FORECASTLE AND CABIN 73 



and low labor costs could be combined only through the main- 

 tenance of very low wage rates and the provision of miserably 

 inadequate working conditions. Both of these things 'the 

 whaling owners brought about j and then, by adding the third 

 factor of stringent and driving supervision, they were able to 

 wring profits out of the industry in spite of the scarecrow 

 crews and their inefficiency. 



Whether the payment of better wages, the provision of 

 decent working and living conditions, and the maintenance 

 of a less brutalized discipline would have attracted hands 

 whose superior efficiency would have offset the increased ex- 

 penses, is problematical. In spite of the ill-assorted jumble 

 of unpromising hands in the forecastles, the supervision was 

 so close and the discipline so relentless that these crews took 

 part in thoroughly significant accomplishments. Every sea 

 was explored, whales captured and slain with reckless daring, 

 boats and larger vessels handled with consummate skill, and 

 "full ships" brought home in the face of countless perils. A 

 certain reckless abandon, which was an outgrowth of the very 

 degradation of the worst hands, may well have been a definite 

 asset in the dangerous crises which accompanied such achieve- 

 ments. 



And unless the effectiveness of better hands was definitely 

 greater than that of sweated labor driven to the last ounce 

 of endurance, it is doubtful whether the shipping of more 

 capable crews would have warranted the greater expenses in- 

 volved in attracting them. For in spite of extreme fluctua- 

 tions, the average rate of profit for the industry as a whole 

 was modest. And the possibility of recovering heavier out- 

 lays through higher prices would have required the control 

 of complicated economic factors quite beyond the reach of the 

 whaling owners. 



But even if better hands had been sought, it is not at all 

 certain that the whaling industry, because of its very nature, 

 could have offered conditions to appeal to the higher types 

 of shore labor after the opening of the West. Thus it would 

 seem to remain a moot question whether the execrable condi- 

 tions which prevailed in whaling should have weighed heavily 

 upon the consciences of owners and merchants, or whether 



