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and no foreign-going British ship can legally proceed to sea from any port in the United Kingdom without being in charge of such a duly certificated master, who must be not less than twenty-one years of age, and must have served for six years at sea, one year of which must have been passed as mate in charge of a watch, whilst in possession of a first mate's certificate. In like manner no vessel employed in the home trade, if she carry passengers, can legally leave any British port without a similarly competent master; and if any person proceeds to sea as master of a vessel without a master's certificate, both he, and the owner of the vessel, are each liable to a penalty of fifty pounds.

Then, besides the master, the law requires that every vessel of 100 tons or upwards, shall carry one or more mates, also holding Board of Trade certificates of competency. A foreigngoing British ship of more than 100 tons, is therefore obliged by the law to have a master and one mate. If, however, she be a large vessel she will probably carry, instead of only one mate, two or three; and in the case of the large ocean mail steamers, four, five, or even six mates are carried; but the actual requirements of the law would appear to be fulfilled if she had simply one master and one mate.

With regard to the latter class-the men-the law has but little to say, and what little it does say scarcely seems to be enforced. The men are divided, or are supposed to be divided, into two classes-A.B.'s (able-bodied seamen), and O.S. (ordinary seamen). An able seaman should be able to "hand," reef," and "steer;" that is to say, to set, take in, and secure the sails, and to reef them; and also should be able to steer. Besides these things, he should be capable of performing all the handicraft work connected with the ship's sails, and with the standing and running rigging; he should know how to use the lead, and should understand every other part of the ordinary duty of a seaman.

The Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, enacts that "a seaman shall not be entitled to the rating of A.B., that is to say, to the rating of an able-bodied seaman, unless he has served at sea for four years before the mast"... "and the service may be proved by certificates of discharge, or by a certificate of service from the Registrar-General of Shipping and Seamen." This

A.B.'S, AND ORDINARY SEAMEN

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clause of the Act has always, however, been very much neglected, and has now become practically a dead letter, with the result that numbers of men now call themselves A.B.'s, and ship as such, who are in every respect totally unqualified.

From figures supplied by the Chamber of Shipping, the total number of seamen employed at the present time in the British Merchant Service is, in round numbers, 235,000. Of this number 80,000 are, or are supposed to be, A.B.'s; but no less than 27,000 of these A.B.'s are foreigners, leaving the total number of British A.B.'s as 53,000, a very large proportion of whom are untrained, and more or less incompetent. Of A.B.'s with four years' service at sea there are at present certainly not more than 26,000.

An Ordinary Seaman is simply a man who earns his living on the sea. He may have been at sea for a year or two, or he may have been afloat merely for a month, or even less. Anybody, in fact, who takes a fancy to go to sea may call himself an "ordinary seaman." There is nothing, so far as the law is concerned, to prevent any landsman-the gardener, say, or the milkman, if he can get any mate to take him-turning sailor and shipping as an ordinary seaman; and after a voyage or so to the Colonies it is quite possible, the Merchant Shipping Act notwithstanding, that without further preliminaries, he may proceed to the degree of A.B.

A man, however, who has shipped as A.B., and who is afterwards found to be thoroughly incompetent to perform the duties he contracted for, may be reduced at any time to the rating of "ordinary seaman"; and in addition he would lay himself open to further punishment for fraud-and very justly so, for supposing that a ship should be entitled to, say, six A.B.'s, and after she gets to sea finds herself one hand short, clearly more work will devolve upon the other five, and they will have just reason to complain.

Competition is now so keen that owners send ships to sea with the very minimum of hands capable of carrying on the work; many tramp steamers, even of as much as 4000 tons, at the present time cross the Atlantic with only half a dozen deck hands, three in a watch-not sufficient for a relief to the wheel and look-out. In spite of all that is said by shipowners

about British ships not being under-manned, it is an undoubted fact that large numbers of ships do go to sea exceedingly short-handed. No allowance whatever is made for casualties or for sickness, and with matters cut as fine as they are at present, if a man gets hurt, or becomes ill, the number of the crew at once falls below the proper factor of safety, or, in other words, the ship is distinctly under-manned. A large four-master of over 2000 tons will leave the port of London for the Colonies with a crew of only eighteen-nine in a watch. Here, of course it is "all hands" every time she goes about; and if that be not under-manning it is something very near akin to it.*

In 1835, an Act was passed,† one of the main features of which was a declaration that a British ship should be considered duly navigated if she had one seaman for every twenty tons of her registered tonnage; but since the repeal of the Navigation Laws, in 1849, it has been left entirely with the shipowner to say what number of hands shall be carried, with only this one restriction, that it shall be stated on the articles what number are to be carried upon the voyage about to be entered upon, and then that number must be maintained as a minimum during the entire voyage.

A shipowner, like most other possessors of property, thinks that he has a perfect right to do as he likes with his own; but

* In February, 1898, the following official notice was issued by the Board of Trade: "Foreign-going steamships of over 200 feet in length, or not less than 700 tons gross, when proceeding to sea, should have, independently of the master and two mates, a sufficient number of deck-hands available for division into two watches, so as to provide a minimum effective watch, viz. a competent hand at the wheel, a look-out man, and an additional hand on deck available for any purpose." It will be remarked in the above "Official Notice" how exceedingly apologetic a public department like the Board of Trade can contrive to be. It does not lay down the law that such or such things must be done; but it mildly suggests that certain vessels "should have,” etc. Something stronger than this is wanted before under-manning is put a stop to.

The charge of under-manning in no wise applies to the great lines of ocean mail steamers, which, universally, are most efficiently manned, and admirably officered. The accompanying illustration will afford a good idea of the crew of a first-class mail steamer. It is from a photograph of the crew of the R.M.S. Briton, of the Union Company.

† 5 and 6 William IV., c. 19.

[graphic]

CREW OF A LINER, THE UNION COMPANY'S R.M.S. "BRITON."

[To face page 264.

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