314 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



paradise, and the only hope that we had of maintain- 

 ing our national position, under the peculiar circum- 

 stances into which we had grown, was by building and 

 keeping up a Navy capable of dealing with any 

 probable coalition of European powers against us. 



And so we come to a consideration of the other 

 phase of what the ocean means to Great Britain her 

 Navy. Very rightly the proper maintenance of the 

 British Navy is held by the majority of Britons as 

 essential to our existence as a nation, but there is 

 certainly not the same amount of intelligent apprecia- 

 tion of the reasons why this should be so which 

 accounts for the widespread ignorance of the work, the 

 functions of the Mercantile Marine, and the apathy 

 generally manifested when any question affecting, 

 however vitally, its welfare crops up. Yet it may be 

 stated, without any fear of contradiction or of the 

 accusation of belittling the importance of our only line 

 of defence, that without the Mercantile Marine the 

 Navy would be without a raison d'etre. This fact was, 

 I feel, not so very long ago ignored by naval men 

 generally, who looked upon merchant seamen as 

 belonging to a lower caste as mere mechanics, in 

 fact, who were fit to do servile work only, and were 

 of very little account in any case. This attitude, if 

 entirely reprehensible, is very human, and is certainly 

 not confined to the Navy. It may be seen in lesser 

 but no less offensive degrees among policemen and 

 civil servants generally for genuine contempt for his 

 employers' commend me to a Somerset House clerk 

 when approached on a matter of business to which 

 he is well paid to give his attention. Happily, as I 

 feel, this contemptuous attitude on the part of naval 



