No More Rotten Ships. 



171 



from puhlic schools to the merchant service. Surely 

 it will he fitting for the mercantile marine of the 

 country to be directed as to units by as good material 

 as can be found. 



The organisation and development of the forces of 

 the Union will take time, but those responsible for its 

 inception have devised a method of procedure which 

 can be set at once in motion, and which strikes straight 

 at the root of much of the evil e.xisting in mercantile 

 marine matters. Ships are rotten because there is no 

 adequate supervision, and because owners do not wish 

 to spend money unless they are forced. Rotten ships 

 become more rotten at an increasingly rapid rate, and 

 the result is often that it may be a far better thing to 

 the shipowner for a vessel to be lost, even with all 

 hands, than for it to be docked and repaired. There is 

 always the insurance money to be claimed. And so 

 things have gone on, ships have been lost, have been 

 posted as overdue, as missing, as lost, and the merchant 

 service has lost hundreds and thousands of lives owing 

 to a pernicious system whereby rottenness is 

 encouraged, and to lose a vessel which is not sound 

 and ought never to have been allowed to set sail is 

 more profitaljjc than for the vessel to arrive home. 

 This is possible, this negligence in precautions against 

 (li.saster, owing to the fact that those who know the 

 actual conditions on the particular vessels arc unalik- 

 to speak what they know. The very complete system 

 of blacklisting officers which the owners have built up 

 in order to save themselves from the inconvenience of 

 truth-telling officers has very naturally led to ships 

 going to sea unsound and unfit. But now the officer 

 is to be articulate, through his union, and individually 

 a scheme has been arranged so that every vessel 

 leaving port in an unsound condition, not really fit for 

 sea, even if passed by one of those gentlemen employed 

 by the Hoard of Trade, who as Civil servants follow 

 custom, shall leave behind it the reasons for disaster 

 should disaster befall it. Hut we will outline the modus 

 operandi. The otVuers of each ship, before leaving port, 

 will draw up individually certified reports of the actual 

 conditions obtaining on board their vessel — the boats, 

 the boilers, everything will be included, as well as the 

 nature of the Hoard of Trade inspection, special regard 

 being paid to glaring instances in which the pocket of 

 the shipowner has overcome his milk of human kindness 

 towards those manning his ship. These rep(.'"t> will be 

 deposited, sealed, in the safekeeping of trustees of the 

 Union or in some independent hands, absolutely con- 

 fidentially, with a letter giving instructions for the enve- 

 lopes to be opened in certain circumstanies. Kven the 

 olTicials of the Union will not neiessarily know the 

 contents of the reports ; the officers have then every 

 reason to feel free to give their real views and th<' 

 actual facts. 'The vessel sails and, we will say, is lost 

 or meets with accident involving loss of life. The 

 certified reports are then handed over to the Union 



and opened. Should they contain facts to justify a 

 belief in the unseaworthiness ol the vessel, the docu- 

 ments will at once be handed over to Lloyd's under- 

 writers, and they will be advised to refuse to pay the 

 insurances on the vessel. The living officer cannot bear 

 witness, but out of the mouths of the dead such evi- 

 dence may come as will permanently shatter the 

 present system, and make it immaterial whether the 

 Board of Trade be reformed or not, P'or if the under- 

 writers do not pay on rotten vessels, few vessels which 

 are rotten will go to sea. 



There should be little difficulty in arranging for an 

 undertaking on the part of the underwriters that a 

 definite percentage of their saving should go to the 

 families of the lost men whose testimonies have been 

 the means of saving Lloyd's thousands of pounds. It 

 is difficult to see how this scheme of enabling the dead 

 to bear witness can fail to produce good results. It 

 is obviously in the interest of the officer, even although 

 he be not a member of the Union, to draw up his certified 

 report, since, if he be claimed by the sea, he w'ill know- 

 that his family will have a greater chance of a liveli- 

 hood, and his character a greater hope of being 

 unstained, if the truth is known than if the shipowner 

 draw's his insurance and nothing is done. How con- 

 siderable are the sums concerned we may judge from 

 the fact that for the six months of this year the 

 estimated total of losses exceeded £5,000,000 (in the 

 same period of igii the amount was 50 per cent. less). 

 There were 3,001 total and partial losses — vessels under 

 500 tons gross register being excluded fror* the 

 calculation — and of these collisions were responsible 

 for 936, strandings for 848, and weather damage for 

 634. No fewer than 127 vessels, 46 British and 81 

 foreign, aggregating 127,114 tons, were lost. Indeed, 

 32 ships, 20 British and 12 foreign, were posted 

 " missing," carrying with them to a nameless grave 

 as many as c)oo officers and men. 



Over ten of the British vessels lost carried in.surance 

 of over £50,000 each. Can we wonder that the new 

 scheme of protecting Lloyd's against rotten vessels 

 possesses for them a more than theoretical value ? 

 We do not hesitate to say that with the founding of 

 the Masters' and Mates' Union, and with the putting 

 into force the system of ensuring that every ship 

 shall leave its record behind it in incontrovertible 

 form, a new era has begun for the mercantile marine of 

 this country. We shall be surprised if there will not 

 he seen a very sudden improvement in conditions. 

 Through the pocket is the surest way to progress in 

 this case, and the saving of the pockets of the under- 

 writers will result in the saving of the lives of hundreds 

 and possibly thousands of officers, crew and passengers. 

 Kven the fear of such a system of evading the enforced 

 dumbness of to-day cannot fail to have a good effect. 

 'The officers have the whole question in their own 

 hands, and we believe that by their action this country 

 will once more lead the world in matters mercantile, 

 and that everyone who goes down to the sea in ships 

 shall be assured a " chance of life." 



