The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-01-26
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS AND
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAMEN

nations that touch American ports,
It's result is to make all ship owners
OF all nations pay the same good
wages and maintain the same good
conditions for health and safety on
the vessels. This equalization relieves
the American ship owners of COM
petition Of foreign low wages and of
fugitive slave laws for seamen and
of unsafe vessels"
Condensing the benefits of the law.
Secretary Hansen's report asserted:
"The change has been not alone in
improved safety, in the working con-
ditions and to some extent in the
wages Of the men, but the whole life
on board has been improved, and in
stead of the old spirit of bitterness
and hatred, inevitable under the slave
laws that held the men, there is an
ar of freedom and a growing recog-
milton of rights and responsibilities on
the part of everybody connected with
the ship. 1t is certain that after the
Seamens Act has been in operation
mother year or two, that not even the
ship owners will want to repeal it.
Instead, we will find that all other
maritime nations will follow the lead
set by the United States"
The internationalism of the con-
vention was strongly emphasized by
the presence and active participation
in it of delegates from Great Britain
and from Japan. Delegates B. Su-
zukl, of the latter country and J.
Hensen of Great Britain and Ireland.
as well as Richard McGhee, Member
OF Parliament, and Harry Gosling,
who had been delegates from Great
Britain to the convention of the
American Federation of Labor, told
of the efforts not only of their re-
! spective countries but of all the for
eign countries to have similar sea-
mems laws enacted there. A special
bulletin and an attempt to value the
message of these foreign delegates to
the seamen and to the trade union
movement in general will be issued
soon by the Committee on Industrial
Relations.
/ AS showing what the merchant
sailors of Europe thought of the
American Seamen's Act, the visiting
delegates told of the appropriation
by the union Of Great Britain of more
than $40O to help the American In
( ternational to resist efforts to re-
peal the law, They told also of that
unions purpose to contribute con-
stantly if need be for the upholding
of real manhood liberty on the sea.
Now to have the Seamen's Act so
administered, through the Department
of Commerce, that its full spirit and
letter shall be put into effect is the
great aim of the International as it
was of the convention. The worst Of
fense against the law and against
the seamen IS the slack and truly un-
lawful way in which the Department
OF Commerce, under its present direc-
tion "softens" the language tests for
the crews and thus still in many
cases permits vessels to be manned
by coolies and by ignorant, incom
petent persons who do not understand
the uninterrupted, emergency orders
of their officers. Delegates to the
convention condemned Eugene T.
Chamberlain, Commissioner of Navi-
cation, and George c. Uhler, Chief of
the Steamboat Inspection Bureau. in
the Commerce Department, as being
responsible directly, and blamed Sec
retary Redfield as being responsible
at least indirectly for this violation
and partial negation of the beneficent
law.
The fast growing strength of the
fast growing International Seamen's
Union of America was pledged for
the fight against these administra-
tive non-enforcements of the law.