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he would like to have. It will probably have a direct effect upon their membership which will not be to their benefit, as time may show. Any alteration of the Lascar's terms of agreement, as in this case, where it has always till now been stipulated "that the said crew (Lascars) shall not be bound to serve on voyages to any port in the Baltic, or any port on the east coast of America north of 38 deg. N. lat.," would be certain of provoking much criticism in the Press, and the Syren and Shipping of September 10, 1902, in commenting upon it in reference to what had appeared in the Morning Leader in its "World's Work" column about the British sailor and the Lascar, says:
"'Another step (we read) towards the extinction of the British sailor has been taken '; and then we are told of permission being given for the extension of the limit of the employment of Lascars so as to include Boston, provided that the men are supplied with warm clothes and quarters. It is difficult to see how this can be construed into 'another step towards the extinction of 'the British sailor.' It seems to us that tbe extension is really tending the other way about. The owners of Lascar-manned vessels desire to send their steamers from the East to Boston; in this way new destination, an expansion of their trade is secured. If they were not granted the liberty they seek they would simply lose the trade, with the result that British capital and British seamen—for these vessels do carry others than Asiatics— would miss certain employment. Again, why the outcry against the Lascar, & British subject? Why put him in the same category as the Dago, whom we should like to see driven from every British ship, even as we should like to see a goodly number of their brethren driven from shore employment with us whom they hate, but whose purse they covet?"
Quite so! Common fairness to India demands that the Lascar shall receive different consideration in the matter to the deserters from foreign flags who abound in the British merchant service to-day, even though we have not men of native birth to fill—except on their own terms—the places the foreigner occupies as readily.
Some of the large shipping deals that have been brought about lately may be safely expected to be the means of bringing the Lascar more in evidence than ever, for the astute commercial men who control these groups of what were formerly several distinct lines, will not be slow to make full use of the advantages possible with the Lascar-manned steamer. With their usual acumen in ordinary business affairs, the marked difference will be too palpable for them to neglect, for the ordinary terms on which Lascars are engaged make it both as possible and probable, unless free trade in sailors should be made a thing of the past.
