£4,117 for "salaries, wages, &c.," Royal Naval Reserve Office, which is not included in the "total charge."

But it is still more difficult to trace the "Contingencies, Coastguard Establishment on Shore," which are put down at only £4,314, and their "fuel and light" at £2,984. But if we turn to page 131, vote 16, of the Estimates, "Pensions and Allowances," we shall find a sum of £55,283 charged for "Pensions to Coastguard," and to page 144 a further sum of £53,056 voted as "Pensions granted to persons formerly employed in the Coastguard Service, &c., &c." Then, if we go back to vote 4, Coastguard Service, we shall find that the "total charge" of that service for the year is no less than £471,906, but which, I presume, is entirely exclusive of pensions.

No doubt much the largest proportion of the expenditure for Coastguard services is for the protection of the Revenue; but it will be under the amount if I deduct from that sum and from the pensions to the men in that service £100,000, and place it to the debit of Reserves.

66

Referring back to vote 16, I find, under the head of Military and Civil Pensions and Allowances," various very large items, which I have no means of analysing, such as £462,286 for "Pensions and Gratuities to Seamen and Marines."* Altogether, the charge under the head (p. 147) of "Non-effective Service" amounts for the year to £1,896,784, which, I presume, includes half-pay, reserved pay, &c., for officers and men, both of the Navy and Marines and civil employments connected therewith. Out of this sum I may take at least £200,000 for extra pay, pensions, &c., to the continuous service men who constitute a portion of our Reserves. And as we retain about 3,000 men in our harbour ships and elsewhere, for the purpose of Reserves, I must debit that head with their

* I presume that very few pensions have yet become payable under the Royal Naval Reserve system, so that in future Estimates there will be increased charges for pensions.

wages, provisions, &c., &c., which at £60 per head, would amount to another £180,000. So that the annual cost for the training of boys for the Navy, and the maintenance of the existing Reserves of seamen, amounts in round numbers to close upon £900,000.

But the expenditure for these purposes does not end here. Besides numerous other charges, which it is impossible for me to trace, much less analyse, we must remember that every boy we train for the Navy, before we make an able seaman of him, costs the country at least £300;* while such boys, if trained in the Merchant Service as sailors, would cost the nation nothing until they joined the Navy. Three thousand of these, known as "second-class boys," are in harbour ships under training. I shall be under the mark if I allow for these and various other payments in connection with "Naval Coast Volunteers," "Short-service Pensioners," &c., &c., £200,000; so that our annual expenditure, under all heads, for boys and Reserves will not fall much short of one million one hundred thousand pounds sterling, to say nothing about the interest of capital in ships employed for training, depreciation, insurance, and so forth, which, strange to state, are never taken into account by any Government in calculating the cost of our ships, or dockyards and other establishments.

Much the most important of the Reserves is the "Royal Naval Reserve," drawn from seamen in the Merchant Service and periodically drilled on shore. I have never had great faith in these short drills on shore or on board

*Captain J. C. Wilson, R.N., who has revised the proof sheets of this chapter, remarks :-" The average age of boys entering the Navy is 16; and before they are rated as ordinary seamen they cost the country £120 each, or £240 before they can be rated as able seamen; but to this sum must be added the waste by death, desertion, &c., which, in four years, amounts to 30 per cent., thus the actual cost of raising the lowest grade of A.B. in the Royal Navy is about £320."

of training-ships, or even in cruising tenders, the cost of which I shall not attempt to estimate; and this want of faith in all such casual and temporary drills applies alike to boys and men. Nor could I see any advantage equivalent to the cost when, a few years ago, a very large number of the men of the Reserve Forces made a longer cruise in our ships of war under the flag of the Lords of the Admiralty. Most of these cruises resolve themselves into pleasure trips, and the drills on shore are, as a rule, pleasant social gatherings rather than trainings where a substantial advantage is obtained equivalent to the cost; and they are not to be compared to the advantages derived from actual service.

A boy, for instance, destined for the Merchant Service, does not learn so much during four years on board a training-ship as he would do during one year in a vessel at sea where he was serving his apprenticeship.*

Nor is the training of the boys for the Navy much better. In the vessels specially appropriated in both services for the purpose, they pass through a routinevery good in itself-for the purpose of laying the foundation on which the structure of seamanship is to be reared, but this alone does not make able, or even ordinary seamen of them.+

Thus, while professing to train seamen for the Royal Navy at a very great expense to the nation, we have not at the present moment in that service more than 11,000 British able seamen; and in the two services, Royal Navy

"A boy is wholly unproductive during the period of education; whereas, the apprentice boy at sea, while receiving a practical training, earns enough to feed and clothe himself." See letter from Mr. Nathaniel Dunlop, of the firm of Messrs. James and Alexander Allan, Glasgow, published 19th January, 1876.

Captain J. C. Wilson, R.N., who was in command of the vessels engaged in training boys for the Navy, remarks (See "Seamen of the Fleet, their Training, &c., &c.," Royal United Service Institution, July 2nd, 1875) :—" Though our sea-going ships carry as many boys as they

and Mercantile Marine, excluding foreigners and British negroes (though some of these are first-rate fellows), we have not more than 40,000 thoroughly-trained able British seamen. I confine myself exclusively to this class of mariners.

Let us now inquire in earnest, and, I believe, for the first time, what number of such men we really require for the Royal Navy and for the Mercantile Marine-I mean able seamen, who, as in all other branches of industry, have served the necessary apprenticeship to make them efficient in their calling and skilful in all its details, for there is as much detail in the duty of a thorough sailor as there is in that of any mechanic.

Of course opinions as to the requisite number must vary; but after consulting men in both services in every way competent to guide me, and using my own experience and knowledge for what they are worth, I have come to the conclusion that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ought at all times to have 100,000 trained able seamen of its own, including the petty and warrant officers of the Royal Navy; and that the seamen of both services should be induced, as far as practicable, to intermingle and periodically interchange with each other the duties of either service, maintaining a constant flow from boyhood, through manhood, up to that term of life, when no longer fit for service at sea.

We have now to inquire how 100,000 able British seamen are to be obtained, trained, and maintained.

can stow, there are still from 1,500 to 1,700 constantly on depôt, waiting their turns for draft. Whilst thus waiting, a considerable number of them reach their eighteenth year, and are by order rated men ; thus the 1,200 ordinary second-class rated in the Estimates may be taken to represent a body of sailors who have never been at sea at all!" "I know one able seaman in the Royal Navy," he added, one day when we were talking over the subject, "who had never been at sea, and I dare say there are numerous others."

G

The very idea of reverting to the old law, in its integrity, when every merchant vessel was required to carry an apprentice for every 100 tons, terrified, as well it might, our large steam shipowners. If such a law was now in force, and the gross tonnage were made the basis for calculation, the Cunard Company, for instance, would be compelled to carry from twenty to forty apprentices in each of its steamers; and Mr. Inman, in his last and biggest boat, would be obliged to have no less than fifty! These and the other great lines of steamers could have no possible use for one-third or one-fourth of that number. I say nothing about being able to train to advantage even half that number of boys in any ship; and consequently the revival of the old law, though based on registered tonnage, would be to shipowners, not merely a monstrous hardship, but an intolerable nuisance. But we are not, however, now required to pass any such law; and if we were, it would be a most ineffective one for the objects in view, as steamships do not, and cannot, train the best class of seamen, and have only the means, in the ordinary course and requirements of their service, to train a very limited number of youths for sailors; and these must ever be inferior to seamen trained in sailing vessels. They might indeed prove valuable in their particular line, and for that purpose would be an acquisition.

I have now to consider if we cannot meet all our requirements by a modified system of apprenticeship, which would really be of great advantage to the nation and to shipowners themselves, without inflicting any hardship upon either the proprietors of steam or sailing vessels. I should, however, leave those of them who do not approve of taking apprentices to adopt a small money payment instead (which would go towards the reduction of the vote for training-ships), as recommended by the Royal Commission on Unseaworthy Ships. Many owners, especially of steam vessels, may prefer to do so, and there are also