47
age of fierce commercial competition and of comparisons in every possible and conceivable way. Sentiment finds little opportunity in ship management, and the laws of supply and demand, with due consideration to the fittest for their requirements, are exploited to the bitter end. Thus, those who become undesirable, or in any way render themselves objectionable from faults of their owner those of other people, from incapacity, misfortunes, sheer bad luck, indifference or cussedness, are soon removed and replaced by others at once. No chance theirs to try on any dog-in-the-manger policy, while he of the Great Power maintains his everlasting trick at the Helm. No waiting for bricks in these strenuous times, when competition of the keenest kind from our foreign rivals—bolstered up in every way by the fostering care, advice and friendliness of their solicitous Governments—has to be encountered in playing off the important national game of sea carriers, which has to be met by realising on every form of economy; for the Spirit of the Age, Dividends, must be propitiated, no matter the sacrifice; for the shipowner, it is said, is not concerned in nationality; all he requires is that the men are at once cheap and efficient, and that sufficient are available. Those who will not when. they may just move out and make room for those who will when opportunity offers. Thus the chance for the Lascars began, and thus it continues, for when a new crew 1s shipped, say at Bombay, they can be depended on to be on board at the time agreed upon, and, what is of more importance, they are ready for their work, which is a point in Sir Thomas Sutherland's remark that "without Lascar crews it would be impossible to maintain their services with anything like their usual regularity and precision." If the Indian Merchant Shipping Act of 1883 is merely copied en bloc from our Merchant Shipping Act of an earlier date, with the necessary alterations to suit Indian conditions, it may be assumed that any difference in the text from our own will, in the event of any question arising thereon, be interpreted according to the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, as in the case of the accommodation question. The articles of agreement and account of crew and official log book do not differ materially from those issued at the ports in the United Kingdom, except in regard to the geographical limits where the Lascar shall and shall not serve, the food scale, the larger number of regulations provided for maintaining discipline—not necessarily because they are not only required, but simply because they were, not so very long ago, common to all British Articles, and have not been abolished or allowed to fall into desuetude, as in the case of our own—and the common term of twelve months, a
