April 12, 1917 
LAND & • WATER 
13 
Britain's Merchant Service 
This very remarkable letter from an engineer on hoard one of H.M's Transports has been 
addressed to Lani> & Water. While expressing regret to the uriter of it for our unintentional 
misrepresentation of the Mercantile Marine, a service towards which the British nation for all 
its "real ignorance entertains sincere pride and gratitude, we are glad that this error shotild 
have occurred in that it has elicited this forcible exposition of the true state of affain. 
"The despised, or perhaps simply neglected captain 
of the trading vessel has now come into his own, 
with a commission in the Naval Reserve and a 
good chance of medals and rewards. . . ." 
Land & Wathk, Feb. 8tli, " Books to Read.' 
I WANT to know why it is that igaorant and incom- 
petent writers arc invariably told olf to deal with 
the Merchant Service ? I want to know why a 
journal like Land & Water permits a statement 
like the one which I have quoted above to pass at a 
time when anyone with any common knowledge of the 
sea ought to know it is not true ? 
You see my point ? We who go to sea in cargo-ships 
are not complaining because no notice is taken of us. 
Praise we do get that is sometimes embarrassing. Did 
not Mr. Garvin only a month or so ago, call us all 
" glorious shell-backs," and give us (metaphorically) a 
thundering clap on the back ? The complaint we have 
to make is the blank ignorance of people in power and 
influence, of our way of life. It is almost incredible, 
when you come to think of it, the ignorance of the average 
educated Briton concerning the service without which 
he could not live for a week. And the war, which has 
made the man in the street familiar with redoubts and 
echelons and platoons and low visibility and H.E. shells 
and all the other rumble-bumble of the daily and weekly 
war articles, has left him in his original virgin innocence 
concerning the merchantman and the men who liv(> on her. 
An Inarticulate Service 
There seems some sort of curse on us — we cannot get 
to be articulate ourselves, and we cannot get anyone 
ashore to keep his knowledge of the sea fresh and vivid 
when he leaves us for some higher post. Somehow, 
when the Garvins of the world interview us, they .don't 
get the heart of the matter. Journalists are very like 
women in sea-matters. I remember when I told some 
ladies I had been promoted second engineer, years ago, 
one said, " Really ! on a lin-ah ? " And another said, 
" When will you be captain ? " I have had sillier 
questions than that put me by journalists. It is no u.se 
expecting the Navy to do anything, for strange as it 
may seem, the Navy knows no more about us than you 
do. They come crashing alongside of us in their twin- 
screw launches (crew of a dozen) and wonder why we 
haven't a couple of quartermasters to receive them at 
the gangway. They give us any amount of rigid dis- 
ciplinary rules to carry out, and they stop us going ashore 
just as often as they can ; but as far as any compre- 
hension of our peculiar position and problems goes, we 
seek it not in the Navy. Ask not who was the N.T.O. 
who sent aboard of a laid-up transport for three engineers, 
a refrigerator and two " mechanics." Goodness only 
knows what it was he wanted. Ask not the name of 
the N.T.O. who told a transport skipper to slip his 
anchors, when he'was just going to sea. Seek no more 
details of the gazetted R.N.R. Lieut, who asked a 
" refrigerator " if he had " just taken it up for the war." 
Fancy going to sea " just for the war ! " 
The plain matter of fact is the public cannot afford to 
bother about matters in which the public are not inter- 
ested. Any old statement will do. Your book re- 
viewer has absolutely no ground for stating what he 
does in the above paragraph. I have been two years 
here now, and neither my skipper nor any other trans- 
port skipper we have come in touch with has the com- 
mission in the R.N-R- I can tell you this, that in the 
ships of this company (which I only refrain from naming 
because of the Censor), which were taken over for 
au.xiliary cruisers, the sub-lieutenant engineers have 
temporary commissions R.N.R., and the pay is so 
MTetchcd the company have to add to it to bring it up 
to the ordinary junior engineer's pay in a tramp. 
What's the use of influential journals talking about the 
" merchant captain coming into his own," when a few 
temporary commissions are contemptuously ilung to 
him with paj' that compares unfavourably with that of 
cooks and donkcymen ? What's the use of expecting 
the public to esteem the services of the ordinary seafaring 
officer if the Navy regard him merely as a hand, a sort 
of extra gang of stewards to keep the bluejackets fed 
and provisioned ? A relative of mine is Exan'^iation 
Officer hi a certain port. He is R.N.R. Lieut. He told 
me that the Navy thought more of him than they did 
of the biggest transport captain entering the port. And 
the largest ships afloat were coming into that port. 
Being a merchant service officer in peace-time, he knows 
the injustice of that prejudice, although he profits by 
it now. 
"Glorious Shell-Backs" 
I am sure I don't know whether I am doing, any good 
by writing this to you. but what makes my heart ache 
when I read articles about the merchant service is the 
lack of understanding of those who go to sea. . Take 
Mr. Garvin's fine phrase, " glorious shell-backs." Well, 
the " shell-backs " on this ship include a man who went 
to a public school and King's College, London (the 
Skipper) ; another, who went to a famous grammar 
school and is a clever engineer (the chief) ; a member 
of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers ; and a 
graduate of the Scottish University. I met a novelist 
on a transport in Salonika. Manj' " shell-backs " have 
extra certificates which take some getting ; and for all 
the good those extra tickets are they might as well have 
used the time and the money and the' brains keeping 
chickens. 
Some may say " Why doesn't the Government take 
over the whole Merchant Service ? " Easy to say, but 
impossible in practice. The Merchant Service is civilian 
in essence (and sliould be so) , and the only way to recog- 
nise the services of the men in merchant ships is by a 
system of bounties. And again, consider the injustice 
of transferring ' a ship from civilian articles to R.N.R. 
and giving the officers rank according. Take my ship 
as an example. I was put there (in a home port) and 
told the ship was going to France, a short trip. I had 
joined the company in a junior capacity, although a 
senior by experience, because it is usual to start low> 
no matter who you are, and I had been in the U.S.A. 
under that flag. Well, the ship has been away going 
on two years now, and I'm still a junior. And if the 
ship were taken over and .1 were given the commission 
of my rank, I would be a sub-lieut. for ever, although 
I was chief of a 6,000-ton ship six years ago. You seq ? 
This is one of the problems of the Merchant Service. 
I make no complaint on my own part ; but I , am 
only one of scores of senior men who are holding down 
junior jobs becauso they cannot get home to secure 
promotion. Not long ago we had a third mate at ^10 
a month with twenty years' sea experience. (He joined 
as I did, after the war began, having been years out in 
the East.) Well, we come, to the Mediterranean and. 
we run against boys of twenty and twenty-one, with 
not even steam tickets, who have never seen a sailing 
ship, third mates at £16 a month, third mates of Western 
Ocean flyers ! And if the Admiralty took us all over, 
those boys would be confirmed lieutenants R.N.R. and 
start square M'ith mcn| who were handling ships before 
they wert; born. . 
Take another case. A young man, who had just 
finished his time in the Midlands, was fourth engineer 
of a ship Mhich was torpedoed on his first trip. He was 
saved, and went to sea again as soon as there was another 
billet. He came here. Having no experience of sea 
