WHAT THE OCEAN MEANS TO GREAT BRITAIN 337 



as she is in harbour, all business connected with her 

 freight is taken out of his hands by the agent or 

 broker, and he has but to obey orders, instead of, as 

 of old, hobnobbing with shippers, and using all his 

 endeavours to scare up a cargo, as they say, and get 

 away to sea again as soon as possible. But by the 

 operation of a universal law, that applies afloat as 

 well as ashore, the harder and more onerous the duties 

 of the mariner, the lower his pay and consideration. 

 In a great liner the master's duties are very light 

 indeed. His responsibility is tremendous, but all actual 

 detail work is taken off his hands by a thoroughly 

 competent staff of officers, several of whom are as 

 fully competent to command as he is himself, and, 

 being very anxious to rise, are not at all likely to 

 shirk their duties. The purser attends to the clerical 

 and commercial part of the work, and so the master, 

 who from his sublime altitude may look down upon 

 his brother master in a tramp steamer of a tenth of 

 the tonnage, with a sixth of the pay and ten times 

 the work, may be congratulated upon his position as 

 being a highly honourable and fairly easy one. 



The cruel and unjust thing about the profession 

 is that for such men a single mistake on their part 

 or that of one of their subordinates may, and very 

 often does, spell utter ruin. It is the rule of some 

 companies, and it ;is the unwritten custom in most, 

 that nothing excuses an accident : the master must 

 go, faultless or not. And if he be past middle age, 

 with a family dependent upon him and only a trifle 

 saved, his career is over, for except in the worst and 

 lowest kind of tramp, where such a man's necessities 

 are taken advantage of to get him at starvation wage, 



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