship is a bad one, but just by way of a change. And if the master or officers, worried beyond endurance, take the law in their own hands, their punishment and subsequent ruin is almost certain to ensue promptly. The rascals who have made the ship a hell afloat, confident in the tenderness of the British law and its severity towards all forms of oppression, pursue their rejoicing way, and if brought to court may be fined a trifle of wages, which, as they set no value upon money, does not punish them in the least."

The result is, as Mr. Bullen's book testifies over and over again by the citation of individual instances, that bullying

ruffians escape their due share of work, and that the standard of efficiency is lowered all round. Liberty is a good thing, but even ashore the state of London streets makes us wonder if we have not too much of it ; and our interpretation of the

law treats the ship's officer at best as if he were a constable afloat. Moreover, our laxity in regard to cases of impersona- tion or forging papers makes it impossible for a master to feel sure of the men he is shipping ; and upon the whole, the men responsible for a British ship get a very poor backing in the exercise of what comes Very near to a public duty. Americans • The Men of the Merchant Stroke: being the Polity of the Mercantile Marine for fhongehore Readere. By Frank T. Bullen. London : Smith, Elder, and Co. Ca 6d.] have a harder code in these matters, and the result is that American seamanship is the admiration of all seagoing men. Not only that, but men so drilled to perfect alacrity in response to orders can, if necessary, take their places on a man-o'-war and fall easily into the system.

If we understand Mr. Bullen, he would advocate a reform in two ways. First, he would strengthen the hands of the officers, so that incompetence, idleness, and sullenness should be heavily punished ; and secondly, he would improve by law the scale of diet and accommodation for seamen. In the American marine, work is harder than in any other vessels ; but also food is better ; in the English, men work slackly and feed slovenly. The higher the standard of competence exacted the higher will be the spirit of professional pride ; and where that spirit prevails British sailors are, Mr. Bullen holds, the beat in the world :—

" If any proof of this be needed I have only to point to the personnel of the Navy. There are no aliens there. And for smartness, for the ability to use to the occasion, and do deeds at which even our enemies stand amazed, they have no equals. Why ? Because no breach of discipline can be made without its being swiftly followed by punishment. At least, that was the reason. Now, I believe a race of men-o'-war's men have arisen who are capable of maintaining discipline among them- selves, having so high a pride in their Service that they do not need any disciplinary restraint to keep them what they are—the finest body of men in the world."

That is high praise, yet not beyond what the facts warrant, and Mr. Bullen may well add that "if it were possible to raise

up such a body in the Merchant Service, no price would be too high to pay for the benefits it would confer upon Great Britain."

Whether the cheap services of the foreigner may not have been dear in the long run—whether the kindness that would do away with all possibility of oppression has not been very like cruelty in its results—these are natural questions. And Mr. Bullen makes it plain that men respect themselves when they work hard, and respect the man who makes them work.

The delight that all sailors take in " sailorising "—in the use of their peculiar skill and deftness in sail-making, splicings, and the like—is insisted on repeatedly, or rather stated as a fact that no seaman would question. On the other hand, no man accustomed to even a moderate standard of civilisation will care to do heavy work on food that is dirtily served and grossly unpalatable and unhealthy. On board the American boats are no cooks who cannot cook, and cleanliness is uni- versal. At the same time, the curious conservatism of sailors helps to maintain the existing state of things, and Mr. Bullen has an odd story of a crew which rounded on one member who was correcting by precept and example the incompetence of a cook, "saying that if they were the cook they wouldn't allow no — interloper to meddle with their work, so they wouldn't." All the more reason for legislation. The Board of Trade's prescribed scale is said to be an open scandal.

Into the many other questions which Mr. Bullen goes space forbids us to follow him. On the subject of apprentices and their present treatment he is very emphatic : his scheme of non-paying apprentices also is notable. Concerning the treat- ment of engineers his views are known already to readers of the Spectator, and we cannot commend his volume too earnestly to public consideration. England's tenure of her position in the world depends on her merchant marine no less than on her Navy, and in neither one nor the other can she afford to rely on mercenaries.