NORTH SEA MEN AND THE NAVY 361 



rate the men of the North Sea in the Navy, apart from 

 the efforts which have been made for some years to 

 enrol fishermen as members of the Royal Naval Reserve. 

 The action of the Admiralty clearly shows that they 

 have failed to understand the real character of the North 

 Sea fisherman. The authorities in Whitehall cannot be 

 expected to grasp the complexities of the smacksman's 

 character ; but it should have been apparent to them 

 that the terms offered for admittedly dangerous work were 

 not likely to induce volunteers to come forward even 

 from ordinary seafaring classes, much less from the 

 ranks of men who are wonderfully skilled in North Sea 

 lore and North Sea waters, and some of whom are 

 able to make incomes beside which the proposed Admir- 

 alty remuneration was almost insignificant. If the 

 Admiralty desire to incorporate the men of the North 

 Sea as an established branch of the Navy, particularly 

 for such severe and risky work as mine-sweeping, then 

 they must recognise the necessity of adequate payment 

 and fair and reasonable conditions of service neither of 

 which elements was present in the terms proposed in 

 connection with the establishment of a reserve of 

 fishermen at Grimsby. 



Briefly, my scheme resolves itself into this that a 

 powerful cruiser of the most modern type should be 

 constantly employed in fisheries protection work on the 

 North Sea ; acting just as much as a parent ship to the 

 trawlers as a torpedo depot ship acts to destroyers ; that 

 she should serve as a training ship and a floating school 

 to those men and boys who had specially enlisted or 

 engaged themselves for service only in the North Sea 

 waters, so that there should be at all times available a 



