Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/527

 apprentice, and with whom the apprentice might be willing to serve, until the completion of his term, and that these school ships should be inspected and receive grants from the State according to their efficiency.

No doubt the system of apprenticeship affords the best means of training boys for a service in which fitness can only be acquired during early life. But the success of the system of training boys for the Royal Navy, recommended by the Commission on Manning the Navy in 1859 (of which I had the honour to be a member) is so far questionable that I think some other mode of obtaining the requisite supply of seamen for the navy might have been adopted which would have been more efficacious and much less expensive.

For instance, "a self-supporting pension fund for the benefit of seamen, as suggested by the Manning Commission of 1859 might," they said, "prove of great value in creating a tie to bind the British seaman to the Merchant Service of his own country," and would, I venture to suggest, if properly organised