READERS of The Life-Boat will not need to be reminded of the efforts which the Institution has made during the last two years to call attention to the failure of the shipping community of Great Britain to give adequate support to the Life-boat Service, and they will read with especial interest in the report of the Annual General Meeting the remarks on this subject made by the President of the j Board of Trade and by all the speakers : who followed him. The facts before them were that in 1921 the Institution received from British shipping com- panies a sum of less than £2,000 ; that this sum was contributed by 290 firms, and that 1,610 firms did not contribute at all. The speakers one and all ex- pressed their astonishment at these facts.

Their comments were repeated and em- phasised in the Press. The Morning Post wrote : " We trust that the shipowners, the trawling companies, the fishing com- panies, and the shipping trade generally will consider a method of combining together in a scheme which shall per- manently provide for the adequate support of the Life-boat Institution." The same paper suggested that shipping .

firms should combine in a number of ! groups, each group to provide and endow a Motor Life-boat. The Daily News, while expressing its opinion in favour of making the Life-boats a State service, pointed out that, unless and until that was done, the chief responsibility rested on the shipping community. The j Journal of Commerce, the paper which | represents the shipping community, j wrote : "An organisation of such ser- vice to the Mercantile Marine should naturally look to the ship-owning industry for a large measure of support, and we are certain that now the facts are known it will not look in vain." The Morning Post also drew the attention of Sir Frederick Lewis, the President of the Chamber of Shipping, to the facts, and Sir Frederick's reply was that " he knew nothing of the deficit of the Institution, and he was sure that, if the shipping community were fully informed, they would not hesitate to show generosity to an organisation of such service to the Mercantile Marine." The Committee of Management most heartily welcomed this assurance from so important a member of the shipping community, and they felt that an immediate appeal, addressed direct to the head of every shipping firm, would be the best means of putting before the whole shipping community the claims upon it of the Life-boat Service and the Institution's present and urgent needs.

The following letter has, therefore, been sent, signed by the Chairman and Deputy Chairman, and accompanied by a personal request from Sir William Cory, of the Cunard and Commonwealth and Dominion Lines, and from Sir August Cayzer, Chairman of the Clan Line, both members of the Committee of Management, that it might receive the earnest attention of the directors of all shipping companies.

" On behalf of the Committee of Manage- ment of this Institution we desire to address to your Company a most earnest appeal for its generous support of the Life-boat Service.

" For nearly a hundred years the work of providing and maintaining the Life-boats round the 5,000 miles of the coasts of the United Kingdom ; of rewarding all those who rescue, or attempt to rescue, life from ship- wreck ; of compensating those who are dis- abled in this heroic work, and of pensioning the dependents of those who lose their lives on service, has been carried out by this Institu- tion, which was founded in the City of London in March, 1824. In performing this great national task the Institution depends for its necessary funds entirely on voluntary con- tributions. It receives no State subsidy what- ever.

" In. addressing those who are intimately connected with the shipping industry we feel it to be unnecessary to dwell on the vital importance to Great Britain, with her enormous maritime interests, of maintaining what she has at present—the best equipped and most skilfully manned Life-boat Service in the world. Nor need we do more than mention the fact, with which you will already be familiar, that the cost of maintaining the Service, including its equipment with the latest inventions of mechanical science, is now far greater than it has been in the past, and is steadily increasing. A Motor Life-boat costs six or seven times as much as a Pulling and Sailing Boat did before the War.

" The fact to which we would ask you to give your most earnest attention is that the ship- ping and trawling companies do not appear to have given to the Life-boat Service that support which, surely, it should receive from the one section of the community which is most directly and personally concerned in the maintenance of an efficient service.

" The facts for 1921 can be briefly stated.

The Institution spent during the year a sum of £300,679. It received during the year £199,339, and the difference has had to be made up by drawing upon invested funds. Towards this revenue of nearly £200,000 the whole of the shipping community of Great Britain con- tributed under £2,000, less than 1 per cent.

There are over 1,900 British shipping firms and shipowners, and of these over 1,600 contri- buted nothing. Of the remaining 290 (15 per cent, of the total) only two or three made a contribution in any way commensurate with the national importance of the Life-boat Service and the direct interest which the shipping community has in its maintenance.

" These facts were before the Annual Meet- ing of the Governors of the Institution at the end of March, presided over by the President of the Board of Trade, and were the subject of comment by all the speakers.

" The President of the Board of Trade said : ' I have been very much struck, in looking through your Report and Accounts, to see how meagre is the support which you receive from the shipping trade in this country. It is a great trade and a generous trade, and has never been behind the other great trades in this country in supporting charitable objects, and in particular in lending magnificent help to the charities connected with shipping. ... I feel convinced that in some way the needs of this Institution have not been brought home to it, or it could not fail to respond to the appeal in a manner worthy of its great traditions. . . .

It seems to me that if ever there was a case in which the brotherhood of the sea might be manifested practically it is in a case like this.

... I hope very much that the officers of your Institution and the representatives of that industry may succeed in coming to some ' understanding together that will be of great | and lasting benefit to both.' j " These views found expression in several j important organs of the Press, and we enclose i for your perusal a reprint of the leading articles ! which appeared in the Morning Post, the Daily Xews and the Journal of Commerce. " When the facts were brought to the notice 1 of Sir Frederick Lewis, the President of the | Chamber of Shipping, he said : ' The Chamber knows nothing of the deficit of the Institution, and I am sure that, if the shipping community were fully informed, they would not hesitate to show generosity to an organisation of such service to the Mercantile Marine.' " The Committee of Management are greatly encouraged by this statement, which they have read with great pleasure. They also feel sure that, when the shipping companies realise the facts, they will respond at once, and on a permanent basis, to the Institution's appeal.

" We have only to add that the Committee of Management would ask for your help in two wa 's :— " 1. Ve would ask your Company to give an annual subscription to the Institution. The amount of your contribution we confidently leave to your generosity, merely suggesting that it should bear some relationship to your Company's position in the shipping world, and to the truly national character of the Life-boat | Service.

" 2. We would ask you to allow us, on one evening of each voyage, to appeal to your passengers and crews by means of a collecting card (supplied by the Institution), and we would ask you to invite the captains of your ships to make it their special contribution to the Life-boat Service to see that this appeal is never omitted.

" The Committee of Management feel that in this way there would easily be established that broad basis of steady support from the maritime interests of Britain, i.e., from the shipping companies, the crews, and the passengers, which all the circumstances of the case call for, and without which, we freely confess, the efficient maintenance of the Life-boat Service, upon which this country has always prided itself, must become a matter of the gravest anxiety to the charitable Society which has managed and administered it for close on a hundred years." The Committee of Management ] earnestly trust that this appeal will lay | the foundations for a permanent and adequate contribution from the shipping community to the Institution, and I hope that it will be possible in the next issue of The Life-Boat to report that this has been done. Meanwhile it is a pleasure to be able to announce that, before the letter was sent, Sir August Cayzer informed the Committee that for the future the contribution from the Clan Line would be at the rate of £1 a vessel, a basis of contribution which, it will be remembered, the Institution itself suggested nine years ago.

If any additional incentive were needed to lead the shipping companies to meet their obligations to the Life-boat Service in the most generous spirit, it would surely be found in the tragic loss of the liner Egypt ofi Ushant on 20th May.

when she sank in twenty minutes as a result of a collision in a fog, with a loss of over ninety lives ; and the wreck of the Wiltshire on the Great Barrier Island, off New Zealand, on 1st June. These two disasters within two weeks of each other bring home the truth that the hand of fate falls on great ships as well as on small, and that if it falls on them more rarely, it falls all the more heavily.

I will recall also, for those who need to be reminded of it, that again and again the great liners have owed to the Life-boats of the Institution the rescue of scores of lives which were in peril. Here are some of the ser- vices of this nature performed in recent years:— March, 1907 : 456 saved from s.s. Suevic.

March, 1912 : 83 saved from s.s. Oceana.

June, 1914 : 152 saved from s.s. Gothland.

November, 1914 : 85 saved from s.s. Rohilla (hospital ship).

February, 1916 : 110 saved from s.s. Empress Queen (Government transport).

November, 1916 : 54 saved from s.s. Sibiria.

November, 1916: 118 saved from s.s. Bessheim.

May, 1917 : 53 saved from s.s. Galicia.

July, 1917 : 130 saved from s.s. City of Oxford.

December, 1917 : 92 saved from s.s. Peregrine.

In those ten services to big ships more lives were saved than during the whole of the years 1919, 1920 and 1921, although in those three years over 800 Life-boat launches took place.

Although it is well that these services should be remembered, I do not for a moment believe that any members of the great shipping companies would base their support to the Life-boat Service on any merely .selfish calculation of the probability of the vessels of their own lines being in need of the help of the Life-boats. I am confident that they will recognise that citizenship of our island kingdom carries with it an obliga- tion to support the Life-boat Service, and that this obligation rests especially on those whose wealth and power depend solely on our maritime position.

It is most gratifying to be able to announce that, as the Journal go%s to press, we are beginning to receive from the shipping companies a very encourag- ing response to the appeal..