The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-04 00:00:00

these assumptions, and founders at sea, or
shattered on the rocks, the officers and such ofi
the crew as are within reach should be tried s
the new Vice-Admiralty Courts, in the mine will
as the officers and crews of any of her Majesty.°
ships are tried by court-martial, however av .
ously excusable may be the loss of their vessel.
The accused should thus be obliged to defend
themselves, and if they can throw off the blame
on the shipowner, the underwriters, or others,
they will, no doubt, endeavour to do so—truth
will be elicited, and the guilty party punished.
If reasonable protection be denied to the seaman°
life, such as is given by the law to that of the
landsman, we need not be surprised that in the,
lesser matters of physical and moral health, and el
property, still less security is afforded Inn).
True, in some details, good laws have bees,
framed, but with conditions which have rendered
them wholly inoperative. The seaman himself Is
sometimes expected to institute proceedings under
practically impossible conditions, and to be
acquainted with the particulars of Acts of
Par-
liament, couched in legal language, and contain-
ing upwards of six hundred articles. But laws
are chiefly meant for wilful evildoers, for the
unrighteous, and are rarely called into opera'
tion in the ordinary affairs of every-day life 11
the more respectable members of the community.
Public opinion, social usages, and religions
influences, shield us on 'all sides, and exert
beneficial silent authority, the extent of which We
hardly recognize until we are withdrawn from
their shelter. It is to the absence of these
gentle but powerful influences, and to the presence
of baneful customs, that we must trace many Of
the evils incidental to the seaman's isolated and
unfriended position. The British shipowner IS
commonly understood to be the millionaire and
princely owner of a splendid fleet—the pride of
his country, the envy of the world. But though
there are a few such gentlemen in possession of
noble and well-found ships, and a few large
and liberal navigation companies, of whose fleets
the country may well be proud, these are only
the happy exceptions amongst a less wealthy and
less liberal class. Ships are frequently owned
in many shares by small tradesmen, retired sea
officers, and other men of small- means, who
engage in this trade for speculative purposes,
and know their seamen only as so manY,
objectionable figures on the wrong side ei
their account. Nay, even amongst the larger
owners, few have any personal acquaintance what-
ever of the seamen whom they employ. Indeed,
the crews are so changed every voyage that it is
somewhat difficult for even the officers to know
anything but the names of the men under their
command. Personal influence on the part of the
officers is thus reduced to a minimum, and on the
part of the great majority of the owners has no
existence at all. The softening sway of the better
portion of the fairer sex is also, unhappily,
withdrawn during the seaman's long absences front
home; whilst his family, if he has any, are
known to, uncared for, and unprotected by his
employers. The difficulties that surround the
sailor's married life are thus magnified, matrimony
is discouraged, and vice in its very worst forms,
with all its moral, physical, and spiritual penali-
-pes, fostered and promoted. With, too often, grasp'
ing and rapacious employers who have no know-
ledge of or interest in their seamen ; with, fre-
quently, ignorant, uneducated, and ungoverned
officers ; with an urgent competitive rage for cheap'
ening supplies ; and with strong incentives to
carry the largest possible cargo-load, what wonder
that seamen are constantly lodged in deleterious
holes, unfit for the carriage of cargo, and hardly fit
for brutes, fed on meat which would be con-
demned by the market inspectors, given foul
water to drink, and treated with a brutality which
is a disgrace to Christianity, to civilization,
and to humanity. What wonder, then, if the race
becomes demoralized degraded, and even brutal-
ized. And if a spirit of opposition and even of
enemity is engendered between the seaman and
his officers, and between both and the owner ?
The owner declares the seaman to be an un-
grateful, hopeless, blackguard. The seaman be-
lieves the owner to be a grinding, selfish monster,
actuated by unlimited hostility to his class !
Both alike personally unknown to, and mutually
ignorant of, one another ; and both equally at
fault. A little more heart, and a little more indi-
vidualizing interest, would promote a far better
relation between these hostile heads and hands in
the sphere of labour at sea, than any amount of
compulsory legislation. Let the owner remember
.
that, if the seaman he a degraded and debased
Englishman, lie is very much what his employers
have made him. He started in life with all the
advantages of school and Church and family influ-
ence enjoyed by his brethren on shore ; he has
been withdrawn from all these aids, and he has
reached the unhappy goal indicated, from avoidable
circumstances entirely within control. These
brutalizing circumstances are not found in 'the
Navy;Royal they are not found in the great
ships companies' and in several other liberal em-
ploys; they are not found in many foreign mer-
cantile services ; and there is no reason whatever
why they should find shelter in any vessel under
the aegis of the British flag.