THE "British Public" has of late mani- fested a considerable degree of dissatisfac- tion at the general state of the Mercantile Marine, a dissatisfaction which is none the less real in fact because it can hardly be said—at least in any of the published re- marks on the subject which have come under our notice—to have assumed a tangi- ble form. Or, perhaps, it would be fairer to say, that the writers have each dealt with some particular evils, instead of holding impartial surveys of the whole subject, and have combined this mode of dealing with such an evident display of animosity towards some particular class who, in their opinion, is to blame, as to shake the faith of unin- itiated, impartial readers in the existence of any evils at all. These writers moreover entirely fail to perceive that the objects of their animadversion are more likely to be, and in fact often are, the victims of a defective system, and not the authors or the promoters of evils, which all good men alike deplore.

Thus we have one class of speakers and writers blaming the House of Commons, whose members, they assert are " grossly ignorant of, and indifferent to the whole matter, and who should long ago have passed wise and far-reaching laws, which should have been enforced strictly, and to the letter by energetic officers: laws very different in spirit to those laid •down in the existing lax code, with its multitudinous loopholes of escape, and un- defined restrictions and regulations, and carried out in an infinitely more vigorous manner than, with the machinery at present at the disposal of the Board of Trade, is either customary or practicable." But such persons must be reminded, that the House of Commons in its usual aspect is rather the scrutiniser and rejecter of laws, than the framer of them ; and that all laws on pro- fessional matters, or laws relating to parti- cular interests, must, in fact, emanate from the class or profession itself in the first instance; and only in exceptional cases can the House be expected to help a particular body or interest, without its members hav- ing previously expressed, in unmistakable terms, that they require the legislature to interfere in their behalf. No such voice has as yet emanated from the Mercantile Marine or the numerous corporate interests con- nected therewith. There have been, as we have already stated, many expressions of discontent, and much partizan recrimina- tion ; but no united voice has yet been uttered, calling on the House of Commons to interfere between the governed and governors, between the law-makers and those who are expected to obey, or between the employers and the employed; and so long as this is so, we are compelled to con- clude, that those most intimately acquainted with the matter are of opinion, that the House cannot be expected to do more than it has already done.

Another class of people, however, say that the Board of Trade is at fault; that with all possible means of information at their disposal, and with ample opportunity x f obtaining the opinions of the best sailors, the most eminent merchants, and the most experienced shipowners, they may well be expected to draw up regulations which would meet every evil, and satisfy all oppos- ing interests. " Why," say they, " does the Board always move so slowly ? and why, when it does move, is there always so much left to futurity?" But it must be remembered that the Board of Trade is what the nation has made it, and what at present it wills it to remain. It is, in fact, composed of two distinct parts, which must of necessity be frequently as widely apart as the poles, in thought and opinion on every conceivable point of public duty. These two parts we may divide into the permanent or working staff, and the parliamentary leaders. Now, as the political head changes with the ministry, it cannot be expected that the views of any president will exactly coincide with those of his predecessor or successor; and so we can easily con- ceive, that the elaborate scheme of reform, prepared under the auspices of a Whig leader, and prepared, too, with infinite care and wisdom by the permanent officials, may yet be so opposed to the views of a Tory successor, or vice versa, that it may never see the light at all, or be so muti- lated as to be robbed of half its power and meaning.

Again, one president may, as a Member of Parliament, have for his constituents the men of some great northern seaport, and, in- fluenced by their views of some point of sorely-needed reform, he may give a certain bias to the laws he is preparing for the approval of Parliament; but while the pro- posed measure is still not law—lo, the ministry changes! Well, the in-coming president has for his constituents the lead- ing men of the port of London, who are pretty certain to regard the question from a totally different point of view; and so, what- ever may be his own views, the new man has to choose between the favour of his electors, or the destruction of the Bill. It is not diffi- cult to surmise which is the most likely to be sacrificed. The Board has many other peculiar difficulties to cope with, which we cannot here stop to enumerate ; there is, in fact, no system of departmental government in the world with such mighty and diversified interests committed to its charge, and which yet possesses so small a share of actual j power, to rule in the way it would prefer, I or to assist in the manner which long experience has taught it to be wisest and best. Considering the means at its disposal, and its own peculiar composition, what the Board does effect in the way of super- vision and reform may be placed in no ignoble comparison with similar services by any other department of the state. That the permanent officials are most anxious to do all in their power to remedy existing j «vils in the Mercantile Marine, the elaborate and comprehensive " Merchant Shipping Bill for 1870 " sufficiently proves; nor can it be doubted, that among both the political and non-political portions of the Board, may be found some of the shrewdest and most experienced public servants in the kingdom.

There is also a by-no-means inconsider- able number of persons, who speak, and ' write as though every wreck were to be directly traced, to the incompetence or care- lessness of masters of merchant-ships, and who hold them up to public opprobrium, as monsters of brutality, spending their sober hours in deep-laid schemes for robbing owners or underwriters, and their drunken ones in ill-treatment of their crews. These point to the police intelligence, the criminal court, and the reports of nautical assessors, as so many corroborations of their opinions; and it must be confessed that there is too often j sad cause for the strictures which are passed. | But it would be as reasonable to stigmatise j the British army as murderers, because of late years a few desperate men have suffered the " last penalty " for successful attempts to revenge themselves by shooting their immediate superiors. There are, DO doubt, rascally and drunken and incompetent per- sons to be found in command of merchant- ships ; but we cannot admit there is a greater proportion of persons so placed than may be met with in other walks of life. That there is a considerable number of persons in- trusted with that " greatest of personal re- sponsibilities," a command at sea, who are wofully deficient in education, cannot be denied; and possibly no people more deeply deplore the deficiency than the members of the profession themselves; but here, as in many other points connected with this sub- ject, the nation and the nation's rulers are to blame, and not the merchant service. Many years ago, a special means of education at the national expense should have been pro- vided—a means of training youthful as- pirants, and a means of completing in later years the training of older officers.

It may be asked " Why should the officers of the Merchant Service be treated with more consideration than the members of any other profession, who are not servants of the state ?" We reply that the Mercan- tile Marine is so intimately associated with the vital interests of the nation that it must always stand alone in its relation to the general public. We may exist as a nation, notwithstanding some discomfort, without the services of any one of the professions not under Government control, the benefit of whose labours we now enjoy; but with the well-being of the Mercantile Marine stands the success of our merchants and the prosperity of the whole empire, in such close relationship that infallibly they must ever rise and fall together.

Not that we propose that gentlemen in- tended for the merchant service should be educated solely at the public expense, any more than we should consider it a reason- able proposition, that henceforth students intended for the bar or the church should be received at the Universities free of charge; but we do think that somewhat similar in- stitutions to Oxford and Cambridge should long ago have been called into existence for the benefit of the Merchant Service. Not only does the rapid development of science, in its application to the requirements of navigation imperatively demand such an in- stitution, but we opine that the best interests of the nation would be effectually served by its establishment. Moreover, it is tolerably certain that nothing but that isolation from his fellows, and that want of opportunity to discuss and make known his wants, which has ever been the peculiar misfortune of the sailor has prevented members of the Merchant Service from forcing this ques- tion on public attention and eliciting those marks of sympathy which the occasion would Seem to require.

The country, SB feet, never has duly re- cognised its obligations to the mercantile ma- rine, and has always practically ignored the right it possesses to one of the first places in the nation's regard, England became what she is, in the first place, by what her mer- chantmen did for her; and it was the valour and wisdom of the men who commanded her merchant-ships who pushed their way, and established the English name, and the Eng- lish connection wherever the waters rolled, at a time when England, as a naval power, cannot be said to have had an existence, which truly laid the foundations of her great empire of to-day. Nay, it is in BO small degree these men who give her the fore- most place stili; and in exact accordance with the decay or prosperity of the mercan- tile marine, and with it, as a necessary con- sequence, the safety or otherwise of her merchandise, the stability of her merchants, and the ability of the country to produce at any moment the largest number of good sailors in. the world, must ever be the de- crease or otherwise of this country's safety, credit, and wealth. As to the sense that is shown of this great obligation we are tinder to the officers and men of our mer- chant navy, let the daily records of vessels sent to sea to be lost; of vessels improperly provisioned; of vessels with insufficient accommodation for their -crews; of vessels with barely half the crew they ought to have; of vessels with, no jnedtcal neces- saries ; of vessels with neither life-belts nor boats, or with bad ones; of vessels sent on long voyages short of water, short of food, and badly commanded; let these things , answer that question. Let the true descrip- tion of any of our great seaports bear witness also; and the fact that the great mass of our sailors have ever been the prey of their fellow-subjects on shore, while until very recently the legislature has seemed to consider this to be the natural* order of things, and that they were not responsible for the scandal. Let the fact that crews have been, and until very lately, without hindrance, on their return from long voyages, drugged, and robbed, and reshipped drank, in open day; the fact that no care is taken by the state to educate the officers, or to keep up the supply of the men, and that year by year the proportion of British-bora sailors k decreasing, and the proportion of avoidable wrecks is increasing; let these things show how nobly the nation recog- nises its obligations to the merchant service.

And remembering that these things are so, and that, in spite of all, we still possess in the commanders of our merchant ships a race of " complete seamen " which no other country's can surpass, let us be careful how we join in the too ready cry of detraction, and attach the odium of all that is so de- plorable in this matter to those who are least of all responsible for it.

But the most hardly-used people of all are the shipowners. Who has a good word to say for them ? Who remembers that they, of all people, have the most to gain fay an efficient mercantile marine, and, in the long ran, the most to lose by the continuation oj* the present state of things ? Cm it be doubted that the majority of our wealthy shipowners, many of whom are known to be both conscientious and wise, would gladly inaugurate reform, if only they saw the way to carry it into effect ? Or is it not reasonable to suppose that if they, who must know better than the general public exactly what is wrong, and to what extent, do not remedy existing evils, or at least try to do so, it is simply because they are so placed that they cannot? Can it be doubted, for Instance, that the shipowners as a body would prefer that their ships should be entirely manned by British sea- men—if only they 'could be found in suffi- cient numbers, and if they could be placed on a par with foreign seamen (now so extensively employed) in the point of sobriety and steadiness—that they would hail with joy the day when they could be sure their ships were putting to sea well-manned and well-commanded, instead of knowing, as they too often do now, that their vessels are be- ing towed out to sea with crews on board who, partly from their different nationalities, partly from hideous disease, and partly from recent intoxication, are ill-prepared to meet the emergencies (calling for skill and cour- age from every soul on board) so often induced by sudden storms and difficult navi- gation in narrow waters ? And although, so long as an owner has power to insure his vessel for her full value, there will always be a considerable number of persons who are entirely unconcerned as to the ultimate fate of their ships; yet we must believe that there are numbers more who look at the question from a wider and higher point of view, and who are as deeply concerned at loss of life or property which could have been prevented by better crews and better outfits, as the most patriotic citizen, and most warm-hearted philanthro- pists among us all could profess to be.

The fact is, shipowners are beset with many special difficulties which are not gene- rally taken into consideration : every im- provement, whether in the ships or the men, most be a question of profit and loss; and it is an unfortunate truth that, in the first instance, it must be one of direct loss to the owner. Whether the reform take the shape of entering and training up lads for sailors, or the placing better-found ships at sea, or devoting more space to the accommodation of the crews, or whatever else we may wish to see carried out, it must be paid for out of the pockets of the owners, who introduce the measure first into their ships; and so long as these owners continue this practice, they must be working at a loss, and be con- tent with the pleasure of introducing re- forms for the general good at the price of ruin to themselves. Moreover, any move of this kind would be practically of little avail unless it were a general one. None but the wealthiest and the largest owners would, have a chance of effecting anything ; and these are just the people of whom, as a rule, the public has the least to complain.

It is the "jobjbing owners," men of straw in reality, who are always buying and selling ships) and whose possessions in that way have probably changed hands a dozen times in as many months; and the owners at out-of-the-way and unknown ports, who own at the most say three ships, who are nearly always the authors of these perpetual scandals, and who will always be the. most determined opponents of legislative .enactments or voluntary im- provements. In the next place, certain bodies of owners dwelling in one end of the kingdom hold, traditionally, peculiar views on certain generally-desired measures, and these views are steadily, and it may be of necessity, opposed by bodies of owners dwelling at the other end; so that such measures would never be introduced but by a Board of Trade, politically powerful, and independent enough to set one-half of the entire shipping interest at defiance. When have we had such a Board, and who is the strong-handed reformer, able and willing to devise and administer laws, dealing equal justice to owners and underwriters, sailors and officers, together with all possible pro- tection to the public ? Once more. All the shipowners in the empire may be agreed as to the desirability of some one regulation, but, have they the power to make it law ? It may be, and it no doubt has been, that the Board, acting to the best of its judgment for the common weal, has been compelled to take an op- posite view concerning the suitability of some such suggested rules. These things, and ! many others of a like nature, must be duly j weighed and considered before we stigmatise j British shipowners as deeply impregnated with selfishness, and covetonsness, and Heaven only knows what other vices be- sides, according to the prevailing fashion of the time.

" Well," the reader may say, " if all this be so, and no one is to blame, things are already at their best! We must, in fact, make up our minds to the yearly decay in numbers of British-born seamen, and the yearly increase in numbers of avoidable wrecks." We reply,—no; that is not our mean- ing. On the contrary, every nerve should be strained to bring about wholesale reform : to insure all classes of ships being sent to sea well—thoroughly well-found; to insure j their being all commanded by perfectly competent persons; to insure their all being provided with proper, not sham, means of saving life. Every effort should be made to induce a healthier tone in the shipping transactions at the Royal Exchange, and to eliminate, as far as possible the swindling element from the necessary and ordinary business transacted with mariue insurers.

Much, also, can be done by legislation to decrease the number of wrecks; much, un- doubtedly, will be effected by the new " Merchant Shipping Bill," and much more may be expected when an efficient and energetic staff of authorised persons—which, by the way, except in the largest ports, cannot be said to exist at present—is organised to carry its -wise provisions into effect. The public press can also help materially by ventilating freely the circum- stances of every wreck, and every question- able transaction on 'Change, of which it ] has any knowledge; not by adopting partisan views of particular cases—as has during the last year been the fashion with some papers—or by encouraging recrimina- tory and prejudiced correspondents to ven- tilate their pet views in its columns, but by a dispassionate and impartial exposition of the right and wrong of every question concerning the mercantile marine which comes before the public, and by not allow- ing that public to lose sight of the truth that our mercantile marine is not what it ought to be, and that it behoves every good man to put his shoulder to the wheel of th:s great machine, and lift it out of the rut, and on to the hard road again. Moreover, we must all remember that although there is much truth in the saying that, " if plenty of dirt is thrown, some of it is sure to stick," it is not by such means we can expect to bring about wholesome reform. Nor is it by violent and unreasonable abuse of ship owners, or sneers at the Board of Trade, or by holding up master-mariners to public op- probrium, that we shall arrive at the desired solution of these important problems. On the contrary, we must implore and advise all parties to yield and sacrifice something.

We must seek to soothe the angry feeling of all sides, and we must seek to bring about a union in thought and aim of the leaders of the mercantile interests. The great owners of the North must sacrifice some of their cherished notions, and the great owners of the South some of theirs ; while the Board of Trade is strengthened by the united voice of the mercantile marine world, and not distracted by its opposed views and conflicting opinions.

In short, we know as well, and possibly better than most other people, that the nation has good reason to be dissatisfied with the present state of the mercantile marine, and the numerous important in- terests connected therewith. And, more- over, having that great and holy cause of " saving life at sea " deeply at heart, we are desirous, above all things, that a great change for the better should take place therein, being firmly convinced that, how- ever noble it may be to send help to the drowning mariner, however philanthropic to provide life-boats for the distressed ship, it is, to say the least, wiser to prevent the mariner from being unnecessarily exposed to danger: and more judicious to take measures to prevent, as far as possible, the vessel being wrecked at all. Holding these views, we also hold that every measure whencesoever originated, which has for its object the improvement of the moral or social status of the sailor, the education of the officer, the greater sea-worthiness of the ship, and fairness and honesty of the mone- tary transactions connected therewith, is a measure directly, and very appreciably affect- ing the number of wrecks, and, as a neces- sary consequence, the number of lives lost at sea. We do not therefore desire to have the matter quashed, nor do we think " things are already at their best," but we deprecate ignorant criticism, and we appeal to the good sense of the public against wholesale abuse, and undeserved or unfair strictures.

10 Dec., 1869. A SAILOR.