AT the Caxton Hall, Westminster, on the 6th February the Mayor of West- minster (Captain J. F. C. Bennett) presided at the presentation of prizes won in the Life-boat Essay Competi- tion in London (consisting of schools in the London County Council area) in 1929. The presentations were made by Major-General the Right Hon. J. E.

Bernard Seely, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., a member of the Committee of Manage- ment. Supporting the Mayor were Lord Southborough, P.C., G.C.B., G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., K.C.S.I. (a member of the Committee), the Mayor of Walthamstow (Mr. V. la T. McEntee, M.P.), Admiral of the Fleet Sir H. F.

Oliver, G.C.B., K.C.M.G., M.V.O. (a member of the Committee), Engineer Vice-Admiral Sir R. B. Dixon, K.C.B.

(a member of the Committee), and Mr. George F. Shee, M.A., Secretary of the Institution.

During the meeting Mr. Frederick Woodhouse sang five sea songs, all of which were enthusiastically received by the audience.

The Mayor of Westminster.

In opening the proceedings the Mayor of Westminster spoke of the work of the Institu- tion and of the Life-boat Crews, and con- cluded by saying :— " Last year you had the privilege of receiv- ing the Shield and awards from Coxswain Swan, of the Lowestoft Life-boat. He holds the Gold Medal of the Institution, which is the Victoria Cross of Life-boat work. This year you are going to have your presentation made by a well-known soldier, a man who has fought for his King and country in the South African War and the late War, and is a holder of many honours in consequence. Among them are the Order of the Bath, of St. Michael and St. George, and the Distinguished Service Order. But I think there are other things he holds, quite as important as any of these three Orders, and these are the awards he has received for having worked with the Life- boat at Brooke, Isle of Wight. (Applause) He is a member of the Crew of this Life-boat; one of the men who do not hesitate, when necessity arises, to brave the dangers of the sea, gales and heavy waves, and who go out to help in saving life. (Cheers.) I am sure that this is the thing which will commend him to you children. He is a real Life-boatman who has done real work in the Life-boats. I will now call upon General Seely to present the Shield and other awards." (Applause.) General Seely.

After presenting the Challenge Shield to Joseph McDonnell, of the St. George's Roman Catholic School, Raglan Road, Walthamstow, and the other prizes, General Seely said " I rejoice to have met these children who have taken an interest in the Life-boat Service, as shown by writing these essays. I hope and pray that in years to come they may continue to take a lively interest in this great work.

I have had long and practical experience of it. It is through no merit of my own, but when you live in a lonely place on the coast as I do, it is absolutely necessary for every- body who knows anything about the sea, and sometimes for some of those who know nothing about it, to man the Life-boat in order to make up a full Crew. And as I live in such a place, of course I cannot but be a member of the Crew. That I have been for more than thirty-five years—(cheers)—and I hope I shall be until I am turned out. Nothing but physical infirmity shall prevent me going out in our Life-boat whenever the need arises.

(Cheers.) I have been out in a Life-boat considerably more than a hundred times, so I know just what it is like, and it really is very interesting. I will tell you what it is really like.

WHAT A LIFE-BOAT LAUNCH is LIKE.

" First, let us suppose a great storm is blowing. If you belong to the Life-boat, as thirteen of us do in the place where I live— and do not anybody be afraid of sitting down thirteen to dinner, because the only dangerous thing I do is to go out in the Life-boat, and there are always thirteen of us ; and all those years there has been only one accident, when one man was drowned. Well, «very one of the thirteen takes the precaution of putting out his thick clothes, and he goes to bed thinking ' I wonder if we'll be fetched out to-night.' Of course, ninety-nine times out of a hundred he is not, but I remember one night not very long ago when I went to bed just like that, having put out these clothes, and the window was left open. Sure enough, although I sleep very soundly and have slept through many a bombardment, I was awakened with a terrific bang. That is the maroon we fire when the Life-boat is sum- moned.

" In a moment one is up, feeling dazed and somewhat strange, but, after all, going to do the thing one has done so often before for practice. There is one great advantage, amongst many others, of the Life-boat Ser- vice over war. The Life-boat Service, as I will show you in a moment, brings all nations together. War, of course, divides them.

But also it is very easy to practise Life-boat work when there is not a wreck, but it is very difficult to practise war when there are no bullets and shells. In the Life-boat we go out and practise in the roughest weather, so that when you hear this bang and get up and dress, you know you are going to do something you have practised often before.

" As you come out of the door you are almost blown over by the storm. You run down in the darkness, tripping over all sorts of obstacles, and finally get to a very dark place where all the horses are assembled to pull the boat out. You do not talk about how rough it is ; that is the last thing you say—(laughter) —you think about it, and perhaps wish it was not quite so rough, but you talk about all sorts of other things—in fact, about anything except the weather. At that moment the Coxswain says ' Pull her out,' and out go the horses and you run down to the beach, still in a sort of daze when it is a very rough night, because in our hearts we each think, ' Shall we ever come back ? ' You then take your place and help to push the boat to the water. The waves almost come over your head while pushing her out. Then you climb into the boat, and that is not easy, because your clothes are wet through and very heavy in consequence. Then you take up your oar.

For the last twenty-five years I have rowed stroke on the port side of our boat—(cheers)— and it is up to me to keep time.

'' You sit there and you see the Coxswain in the dim darkness, standing by watching the great waves come in, trying to time it right so that he will be able to launch just after the biggest wave has broken, so that we shall have way enough on to get over the next wave.

That is very hard to gauge, but on the night I speak of the Coxswain made a very good shot. There we sat, and I did not think we should get off, as the wind was blowing with gusts of seventy miles an hour and the sea was very high. Then with a great roar he shouted ' Launch ! ' A GREAT MOMENT.

" Now that is a great moment in any man's life ; that is a moment to have lived through.

At that moment the people on shore hear, and, with ropes on each side, which go past the bow and back to the stern of the boat, they run up the beach and so pull the boat at great speed. Probably it is eight or nine miles an hour before she shoots off the carriage into the water. And at the moment she touches the water you have got to begin to row and keep her going. Oh, my word, how one does row then ! There is no ca'canny about rowing at that moment, because you know full well that another wave is coming, that if you can get over that the rest will be easy, but that if you get caught by the next wave you may be turned broadside on, as has happened; then back you go to the beach and you will never get the boat out again that night.

" Then comes a strange thing. Nothing in this world, my dear children, is as bad as you expect it to be. That is absolutely true.

You would think that when you got out into this terrific sea the violence of the wind would be such that you could not pull the boat against the wind, much less the waves. But for some strange reason there is much less wind when you are in the boat, and you feel much better off, and in a way you feel rather safer than those poor wretches on shore with the chimney pots blowing down and falling about. (Laughter and cheers.) It is really quite jolly when once you get away, but, of course, it is terribly hard work.

" Mr. Mayor, I believe you think that most of the Life-boats have motors now, but that is not so. Of our fleet, eighty-two boats have motors and one hundred and twenty-three are Pulling and Sailing ; but, of course, there are a good many more we could equip with motors— though by no means all—if we had enough money. That is where you come in, my dear children. I have described to you what it is like getting off a beach, as I have done so often. You can imagine what an ordeal it is, and you realize what a wonderful Service it is for us all to support. But when you get a bit older and go out into the world I do hope you will not forget this day, when, under the presidency of the Mayor of Westminster, you received your Certificates, but that you will help in the Life-boat Cause wherever you live.

A KINGDOM UNITED IN LIFE-SAVING.

" Before I sit down, may I tell you what a wonderful year we have had, this year in which you have won your Certificates ? During the months of November, December and January, as you will remember, wherever you live, there have been a series of most tre- mendous gales. In each one of these months more than fifty lives have been saved from shipwreck at the height of these great storms.

On the 7th December the wind in the Channel reached a speed of one hundred and ten miles an hour. Now, if you met a wind in the streets where you live at about forty miles an hour you would think it a strong gale, and you would be right. But this wind was blow- ing at three times that speed. Yet on that day fifteen Life-boats went out. (Cheers.) "I have said the Life-boat brings people together. Politicians may make what laws they like, and statesmen may confirm them, but in the matter of Life-boats, happily we are still a United Kingdom. During last year seven of the Institution's highly coveted medals were awarded for acts of great gallantry in the Life-boat. Of these, three were pre- sented to Englishmen, two to Irishmen, one to bonny Scotland, and one to gallant little Wales. So you see that in this matter the Life-boats make us a United Kingdom.

" But more than that. In the storms of last year in which these wonderful deeds were done—my boat was not out, though we were always expecting the call—during these storms the Life-boats were international in every sense. For whom did they go out to rescue ? Only members of the United Kingdom, as I shall always call it in Life-boat work ? No,the sailors of ten different nations were represented: Finns, Swedes, Germans, French, Norwegians, Belgians, Spaniards, Italians, Danes, and Greeks—almost every nation, including the enemies whom we fought against in the war.

I like to think that this is the way to heal the ravages of war. (Cheers.) " So you see it is really a great Service and it has a great call upon us all, and if any kind friend (here the speaker turned towards the Mayor of Westminster) will come forward and present us with a Life-boat, as, for in- stance, the greatest city in the world, West- minster, we should be very grateful. (Laugh- ter and cheers.) I am not going to beg from you children, but when you grow up you must help us in every way you can to con- tinue this great work. Believe me the deeds which have been done during the last few months will live in the memory among the finest examples of English valour and English devotion to duty, and you will love to think that it was during this year that you won these prizes in our great national Service." (Loud cheers.) Mr. Frederick Woodhouse then sang " The Bonny Sailor," " Boney was a Warrior," " Sea Fever," " Shenandoah," " Blow, Boys, Blow," the audience joining in the chorus of the second, fourth and last songs.

The Mayor of Walthamstow.

In moving the vote of thanks to the Mayor of Westminster and General Seely, with whose names he coupled that of Mr. Woodhouse, the Mayor of Walthamstow said -.— " Besides the prize-winners I see present a good number of those who have tried and lost, and, after all, the Life-boat Service, of which we have been hearing such wonderful stories, is made up of men who have tried and won and sometimes of men who have tried and lost.

It is in the trying that the pleasure comes, and it is in trying always that we get our happi- ness. Those who have won prizes must have tried hard, and it is a very great pleasure indeed to see that one of the members of that very diminutive new Borough of Waltham- stow is commencing to make its tradition.

(Cheers.) I am extremely pleased to have the opportunity of being present to-night when he comes before what is probably his first public audience and takes away, I won't say his first prize, but certainly his greatest prize, and one that, I am sure, he will value all his life, the memory of having won this Challenge Shield.

I am glad to see his mother here.

" When you were writing those essays I wonder how many of you had the same thought that I had. Why do these men serve ? Is it money that makes them give it ? Sometimes I hear speeches in the House of Commons about money being an incentive to do things. But with the Life-boatmen the incentive is not money or gain. The only incentive is the desire to serve. If you chil- dren just keep that thought with you for the rest of your lives, that it is the desire to serve which inspires these men of the Life-boat Service, that inspires many of our women in the nursing of the sick, that inspired all the greatest and best deeds that were done during the Great War and inspires many thousands of our fellow men and women all over the world to sacrifice everything, even life itself— if you will keep that before you, you will be the better men and women, and the world, too, will be better." (Cheers.) Mr. George F. Shee.

In seconding the vote of thanks, Mr. George F. Shee said :— " I think, boys and girls, none of you will ever forget that, while last year you had a Life-boat Coxswain to give you the prizes, you have had this year a Life-boatman, a Soldier a Sailor and a gallant English gentleman.

I am a land-lubber myself. I have never been privileged to serve at sea, but I have had the privilege, which I prize enormously, that I have known Life-boatmen all round the coast. If I had to choose a friend at random I would choose a Life-boatman rather than any other man in the world, and that is because there is a great quality which seems to unite all these men, a spirit of God-fearing courage and humanity. They possess heroism without heroics, courage without brutality, and humanity without the sentimentality of which we hear so much to-day." (Cheers.) With the singing of the National Anthem, led by Mr. Woodhouse, and cheers for the King, led by General Seely, the meeting ended and a small Life-boat gift was handed to each boy and girl as they left the hall.