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reservists. He suggested that steps should be taken to train Lascars in their respective ships to naval ways as far as was possible with the appliances of the merchant vessel, the tuition being given by the officers of the Royal Naval Reserve. The witness believed that a Lascar reserve would proves most valuable auxiliary of the naval service, not only for guarding the shores of India, but also for Colonial defence.
The men are quick to learn, and under European officers would soon be qualified for the reserve list. Who will gainsay this with the imposing native Indian Army of 150,000 men of the finest possible fighting material as a criterion? The men of the Indian Army are recruited from all over India, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. The Lascar, we maintain, is recruited from the same places, and is of the self-same races. Whether the Lascars will ever be formed into a reserve or not time will prove. In the meantime, if the needs of the Navy require a larger supply of firemen than can be attracted to the service by ordinary methods, and if our next conflict is to be in the Persian Gulf, as those who pretend to know say it will, then it will be well for those in power to consider the possibilities of the Punjabi for such service where the men before the furnace will dominate the actions of the man behind the gun to a very considerable degree.
The employment of Lascars in the merchant service will, in the future, be greater than ever, the securing of this class of labour being merely a matter of opportunity for those ships that frequent the ports where they can be engaged. If there were places nearer the home ports than afar off Bombay actually is, there would be a general rush to secure them for crews in vessels that now have to be exploited by the foreigner, with only a few men of native birth among them to make up the ordinary type of European crew that the British vessel depends upon.
The Board of Trade have agreed to modify the. regulations which prohibited the employment of Lascars in vessels going further North than Chesapeake Bay, that is, about the latitude 38° N., and extend the limit 5° to latitude 48° N., so as to include the port of Boston, on condition that in the steamers plying to the east coast of America the men's quarters are provided with suitable heating accommodation, and that warm clothes are found them.
This arrangement in favour of Lascars cannot be expected to give unqualified approval to the leaders of the Seamen's Union and other agitators who urge that the employment of Lascars prevents the European seaman from earning the wages
