The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-25 00:00:00

CORN EXCHANGE.

A few fresh runs of wheat were received up to-day, both
from Essex and Kent. Good and useful samples were taken
off at Monday's currency, but other kinds were very dull,
and rather lower to sell.

Foreign wheat, the show of which was large, commanded
about previous rates, but the demand for it was chiefly in
retail. Floating cargoes commanded very little attention.
We have again to report a dull market for barley. In
prices, however, no quotable change took place.
There was scarcely any demand for malt, and prices ruled
almost nominal.

Oats commanded quite as much money, but the demand
For them was by no means active.

Beans commanded' very little attention, but peas were
olerably firm in price.

Flour was a slow sale. Both country marks and foreign
parcels were rathor cheaper.

ARRIVALS THIS WEEK.
Wheat. Barley. Malt. Oats. Flour.
Eng1i5h........ 940) 1,660 1,490 l5O 1 130 sacks
Irish.. .. 600 ,
F0reign........ 18,790 200 1
27,660 brls.

MANNING TEE NA rr.

Mr. George Frederick Young, in a letter to the

Times, says :
Your interesting article on Saturday last on manning the
navy invites information and opinion on a subject of uni-
versally admitted national importance. You confess your-
self puzzled to account for the undeniable fact " that the
great body of seamen entered for the public service during
the last two or three years has been inferior in stamp to the
standard of 10 years since," and you state that what you
want to get is some explanation of that fact. Sir, the ex-
planation is simple and conclusive. You are entirely in
error in assuming that private shipowners can procure a
sufficient supply of good sailors, though the State cannot ;
and that " the merchant navy has not experienced similar
straits" with those complained of in the Royal marine. If
rill will turn to the evidence taken by:the " Select Com-
mittee on Merchant Shipping " during the last session of
Parliament, 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. Not unnecessarily to
occupy your space by my own statements, I would refer you
to the reply given by Capt. Benjamin Sproule, formerly a
shipmaster, and now a shipowner and chairman of the Mer-
cantile Marine Association of Liverpool, to a question sub-
mitted to hint on this very subject, and recorded in No.
3,006 of the Minutes of Evidence. Capt. Sproule says—
" I am sorry to say that our seamen have deteriorated to
such a degree that almost any foreign sailors are better men
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 Shipowners'
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 colo-
nies we have to protect."
These sentiments will be found to be fully corroborated
by reference to Questions Nos. 499 et. seq., 812, 1,481, 1,833,
2,298, 4,208, and a host of others, under the authority of
such names as Dunbar, Marshall, and Phillipps, of Lon-
don; Gilmour of Glasgow; Beezley, of Liverpool; Green-
how, of Shields ; Whitwell, of Bristol ; and Holman, of
Exeter, forming a body of evilence unimpeachable to the
startling, melancholy, and humiliating fact that able and
trustworthy British sailors are totally inadequate in num-
bers to the requirements of the Royal Navy and the mer-
cantile marine, and affording an ample explanation of the
bad quality of the uten, generally speaking, who have dur-
ing the last two or three years been engaged for the public
service. The plain truth is, that good men are not obtain-
able in sufficient numbers. They do not exist ; and until
this difficulty be surmounted vain will be the inquiries of
Royal Commissioners or Parliamentary Committees. They
cannot call into existence trained and good seamen. Bu

this, I am of course aware, explains but half the difficulty.
Why is it, you pertinently ask, that ships commissioned

lately should be in a very different position from ships com-
missioned 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 employ-
ment of British seamen in the merchant service, and the
efficient training of these seamen 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
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 Par-
liamentary Committee to which I have already referred.
Before, however, appealing to testimony, let me invite a
m,

_ .
,oment'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 rd.-
quired, under penalty of confiscation, 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 Bri-
tish seamen, and thus the supply of such seamen neces•
sarily kept pace with the growing expansion of maritime
commerce, and the mercantile marine constituted in conse-
quence an inexhaustible source whence the navy was re-
cruited. 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 economy, to navigate his ship with the
smallest number of sailors; and his release from the obli-
gation 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 sea-
men, compared with the extent of our marine, been greatly
diminished, and from this cause it is that ships now com-
missioned 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 Naviga-
tion Laws every British ship was compelled to carry a num-
ber of apprentices, bound for at least four years, proper-

tioned 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 youth
trained and disciplined by a regular apprenticeship, and
constituting the genuine type of the old British tar. But
with the repeal of the Navigation Law all this necessarily
ceased. The compulsory personal maintenance of boys
was felt by the shipowner,when exposed to unlimited foreign
competition, to bo an unjust and intolerable burden; and,
released from it, the practice has extensively grown up of
either dispensing altogether with the services of boys •r
engaging them for the voyage, at the expiration of which
they are turned adrift, without care or supervisict
of their condition, physical or moral; destitute of home or
connexion, or of any of that influence or control which can
operate as a safeguard for character or conduct. 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 Parliamen-
tary 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 those I would especially quote, but I
have already trespassed, I fear, too unreasonably on your
columns. They well deserve, however, the attention I in.

Le, and I am convinced they will be found unanswerable.
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 publicly warned my
countrymen against them, a sense of the threatening perils
they have produced is awakening a spirit of inquiry which,
stimulated tly 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, illogi-
cally, and absurdly associated with the principles of what
is termed " free trade."