Volunteers are accepted between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one years, and sign on for six years’ service.
Conscripts are compelled to serve four years.
Both classes may volunteer to continue serving up to the following ages, when they are pensioned off:—
| Seamen | 40 | years. |
| Petty officers | 45 | ” |
| Warrant officers | 50 | ” |
| Chief warrant officers | 55 | ” |
Warrant and chief warrant officers in the Japanese Navy never undertake watch-keeping as in the British Navy. In no cases do they mess with the commissioned officers, as in our destroyers, torpedo boats, and torpedo gunboats, but, even in destroyers, have always their own mess.
They are not eligible for promotion to commissioned rank.
XVI
PAY
Pay in the Japanese Navy is, save in one important particular (mess allowance), very much on all-fours as to system with pay in the Russian Navy. There is, in all ranks, the same distinction between shore pay and sea pay, only, unlike the Russian, the Jap is not confined inside his harbours by Nature for two-thirds of the year.
Like Russian pay, too, it varies according to the station and varying living expenses. The distinctly Japanese element—and a very democratic one to boot—is that mess allowance is the same for all ranks: an ordinary seaman, a lieutenant, and a vice-admiral all draw exactly the same sum for messing, and that the modest one of 4s. 7d. and a fraction per week—a pound a month. The idea of the Japanese Government appears to be admirable enough in theory; it has certainly the merit of simplicity.