Page:The Blight of Insubordination.djvu/101

93 outlay of from thirty to forty millions of money. An almost infinitesimal proportion of that would suffice to keep aged seamen and their wives and widows out of the workhouse, and, taking into consideration the value of their services to the Empire, the hazardous nature of their occupation, and the comparative lowness of their remuneration, it is as little as a benefited country can do to make their latter days secure from grinding poverty and the workhouse blight.

"Undoubtedly the investment of deceased seamen's unclaimed wages and the proceeds of their effects left in the hands of the Registrar-General of Shipping and Seamen would make a nucleus for & pension fund.

"There is also much in the argument put forward by a correspondent, whose letter upon the subject appears elsewhere to-day, to take the present surplus between receipts and expenditure of the light dues account for the benefit of aged seamen, and thus a sum equal to nearly two and a half millions of money would be available, although there is little doubt entertained in some quarters that ere long this light dues imposition will be either abolished or, at least, modified.

"Then, with the machinery now existing, and very little more labour—certainly no more than would occupy just a little of the time of the officials at the mercantile marine offices, now busily employed in the noble process of twiddling their thumbs—a small sum could be collected from seamen when paying off, which would go towards the fund, and so remove the slight taint of charity that might otherwise attach to a State pension—though, by the way, Government and municipal officials accept their pensions without apparently the slightest qualm of conscience, and they are far better situated to provide competencies of their own than Jack is even to pay a trifle to a pension fund.

"That a pension should be the eventual reward of a British seaman no right-minded man will deny, and that it should be distinct from any scheme undertaken by the State for the general community will also be admitted.

"It is, therefore, a question of how long will the matter be allowed to remain in abeyance to the detriment of the mercantile marine and of the nation at large, for, with the uncertainty now attaching to a nautical career, no inducement offers to youths to take it up, whereas the promise of an old age pension after, say, fifteen or twenty years of sea service, with clean records, would bring lots of seamen to our forecastles, and ensure their conduct whilst there. (The italics are not in the original.) The pension earned would, of course, be payable only in the event of a specified age being attained, or earlier in the case of Incapacity."

At the Guildhall banquet the other day, Mr., M.P., replying for the Navy to the toast of "The Naval and Military Forces of the Empire,' said he would ask them to believe that the Admiralty was aware of its responsibilities, and was endeavouring to fulfil them. The active service list of the Navy at the present time amounted to no