BRITISH MERCHANT SHIPPING.* IT has often been complained that the
officers and crews of our merchant navy and the administrative staffs on land who are responsible for the management seldom come together, and know little about one another's lives. This book, by an experienced manager of shipping, gives the two classes the opportunity of meeting in its pages. The essentials of what both classes have to do are sufficiently described. If the ship herself is a sentimental link between the two it is hardly a practical one. As Mr. Jones says, the office staff do not generally go on board, and though the captains come to the office to report the officers, as a body, remain unknown. Yet both sides are working for the same firm ; their fortunes and their families are dependent upon the results of the same voyages and on the safety of the same vessels.
The shipping clerk, harassed by figures and desperately
trying to overtake arrears in a rush of trade, may enviously picture to himself the officer on the bridge passing serenely through empty tropic seas and hardly knowing how to fill in his spare time ; while the officer on the bridge battling against gigantic seas, cut to the bone by chilling gales, or perhaps anxiously peering into an impenetrable veil of snow or fog, may enviously think of the shipping clerk with his snug shore-berth, his warmth and comfort and his regular hours. Therefore the least we can say about this well-informed book is that both sides ought to read it.
In reading Mr. Jones's survey of the history of our mercantile
marine we found it interesting to reflect why America, which has, from time to time, taught us much about the building and handling of ships—and of yachts, too—should on the whole be far behind us in the successful development of merchant shipping. It is sometimes said that Americans arc not brought naturally into acquaintance with the sea as we islanders arc. Nevertheless, the Atlantic and Pacific sea-boards of America are tremendously long. Even if all those Americans who live comparatively far inland might be expected to avoid the sea as an occupation there must be plenty who have lived all their lives within sight and sound of the sea. Again, though it is true that to be an efficient seaman in a " wind-jammer " it is necessary to have been brought up to the trade from youth, the same thing cannot be said of the service in steamships. When the Germans decided to create a navy they took to the sea artificially, as it were, but they became highly efficient, as even their worst enemies must acknowledge.
Quite other reasons than a natural disinclination or want of aptitude for the sea arc probably the real ones for the compara- tive American failure. The largeness of the undeveloped parts of America is, no doubt, one reason ; men found more lucrative opportunities on land without troubling to look farther ; they had no need to drift to sea. When the British had firmly established themselves as the ocean carriers of the world it was obviously a less "paying proposition" to
• BriliAh Ilferdsant Shipping. By Clement Jones, C.D. London: Arnold. [1(8. 6d. net.;
challenge that supremacy than to make use of the easier open- ings which still remained. To challenge our supremacy would have meant switching off other trades in order deliberately to build up a great shipbuilding industry, and Great Britain had already taken a very long start at that work. Yet another reason was that Free Trade almost compelled us to be great carriers and America was under no such compulsion. During the Great War, of course, America was obliged to create shipbuilding yards and to produce ships by the thousand. She did it, but she did not do it extremely well. Her Government is now encumbered with a merchant navy which is more of an anxiety and a source of loss than a pride and a profit. The 'hipping laws of America have always stood in the way of the creation of a merchant navy in ordinary times.
But that Americans could build and handle ships to admira- tion if they seriously wanted to do so is proved by their history. They led the world in the building of clipper ships, those majestic sailing vessels which would cross the world at about the same average speed as is now achieved by tramp ships under steam. Their handling of their sailing ships of war in the War of Independence is famous. So is the invention of the first turret ship, the 'Monitor,' in the American Civil War—the ship from which all modern navies derive their form. Americans also have to their credit the early develop- ment of submarines. We Englishmen are not specially inventive, but when inventions appear elsewhere we seize upon them, improve them and become, so to speak, their second authors. Mr. Jones says :—
"The old bluff-bowed East Indianian had had its day when the United States, now freed from war, introduced on the sea ships with clipper bows that cleft the waves instead of hitting them and retarding the passage of the hull through the water. The marine architects in America threw convention still further to the winds by modifying the design of the stem in such a way that, instead of squatting and holding the dead water, the ship slid through it cleanly with a minimum of resistance. The one object of the American designer was to build a ship that should sail every other craft off the seas, and so obtain the maximum of trade-carrying. Besides the improvement in bow and stem, the Americans lengthened the ship until she became five or six times longer than her breadth, against four times the beam in the case of the East India Company's ships. This gave an oppor- tunity of adding a fourth mast to the ship and of carrying more nails. The sails themselves were improved in cut. In exact contradistinction to the East Indiamen, these American ships did not reef down in anticipation of the gale that was to follow hours afterwards, but took in sail reluctantly. The part played by the American clippers during the period between the close of the Napoleonic Wars and the beginning of the American Civil War is one of vast importance in the development of the sailing ship. Even when steamers began to cross the Atlantic in 1840 these wonderful clippers were able to cross in about a fortnight."
Coming to more modern times, Mr. Jones very justifiably
points out the comfort which is provided by the great steamship lines, even for steerage passengers. The beneficent changes arc taken as a matter of course by the traveller, and no doubt
it is the prescriptive right of all of us, both by sea and land, to grumble ; all the same, not enough note has been taken of the reasonable amount of space, the cleanness, the warmth, the efficient sanitation and the varied and wholesome food which are now provided for every passenger in a great liner, and even in what are technically called emigrant ships. The change is even greater than that which has come about within the past generation on our railways. To-day, the third-class passenger by railway instead of sitting, as he would have done twenty-five years ago, on a hard, narrow seat with a rug round his legs to protect himself against the piercing cold now sits upon a cushioned seat in a carriage in which steam heat is laid on. Let us quote a passage from the Report of a Parliamentary Committee in the 'forties of last century, which shows what the conditions in emigrant ships used to be :—
" It was scarcely possible to induce the passengers to sweep the decks after the meals or to be decent in respect of ordinary personal cleanliness ; in many cases, in bad weather, they would not go on deck, as their health suffered so much that their strength was gone and they had not the power to help themselves. Hence the 'twecn decks were like a loathsome dungeon. When the hatchways were opened, under which the people were stowed, the steam rose and the stench was like that from a pen of pigs. The few beds they had were in a dreadful state, for the straw, once wet with sea water, soon rotted. At that time the passengers were expected to cook for themselves and from their bemg unable to do this, owing to either ignorance or sea-sickness, the greatest suffering arose. Thus, though provisions might be abundant, the emigrants would be half starved."
The reader who wants to inform himself about the most romantic of our trades can learn in this book about the origin of tonnage, about the proper methods of storing cargo, about the doctrines and practice of the rival schools for securing safety at sea, and much else. We have really only one com4 plaint ; Mr. Jones ought to be more respectful to his profession than to call a ship a boat.
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