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cause is the superior attractiveness of shore employment, with its greater comforts and superior facilities for the maintenance of a home.
11. As regards the increasing employment of foreign seamen, we do not think, speaking generally, that they are preferred on account of cheapness. The rates of wages at home ports are usually the same for British and for foreign seamen alike, but possibly crews largely or wholly foreign are sometimes taken at foreign ports, partly because wages are lower there, e.g. Hamburg and Antwerp. It may also be observed that British vessels which habitually trade between the ports of foreign countries frequently recruit their crews from the foreign seamen available for employment at such foreign ports. The superior contentment and docility of foreign seamen, certainly in the earlier stages of their employment in British ships, render masters and owners willing to take them. It is, however, satisfactory to find that no competent authority alleges that the foreigner is a better seaman than the British subject, especially at times of danger.
12. From evidence given by various witnesses it appears that a certain number of the foreign seamen employed on British ships have acquired homes at seaports in the United Kingdom, and have become in this way British citizens. We think if would be a valued privilege for these men, and for others who intend to serve for lengthened periods in the British mercantile marine, if all seamen who have served for a substantial time, perhaps four years, on board British merchant ships, and acquired an adequate knowledge of the English language, were entitled by an easy process, without expense, to become British subjects by naturalisation.
18. Lascars and other Asiatics who are British subjects stand on a different footing from foreigners. Through the kind assistance of Sir Mancherjee Bhownaggree, M.P., who himself attended as a witness, we have been able to obtain the evidence of a shipping agent of Bombay and of several Lascars employed in British ships. 7
14. We think that, in addition to their claim as British subjects, they have also some claim to employment, because British vessels have displaced the native trading vessels. Lascars are in most cases hereditary sailors, and have special qualifications for work as firemen in hot climates. They are temperate, and those who came before us made a most favourable impression upon us. The evidence shows that they make most amenable and contented crews. In consequence their employment as firemen has grown almost universal in the tropics, and they are also largely employed in vessels trading between ports within the tropics and the United Kingdom.
15. They are so contented and so anxious to retain their situations in British ships that it is not easy to be sure whether that service entails an hardship on them. We believe, however, that there is no reason to think that many of them do, in any appreciable degree, suffer when employed in the colder climates to the north of the Suez Canal, or even in the Atlantic trade. We do not, however, feel competent to express any decided opinion on their employment in men-of-war, but we have no doubt of their desire to be so employed, or of their competency, at least in the capacity of stokers and firemen. We may add that those whom we saw belonged for the most part to the northern and warlike races of India, and they certainly impressed us with their manly character.
16. On the whole, we feel that the objections which may be felt as to the employment of foreign seamen do not apply to the employment of Lascars and other Asiatics who are British subjects.
17. We ask ourselves the question—Is there any objection to be felt or apprehension entertained in view of the undoubted increase of foreign seamen in the mercantile marine?
