THE severe storms which visited the British Isles during December last were marked by a number of splendid services, and in the case of the Fish- guard Life-boat by one of the finest anywhere on the coast in recent years.

At the same time they cost the Service the lives of six gallant Life-boatmen..

Their loss is a reminder, once again, that, in spite of skilful seamanship and all that mechanical science is doing to increase the speed and the strength of Life-boats, and their power to save life, the Service inevitably carries on its work at the hazard of the lives of brave men. It is a hazard which they themselves cheerfully accept as a part of their duty, but which we who work for the Service in other ways, and the nation which benefits by the courage and self-sacrifice of the Life-boat crews, must never forget.

The services of the Rhoscolyn and Johnshaven Life-boats, in which these lives were lost, are fully described else- where, and I wish here only to draw attention to the fact that at the in- quiries which were held afterwards into the causes of the loss of life, no fault whatever was found with the Life-boats themselves. They were, in fact, reported to have " behaved magnificently." Both were of the self-righting type. They were capsized by exceptionally heavy waves, the crews were thrown into the water, and the Life-boats righted them- selves at once. The men who lost their lives were those who, in spite of the life-lines which are laid across their knees, in case of such emergencies, were unable to regain the boats.

In connexion with these two cases it is interesting to note that on the 13th December the Brixham Life-boat was also capsized and also righted her- self at once, but in this case all the crew succeeded in getting aboard again.

It may also be as well for me to add— although, I think the fact will already j be familiar to the great majority of my I readers—that the choice between the | two types of Life-boat, the self-righting ' type, and the heavier Life-boats of the I Watson and Norfolk and Suffolk types, which are more difficult to capsize, but if once capsized cannot right themselves, is left to the Life-boat crews themselves.

Every crew has the type of its choice, and no crew is ever asked to accept a Life-boat until some of its representa- tives have personally inspected and selected the type from among the Boats ', on the coast.

I The Fishguard Gold Medal.

I The day before the Rhoscolyn disaster occurred, a magnificent service was per- ; formed by the Fishguard Motor Life- boat. The photograph of the terrible lee shore on which the Hermina was wrecked—published on another pages with the full account of the rescue—• shows more clearly, perhaps, than could any words, the hazardous nature of the service, and the coolness, courage and splendid seamanship which must have been needed to bring the Life-boat, waterlogged and with her engine not working, safely back to port.

i Glamorgan's Gift to the Prince of Wales.

The story of the two services of the Rhoscolyn and the Fishguard boats will,I hope, do much to stimulate the appeal which is being made in Glamorgan to raise £20,000, in order to present our j President, the Prince of Wales, with I two Motor Life-boats, to be stationed at j the Mumbles and Barry Dock. They should, more than anything else, make the people of Glamorgan, with its great shipping industry, realise the dangers of the Welsh coast and the need to help, in whatever way they can, their gallant countrymen who man the Life-boats in Wales.

The Liverpool and Bradford Motor Life-boat Funds.

In 1919 the Port of Liverpool Branch, in addition to its ordinary subscriptions and donations, opened a special fund to be applied to the capital cost of the Motor Life-boat programme, and in the year raised £3,500. During 1920, while again fully maintaining its ordinary revenue, the Branch raised a further sum of £3,612 for the special fund, making a total, up to the present, of £7,112—another and splendid proof of the interest which the Port of Liverpool has always taken in the Life-boat Service. The City of Bradford has also started a special fund for the same purpose, and in the first year has raised £3,179, this again being in addition to the ordinary revenue.

I hope that other large branches will follow the generous example of these two cities, but if they should do so they will do well to bear in mind what the Committee of Management said in their Annual Report for 1919, that such special efforts should only be made if they do not diminish the ordinary revenue of the Branches, for it is upon this ordinary revenue that the Institu- tion so largely depends for the main- tenance of the Service.

Increased Pensions.

It has always been the policy of the Institution that the services of the Life- boat crews should be generously re- warded, and the Committee felt that the great increase in the cost of living during 1919 and 1920 justified them in making those further, and substantial, increases in the service rewards and retaining fees which were announced in the issues of The Life-Boat for August and November last. Following upon this they have now reviewed the scale of pensions, and have decided to make an all-round increase of fifty per cent. The new scale comes into force as from the 1st January of this year. These in- creases amount in the aggregate to a very large additional annual ex- penditure, but it is an additional expenditure which the Committee feel has been rightly incurred.

Noteworthy Services.

In addition to these and other ser- vices for which special awards were made, and which are described at length else where, there have been several during the past three months which deserve to be mentioned.

On the 19th November, at five in the evening, a London barge, the Creteram- part, which had been left by a tug off Beachy Head, found herself in diffi- culties. There was a whole gale blowing from the W.S.W., and she had been forced to anchor in very shallosv water, where the seas were breaking over her.

The Eastbourne crew were assembled at seven o'clock, and as the barge would have been in great danger of being driven ashore if she had broken away, they remained on duty all night.

Shortly before seven next morning the barge fired rockets of distress, and the Life-boat was launched. She had a very hard struggle in the face of the gale, being continually full of water—so hard, indeed, that the Coast-guard was afraid that she might not succeed in reaching the barge, and informed the Newhaven Station. The Newhaven Motor Life- boat was launched at 9.15, and reached the barge an hour later to find her still anchored. She therefore gave the East- bourne Life-boat a tow, and, leaving her to stand by the barge, returned to her Station in case of other calls for her help. The Eastbourne Boat stood by until a tug arrived and had towed the barge out of danger, arid did not reach her Station again until four in the afternoon. The crew were on duty at the Boat House for twelve hours, and then afloat in a whole gale for another nine houra, and the Committee decided to show their appreciation of a difficult and exhausting service by giving them an extra monetary award.

An Irish Life-boat Saves Thirty Lives.

Three days later a fine service was performed on the north coast of Ireland.

A Newcastle steamer of 1,700 tons, the Scarpa, on a voyage from Sligo to Bristol, went ashore, early in the morn- ing, on the rocks in Cloughey Bay, in a whole gale from the south with a heavy sea running. The Cloughey Life-boat was launched, but only with the greatest difficulty, and when she reached the stranded steamer, she found that, owing to the heavy seas, she could not get close to her. The stem of the steamer, however, was close to some high rocks, and the Life-boat got under their lee.

The thirty lives on board the steamer— including two women and a child—were then lowered in a basket to the top of the rocks, and from there safely taken into the Life-boat below. They were landed at Ringbay Point, two miles to the north of Cloughey but, owing to the sea, the Life-boat could neither be brought back to her Station, nor could she be beached. The crew, therefore, remained afloat in her all that day and all the following night, not returning to the Station until late in the afternoon of the next day. It was a noteworthy feature of the service that the Coxswain, John Young, was not with the Life- boat, and that she was most skilfully handled by his brother, David Young, who acted as Coxswain in his absence.

Rescue of a German Vessel.

A difficult and dangerous service was very skilfully carried out by the Motor Life-boat at St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly, 011 the 2nd December, when, in a whole gale, with an exceptionally heavy sea, she went to the rescue of the s.s.Hathor, of Hamburg, The Hatltor had been interned in Chili, and she was on her way back to Germany, but her engines had broken down, and she was being towed from the Azores to Portland by two tugs. From these she had broken adrift. She had got her anchors down, but they were dragging, and when the Life-boat reached her she had been driven on a ledge near the Lethegus rocks. Two of her boats had already put off with nineteen men 011 board, and these were taken into the Life-boat. Five men remained in the wreck. It was a very difficult and dangerous task to rescue them, for the Hatlior was being kept head to sea by her anchor. The Life-boat, in consequence, could not get into shelter under her lee, and the rise and fall of the seas was about 30 feet.

That all five men were safely got off, without anyone being hurt, and with very slight damage to the Life-boat, shows how skilfully she was handled.

It is interesting to know that it was the unanimous opinion at St. Mary's that the service was one which could only have been successfully carried out by a Motor Life-boat and that a Sailing Life-boat, though she could have reached the wreck, would have found it all but impossible to have got back again.

The Life-boat which performed this fine service, the Elsie, was sent to St. Mary's in October, 1919.

Rewards Refused.

In two cases recently, at Aldeburgh and Clovelly, the Life-boatmen have generously refused the rewards to which they were entitled. On the 18th November, the Clovelly herring fleet was caught in a S.E. gale, and at 10 o'clock the Life-boat *put out in search of one that had not returned, although she had been seen, some hours before, a few miles out. A little later the missing boat reached harbour half- full of water, and with only a few inches of free board, and the Life-boat was recalled. On the 4th December the Aldeburgh No. 1 Life-boat went out in a half gale in search of a fishing-boat which had been washed away by a big sea. There was no one on board. The Life-boat searched for several hours but could find no trace of the missing boat, and, as it was by this time blowing a whole gale, she returned. In both these cases the crews said that they did not wish to be rewarded for going to the help of their brother fishermen.A Gift from Salvage.

j Iii January, 1920, the Erixham Life- ! boat helped to salve a Norwegian vessel, the s.s. Stordker, of Christiania.

Out of the salvage money which they have received for this service the crew have generously made a donation of £20 to the Institution. It is no un- common thing for the crews to make I such presents to the Institution, and this is the second received from the Brixham crew within recent years, a fact highly honourable to this fine crew.

The Dutch Life-boat Service.

I feel sure that all readers of The Life- Boat will turn with especial interest to the admirable article on the Dutch Life- boat Service which has been written for The Life-Boat by Mr. H. de Booy, the Secretary of the North and South Holland Life-Saving Society. They will, I am sure, appreciate it still more when I add that it has not been trans- lated, but was written in English by Mr. de Booy.

Except that there are two Life-boat Societies in Holland, founded within a few days of each other, in the same year as our own Institution, the organisation of Life-boat work in Holland resembles very closely the organisation in this country. Like ours also, the Dutch Service, except for a small annual subsidy to the South Holland Society, is sup- ported by voluntary contributions, and I should like to draw attention to Mr.

de Booy's emphatic agreement with the opinion, held also in this country, that a Government Life-boat Service would be very much more expensive.

Dutch Shipping Companies.

It is not to the Government that the Dutch Life-boat Service turns when it needs to raise large sums, but to those who, as Mr. de Booy says, " more than any others have an interest in an efficient Life-boat Service "—the Shipping Com- panies. The Dutch Service is engaged, like ourselves, in building Motor Life- boats, and in adapting to its uses other important mechanical devices, such as : the Caterpillar Tractor, and I should like to draw special attention .to the fact that of the £50,000 which it requires for its building programme more than half has already been subscribed by Shipping Com- panies, and Mr. rle Booy hopes to obtain the rest also among the shipping community.

When it is remembered that in 1919 the whole of the contributions received by the Institution from British Shipping Firms was less than £2,000, I can only express the earnest hope that the shipping community here will follow the generous example of the Dutch firms, and will show in the same generous way that they, too, realise who it is " who have, more than any others, an interest in an efficient Life-boat Service." If the British Shipping Companies were to give the same measure of support relatively to the Institution as the Dutch and, I may add, the Norwegian do to their respective Life-boat Services, the Committee of Management could face the heavy commitments of the next few years without anxiety, and we should not see, as we do this year, an excess of £12,000 on expenditure over income.

The Dutch Life-boat Men.

MY. de Booy gives a very interesting list of the services of one of the Dutch coxswains. It will be seen that in 25 years he took part in 38 services and helped to rescue no fewer than 487 lives, and that no fewer than half of these services were to British vessels.

It is a splendid record, and though we have records in our own Service which equal, we have Jew, i! any, which surpass it. Mr. de Booy's story of the last service of this same coxswain, Theodorus Rijkers, will, I think, strike many people as not un- typical of our own Life-boat men, and they will see in the Dutch Life-boat man's portrait, which appears with the article, a very fine face of a type with which they are familiar on the East Coast. There are evidently other charac- teristics in common. Mr. de Booy wrote to me not long ago, with regard to a Dutch vessel, " Up till now 1 only heard that the captain was one of those men who say very little, and, if they do say anything, they use as little words as possible. I do not believe this kind of man is found in France, but in Englandperhaps, you also meet him." Indeed the Service as a voluntary, institution, we do ! should be familiar to the readers of Portraits of Honorary Workers. The Life-Boat, The first of these por- As the Centenary approaches I am traits is published in this number — a hoping to publish in Tlie Life-Boat por- portrait of Miss Alice Marshall, the traits of the Honorary Secretaries of Honorary Secretary of the Oxford the principal branches, and of other Branch. It is to her untiring efforts Honorary Workers who play a pro- during the past nine years that we owe minent part in helping us to raise the it that Oxford has become one of the ; ' funds of the Institution. It is the most important of the inland branches. ; great pride of the Life-boat Service that it is, in a double sense, a volunteer The Coastguard Service.

service — that its Boats are manned by Vice-Admiral Sir Dudley de Chair, volunteers, and that its funds are en- Admiral Commanding Coast-guard and tirely composed of free gifts from all Reserves, and a member of the Corn- classes, obtained through the help of mittee of Management, has written for | j many hundreds of unpaid workers. I Tlie Life-Boat an account of the origin ; | feel that not only the Life-boat men who of the Coast-guard and of its life-saving j perform distinguished services, but those , work. I hope to publish this article, men and women, through whose energy with illustrations of the Rocket Ap- I and devotion we are able to maintain paratus at work, in the May issue..