The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1861-01-26 00:00:00

MANNING THE NAVY.

The following letter on this subject, which has
a special relation to that of merchant shipping,
has been addressed to the Times by Mr. G. F.
Young, who, it will be noticed, in dealing with
the question makes particular allusion to the evi-
dence given by his Worship, the present Mayor
of Liverpool, when chairman of the Local Marine
Board and of the Ship Association of Liverpool,
as well as to the opinions expressed on this mat-
ter by several other gentlemen :
Your interesting article on Saturday last on manning
the navy invites information and opinions on a subject
of universally admitted national importance. You con-
fess yourself puzzled to account for the undeniable fact
"that the great body of seamen entered for the public ser-
vice during the last two or three years has been inferior in
stamp to the standard of ten years since," and you say
that what you want to get is some explanation of the
fact. Sir, the explanation is simple and conclusive.
Yee. are entirely in error in assuming that private ship-
owners can have a sufficient supply of good sailors,
though the States cannot, and that " the merchant navy
has not experienced similar straits" with those com-
plained of in the mercantile marine. If you will turn
to the evidence taken by the "Select Committee on
Merchant Shipping" during the last session of Parlia-
ment, you will find a cloud of witnesses bearing testi-
mony to the generally depreciated quality of seamen,
and the extreme difficulty of obtaining an adequate
supply of well-trained and able British sailors. It is
unnecessary to occupy your space by my own state-
ments; I would refer you to the reply given by Captain
B. Sproule, formerly a shipmaster, and now a ship-
owner and chairman of the Mercantile Marine Associ-
ation of Liverpool, to a question submitted to him on
this very subject, and recorded in No. 3,006 of the
Minutes of Evidence. Captain Sproule says,—

" I am sorry to say that our seamen have deteriorated
to such a degree that almost any foreign sailors are
better paid than ours. They have fallen off dreadfully.
We have no sailors now to speak of in the merchant

service."

And Mr. Samuel Graves, an extensive shipowner and
chairman of the Local Marine Board and of the
Shipping Association of Liverpool, goes so far as to
say,—

" In fact we do not possess one-half the able seamen
we should, looking at the country, the commerce, and
the colonies we have to protect."
These sentiments will be found to he fully corrobor-
ated by reference to Questions Nos. 499 et seq., 812,
1,481, 2,298, 4,208, and a host of others, under the
authority of such nanies as Dunbar, Marshall, Phillipps,
and Beazley, of Liverpool ; Gilmour, of Glasgow ;
Whitwell, of Bristol ; and Holman, of forming a body
of evidence unimpeachable to the state of the melan-
choly and humiliating fact that able and trustworthy
-British sailors are totally inadequate in number to the
requirements of the Royal Navy and the merchant
marine, and affording an ample explanation of the best
quality of the men, generally speaking, who have
during the last two or three years been engaged for the
public service. The plain truth is, that good men are
obtainable in sufficient numbers—they do not exist ;
and until this difficulty be surmounted, vain will
be the inquiries of the Royal Commissioners or
Parliamentary Committees. They cannot call into
existence trained and good seamen. But this, lam of
course aware, explains but half the difficulty. Why
is it, you pertinently ask, that ships commissioned lately
should be, in such a very different position from ships
commissioned formerly? I should hesitate to answer
this query on the authority of my own opinion, because
my reply would unhesitatingly be that it is because
formerly the Navigation Laws compelled the almost
exclusive employment of British seamen in the mer-
chant service, and the efficient training of these sea-
men by a system of regular apprenticeship, and the
repeal of those laws has naturally both diminished
the number and deteriorated the quality of British
seamen. But as I know that my views as to the
reckless, unjust, and dangerous character of the repeal
are still regarded with distrust and suspicion, as
tainted with the unpopular heresy of protection, I con-
sider it fortunate that I am enabled to establish the
truth I desire to elucidate on authority that can scarcely
be questioned—that of the evidence adduced before the
Parliamentary Committee to which I have already re-
ferred. Before, however, appealing to testimony, let me
invite a moment's consideration of the unquestioned
facts of the case, as in themselves furnishing, if cause
and effect are admitted to have any relation to each
other, a conclusive answer to your questions. During
the continuance of the Navigation Laws every British
registered ship was required to be navigated by a crew
of which the master and at least three-fourths of the
seamen must have been British subjects. Practically,
this compulsion led to the almost exclusive employment
of British seamen, and thus the supply of such seamen
necessarily kept pace with the growing expansion of
maritime commerce, and the mercantile marine consti-
tuted in consequence an inexhaustible source whence
the navy was recruited. But with the repeal of the
Navigation Laws this compulsion was necessarily
abolished. The unlimited competition of foreigners
compelled the British shipowner, as a measure of eco-
nomy, to navigate his ship with the smallest possible
number of sailors; and his release from the obligation
to employ British seamen led to the substitution of a
considerable proportion of foreigners in his crews. •
By this double operation has the number of British
seamen, compared with the extent our marine, been
greatly diminished, and from this cause it is that ships
now commissioned find a difficulty in procuring men,
unknown at the time when the available sources of
supply were kept up by the operation of laws now
abrogated.
Passing now to the quality of the men, the solution
of the enigma you submit is equally simple. Under
the Navigation Laws every British ship was com-
pelled to carry a number of apprentices, bound for
at least four years, proportioned to the registered
tonnage. Thus the stream of sailors available for
the merchant service, and consequently for the navy,
was continually kept up by an influx of youths trained
and disciplined by a regular apprentciceship, and
constituting the genuine type of the old British
tar. But with the repeal of the Navigation Laws all
this necessarily ceased. The compulsory perpetual
maintenance of the boys was felt by the shipowner,
when exposed to unlimited foreign competition, to be an
unjust and intolerable burden ; and, released from it,
the practice has extensively grown up of either dis-
pensing altogether with the services of boys or engaging
them for the voyage, at the expiration of which
they are turned adrift, without care or supervision
of their condition, physical and moral ; destitute of home
or connection, or of any of that influence or control
which can operate as a safeguard for character or con-
duct. It is from such material that the wants of our
marine, commercial and national, are now supplied.
Can you wonder, sir, that " the navy is now manned by
an inferior class of men," who, as you say, "have of
late been perpetually bringing scandal on the service by
insubordination and misconduct ?"

If these explanations be true, the " curious puzzle"
of which you complain may be considered as cleared
up. But I have disclaimed resting them on my own
authority, and, appealing to that of the evidence taken
by the Parliamentary Committee on Merchant Shipping,
I would refer for corroboration of my statements to the
published testimony of the intelligent and experienced
witnesses whose names I have cited, and of many others
whose evidence will be found particularised in pages
795 and 867 of the "Minutes," under the heads of
" Apprentices," and " Supply and Character of Seamen."
Many of these I would especially quote, but I have
already trespassed, I fear, too unreasonably on your
columns. They well deserve, however, the attention I
invite, and I am convinced they will be found un-
answerable.

It is painful to have thus to depict the dangerous
results of mistaken legislation. But it is satisfactory
that, having from the first foreseen, predicted, and pub-
licly warned my countrymen against them, a sense of
the threatening perils they have produced is awakening
a spirit of which, stimulated by your powerful pen, I
would fain hope may lead to the dispelling of the fatal
delusion under which the present system of British
navigation is erroneously, illogically, and absurdly
associated with the principles of what is termed " free
trade."—l am, sir, your faithful and obedient servant,
GEORGE FREDERICK YOUNG.
Oakfield-lodge, Reigate, Jan. 21,