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6 that, if the scheme was only to be partly successful, a very large number of boys would be trained. But even if it were only partially successful, it would be a step in the right direction, for it showed that the shipowners were alive to their responsibility. He felt that it was much more in the direction of private effort than by artificial means, such as pecuniary considerations or the re-enactment of the Navigation Laws, that -the solution of this problem was likely to be found. The forces on which we had to rely were those which made for improvement and progress in the standard of comfort in all the conditions of life, and it was because he believed that that fact was now being realised by the large majority of shipowners of this country, and that the sea-going instinct of the people of this country was as great as ever, that he, personally, was not in the least apprehensive of what the future might have in store."

If it be true that the three degrees of untruthfulness are fibs, lies and statistics, then it follows assuredly that if &hellip; the figures quoted by the Earl of Dudley in his defence of the Board of Trade's position in the discussion of the matter— which we have been compelled to quote in full—are taken from statistics provided for the purpose, there is evidently some truth in what has been said of them; that is, if the whole of the subjects dealt with by the noble lord, for the sake of comparisons, are to be judged by the information offered regarding the number of Lascars employed—36,023 in 1898—then the criterion is not good for the specious arguments that followed. According to Lord Dudley (as already stated), in 1871, two years after the Suez Canal became a factor in the game, one person in eighty-five of our male population became a merchant seaman, and one in sixty-seven went for a life on the ocean wave either in the Royal or merchant ships. These include, of course, all ranks and ratings. At present the figures are one in 112 and one in sixty-eight respectively. The Navy League pamphlet, November, 1900, states that in 1860, 335 Lascars only were employed in the merchant service, and in the year 1897 the number of these had increased to 31,484.

It would be interesting to know the source of the information regarding these men, whose numbers are stated by the Navy League to be 31,484 in the year 1897, and by Lord Dudley in 1901 at 36,023; for in May of 1899, in an article on the subject which was published in the Merchant Service Review, we were able to account for upwards of 90,000 of these seamen, as gathered from the information furnished for the purpose by the shipping masters of the ports of Bombay and Calcutta in the official reports to the Government of India for that year. These reports, solicited for the purpose stated,