The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1900-02-24
SAILORS ARE s "a ROE
The Demand for Them Now Far
Exceeds the Supply.
Germany suffers from . Greater
Shortage Than Any Other Ma
tion-What Has Caused. the
Scarcity. s

- 49, -.
At the beginning Of 1899 the total
number Of men in the service Of the
German navy was 23,4o0, including the
officers and engineers and a few sur
geons, gunsmiths and paymasters.
From Berlin it is reported that with
the rapid growth and proposed further
increase of the German navy there has
been an increasing scareity of trained
young sailors. A few years ago Ger
many furnished a large part of the
crews of English vessels, but to-day the
crews of German vessels are partly
composed Of foreigners, With the doub-
ling of the German navy, as contem-
plated, this difficulty will increase and
steps are being taken to meet it. At
Bremen the North German Lloyd COM
pany is organizing q cadet school to
train young men for the company's
service.
The demand for additional sailors in
Germany, is not limited to the govern
ment service, however, for the two
chief German lines of ocean steam
ships have, collectively, crews of 1890
sailors, exclusive of the lines connect
ing German ports with other countries
in the enormous and constantly in
creasing German shipping trade. Here
tofore country supplying many other
countries with sailors has been Sweden,
but the increase of foreign commerce
Of that country and the demand for
Swedish sailors for Russian ships has
diminished the number of such sailors
available. Moreover, Germany is only
one of the countries in which there has
recently been an extensive development
of the naval armament and an enlarged
demand in consequence for sailors.
At the beginning of the year 1898 the
total number of men in the naval serv-
ice of Great Britain was 100000, of
whom 10000 were officially described as
Officers and seamen," and 10000 were
marines" Since then further in
crease Of 5000 naval men has been au-
thorized and the transport service of
the English government to South AZ
RIGA has made necessary the increase
in the number of sailors.
There has been a very considerable
increase Of sailors in consequence of the
enlargement and improvement of the
United States navy, and the demand
for them in the merchant marine of
the country has been increasing CORE
spondingly. The American line en-
ploys 1850 sailors, and the enlargement
of ocean travel this next summer to
and from the Paris exposition will make
further demands upon the service of
sailors in all transatlantic lines. Two
European countries which are adding
considerable toftheir naval equipment
are France and Russia, and the in
creased Dutch commerce makes neces-
sary the employment of a consider
able number of Drtch seanlen under
the home flag, Dutch sailors having
excellent repute and numbering in all
more than 10000, of whom less than
country.
Sailors almost uniformly, it is an
axiom of the sea, come from countries
having a large water coast and from
parts of the country nearest to the
coast line. There are, it is computed,
a quarter of million sailors connect
ed with the navies of the various
countries and 100000 sailors employed
in commercial navigation, England,
the United States and Sweden ranking
in this order in that regard. Ger
many, France, Italy and Holland are
large commercial nations, too, and 1t
has been observed generally that Ger
man sailors" come from the northern
provinces of the country, particularly
the Baltic and the North sea, while
French sailors almost uniformly are
drawn from the two provinces of Brit
tany and Normandy.
The threatened dearth of available
sailors, which some German compa-
MES are seeking to provide against by
the establishment of cadet school,
affects other countries as we'll, and
unless all Indications are at fault the
demand for sailors next summer will
be more extensive than ever before in
the worlds history.-N. Y. Sun.