Idylls of the Sea, and Other Marine Sketches

At intervals, ever since the issue of the last report of the Registrar-General of Shipping and Seamen, there have been appearing in the press items of comment upon the significant tables set forth in that most interesting document. But one feature has been painfully evident in all of them—the inability to appreciate, from a merchant seaman’s point of view, the underlying lessons that report contained.

This, though much to be regretted, can scarcely be wondered at when we remember the limitations, the inarticulateness, of the class referred to. Here it may be as well to state that in what follows the terms “ship,” “officer,” and “seaman,” are to be understood as referring solely to the Mercantile Marine, unless otherwise stated—a necessary warning, since eight out of every ten landsmen always confound the two services, mercantile and naval.

First in importance, as well as in interest, to seamen is the question of personnel. It is much to the credit of the Navy League that it is wide awake to the dangers besetting this country through the increasing numbers of foreign seamen manning our ships. But it does not appear as if even the Navy League fully realises to what extent our cargo-carriers have been handed over to the foreigner. A very extended acquaintance with the various trades is absolutely necessary in order to understand the reason why the percentages shown in the Board of Trade return do not reveal the true state of affairs. As they stand, the percentage of foreign able-seamen to British (excluding Lascars) in foreign-going sailing ships is shown to be as high as 48.6. Taking steam and sailing ships together, the percentage falls to 35.5, for reasons which will presently appear. Now, one would naturally expect (what proves indeed to be the case) that our coasters and fishermen would be almost entirely British. And we may go a step further, and declare that these hardy fellows are the fine flower of our seamen, as stalwart and capable as ever British seamen were. With them may be classed the fishermen, hovellers, and beachmen generally of our coasts, who, though not classed as seamen, may fearlessly challenge comparison with any seafarers in the wide world. Among all these the foreigner finds little or no room wherein to thrust himself, nor is there apparently much danger that he ever will. Next to these in order of immunity from foreign interference come the great steamship lines, other than those trading to the Far East, whose crews are almost exclusively composed of Lascars and Chinese, with British officers. To the former belong such great undertakings as the “Cunard,” the “Union,” the “Castle,” and the “Pacific” Companies. In these splendid vessels the Britisher tenaciously holds his own, in whatever part of the ship you seek him. The food is good, pay is fair, accommodation is comfortable, and a high state of discipline is maintained. Consequently, these ships are eagerly sought after by the better class of seamen, who will be found making voyage after voyage in the same vessel, or at least in the same line.

But having thus briefly dismissed the almost exclusively British-manned branches of the Mercantile Marine, we are met by a vastly different state of affairs at once.

Ocean Tramps

Go to one of the shipping offices when a sailing ship is “signing on,” and watch the skipper’s contemptuous look as he scrutinises a steamboat man’s discharge just handed to him. “I want sailors, not navvies,” he shouts, as he scornfully flings it back. Therefore a “sailor man,” gives them a wide berth if he can. And then the conditions of life on board these tanks effectually bar decent Britons out of them. The few that are found in them generally belong to that unhappy class of men who get drunk at every opportunity, and must go when their money is done in whatever presents itself. They would sail in a sieve with the devil for a skipper. The rule is, however, for these vessels to be manned by a motley crowd of what Jack calls “dagoes,”—Latins of all kinds, the scum of the Levant, with a sprinkling of Scandinavians, but not many. It speaks volumes for the skill and pluck of the officers unfortunate enough to be responsible for such ships, that so few casualties occur in comparison with their number; for it is no uncommon thing for a tramp of a thousand tons or so to be wallowing along through a pitch-black night, the whole watch on deck consisting of the officer in charge and three men, no one of whom is able to understand the other. One is at the wheel, one is on the look-out, and the other “stands by to never mind.” The kennel below is filthy,—a parti-coloured halo round the reeking grease-pot that serves for a lamp eloquently testifying to the condition of the atmosphere. The food is in keeping with the rest, where provided by the ship; but in a large number of cases these are “weekly boats,”; that is, the men are paid by the week and “find” themselves,—an arrangement that lends itself to some extraordinary developments of mixed messes and semi-starvation among such a strange medley of races. I knew a weekly boat once that signed in London for a Mediterranean voyage, but was chartered in Smyrna to take pilgrims to Jeddah. The fellows cut their purchases very fine, as it was for the trip, but owing to their stores being stolen by the starving pilgrims, they were in such a plight when they left Suez that it was a miracle they did not share the fate of fifty-five of their passengers, who resigned their pilgrimage on the passage, and found rest among the sharks. Other things happened, too, more true than tellable, which would almost serve as an appendix to the Inferno. These vessels are mostly owned by single-ship companies, a dozen or so of which will be managed by some enterprising broker, who makes a fortune, although the shareholders rarely see dividends. Under such conditions of ownership there is no room for wonder that these tramps are what they are.

Much Canvas and Few Men

Many intelligent people are possessed by the idea that steam is rapidly driving the sailing-ship from the sea. If they would only take a stroll round the docks they would alter their views. For certain trades and some kinds of cargo the steamer, let her be built, found, and manned as cheaply as the ’cutest single-ship manager can contrive, cannot possibly compete with the sailing-ship. And of late years it has been found possible to add enormously to the size of sailing-ships without increasing the cost of their working to any extent. Four-masted ships have become plentiful, carrying an area of canvas which would have seemed incredible to the seamen of fifty years ago, accustomed as they were to the flying clippers of Britain and America. These vessels are as handsome as the tramp steamer is hideous, their graceful lines, taut spars, and spidery rigging all lending themselves to beauty. But in these, as in the tramps, the foreigner is paramount. The ghastly farce (to a sailor) of labour-saving appliances has enabled the owners to reduce the crew lists to such an extent that in the majority of these ships all hands are barely enough for an efficient watch. The only change which has been found workable in the management of the larger sails above the courses is an American invention. It consists of splitting a sail in half horizontally, and was long applied to the topsails only, their unwieldy depth having always made them exceedingly difficult to handle. With the growth in size of ships and sails the top-gallant-sails have been also halved, and this alteration is now very general. But the comparative ease with which these sails can be handled, as compared with what used to be the case, has naturally tempted officers anxious to make a passage to “hang on,” longer than they used to, depending upon their ability to get sail in quickly at the last moment. That was all very well when a crew was carried sufficient in numbers to do what was required of them. But when eight such struggling monsters as a 3000-ton ship’s to’gallant-s’ls are have to be furled at once in a gale of wind by eighteen men (supposing all hands are called), it is quite another matter. Few experiences are more awful than those gained by being on a yard with a handful of men trying to master two or three thousand yards of No. 1 canvas in what sailors call a “breeze of wind,”—off the Horn, for instance, in a blinding snowstorm, with the canvas like a plank for stiffness, and rising far above your head in a solid round of white, into which you vainly try to force your half-frozen fingers.

The Dutchman

There is a great temptation to enlarge upon this theme, but it must be sternly suppressed, my object being solely to show how a scanty crew list adds to the miseries of the sailor. Not only so, but the food is so uniformly, unpardonably bad that British seamen will not put up with it a day longer than they can help. They get out of it the first opportunity that presents itself, and the Dutchman, as Jack impartially designates Germans and Scandinavians alike, comes in. In such vessels as I have been describing he is found in a proportion of at least 85 per cent. And not only as common seamen, but as officers, masters, mates, and tradesmen. In these ships are to be found the 180 captains, 512 mates, 637 boatswains, 1304 carpenters, 277 sailmakers, and 2321 cooks and stewards of foreign birth admittedly sailing in British vessels, according to the Registrar-General. A very potent reason for this is to be found in the peculiar conditions of discipline, or rather want of discipline, obtaining on board these ships. Bad food, short-handedness, and miserable quarters make British Jack, never too amenable to discipline, kick over the traces. When he does, which is not infrequently, what remedy has his superior officer? Practically none. Handcuffs are carried, but with an all too scanty crew already that coercive measure is barred. American methods of “booting” and “belaying-pin soup” are also out of the question, for Jack knows enough of the Merchant Shipping Act to make him a dangerous customer to assault. Personal violence towards a seaman on the high seas renders an officer liable to lose his certificate, even if he gets a present advantage in the sudden civility of the person assaulted. Again, the scanty number of officers carried in proportion to the crew is a powerful argument against the use of physical force. So dangerous a weapon ought never to be used at sea unless it is sure to be effectual. And yet, failing personal violence, there are no means by which an officer can enforce obedience to his orders. Refusal to obey orders, often accompanied by the foulest abuse, is one of the commonest of experiences at sea in British sailing ships, for which gross outrage the master’s only legal remedy is to note the offence in the official log, and on the ship’s arrival in port get a magistrate to sanction fining the offender a portion of his pay varying from two days’ to a month’s wages.

Between British seamen anxious to leave the sea and captains eager to ship Dutchmen, the miserable remnant of our countrymen manning “deep-water” ships steadily dwindles. Those that remain are mostly like Sterne’s starling, or else they are hopeful youngsters who, having served their time in some singly-owned hooker, and passed for second mate, sail before the mast in hope of picking up a berth abroad. They cannot live at home in idleness wearing away the dock roads looking for berths which are all filled up by those possessing influence of some kind with the owners, so they put in their time as A.B.s and live in hope. This, however, is not all. Not content with supplying our forecastles, the Dutchmen kindly furnish us with officers as well. I have been before the mast in a ship, the Orpheus of Greenock, where the chief mate was a Liverpool man, who, with a Welsh A.B. and myself, represented the entire British element on board. Her crew numbered twenty-four all told. Doubtless I shall hear that this was a marvellously exceptional case, but I beg to differ—it is all too common.

The “Boy”

Another curious feature of the manning of our ships is especially noticed by the Registrar-General—the way in which young British seamen leave the sea-life at the earliest opportunity. His unemotional remark, that “as ‘sailors’ do not ordinarily enter the sea-service after they are twenty-five years of age, this falling off in the number of its young British sailors affects the source of supply of our future petty officers and able seamen,” is full of the gravest warning, which has, however, apparently passed unheeded. Out of the various training ships3 there pass every year a very large number of lads into the mercantile marine, who have received at least an insight into the conditions of a sailor’s life as it should be. They are taught habits of obedience, cleanliness, and regularity, and in some cases have actual acquaintance with the working of small vessels under way. When they are considered to be fairly competent to do all that is likely to be required of them, they are taken in hand by an official whose duty it is to find ships for them. In due time they sign as “boys,” generally in sailing ships, and away they go to sea. To their utter amazement they find the life has scarcely anything in common with that which they have been used to. In the first place, they miss most painfully the abundance of good plain food. Then they have been used to cleanliness of the strictest kind, both in body and clothes. Now they are fortunate if they can obtain the eighth share of a bucket of fresh water once a week, unless rain falls. Their duties have been regular, their periods of rest unbroken; now they have as many masters as there are hands on board, and they never know what to do next. They have been under a regular system of tuition; now, if they learn anything, it is because they are determined to do so in spite of difficulties which are only to be overcome by such indomitable perseverance as one can hardly expect from a boy. And lastly, they are thrown into the intimate society of a group of men who, generally speaking, have but one topic of conversation, one mode of speech—the worst possible. They are continually being told that nobody but a fool goes to sea, that it is the life of a convict, with worse food and lodging, and that they had better sweep a crossing ashore. Consequently they are ever on the look-out for a way of escape, and the great majority succeed in finding one before very long.

The Naval Reserve

This brings me to a most important part of the subject, the question of merchant seamen as a reserve for the Navy. There can be no doubt that the institution of the Royal Naval Reserve was a grand idea, but there are grave doubts as to the way in which it is being carried out. As far as its officers are concerned, its success can hardly be disputed, though there may be more truth than is palatable in the assertion that Naval officers look down with much contempt upon the gallant merchantmen who become R.N.R. lieutenants. Whether that be so or not, I am sure that Naval officers would be the first to recognise the value of R.N.R lieutenants if ever their services were needed, and any lingering feeling of superiority would soon give place to admiration. But the men, the rank and file, who are each paid a substantial retaining fee yearly, besides a guinea a week for six weeks’ annual drill? I speak under correction as trenching upon a matter with which I have had small acquaintance, but I believe that drill is usually put in on board of an ancient hulk, with obsolete weapons, and that very few of the men have any acquaintance whatever with the actual conditions of service on board a sea-going vessel of war. If I am right in this contention, then this most valuable body of men are running to waste, and would be no more fit to take their places on board a man-o’-war than they would be to start cabinet-making. And if this be so in the case of Royal Naval Reserve men, what can be said of those outside that experimental force? Except that he would be hardly likely to get seasick, the merchant seaman suddenly transferred to (let us say) a first-class battleship would feel as much out of his element as any landsman, more so than an engine-fitter or a man accustomed to some of our big machine-shops. To use the same words, but in a very different sense, that I used about the tramp-steamer crews, a man-of-warsman (blue-jacket) is not a sailor at all now. He is a marine artilleryman with a fine knowledge of boat handling, but a spanner is fitter for his fist than a marlinspike. He lives in the heart of a bewildering complication of engineering contrivances, to which the mazy web of a sailing-ship’s top hamper is as simple as a child’s box of bricks. He is accustomed to the manipulation of masses of metal so huge as to excite the awe-stricken wonder of the ordinary citizen who is not an engineer. And familiarity with packages of death-dealing explosives renders him as contemptuously indifferent to their potentialities of destruction as if they were sand or sawdust. And, most important of all, long and rigid training has made him one of the smartest men in the world, able to act at the word of command like a pinion in a machine, at the right moment, in the right way, yet with that intelligence no machine can ever possess.

The Intelligent Foreigner

Talk about the average merchant seamen filling up gaps in the ranks of men like these is almost too much for one’s patience on the part of those whose business it is to know; it is criminal stupidity. Now in France every merchant seaman must perforce spend a large proportion of his time in the Navy, so that their reserve is always available. And that is one reason why France strives so eagerly to foster her Mercantile Marine even at such crushing cost to her long-suffering taxpayers. In the event of war with us, however, she would be in a far different position, because she could exist without a merchant ship at sea, and all their crews would be ready for service in the Navy. What should we do? Even supposing that all our merchant seamen were capable of taking their places on board of men-of-war if called upon, who would man the fleets of food-carriers? Accepting as rigidly correct the proportions shown by the official document already quoted, the percentage of foreign seamen in all foreign-going vessels was two years ago 35.5, and admittedly increasing rapidly. Would it be wise to withdraw from the merchant ships the stiffening of British subjects they now carry and replace them by aliens? I firmly believe that the danger limit has long been passed in the exclusively cargo-carrying trades, which, after all, are our very backbone. What this great army of aliens will do in the event of our going to war with one or two European Powers is a problem of undeniable gravity. But given a fine ship with a valuable cargo, with officers and crew nearly all German, what might they reasonably be expected to do? Failing an answer, I submit that the temptation to transfer the ship to their own flag would be very great. And it is a needless risk. Let it be granted that the alien officer or skipper is a good man, better educated most likely, a good seaman, and that he is cheap. All these qualities except the educational one (which is, after all, not so important to our officers as it is to the foreigner) our officers possess in just as great measure, while as for the price—well, I have seen half-a-dozen chief mates tumbling over one another for the chance of shipping in a 1200-ton Baltic tramp steamer at £5 : 10s. a month. They could not be much cheaper than that, unless they got the same wages as the crew. And I know of English skippers of sea-going steamers out of London who are getting £10 a month. Poor men, they are cheap enough!

To sum up as briefly as possible all the foregoing remarks: It seems clear to me, as it has done to all intelligent seamen that I have ever met, that very little legislation is needed to make the British Mercantile Marine popular again among our own countrymen. Legislation has hitherto done little for the sailor, while it has exasperated the shipowner, already handicapped as none of his foreign rivals have ever been. The Mercantile Marine should more nearly approximate to the Navy in many of its details, which need not entail extra expense or annoyance to the shipowner. It should be made possible for a shipmaster to ensure better discipline, but he should be able to give his men better food and better housing. The Board of Trade scale of provisions is a hateful abomination; it ought to be blotted out and a sensible dietary substituted, which need not exceed it in cost, while it would act like a charm upon seamen, for whom it has an importance undreamed of by those ashore, who even on the slenderest incomes can fare every day in a manner luxurious by comparison with our sailors. More attention should be paid to the men’s quarters. Here, again, expenses need not be raised; a little attention to detail in drawing up specifications would make a vast difference. And none but a naturalised British subject should be permitted to sign articles in a British ship. This plan is pursued with advantage in American vessels, which, like our own, carry an enormous percentage of foreigners of all nations. Of undermanning I need say nothing more, because the question is being dealt with, and will, I earnestly hope, be settled with as much satisfaction to everybody concerned as the splendid “Midge” scheme, the only piece of marine legislation that I can remember that has been completely successful. Unfortunately, under present conditions it is responsible for the still further depletion of our Mercantile Marine of British seamen, since numbers of them by its beneficent operations reach their homes with their hard-earned pay intact. This enables them to look about for a job ashore where they are known, whereas under the bad old conditions they would have been in a few days again “outward bound with a stocking round their necks,” as Jack tersely sums up the situation of a man who has squandered all his money, been robbed of, or has sold, all his clothes, and is off to sea again in the first craft that he can get, going he neither knows nor cares whither.