MANY of our readers will have learned by the newspapers that for some time past discontent has existed amongst our merchant seamen, chiefly on the ground of their being liable to imprisonment for re- fusing, after signing articles, to proceed to sea in consequence of the unseaworthiness of their vessels.

Numerous meetings of seamen were held in the years 1854 and 1855 to adopt mea- sures for obtaining redress. They petitioned Parliament, and, in the autumn of 1855, presented a memorial to Her Majesty, agreed to by the seamen of 27 ports, com- plaining of their being compelled to go to sea in unseaworthy ships. Members of both Houses of the Legislature have indi- vidually interested themselves in their be- half, but hitherto without success. In 1854, when the Merchant Shipping Bill of that year was under consideration, Lord ELLEN- BOROUGH, supported by Admirals the Earl of HARDWICKE and Lord COLCHESTER, carried a clause in their favour in the House of Lords, but it was rejected in the Commons. On the amendment of that Act in 1855, Lord COLCHESTER again endeavoured to introduce a clause in the Act, to the effect, " That any three or more of the officers or crew of any vessel, having reasonable cause to apprehend insecurity to life from the unseaworthy state of the hull, the unhealthy state of the forecastle, the insufficiency of the crew Or of the equipment of any vessel in which they might have engaged to serve, might lodge a complaint before any justice of the peace in any of Her Majesty's dominions, who should be empowered to order a survey of such vessel by two qualified persons; the one being nominated by the owner, master, or agent, and the other by the crew, &c." This clause was, however, rejected.A last effort on the part of the seamen has been the publication of a pamphlet by the Seamen's United Friendly Society, en- titled " Unseaworthy and Undermanned Ships," in the form of a letter addressed to the Right Hon. ROBERT LOWE, M.P., Vice-President of the Board of Trade; signed on behalf of the seamen by THOMAS MOORE. In this letter numerous instances are quoted at length of trials and punish- ments of seamen by imprisonment and hard labour for refusing to proceed to sea on the plea of unseaworthiness of their ships.

We do not propose to enter into the merits of these cases, or, indeed, into that of the whole question between the seamen and the shipowners; the doing so being a political question, beyond the province of a journal which is exclusively confined to matters connected either directly or indi- rectly with saving lives from shipwreck.

As, however, " prevention is better than cure," and the safety of a ship and the lives of. those on board, especially under any critical circumstances, may, and undoubtedly often does, depend on the conduct and character of the seamen forming a ship's crew, we may fairly consider anything which would tend to improve their cha- racter, and make them more orderly, obedient, sober, .and contented, as coming within our prescribed sphere, and we have our doubts whether such improvement is likely to be effected within the precincts of a jail, where they encounter the labour of the treadmill only in preference to the labour at the pumps. Having said this much, we think we shall sufficiently effect our object in noticing this dispute, by throwing an olive-branch into the " waters of strife" in the shape of a few words of advice to both parties concerned in it.

To the seamen, then, we would say— Whilst you temperately seek redress of any real grievances to which you are as a class subjected, avoid all violent or intemperate demonstrations, strikes, &c.—feel a confi- dence that the laws of your country will ultimately do you justice—seek so to im- prove your own characters and those of your associates that you shall increase the public respect for you as a class—discourage all litigious and frivolous disputes with your employers, and faithfully perform your duty to them, which will do more than anything else to obtain for you their sympathy and kind treatment; which will afford the best guarantee to your country that you are worthy of its protective care, and will as- suredly bring God's blessing on all that con- cerns you.

To the shipowners, we will quote the following passage of Scripture, on which all our remarks to them will be founded: "Muzzle not the ox that treadeth out the corn!" or, in other words, dropping the metaphor, " Treat your servant well if you wish to secure his faithful and zealous service!'* If this golden rule were more universally acted on, not by shipowners alone, but by all classes of persons to whom Providence has made others subservient, a generation of faithful servants would as infallibly spring from it as does the plant from the seed nurtured in the bounteous bosom of the earth—as is the world-reviving moisture gathered from the sea by the genial sun—as do good works proceed from a true faith—as is man's love to man generated by his love of God! As regards the particular class of servants whose claim to protection we are now ad- vocating, "the merchant seamen," we are aware that it may with some truth be said— " How many of them, perhaps the greater portion of them, feel little or no sympathy with, or regard for, their employers! How many of them seek to evade their work, and to do no more than they are compelled to do, rather than feel an anxiety to do their duty to the utmost of their power ! That, as a class, they are a thoughtless, dissolute, and peculiar race, hard to please and difficult to manage."—Such, at all events, are the com- monly-received opinions respecting them.

But we reply, admitting the truth of this to a great extent—What more certain evi- dence can we have that they have been a misgoverned and neglected, if not an ill- treated race ? We all originally come from the same mould, from the same raw material; we are all manufactured articles; and the beauty or usefulness of the afterfabric de- pends on the care that has been bestowed on the various processes it has gone through.

The sun-burnt peasant, the pale artizan, the black-visaged denizen of the coal-pit, had they been brought up amidst the refinements of courtly society, and had their intellects been cultivated by education and invigorated by use, would have been as likely to excel in the senate, the pulpit, or the bar, as their present occupiers. Whilst, on the other hand, the men and women of high position in society, born and educated amidst all the advantages which wealth and power can command, had they passed their childhood and grown to maturity in the dark and wretched hovels and filthy alleys of our metropolitan or manufacturing cities or sea- port towns, surrounded by degradation and vice in their most loathsome forms, clothed in rags, revelling in dirt, ignorant, yet with ignorance only, or with ignorance and vice together, to guide them, who will dare say that they would have passed unscathed through-such a dreadful ordeal, or that they would any less have succumbed to its tempta- tions and its necessities than the present occupiers of the lowest walk in humble life ? If, then, our race of seamen are not all that we could wish them to be—if, except- ing as regards their animal courage and their practical seamanship, we cannot, comparing them with the seamen of other countries, look on them as " their country's pride"—we may be sure that the " raw material" is not made the most of; that if we were to be- stow but a tithe of the skill, energy, per- severance, ingenuity, and earnestness which we now expend on the raw material of our cottons, and wools, and metallic ores, upon the education, management, and moral and physical improvement of our seamen, and, indeed, on the whole lower classes of our country, a fabric of more beautiful colours, a garment of more enduring warmth, a metal of more shining lustre would result there- from than any material production—a fabric so beautiful, that it should be the admira- tion of heaven—a garment so enduring, that souls should be clothed in it to all eternity I —a metal of such priceless worth, so rare, i that it should buy us the approval of Al- | mighty God.

To cease, however, from generalizing, and return to our merchant seamen. As, apart from the moral evidence of their neglect, which we have above exemplified, none who are acquainted with their history will deny that they have been much neglected in many respects; and as the Government has, by the late Merchant Shipping Act, done its part, as far as the time and circumstances would admit, so let it not be said that the employers of seamen, the shipowners of Great Britain, neglect theirs; but let them, heartily and liberally, endeavour to benefit them, improve them, and show that they have their welfare at heart, then we pre- dict that the seed thus sown will return " one hundredfold into their own bosom," producing as a fruit more faithful and la- borious servants, and by its reaction on them- selves, better masters, better and safer ships, and a higher character to our whole mer- cantile marine in all the countries of the world that are washed by the sea.