Sea life is both hard and dangerous, and when sympathy
is quite rightly given to miners and others who follow notoriously dangerous trades it is too often for- gotten—presumably because these things are out of sight— that other indispensable servants of all our industry have been shabbily treated. In recent shipbuilding, we gladly admit, there have been great improvements, but justice will not be done until the whole trade is overhauled and all reputable shipowners give continuity of employment to their seamen. In the present depression, however, it is probably true that there was nothing for it but to reduce wages. In July the National Maritime Board agreed to a reduction in wages of £1 a month. The Sailors' . and Firemen's Union struggled against the reduction, but accepted it as inevitable. Mr. Havelock Wilson, the President of that Union, has long been marked down by extremists for a grand attack when a suitable occasion arose, as they dislike his " patriotism'' and his uncompromising defence bf sober and even Conservative doctrines. They accuse him of being hand in glove with the employers,' and of being " worse than a capitalist." * * * *
