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qualified representatives of all the interests affected. We have examined at considerable length a very large number of witnesses—seventy-nine in all— during the forty-one days we have sat, and we hope we have been fortunate enough to obtain a body of highly valuable evidence.
(i.)
2. There is no doubt of the fact of the increase of foreigners employed and corresponding decrease of British seamen employed in the mercantile marine.
3. The statistics of the Registrar-General of Shipping and Seamen, obtained in the manner explained in Question 12,065, show that in 1888 there were employed on British merchant vessels 158,959 British and 24,990 foreign seamen; in 1901 the numbers were 151,876 and 87,174 respectively— a decrease of 7,588 British, and an increase of 12,184 foreign seamen in thirteen years.[1] (Appendix M, No. 1.)
4. According to a table handed in by the Registrar-General (Appendix M, No. 9), based on a census taken on March 81, 1901, there were then employed on British merchant vessels 120,412 British and 32,614 foreign seamen. These figures are shown in detail in the return published as a Parliamentary Return (Cd. 1,842) in 1902, which also shows that when a similar census was taken on March 25, 1896, there were 125,009 British and 27,446 foreign seamen; thus in the quinquennial period the decrease in the number of British seamen amounted to 4,597, and the increase in the number of foreign seamen amounted to 5,168.
5. Coincident with the diminution in the number of British seamen and the increase in the number of foreign seamen employed, there has been a very considerable increase in the number of Lascars (natives of India), and other Asiatic seamen employed on British merchant vessels. The number of Asiatics on Asiatic articles of agreement is shown as 18,427 in 1888, and as 87,481 in 1901 (Appendix M, No. 1); in the census of March 31, 1901, 88,610 Lascars (including all Asiatics on Asiatic articles of agreement) were enumerated as compared with 27,911 in the census of March 25, 1896.
6. Although Lascars and other Asiatics are employed almost exclusively on steam vessels, they now exceed the total number of foreign seamen employed in all classes of British ships, and their increase during recent years has been very much more rapid than the decrease of British or the increase of foreign seamen employed.
7. Full particulars of the comparative numbers of British and foreign seamen and Lascars and other Asiatics employed in the various ratings in all classes of vessels are shown in the tables handed in by the Registrar-General, together with illustrative diagrams (Appendix M, Nos. 1-18), and in the Parliamentary Return referred to.
8. It is to be observed that the growth of the mercantile marine has been very great, and that the proportion of British seamen to the total mass of the population is still high; if the total number of men on the active list of the Royal Navy (excluding marines) be added to the total number of British merchant seamen and fishermen; it will be found that one in every thirty-six of the males over fifteen years of age in the United Kingdom is a seaman or fisherman (Question 12,246).
9. A statement handed in by Vice-Admiral R. M. Lloyd shows that the proportion absorbed by the Royal Navy has increased very considerably in recent years (Appendix E, No. 1), and this increase possibly affects to some extent the number entering the mercantile marine.
10. Various causes have been assigned for the decrease in the number of British seamen in the mercantile marine, but we do not doubt that the main
- ↑ These figures include officers in all cases, there being very few foreign officers.
