Page:The Blight of Insubordination.djvu/15

7

showed, after the manner of statistics, that upwards of 45,000 Lascars wete registered at the port of Bombay alone, and as many at the port of Calcutta; but these numbers, be it noted, represented those who were actually registered (as seamen, firemen and domestics), and not necessarily those in active employment at sea at any one particular period of that year. Quite recently the Bengal Chamber of Commerce has approached the Government of India with respect to the intention of Australia to refuse postal contracts except on condition that white labour only be employed on the mail steamers. As might be expected, the Bengal Chamber of Commerce considers that by such a stipulation infinite injury will be done to Lascar sailors a.nd firemen, of whom 70,000 are employed in oceangoing steamers. How comes it, then, that Lord Dudley quoted the figures for these people employed last year at only 36,023? There is evidently a mistake in the matter, and if, as the noble lord states, the sea-going tendency of the British nation is as great as ever, and diners as little from what obtained, according to his own showing, thirty years ago, in what way have Lascars displaced British seamen, as so often asserted by Trades Unionists, et hoc genus omne, in British ships, when the personnel of the Royal ships has increased in the period under review from 48,000 to 119,000 men, except to the lasting benefit of the latter, and the Empire, too? On the face of it all it is clear that Great Britain would have to increase very considerably the sea-going tendencies of those who should fill up the ranks of the seamen and firemen classes, so as to have Britishers only to man the many ships in the two services. One in fifty-five of the male population of the British Islands would not be sufficient for the purpose, even as it stands now, to say nothing of providing for an increase of vessels of either kind.^[1] When the last Manning Committee had concluded its labours and the inevitable Blue-Book appeared, the Shipping Gazette, London, on Monday, August 24, 1896, stated in an article:

"The harmless, necessary Lascar seems to have emerged from the Manning Committee's inquiry with great credit. Attempts made to prove that he is a poor sailor, that he lacks courage, and that he is altogether an inefficient substitute for a European seaman met with unqualified failure, and the worst that the majority report suggests is that in some way or other these swarthy sailors are affected by the fall in the value of the rupee. It is really necessary to draw the line somewhere, and though Sir Edward Beed and his colleagues may be thoroughly competent to report on the currency question it is not

1. July, 1903. The Mercantile Marine Report, just issued, gives the numbers, including fishermen, as one in thirty-six.