Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/569



In the meantime I must direct the attention of my readers to the unseaworthiness of too many of our seamen, which is of really greater national importance than the unseaworthiness of our ships. However desirable it may be to make certain, if we can, that no unseaworthy ships shall leave our ports, the incompetency, carelessness, and drunkenness of seamen demand much more seriously our attention; and, as all legislative enactments have hitherto failed to raise them to the requisite standard, we ought to direct our attention more earnestly than we have yet done to their education. If education is necessary on shore, it is still more so with seamen, and yet we have done, practically, nothing, as a Nation, to assist them in gaining knowledge, and, especially, that description of knowledge required in their calling. Indeed, we have not seriously attempted any great practical scheme for their education or for the amalgamation of the services of the Royal Navy and those of the mercantile marine, which, while invaluable to us as a nation, would tend so much to elevate the social position of that neglected portion of their class, who, not having the good fortune to be enrolled in the Navy or on the lists of the large Shipowners, must seek their daily bread at sea in any ship where employment can be found.

On the contrary, we have, in some respects, pan-*

we, in either case, drive them from the trade. We must further, if we adopt the principle of a certificate of seaworthiness, recollect the interests of a great number of small coasters, and carefully consider if it would not seriously affect them.]
 * [Footnote: already very heavy, and to which their competitors are not subjected,