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seamen of this service—which in reality is no service at all, made up as it is of all sorts and conditions of vessels from the stately liner and subsidised armed cruiser to the merest insignificant coaster—are, as a class, notoriously averse to courting publicity, as is easily proved by the undoubted condition of laisser faire that has so long unfortunately obtained among them, and is amplified by their innate modesty, and too often want of opportunity of bringing themselves in evidence to press their claims for consideration with those affairs which concern them more than any other class of the community, either at home or in the King's dominions beyond the seas. There is also a probable reluctance on the part of those who could ably and sufficiently deal with the subject doing so, on the grounds of being considered anything but patriotic, and thus risk drawing upon themselves scathing criticism and vile abuse; but in the light of such treasonable matter that has lately been published and allowed to pass unchecked in a "free and unfettered." Press in England, and swallowed, too, by a section of an all too gullible public since the outbreak of the war in South Africa, one can only hope that the patriotism of those who command our merchant vessels that daily sail the seven seas, and proudly bear the red or blue ensign "far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam," will ever be deemed above suspicion, whether or not the vessels are partly manned by Lascars or with an entirely European crew, such as is now demanded by the recent action of the Federal Government of Australia, in their decision to attempt to bolster up a White Australia by withholding their mail contracts from such vessels as employ black labour!
With these preliminary remarks we will now endeavour to treat the question as it occurs to us, and as we see it in our everyday life, and not as "through a glass darkly"; and to state that we hold no brief for the Lascar, nor for any one who employs them—we merely write from the independent position of the shipmaster, and hope to do it fairly.
So recently as July 12 last year (1901), the House of Lords (quoting from the Standard of the 13th) was chiefly engaged
