These appropriate but simple rhymes have been translated into various languages, and, I doubt not, have been the means of preventing numerous collisions and other accidents at sea. It may be amusing and instructive to add that, when the question of lights for ships and rules of the road at sea were under consideration, the French Government wrote to our Government proposing a Maritime Congress to settle them. We replied in substance, “No. A Maritime Congress of sailors of different nations and languages will be a Babel. But we will heartily co-operate with you; we will propose a draft of rules and submit them to you. If France and England can agree on this, other nations will probably join.” France adopted our proposal most cordially, and we set to work. At that time we were fortunate enough to have Mr. Milner Gibson at the Board of Trade, who united, as I have explained in the text, what scarcely any other man would have done, perfect knowledge of the subject, a clear, logical, and sensible understanding, and a remarkable power of making other people agree. Not without difficulty, a set of rules was, under his leadership, framed by the Admiralty, the Trinity House and the Board of Trade acting together. These rules were sent to the French Government. They approved them, making some valuable criticisms, but, chiefly, criticisms of detail. We then said, “Now let there be no question of national vanity; no quarrel as to who originated these rules. Do you publish them in your Moniteur on a given day, and we will, on the same day, publish them in our Gazette, merely stating that the rules had been jointly settled by the two Governments.” This, as might have been supposed, was agreed on. To the surprise, however, of every one connected with the facts, the Moniteur some time before the day fixed, published a long story to the following effect:—“That the French Minister of Marine had long been alive to the dangers to which navigation was exposed for want of such rules; that he had communicated his apprehensions to his colleague, the French Foreign Minister, who sympathised with him; that he, the French Minister of Marine, thereupon prepared a set of rules, which he sent to his colleague; that the French Foreign Minister submitted these French rules to the English Government; that that Government gave them its cordial and grateful approval; and that both Governments then agreed to adopt them. Therefore, they were to become law!”
[167] See evidence at great length on this subject before Merchant Shipping Committee of 1860; and especially before Royal Commission on unseaworthy ships of 1873-4.
[168] From having been myself trained in the forecastle of a ship, I am familiar with the character and habits of sailors at sea. Though I have found among them some worthless characters, as may be found in all other branches of trade, and a few scheming and clever but bad men, who were the leaders in all mischief, known frequently as “sea lawyers,” the sailor at sea is usually an industrious, thrifty, and, I may add, a sober man. You will find him in the “dog watches,” or during the Saturday-afternoon holidays, making, mending, or washing his clothes; his trousers, his chief garment, are cut out from a roll of canvas stretched on deck, by means of his jack knife, and usually consist of only two pieces ingeniously stitched together; being, consequently, too flat behind, but having the highly-approved and familiar straight legs. He takes a particular interest in his sea-chest and its contents, and is often to be found arranging them and seeing that they are all in good order. As he approaches home, after a long voyage, you may see him figuring with a bit of chalk on the lid of his chest the amount of wages he will have to receive, and frequently hear him relating to his shipmates how he intends to dispose of them, and his mental disposition of them is usually wise and generous. But, as soon as he goes on shore, his character seems to change, and there he too frequently throws his hard-earned wages away in drink, folly, and vice. I had, when a youth, seen something of the sailor in his usual rendezvous on shore as well as at sea, but nothing good or evil that I remember worthy of note. Therefore, when changes relating to his condition and welfare were contemplated, and when, as a member of the House of Commons, it was likely that I should be expected to aid in effecting those changes, I resolved to see more of Jack on shore than I had ever done before. With that object, I frequently dressed in the rough garb of a coasting skipper or mate. I might have saved myself the trouble of changing my usual attire, for few knew me then in person, and, at best, I never looked better than the character I assumed. Thus attired, I made frequent nightly visits to the public-houses and dancing saloons in Ratcliffe Highway, and in the vicinity of the London and St. Katherine’s Docks, the usual haunts of sailors and of their varied and very questionable “friends.” With my pipe and pint of beer, I sat often for hours among them, and thoroughly made myself master of “Jack on shore” and of his depraved companions. Poor fellow! he was, so long as his money lasted, the victim of them all. Sometimes the whole of his earnings were lost or stolen from him in the first night’s debauch. As you entered these gaudy but wretched saloons, you could at once distinguish in the throng the sailor who had just come on shore, and the sailor out-of-elbows in search of another ship. I shall not attempt to describe these places, of which there are still too many in the East end of London; it is sufficient to state that vice in its darkest forms, without one redeeming spark, held high revel there. They were, indeed, loathsome “hells.” I gained from them, however, a knowledge which I could not otherwise have obtained, and which I hope proved of some service to the Board of Trade when they were framing their excellent measures for the improvement of our mercantile marine.
[169] During the year ending 20th November, 1874, 50,182l. 15s. 6d. was received at the Seaman’s Savings-banks, and 45,964l. 9s. 10d. paid away, leaving to the credit of the seamen depositors, with interest, 81,116l. 1s. Since the money-order offices were opened in 1855, there has been received through these offices at ports in the United Kingdom and ports abroad, up to the close of 1874, 4,827,093l. 1s. 11d., and remitted to 804,208 persons the sum of 4,822,338l. 14s. 8d. See Parl. Papers, Seaman’s Savings-banks and Money-orders, 161, 21st April, 1875. I most sincerely trust that Government will do everything in its power to encourage and induce seamen to make more use than they now do of these most valuable offices. These and education, more than stringent legislative enactments, are the instruments whereby the power of the crimp is to be crushed, and our seamen elevated to the position of our mechanics.
CHAPTER XIII.
Scarcity of shipping at the commencement of the Crimean War—Repeal of the manning clause—Government refuses to issue letters of marque—Great increase of ship-building and high freights—Reaction—Transport service (notes)—Depression in the United States—The Great Republic—Disastrous years of 1857 and 1858—Many banks stop payment—Shipowners’ Society still attribute their disasters to the repeal of the Navigation Laws—Meeting of Shipowners, December 15th, 1858—Their proposal—Resolution moved by Mr. G. F. Young—Mr. Lindsay moves for Committee of Inquiry—Well-drawn petition of the Shipowners—Foreign governments and the amount of their reciprocity—French trade—Spanish trade—Portuguese trade—Belgian trade—British ships in French and Spanish ports—Coasting trade—Non-reciprocating countries—Presumed advantage of the Panama route—Question discussed—Was the depression due to the withdrawal of Protection?—Board of Trade report and returns—English and foreign tonnage—Sailing vessels and steamers in home and foreign trades—Shipping accounts, 1858—Foreign and Colonial trades—Probable causes of the depression in England and America—American jealousy and competition—Inconclusive reasoning of Board of Trade—Government proposes to remove burdens on British shipping—Compulsory reciprocity no longer obtainable—Real value of the Coasting trade of the United States—Magnanimity of England in throwing open her Coasting trade unconditionally not appreciated by the Americans.
Scarcity of shipping at the commencement of the Crimean War.
Repeal of the manning clause.
The spring of 1852 ushered in the dawn of brighter days for the disconsolate and “ruined” British shipowner: he could then, at least, obtain, with prudent management, a moderate remuneration on his capital, but there was no actual scarcity of tonnage until 1854. Freights, as we have seen, had no doubt materially risen in the interval, because we had hesitated to increase the number of our ships, while foreigners, with the exception of the Americans, had refrained from rushing into the trade we had opened for them to the alarming extent anticipated. Consequently, there was, hardly, tonnage enough to meet the requirements of commerce created by the abolition of our Navigation Laws, still less to satisfy the sudden demands which arose when, in March 1854, England and France declared war against Russia. Suitable vessels could not then be found in sufficient numbers to send forth, with the requisite despatch, the allied armies and their supplies to the scene of action; nor, I must add, could British seamen be obtained to man with expedition our ships of war. Government, therefore, threw open our Coasting trade, and repealed the once famous manning clause, which, however, neither increased, on the average, the number of foreigners we had hitherto been allowed to employ in our ships, nor deteriorated the number and quality of British seamen, though aiding, at the time, the more expeditious equipment of our fleets.
Government refuses to issue letters of marque.