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improved with the rest of them. But the supply of British seamen has greatly diminished of late, and Sir Thomas Sutherland hints that if the Lascar were driven out his place would not be taken by the Englishman. As Fairplay the recognised organ of the English shipowner, says: 'The question really is one of far greater importance in India than it is here. Whether mail steamers employ Lascars, or whether they are confined to the employment of European sailors, is a matter in which perhaps the British public would take little interest, but for the Indian native population, and especially for the sea-going portion of it, the subject is one of vital importance, and it is certain that a great deal of disaffection would be created in the localities from which these men are procured if, to suit the game of trade unionists, both in and out of the Board of Trade, they were deprived of their employment and thrown back on their resources.'
Here our shipping contemporary writes in a sense that is worthy of its name, as it also does when it says 'it certainly would be most unwise to inflict a positive and unnecessary hardship on perhaps the most deserving and industrious portion of the population' as a concession to the demands of Mr. Havelock Wilson and the Trade Unionists would obviously be."
The experience of the P. & O. Company which led to the introduction of the Lascar west of Suez has been the common experience of all the other companies whose steamers trade regularly to India. Even the famous City Line to Calcutta, whose advertisements in all the home and Indian papers always contained the remark "Crew entirely European," or words to that effect, have had to cave in and take on the native for some few years now. Of course there e still large numbers of vessels that visit the Indian ports manned by so-called European crews which more often than not include West Indian negroes, Japanese, Chinese, or Malays, which is quite plainly evident by a perusal of the Administration Report of the shipping Master of Bombay for the year 1899-1900, to the Acting Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium, Abkdri, and Reporter General for External Commerce.
This official publication clearly proves that matters up to that time had not improved for .the betterment of the sailor man, and the cause of complaints of thirty years ago are still rife among us. Section 10 of this interesting document is styled "Behaviour of British Seamen," from which we quote:
